Advertiser Sturt poll

After last week’s surprising poll from Boothby, today’s Adelaide Advertiser brings us a survey of 622 voters from Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt which is more in line with market expectations. It shows Pyne with a two-party lead of 52-48, pointing to a swing of around 5 per cent. Pyne is given a primary vote lead over Labor candidate Mia Handshin of 44 per cent to 35 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.

144 comments on “Advertiser Sturt poll”

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  1. I’m not sure of that Thommo, I’m sure they’ll both have rehearsed the major (and predictable) points that will be raised. It’s true though that Rudd is not a good off-the-cuff speaker by any stretch.

  3. [And Rudd cant hide behind his script.]

    Rudd doesn’t use scripts in parliament, he refers to dot points like most debaters. I’m not sure what you’re going on about.

  4. I would love to be able to bet on the debate. Rudd will win hands down.
    Surely the bookies can’t be that way out to giv Coalition 3 and labor 1.38

  8. “It’s true though that Rudd is not a good off-the-cuff speaker by any stretch.”

    I don’t see this myself. I have often thought that Rudd is one of the most articulate party leaders we have had for quite some time. Sure, he’s not perfect, but his performances on Lateline and 7.30 Report are usually far superior to Howard when it comes to dealing with unexpected or tough questions.

    I also suspect that Rudd’s generally smooth, clear, and calm tone is part of his appeal with some parts of the electorate. It is quite a contrast to Howard’s typically nervous-sounding voice.

  10. “I think Rudd is lucky hes debating Howard and not Costello.”

    Maybe so, Thommo, but as the Scots say, you can only pish with the c**k you’ve got…

  11. Rudd’ll cream Howard in both the debate and the campaign, and Labor will extend its lead during the campaign. That’s my prediction. Prob of Labor win: 85%.

  12. Putting all the dodginess of the poll aside, Í don’t think this is too bad a result for Pyne. If Mia Handshin wants to win this seat she needs to be ahead right now.

    Judy (post 1), Mia Handshin was apparently offered the seat of Adelaide at the last election, but she turned it down.

  13. CTEP – I agree that the debates have been irrelevant in the past couple of elections. But that is largely because the Coalition was almost certainly going to be returned regardless (excepting ’01 perhaps) on the back of other issues. Interest rates, boat people etc were more important to swing voters than the substance – or lack thereof – of the alternative leader.

    This time around the ALP have completely built their current success around Rudd. People are going to be paying attention because they are going to want to see if the alternative they are tossing up taking a punt on is really up to job.

    And I maintain Rudd is an excellent off the cuff speaker. He *is* very clever and that shines through in every Q&A I’ve seen him do. Whether that translates across to the likes of a staged debate hosted by Ray Martin remains to be seen however.

  15. [Putting all the dodginess of the poll aside, Í don’t think this is too bad a result for Pyne. If Mia Handshin wants to win this seat she needs to be ahead right now.]

    I can’t put the dodginess aside, because supposedly there is a 5% swing to Labor, but with only an 0.5% increase in the Labor primary and a 1% increase in the Green primary. It doesn’t add up.

    I think it is basically a tie, this seat is up for grabs. Once the election campaign starts, the Howard V Rudd contest could be more important to determining who wins this seat.

  16. Guys, if you think back I’m pretty sure Howard has never one an election debate since 1996 according to the audience poll worm.

    I remember one year Howard wore a gold tie and Beazley wore a silver one. The analysis made by journalists of the debate was Howard looked like a winner because of his tie but I’m pretty sure he lost the actual debate which would explain why labor wants three of them. It would also explain why Liberals won’t go for three even though they say they want a long campaign with lots off opportunity to put the pressure on Rudd and expose his real character.

    Does anyone know where to find the actual figures from these debates?

  17. These are interesting figures, although the small sample size seems relatively small. I actually did see Pyne around in my part of the electorate some months ago, which led me to think at the time he may be in some trouble as I’d never seen him bother previously. It would be tremendous if Mia Handshin could get over the line.

  21. I was at a community function in Hughes the other night. It was attended by the local member (Dana Vale) and Disability Services Minister Nigel Scullion. I understand the Minister was in Patterson earlier that day. They’re burning a lot of carbon credits in coalition marginals at the moment appealing to single issue constituencies.Their only strategy was to baffle people with numbers, double count and obfuscate the issues. It’s effective in that it confused Government critics in the audience into silence. Like Ben Chifley said about being Treasurer: over 10,000 it’s all just numbers. But I had the clear impression the attendees weren’t buying the pitch. I think Howard will use the same approach in the televised debate. Rudd will need enough detail on board penetrate all those dollar signs and zeros. I don’t think he will so a stalemate rather that a KO is the most likely result.

  23. ShowsOn – I agree. If you look at Labor’s average primary result in Morgan (I’m using Morgan because, like everyone else, I’ve just been on their site), in the 12 months leading up to Rudd’s ascension as Leader of the Opposition, Labor’s primary vote averaged 41% and was pretty steady around that figure. As soon as Rudd took over, the primary jumped straight up to an average of 49.5% and has, likewise, remained fairly steady around that number. In other words, the Labor primary vote is now a steady 8.5% higher than it was a year ago.

    In Sturt, however, we are supposed to believe that it has only increased 0.5%, which defies logic. Pyne isn’t a hardworking, highly visible local member. He’s a Federal Minister, which means he spends a lot of his time in Canberra, not in his own electorate. He’s not doing regular street meetings or doorknocking or any of those other things that give members a very high personal vote. Yes, he has a public profile, but there would be just as many people put off by that same profile than those impressed by it.

    Added to that is the revelation that a nett 6% of people (ALP -6%, Lib +12%) say they will be changing their vote from Liberal to Labor, plus the nett 45% of Democrats, 31% of Greens and 12% of Family First voters who say they’ll change their vote to Labor. None of the nett votes are moving away from Labor.

    The practical upshot of this is that the first half of the statistics seem to be saying one thing but the second part say something altogether different.

    There is a simple explanation, of course; The Advertiser have gotten their figures arse up. Labor is on a primary of 44 and the Libs are on 35. THAT would certainly explain things, and it would also compute when put alongside the Australia-wide swings (and the ones that Newspoll have already reported as being on in SA)

  24. “So….there is no morgan poll?”

    Well, the site has a place-holder dated 5 October:
    http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4219/

    But given it was apparently polled over last weekend, you wouldn’t think there would be any delay getting it up.

    Unless the rumors are true and they phone polled Wed/Thurs this week, in which case perhaps they are finalising the data…

  25. Friday came and Friday went
    But still no Morgan poll was sent.
    The bloggers went to Morgan’s site
    The polling page was blank and white.
    The bloggers wailed and pulled their hair
    The Morgan poll was still not there.
    The bloggers wept on bended knees
    “We need a poll, please Gary please!”
    Till from the crypt there came a shreik:
    “No Morgan poll until next week!”

  26. [For those with too much time, check Howard raising his eyebrows and nodding when Keating ]

    I love that video! As you point out, it is very funny that Keating points out that Costello just let Howard have the leadership, and then Howard nods in agreement!

    This all supports Piping Shrike’s assertion that Costello is the ideal deputy for Howard, because he was always too gutless to challenge. That includes 1994, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2006, 2007.

    He loves getting tipsy and mouthing off about Howard to journalists though.

  27. The Advertiser is by far the worst newspaper in Australia. It is neither left, nor right, but nonsense.

    Pyne should retain this seat, but he will take a beating. I’m sick of people going on about how bright and intelligent and what not Handshin is. If she kept her old website up, full of airy fairy stupid bullshit, people would be able to see what a clown she is. I’d bet $50 that Pyne could absolutely ruin her in a debate. Hell, Cornes is far more intelligent.

    People need to realise that Handshin has not held a real job her entire life (don’t bother pointing this out regarding Pyne). Her previous small business was giving out lectures and speeches at public schools. Effectively, she was a public worker by stealth, employed to do nothing more than give inspirational speeches. I think her company was called “Mana of Speaking” — notice that now on her website (http://www.manaofspeaking.com.au/) everything has been delinked and removed. This is because it would be a massive liability to her.

    Here’s but one snippet to reveal her nonsense (found via google, not linked) : http://www.manaofspeaking.com.au/creating%20woman1.htm

  28. why all this fuss about alleged ”debates’. Howard has never ‘won’ a ‘debate’ yet these ‘debates are fogotten after a day.

    Howard will now want two or three but Rudd will only want one.

    Watch the Rudd camp put up demands to the Howard camp they cannnot accept so there is only one.

  30. Rudd should insist on two debates. One with Howard the PM and another one with the Costello the maybe PM. And just to peeve the old man he should treat the Costello debate as the real one and the Howard debate as a curtesy to a lame duck.

  32. i repeat the primary vote is low as the total vote only goes up to 92%, the 8% undecided are not excluded.

    add 4 points to both labor and liberal primaries and you likely have a closer figure.

    There is nothing wrong with the figures…

  35. I wouldn’t give two bob for the Advertiser polls. As the Pollbludger archive shows the Advertiser poll has an has an appalling track record in underestimating the ALP vote http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/category/sa-election-2006/.

    Two days before the 2006 State election the Advertiser had the ALP primary vote on 37%. Newspoll had the ALP primary vote at 47%. The actual ALP primary vote on election day was 45.2%.

    Again, two days before the 2006 election the Advertiser produced polls for the State seats of Hartley and Norwood (Hartley and a bit of Norwood fall within the federal seat of Sturt). The Tiser had the Liberals ahead 51.5% to the ALP 48.5% in Hartley. In Norwood they gave the ALP the slenderest of leads – 50.2% to 49.8%.

    Two days later the ALP cleaned up both seats with a TPP vote of over 54%.

  36. Well the Morgan site says “Finding No. 4219 – October 05, 2007”.

    I guess that they’ll try and get it out in time to make the evening news (which could mean by 4?).

  37. No – my point is about the “switch to another party or stay the same?” graph which is part 3 of the poll. If you take the figures from the 2004 poll and add and subtract the nett vote percentages according to this poll, the difference between the two parties on primaries is 6%, not the 9% part 1 of this poll says it is.

  39. Angas@84, you’ve fallen for the same trick as the other contributor did with the Advertiser polling. The Advertiser doesn’t exclude undecided from its %’s. The poll you refer to has 10% undecided. For example, if you apportion that undecided 50:50 between Labor and Liberal, you would then get a Labor primary vote of 42%.

  44. On September 29/30, the ALP primary vote dropped 0.5% to 53.5%, while Coalition support also fell 0.5% to 35.5% during the same period.

    With preferences distributed as they were at the 2004 Federal election, the two-party preferred vote is ALP 61% (up 0.5%), L-NP 39% (down 0.5%). If the Federal election had been held last weekend the ALP would have won in a massive landslide, the latest ‘face-to-face’ Morgan Poll finds.

    Among the minor parties, support for The Greens is 5.5% (unchanged), Family First 1.5% (up 0.5%), Australian Democrats 1.5% (up 1%); One Nation 0.5% (unchanged); and Other Parties and Independent Candidates 2% (down 0.5%).

    More electors now think the ALP will win the next Federal election (61%, up 4.5%), while 27% (down 3.5%) think the L-NP will win and 12% (down 1%) can’t say.

    Less than half the number of electors (49.5%, down 2.5%) think Australia is heading in the “right direction”, while 34.5% (up 2.5%) think Australia is heading in the “wrong direction” — 16% (unchanged) are undecided.

    Currently, 21.5% (up 1.5%) of all electors say Australia is “heading in the right direction” yet say they would vote Labor if an election were held today — this is the highest result since the Morgan Poll began measuring voting strength in late May. The Morgan Poll considers these electors to be “Soft ALP voters” and believe they are the key to the Federal election.

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