Reuters poll trend: 57.4-42.6

As expected, Reuters’ twice-monthly weighted composite of Morgan, Newspoll and ACNielsen results shows a sharp reversal of the slow trend back to the Coalition evident after June. Labor’s primary vote is up from 46.0 per cent to 49.7 per cent and the Coalition’s down from 40.0 per cent to 36.8 per cent. John Howard is down from 39.1 per cent to 38.2 per cent as preferred prime minister and Kevin Rudd up from 47.5 per cent to 49.1 per cent.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

41 comments on “Reuters poll trend: 57.4-42.6”

  3. A primary of 49.7% for the ALP is dire for the Coalition. They need to significantly dent this to have a chance at the election.

  6. With poll numbers as dire as these, they are dumb enough to keep Howard in the top job? The bastards deserve the thrashing they are in for.

  8. A beautiful set of figures. AND still they all shake at the knees if Howard frowns at them. What a gutless bunch of mindless turkeys. It must be some dirt file he has on them and we thought that dirt unit was for Labor!

  10. howard will resign…..as one who has “a proper understanding of australian politics”, he knows the game is over. he will throw in the towel as soon as practical – within the next 24 hours…..

  13. I hope he waits another week and the next poll which will be an outlier 55/45, then he will stay on. Then the next non-outlier poll 58/42 will send panic through the system again. Its like having an electric switch wired into the Liberal party. Give me the controls, this is fun, thinking of Bart Simpson.

    Keep it steady Rudd.

  15. Kina – That’s actually a funny thought – that if every time there is a bad poll the fireworks will start up again… (but can the fireworks get any worse??)

  17. I wonder if more votes could drift to Labor if the Govt starts to look like a walking corpse? Rudd should wait a day to let this stuff blow over [if it does] then do some policy to grab the newly waivering voters. Every little bit will help.

    Rudd’s speaking mandarin did him a world of good with the Chinese. A Chinese woman friend of mine was excited enough to mention that ‘the not Howard man’ spoke mandarin. She thought it was really good and she and her family have not the slightest interest in politics.

    Another day of wasted oxygen for the Govt.

  18. A question to think about – if this continues and the Libs lose, which MPs that are sure to be returned will quit post-election, rather than go into opposition? The electorate tends to punish the relevant parties for that sort of thing, as far as I can recall.

    There’s gotta be a bunch of front-benchers who consider themselves too important to be a mere opposition MP. Yes, Dolly, I am thinking of you specifically. But there’s plenty of others.

  20. If it is a large victory for Labor then:

    Minchin
    Costello
    Ruddock
    Julie Bishop – as per rumours might go off to State politics
    Nelson
    Downer won’t hang around too long
    Howard
    Andrews

  21. # 17 – The more the govt. looks like a walking corpse, the more Rudd will announce policy. (Well, stuff that looks like policy, anyway.) He has, after all, studied the-one-who-promises-much-but-delivers-nothing carefully for eleven years.

  24. The monthly poll averages

    Feb ALP 54-Liberal 46
    March ALP 57-Liberal 43
    May ALP 57-Liberal 43
    July ALP 55-Liberal 45
    Aug ALP 57-Liberal 43
    Sept ALP 58-Liberal 42

    approx 45 of the last 50 polls have had the ALP ahead on TPP by more than 10 points, this trend considering the good budget, strong economy is amazing, changing leaders now wont do a great deal, I wouldn’t be shocked if Howard resigned tomorrow but I would be more inclined to think he will announce a reshuffle or spell out a time frame to call the next Election.

    While the trend over 9 months has mostly been toward the ALP the Govt could see turn this from a landslide to a close lost, but with each new poll and with the looming Interest rate hike, I suspect the polls may worsen.

    Howard will need to find a message for he has been all over the shop this year, and that has been his problem apart from several poor policies.

    Sometime ago I tipped an election result of ALP 52-Liberal 48, I’m now upgrading that forecast to ALP 55-Liberal 45, and that’s if the Liberals run an okay campaign, if not Anthony Green’s computer may crash.

  26. I can’t wait to watch KO’B and Anthony Green trying to keep nuetral non-partisan faces on while the results come in. They may win Logies for election night if they pull it off.

  28. People continually say the polls will narrow once an election is called and will be close on election day. Historically this has not always happened and this year so far there hasnt been a major issue that would cause people to jump back to the govt.

    Given the relatively benign domestic conditions everyone has been surprised by the resilience of the Labor vote and, I think to guard against fear of disappointment, always predict a narrowing.

    It doesn’t have to narrow or not by very much. People may have stopped listening to the govt. Its policy releases may have little effect considering that we know Rudd owns most of the issues and so can counteract most things Howard does on this.

    All they have left is the biggest fear and pork-barreling/bribing campaign of all time. A positive result of that is not guaranteed since none of it has worked so far. Even another 9/11 wont have the same effect as Labor is not seen as a big risk on security issues either.

    People want change and get grumpy when the govt tries to interfere.

  29. 28
    Kina Says:
    September 11th, 2007 at 10:21 pm…All they have left is the biggest fear and pork-barreling/bribing campaign of all time.

    I agree with you Kina, but the Liberals won’t have much of an opportunity to reach for the pork – the RBA wouldn’t approve, and the financial markets are already very skittish.

    As for fear-mongering, the Liberals will certainly try this, but nothing will scare the voters away faster than unresolved leadership struggles and internal disunity.

  30. $17b war chest and a chance to ruin the economy and blame Rudd and Labor for, what more could Howard want. Talk about pork barrelling. Doesn’t help that the US looks like it might be about to go into a recession or a major slowdown in growth.

    Seriously, the RBA has given the parties notice, and since they’ve already raised interest rates in an election year (first time ever), they just might be willing to go through with their threats.

    A negative campaign about Labor isn’t going to give them the swing they need. They need to run a positive campaign and actually provide a future for Australia in 10yrs, not just for the next 3 yrs.

  31. Kina: “Rudd’s speaking mandarin did him a world of good with the Chinese. ”

    Guess which electorate in Sydney’s lower North Shore has a very high proportion of Chinese immigrants? Hint: It begins with ‘B’ and ends with ‘long’.

  32. The most interesting thing about the Reuters poll trend is the consistency by which the ALP primary has remained above the Coalition TPP vote. If you go to Bryan’s Ozpolitics blog the graph shows this nicely.

  33. As there’s no way to spin these results in the Coalition’s favour anymore the Liberal hacks need to resort to saying they’re just completely wrong or saying that we’re all stupid.

    What ever happened to taking defeat as a lesson and learning from it?

  35. I’m enjoying the way all the members of the cabinet are declaring their undying loyalty to the PM. It reminds me of ancient Roman times, when Emperors used to mint coins with slogans like “Loyalty of the Army” just before they were murdered by their soldiers.

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