Morgan: 60.5-39.5

Today’s Roy Morgan poll suggests that voters have, er, reacted sympathetically to Kevin Rudd’s tax gaffe. Or perhaps been driven insane by the onslaught of government advertising on television. Either way, they’ve published a headline figure of 54 per cent for Labor’s primary vote, which seems to have been enough to have caused their server to crash. More details as they come to hand.

UPDATE: Crikey email reports a two-party split of 60.5-39.5. The Coalition primary vote is down from 39.5 per cent to 36 per cent (for those interested, the Nationals vote is down from 3 per cent to 2.5 per cent). Labor’s primary vote in the previous survey was 49.5 per cent. This was a face-to-face survey with a sample of 972.

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.

904 comments on “Morgan: 60.5-39.5”

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  3. 1)

    Charlie Says:

    Albert Ross @ 188, do you mind if I plagiarise that at some point?

    Chaz, perfectly delighted if you do old boy.

    2) Somebody made a point about born-to-rulers somewhere here. I couldn’t agree more. The Libs this week have looked and sounded just like the old NRMA board when they were threatened. It’s not a good look.

  4. Alan H at 176

    That is an intriguing hypothetical.

    For arguments sake, if you had an ALP primary of 54% (apart from the fact that the landslide would be so large, the ALP left may as well split from the right and become the official opposition – it would be better than Bob Katter fulfilling the role), we could assume that all the marginals would be gone (brave assumption, I know!).

    When it comes to the governments safe seats, one would think that with an ALP primary vote so high,the preference flows of the reduced minor party vote would start to interact with demographics (for instance the cliche of the doctors wife voting Green and preferencing Lib).I too wonder if under such a scenario the preference flows would be extremely erratic seat by seat (you’d think they certainly would be booth by booth).

    I would think that the preference distributions would become smaller, but I’m surprised that the preference flow to the ALP hasn’t already reduced, with it’s high primary being ten points above its 04 election level.Even with this high vote, the current preference flow levels to the ALP are higher than 2004 according to Morgan and ACN.Todays Morgan for instance gives the poll as 61/39 on the basis of nominated preferences.

  5. So a swing of this magnitude would create greater havoc than the pendulum indicates since Possums has already revealed that swings are highest in Liberal safe seats? How would this level of vote affect Senate outcomes?

    Even as an outlier this poll has to indicate that there is no question of there being a recovery by the LNP.

    The honeymoon continues, maybe for another 3 years.

  7. What youse have all missed is that a 54% primary vote for Labor, if applied evenly to all seats across the nation, would mean a 150/0 seat distribution in the House Of Representatives.

    Didn’t even need Antony’s calculator for that one.

  9. The indication from the Labor “think will win” is that this poll could be genuine. Labor “think will win” went down a lot; this was in good accordance with the bookies.

  12. Totally agree with Bushfire Bill. If 54% is the primary vote, the ALP is already past the post, no need for preferences, and it’ll be 150-0!

  13. I note the TPP figure is derived from asking the sample what their first preference would be. In this poll, it showed a 65% preference flow to Labor. This would make the strongest preference flow in the last 25 years.

    In 2004, the flow was 61% – a historical high. The average has been about 57% from 1983 onwards with a minimum of 53.3% in 1998. The latter election had a high ‘others’ vote (One Nation): my guess is One Nation voters preferenced the Coalition more often than not.

    I like to be cautious and assume a preference flow of 53% – 55%, which would give a TPP Labor figure of ‘only’ 59.5% on this poll. The ‘others’ primary vote is 10% – this is historically small (lowest since 1987). This could be accurate, however: a result of environmental issues being taken up by the major parties and lessening the Green vote?

    While I think that *this* poll is an outlier (54% primary!), it’s worth keeping an eye on how preferences are distributed in each poll: most pollsters have a better track record of predicting the final primary vote. Allocating preferences in line with the 2004 election may well be producing a higher TPP than the TPP which would eventuate were the primary votes to be reflected on election day.

  17. The only problem with polls like this (as we saw with the 60 – 40 TPP Newspoll some time back) is that the next poll can only go down for Labor. We know this is a rogue poll but the way the conservative media and the Libs are at the moment any movement to the conservatives will be seen as a comback rather than a correction.

  18. The Speaker Says:
    September 28th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
    I will bet any amount of money Labor gets less than a 54% primary vote in the election.

    Very true but it’s just fantastic to watch the government squirm when figures like these come out. They go into a panicked disarray. LOVELY!!!

  19. True Pat but if my side is going to lose (now likely but still not inevitable) i want to get something out of Rudder getting in and my political party thrown out everywhere i might as well make a few bob out of it…

  22. But seriously folks…

    Labor’s true vote is around 55-56 2PP. Whenever there’s an attack on Rudd or a bad showing from the government in the bully boy stakes Labor’s vote goes up 4%.

    These are the true “soft” Labor voters. They’re actually “wet” Libs. They’re Lib-sympathetic but not necessarily Howard lovers. They’ll probably vote for the Libs, but they don’t like Howard or his bully boy tactics. If the Libs go the smear, or attack St. Kevin personally, or try the bully boy tactics, these Lib “wets” pitch in on the Labor side and ratchet up Labor’s vote… but only for a week or so until the next poll. Then they return to the comfort of the Libs’ apron strings. They’re one-week wonders. Labor would be lucky to keep 1 out of that 4 per cent on polling day.

    Conversely, there’s another small clique of voters who like Howard but don’t particularly like the Libs as a party. They’re Howard’s personal followers. Once it looks like Howard is gone, they’re genuine swinging voters again, probably leaning more to Labor than the Libs. This is why it’s necessary to keep up the “Howard losing Bennelong” mantra. The more personal Howard supporters think he’ll lose his seat, the more they’re likely to switch to Labor.

    My gut feeling is that in this poll some of the Howard-Hugger/Lib-Haters and the Lib-Lovers/Howard-Haters have combined to put the primary where it is. The polls will return to normal, possibly by the Newspoll on Tuesday, or at least sometime in the next week or so.

  23. I remember having heated debates with Steven K, Glen and Nostro a few months ago (in another place) about the “inevitability” of the polls tightening in favour of the Libs. Their take was that it was only a matter of time before the electorate woke up to itself.

    In a nutshell, I think this mindset beautifully captures the “boiling frog” syndrome which has beset the Libs all year. “The Rodent will come up with something, just like always!” they kept whining to each other. “It’s only a matter of time!”. “The Australian electorate will NEVER vote out a man of steel like John Howard! Never!” etc. etc.

    Guess what guys? The water’s boiling.

  24. MY basic point in #219 is that I don’t this is a rogue poll due to statistical noise. It is more because of these “soft” Labor voters acting on irritation with the government’s latest excesses. Their anger only lasts a week. We’ve seen this a few times this year already (Burkegate, Therese Rein, APEC and now the “We have no dirt unit” claptrap).

  25. Expect to read more about “leaked” Lib and ALP polling showing different outcomes over the weekend.

    John Howard will be desperate to calm his flock whilst the ALP will want to keep the pressure right on him.

  26. Bushfire Bill Says:
    September 28th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
    But seriously folks…

    Whenever there’s an attack on Rudd or a bad showing from the government in the bully boy stakes Labor’s vote goes up 4%.

    So…… the government is signalling very strongly that they are gonna run a bully boy fear and smear campaign, so….. following your logic, Labor should hold onto those votes until the election then 😀

  28. I wish I could figure Morgan polls out. Even if they have a Labor bias as everyone says (which is strange because everyone also says that Morgan personally has a Liberal bias), this is still the best Morgan 2PV since April. If his bias is consistent his polls show a clear upward trend in the Labor 2PV since mid June, regardless of the actual figures. Even if this poll is 5% out it’s still a bad poll for the Libs. But what can one make of a pollster who on five successive weeks can produce Labor 2PVs of 54, 60, 59, 56, and 60? No-one believes that opinion is oscillating like that. Can anyone who has studied these things cast light on this? (No statistician-talk please.)

  29. Bushfire Dill Says:

    But seriously folks…

    Bushy I took your first line as requested. But you are either trying to be funny (failed) or you are incredibly daft.

    Are you really saying that Morgan’s pollsters sought out (and actually found!) the tiny number of the population that wanted to have a bit of a leg pull?

  30. I don’t for a second believe there’ll be a 14% swing at election time. However, any really sizeable swing does make it much easier for credible independents in reasonably safe coalition seats. Seats like Berowra (for goodness sake!) are not going to go anything other than Liberal, but if they were going to go somewhere, it’d be much more likely to be to a credible independent. Anyone remember Jade Hurley? 🙂 What year was he, 1990?

    Seriously though, I think a significant swing will occur (4-7%, I would think), there will probably be more than 2 independents, and this increases the possibility of a hung parliament. Obviously, the greater the swing (above say 5%), the lower the risk of a hung parliament (but the more potential independents)!

    Suggestions of a repeat of Canada in 1993 is cloud cuckoo stuff – conservative Canadians at that time had credible alternatives competing for their votes, other than the governing Progressive Conservatives (“I know those words, but that sign makes no sense”) and the rise of separate populist regional parties in both the western states and Quebec destroyed the PC vote. The PC went from polling 35% at the start of the 6 week election campaign to getting 16% of the votes… It can’t happen here.

  34. Adam – the ALP TPP vote is stuck at 57 for Morgan and movement around that is just margin of error and a few newsvoters (of the type BB explained, as well as the other end that just like Julias latest haircut and change their votes accordingly) moving the vote a few points each week.

    For Newspoll its about 56-57

    ACN is about 56.

    Galaxy I dont get.

  35. 120.”you can’t deny that the Libs are in dire straits.”

    There is only one hope that they can have. Try this scenario for the Last Card.

    Parliament will resume in October. There will be handouts; but Howard knows they will not do the trick. Publicly-funded advertising will reach a new peak; but Howard knows this will slow though not reverse the trend. The feared bandwagon is on the move. Nor does the Liberal Party have the money for a long campaign.

    So what he intends to do is wait for the shock, or wait for 10 December, when he must call an election – whichever comes first. He couldn’t care less about demands for an election, or public anger at having one in January. If he’s going to be defeated, why should he care if the Liberals are left with a footy team?

    Now to the shock. On 26 September the US Senate voted to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation. Former Reagan Navy Secretary and now Democrat Senator Jim Webb, who voted against the resolution, remarked, “What do we do with terrorist organisations if they are involved against us? We attack them”. This is the card Howard believes can save him – if Bush plays it in time.

    The consequences of an attack on Iran could be very nasty, and very dangerous for our troops in Iraq. The following article, widely quoted recently, deserves careful reading –

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20651

    Possum has chronicled the impact of the shock in Australian elections. A nice summary of the theory is to be found in the video here –

    http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

    If anyone is alert to the implications of Howard’s Last Card, it must be Rudd. Maybe it’s why he thinks those last metres to the top of Everest could be so hard.

  36. I love polls which are outliers. You can be certain that there’s going to be some fun every time you see one.

    It really is entertaining… I can’t wait to see the politicians’ reactions to this one.

  37. The last Newspoll was a sympathy spike towards the govt; it seems people didn’t like it being done over by the press over the leadership issue. Since that weekend, we’ve had 3 polls that are dreadful news for the govt:

    Galaxy, Labor 46-40 Primary; 56-44 2PP
    Nielson online, Labor 50-37, 58-42
    Morgan f2f, Labor 54-36, 60.5-39.5

    It looks like it’s back to before the leadership business, when Labor was at around 58-42 2PP.

  39. I’m thinking that The Oz should break with tradition and report the Morgan poll right now. That way, when next week’s newspoll comes out at say, 57-43tpp they can crow about how Howard is clawing back more support.

  40. Interesting theory Busfire Bill (222) but how come your “Howard Huggers/Lib Haters” and “Lib Lovers/Howard Haters” didn’t show up in the Galaxy Poll taken at the same time as Morgan.

  42. DiMansion, actually Parliament expires on 15 Nov. An election MUST be called no more than 10 days after Parliament expires, ie 25 Nov. Since the minimum campaign is 33 days, this will take it into late Dec, and really annoy voters.

  43. Possum, is it a measure of the quality of a pollster’s work that their results have the least extraneous oscillation, in other words that their polls when graphed have the smoothest lines over time? In that case Galaxy and Nielsen seem to have the best record, with Newspoll some way behind and Morgan a long way behind.

  45. Aaahhhh! Those Morgan figures are beautiful. Just Beautiful.

    Gary Bruce at 192 [Libs are saying (without proof) their polling is favourable and word has it every Lib is as happy as Larry with the way things are going.]

    Apparently Team Rodent are taking advice from Crosby Textor’s new, improved, secret weapon.

    Comical Ali Jnr.

  46. I think that factoring in the obvious Morgan Labor bias, the polls are really 40/60 in Lib favour. This is a great result for Libs.

    Glen, is it time yet for General Waenk and some German swearing! These polls will drive anyone to drink – friend and foe!! 🙂

  48. Albert Ross, Bushfire Bill’s interpretation of the polls is very plausible. He is not suggesting that this latest poll is able to to weed out particular types of voters, but rather, the fact that polling movements over this entire year nearly all show a Labor 2PP vote of at least 55%, which suggests a majority of people are committed to voting against the government. The rest, that is, the constant movements occurring between 55 and 60 are fickle. Bushfire Bill’s explanation for that fickleness is not definitive but it seems like a pretty good analysis to me.

    Just to add to this. The recent spike in support of Labor (if it is not purely a statistical aberration), might be a result of recent attempts by the mainstream media to create false momentum for the government. They have been trying to make us all believe that Howard is coming back into the game and that the government is in with a good chance of winning the election.

    So, those who dislike Howard and like the party or like Howard and dislike the party might have swung away from the government because they are being forced by the media to actually contemplate a fifth Howard government term. They might like Howard but the thought of the Liberal party back in power may be too much. Or conversely, they might like the Liberal party but the thought of another term of Howard is just too much.

    This would account for the decline in the number of people expecting Labor to win (as Morgan has just reported), but at the same time, showing greater support for Labor.

    And if this is right, then mainstream media attempts to create “win expectations” for the government may well be backfiring. But we’ll have an even better idea when Newspoll comes out next week…

  50. booska, even though i know that this poll wont be repeated on polling day its one more poll that the coalition dont make ground.

    Whats the record for the number of times any party either in government or opposition has hit 60%+ in TPP in an election year.

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