After 30 seconds of joy for Coalition supporters, Newspoll comes along a day early to rain on the parade. It shows no change whatsoever from a fortnight ago: Labor ahead 56-44 on two-party preferred, with a primary vote of 48 per cent to the Coalition’s 39 per cent. A small amount of solace might be taken from a 3 per cent increase in the Prime Minister’s remarkably resilient approval rating, now up to 47 per cent, and a rise in dissatisfaction with Kevin Rudd from 20 per cent to 24 per cent. However, both Howard and Rudd are up 1 per cent on preferred prime minister, with Kevin Rudd leading 48 per cent to 39 per cent.
Plaudits to James J for somehow finding the graphic before The Australian put its coverage online.
Yes, it is funny how none of the top three people shown in Liberal smear ads were union bosses.
It’s amateur time at its worst.
Shanahan reverting to type as a ‘silver lining’ spotter again (preferred PM) this morning. One or two pieces – but only that many incl the Tas pulp mill analysis – gave some sign that he had an idea of what constitutes balanced (and thus useful) analysis 🙁
Seventy per cent of John Howard’s Cabinet were lawyers. How are lawyers more ‘representative’ than union officials?
ShowsOn (16),
If Kim Beazley Senior, rather than his replacement, had been at the relevant 1954 ALP federal executive meeting, there very likely would not have been a split or a DLP because he would have voted the other way.
Julie, how many people that signed up with Kevin ’07 wouldn’t be registered to vote?
Youtube, mobile phones etc are a completely irrelevant mode of party political advertising because you have to actively seek it out. Television advertising is more pervasive because it appears whilst you are watching something else. This is the most persausive media format so the ALP need to come up with some hard-hitting but simple ads to run on tv. No confused or complex messages. New Leadership is a dud. They need something better.
You can’t just present yourself as new leadership, you need to explain why the old leadership is bad. Change for change sake is not a good argument.
hey LTEP: I’m really looking forward to what you call yourself come November 25.
When do nominations close?
Rudd has decided to counter the “70% of ALP are union bosses” argument:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22586664-12377,00.html
Given the current state of polling, I think the “old leadership” has to explain why it’s the “right leadership” more than the “new leadership” does.
The government’s new attack ad is laughable.
Rudd is not Latham, and the “L Plate” image isn’t, unlike in 2004, boosting any existing fears about his management skills. He’s already seen as a pair of safe hands, and if Howard wants to change that, he’s going to have to do better than reusing imagery from 2004. The attack on Gillard as teh evil union bosses makes even less sense, because she was a partner at Slater and Gordon, not a unionist, before entering politics, and no one outside of diehard Liberals is actually going to buy into the “Julia Gillard is a scary communist” line.
Phil 57 – I heard that nominations close on 1 Nov. LTEP – why are you so confident that Labor will lose?
Two polls have been released with differing results, but they’re not mutually exclusive.
The national Newspoll reports the same result it’s been reporting for a long time 48/39 primary 56/44 TPP, ~ 9% swing.
The Galaxy poll in 4 QLD marginal seats shows 5%. Newspaper polls in SA show similar swings.
Assume the 5% figure is actually all the ALP will get in the marginals, then we can conclude two things:
1. that’s sufficient to deliver 18 seats by itself with the hypothetical uniform swing.
2. there are some very large swings going on elsewhere in the nation delivering seats that no-one thought would fall before. If 40 marginals (L/NP and ALP) are delivering a 5% swing to the ALP, then the other 110 seats will be delivering over a 10% swing.
(also posted this on the Galaxy thread)
the Libs have it on leadership, and the ALP have it on goodwill. But even that’s not enough to force a draw. Think of John Howard like Stirling Mortlock.
Why dont we run a lie detector over this election campaing here is number 1:
Prime Minister John Howard has promised to run a clean election campaign, denying knowledge of a Coalition dirt unit.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/well-keep-it-clean-pm/2007/10/15/1192300637422.html
KT, maybe strategically, but an Opposition that can’t point to the obvious reasons why we shouldn’t re-elect this government (and I can think of many, in fact I can’t think of a reason why I should re-elect them) is a very weak Opposition.
Scotty, I thought that was a very persuasive Rudd argument apart from this line:
“”I have a rock star, Peter Garrett, and myself, an unemployed diplomat, so there you go, I have a whole spread of people.”
Really Kev, the rebuttals on that line just write themselves.
The article posted by Scotty #58 is very good. Rudd explains the depth of experience in his frontbench and Party candidates. He also dispels the Coalition-cultured myth that they (Coalition) are due all the credit for the current economic boom. This is exactly the sort of lines Rudd should run hard with, IMO. Simple, effective and truthful.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22586664-12377,00.html
Alex (61), I’m not confident Labor will lose – but I’m not confident it will win, either.
Long campaign will get message out: PM
Monday Oct 15 09:15 AEST
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=305478
“Prime Minister John Howard says he has opted for a six-week campaign to get the government message out.
He says neither he nor the government will be throwing mud, and he won’t be commenting on opinion polls”.
Another lie, didn’t the government just spend $200m in taxpayers money to get the governments message out?
Another PM lie, he is really on a roll, no wonder he is known as a lying rodent:
“IR laws taste bad, but good for you: PM”
“PRIME Minister John Howard has said Work Choices is like the GST – an unpopular move in the short term, for the nation’s good in the longer term”.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22586759-29277,00.html
Re Chris Curtis at # 54
Chris, would you please expand a little on the matter, for the benefit of the likes of me who are interested but unlearned ?
“Youtube, mobile phones etc are a completely irrelevant mode of party political advertising because you have to actively seek it out.”
It is very important in growing and keeping hold of the young gernerations vote – and it hasn’t seemed to hurt. AND the kids hand it on world of mouth.
By that rule Howard should never have been elected in 1996. His prior credentials were failed opposition leader and the worst performed Treasurer on record. In fact in 1996 Howard stood for nothing. In fact I thought Keating raised those facts at the time.
The dynamic here is that people are quite determined to get rid of the Howard Govt because it is inherently dishonest (the big list begining with Children Overboard…) and not serving the people’s interest, only big business; it has betrayed Australians with WC etc. Rudd and Co offer a competent alternative that appear will put government back on its normal tracks.
To Lose the Election
Have you ever thought that people do not want a US type society and that’s what they are voting against? I think you need to come up with in depth commentary than this? How about that people reject a far right industrial relations system that is for the business and economic elites….have you actually gone into this issue ?
Herald Sun are running an online poll – ‘Will labor Win?’ current results 54% – yes, 45% – no. Just like Newspoll for the past 6 months!
Check out this animation from Your Rights at Work Campaign :
http://www.offandrunning.com.au.
When analysing the polls, my mind keeps slipping back to 1996, because that’s the last time a sitting Govt was comprehensively booted.
can Adam, or anybody, root out the approval/disapproval ratings for the PM vs the leader of the opposition in the weeks leading up to that election.
My hypothesis is that Howard is just as much on the nose as Keating was then. these figures would prove, or disprove my theory.
( I don’t think they want to hit JWH with a bat, but to give him a walking frame, and send him somewhere to kind people who can pretend to be interested in what he says)
With the Morgan polls included the ‘narrowing’ points to a 56/44 result. If the Morgan polls are excluded the ‘narrowing’ trend points to a 55/45 result by polling day. That’ll do me!!
Adam@2: I suppose the Libs will argue that Gillard was President of AUS (student UNION – gasp) and worked for a labour law firm (and probably did work for UNIONS – double gasp). But a very long bow for sure.
Gippslander, Howard is still quite popular for a long-serving PM. You can find graphs on approval ratings etc. on Bryan’s OzPolitics website (http://www.ozpolitics.info/guide/elections/fed2007/polls2007/ and scroll down to the 1996 v 2007 section).
Bird, I’m yet to be convinced WC is the driving force behind Labor’s lead in the polls. We’ll see in the end, but I just think people are overestimating it.
Kina, just about all of those factors existed at the 2004 election and the Coalition were not just returned, but returned with an increased majority. Labor need to demonstrate a good reason why all those people should change their votes at this election. Just saying “new leadership” is extremely weak.
The fact of the matter is that Howard is much more popular than Keating was in 1996, and I’d suggest in the right areas. He has mass appeal, which I put down to his false modesty and “Aussie” persona (cricket loving, dropping in ‘bloke’ and ‘mate’ whenever possible). Rudd needs to present himself as better than this, and a credible alternative. At the moment, Rudd cannot claim to be credible if all he is saying is he has ideas. What are his ideas? We should have a better idea by now.
This campaign is unfortunately going to be like Greece playing in the European cup. They kicked their goal and will now keep possetion and defend like made for the next 6 weeks.
I noticed that Kev said that the coalition is responsible for only some of the economic success. How about none of it. Unfortunately keating is a dirty word but without his reforms, we would be up the creek without a paddle.
Morgan wasn’t a narrowing – it was more of the same within MOE. The current Newspoll shows that as well, 56/44 usually equates to a Morgan of 58+ . Morgan would need at least one more or two at that level to be a narrowing.
I suspect there may be an initial narrowing because of the fear of change factor which, will drift apart again once some of the nervous nellies get used to the idea of a Labor Rudd government.
A longer campaign might actually work against the Government. The longer people get to contemplate a Labor Govt the more they will get familiar and less nervous about change. Probably the Govt needed to run a very short super-fear campaign.
Rudd would have been planning for this campaign in detail for quite a while and would have been well aware of what the Govt would do.
The debate will do Howard no good at all, regardless of who wins, because it juxtaposes the two and makes it very easy for the public to make a comparison in their mind. Rudd looks intelligent, younger and more aware. Is rather like an ad for Rudd.
LTEP – your conservative analysis does not fit with the polls, behaviour of th two leaders, and the press and people’s reactions to all these over the year. I understand the scarred caution, but I think that you will look back on some of these posts (in light of the evidence that does exist) after the fact, and see yourself quite off the mark.
Look, for instance, not just at Howards approval rating, but he gap between Rud and Howards, as opposed to Howard and Keating in the day. We have shifted everything into another band, but everything is still pointing to a clear leader, and a distant second.
As a bonus, here is a ‘d’ AND an ‘.
Looking at those 1996-2007 polls, two things came to mind:
#1 The Coalition 96/ALP 07 and ALP 96/Coalition 07 primary votes seem to be correlating reasonably well.
#2 Rudd’s stratospheric popularity – it’s verging on being ridiculous. Howard wasn’t close to being this popular in 1996.
Interesting graphs to ponder. It would be nice for a reverse 1996 to happen to end the Howard era.
Mike F (56)
Re – Lose The Election Please (nee Call The Election Please) – my suggestion for his/her new name after the election is – Lost The Election Thanks.
Hey Adam, I’m slightly disturbed by the placing of your “Election Day 24 November” caption on your opinion polls chart. Is the placing of that caption on the 50% line a prediction ? 🙂
Two points – the first pendantry:
1. In 1982 there was no “National Union of Students” only the Australian Union of Students (it wasn’t quite dead yet!).
2. I hope people spend less time blogging and more time working on the election now it has been called. I’ve been largely off this site for that very reason, and hope others will be too (checking in perhaps ocassionally).
Anyway, back to work moulding young minds.
KT,
Do you think Rudds popularity will be so high on November 23? I predict it will be under 55% favourable rating and above 35% disapprove, compared to 60% and 24%.
Lose the Election:
The full impact of the IR stuff, which is 90% of power to employer, will not be seen until the next recession, – the long term ramifications are an extreme income disparity and increase crime and social dislocation. Understanding the ideological gravity of it is something that only a small percentage of the population understand -hence the huge difference of opinion between people who say “better the devil you know etc”
Also, look at public universities – they are sufferiing from particularly the last 15 years of neoliberalism. The final corporatisation of uni’s was the intro of full fees into undergraduate courses – all the academics that I know say that was the most shocking thing as standards have already dropped cause of right wing fundamentalism – I know of an academic at Sydney Uni who is passing year 12 physics in 2/3rd year science degree now. The election of a labor party would be better for public uni’s – they invest more in a society (in a public sense as the libs tend to invest in a private sense) and are at least saying that they will take a stand on full fees in u/g course
Basically, labor with a neoliberal virus is better than Liberal. Of course, if you wanted a US society as a matter of ideology then that would be different but I do not think that is most Australian’s – either way, you would not be saying “Better the devil you know is better than not”
All this guff about Howard has to do this, and Rudd has to that, misses the point completely.
Most people, the vast majority in fact, do not closely follow election campaigns. They don’t read political blogs. They don’t agonise over every percentage point change in every opinion poll.
Of course, they get bombarded with election advertising, and some of it sinks in, but all that happens is that pre-campaign impressions are reinforced, as in Latham L Plates.
Howard himself has said, time and again. “you don’t fatten the pig on market day”, meaning that you can’t turn around a losing position in the official campaign.
This year has been one big constant 55:45 poll for Labor, give or take MoE. There’s no reason at all to expect that that will change during the campaign.
For it to change at all would require a massively successful campaign by Howard and the Liberals. But Howard has lost support in every campaign he has led the Liberals (five spanning 1987 to 2004) except 2004, when all had to do was sit back and watch Latham self-destruct.
And there’s no reason to think that the Liberals will fight a disciplined campaign, if today’s column by Milne is anything to go by. It’s a scathing, indeed contempuous, critique of Howard that was without any doubt drafted by his enemies in the party, perhaps Costello himself. That’s not what you want on Day 1 of a campaign.
The zeitgeist is with Labor. We have the IPCC and Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize for their climate change work, a Labor issue. We have US army commanders saying Iraq is an ill-thought-through disaster – another Labor theme.
Everything points to a big Labor win. Only an epic event like a major terrorist attack could change the outcome.
Prime Minister John Howard [denied] knowledge of a Coalition dirt unit
Eh? What’s this all about then:
The Sunday Telegraph, 15 July 2007
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22073660-2,00.html
And why is the taxpaying public being charged for this clearly partisan electioneering activity??
I just can’t see how Howard is going to salvage the election from here.
This “diumvirate” thing with Costello is more a DUMvirate.
Howard adores the limelight. It’s all about him. HE delivers the policies and thus sidelines the ministers.
Yet he tells us that Costello is taking over. If so, firstly, why should we take any notice of what Howard’s “plans” are?
Secondly, where is Costello? This question will be asked more and more. The pressure ison for Costello to make an appearance and assert his case for election as future Prime Minister. This time a vote for Howard is – by Howard’s own admission – a vote for Costello. No ifs or buts about it.
Yet Howard cannot bear to give up the limelight. Eventually, after the calls for Costello to appear are made, he’ll have to put the hard word on Johnny: “PM, I’m next. You’ve got to give me some air.”
Howard will resist for a couple of weeks. Whenever he’s asked a question on the leadership (and there’ll be plenty, in fact they may become the ONLY question) he won’t be able to help chanting that HE is Prime Minister and HE makes the decisions. But ultimately he may have to give way to Costello appearing alongside him, succumbing to internal party pressure, thus neatly rendering meaningless the first several weeks of the campaign. This will weaken both Howard and Costello as it becomes obvious to even Blind Freddy that there is dissention and jealousy in the top ranks of the government.
They’re going to fall apart in a few weeks or, more accurately, tear themselves to pieces. The Coalition will become a laughing stock as Costello begs for a go as would-be leader, with Howard resisting to the bitter end. Their “zero unemployment” promise is already a joke (given the lack of faith in Howard concerning the interest rate scare of last election). Pretty soon the entire effort will become a joke.
The question will be not whether Rudd wins but by how much.
I agree with Spiros 90 – the Milne article in the Oz is just what you don’t want on day 1 of a campaign. It confirms the Libs are divided and disunity is death. 56/44 Newspoll – two big problems for Howard. The polls usually don’t narrow by more than 2% during campaigns. Also, all stated margins for Labor to win Liberal seats should be reduced by 2% to allow for ’scary’ Latham factor. The hearse awaits.
Why would a terrorist attack change the outcome? This government have been responsible for making us a target. Their following of a village idiot lay in the face of advice given at every quarter. Revelations on the poor security of Sydney airport is another example. The government’s blatant refusal to heed advice for want of political advantage is infamous. Kelty is a lap dog slapped down every time he manages to think for himself. The notion that we would be safer under the coalition is laughable given the ludicrous purchase of helicopters that can’t fly in bad weather… outdated tanks… inferior fighters etc.
Can you tell me what you are basing this prediction on?
It’s very difficult to predict public opinion when we don’t know how the campaign will be received ahead of time. Also, I don’t think personal approval rating has much of a bearing on the final vote anyway.
Voters can say they like a leader, but won’t vote for the party because they also like the leader of the party they are voting for. Secondly, they can dislike both leaders and vote for their preferred party. Then you’ve also got to consider the impression that the whole leadership team (i.e. cabinet/shadow cabinet) in any party presents. An inferior leader, but superior team would probably get the nod over a superior leader, but inferior team.
It’s a nice measure, but ultimately worthless I think. Voting intention is always the best guide.
Has there ever been an election in which one party has had such a consistently large lead for a such a long time going into the campaign, and then lost?
Re 55
Lose the election please Says:
“You can’t just present yourself as new leadership, you need to explain why the old leadership is bad.”
Labor has and you obviously haven’t been listening. Nor have you been paying attention to the last 11 years if you don’t understand why the current leadership is rotten to the core. Or you are a Liberal voter and spouting the party line in which case anything I write isn’t going to convince you.
[Has there ever been an election in which one party has had such a consistently large lead for a such a long time going into the campaign, and then lost?]
No. Not a lead this big, and not with the polls being so consistent.
In 1993 the Liberals were in front at the start of the election week. HOWEVER, in that year, and during 1992, the polls were very volatile. For the last 12 months Labor has consistently been leading, the only movement has been the degree of lead.
Fair point, but the picture is roughly the same if you go further back
Average NewsPoll 2PP for ALP
Last 5 polls before election announce
Latham 51.6 Rudd 56.2
Last 10 Polls before election annouced
Latham 51.6 Rudd 56.7
Worst Poll in the 10 prior to election announed
Latham 47.0 Rudd 55.0
The point being that howard needs the same campain win he had against Latham to make it a line-ball contest.
This time around I think the ALP will run a better campain. Its still at the edge of possibilities that he can scrape home but the ALP just needs to run a reasonable campain.
Also, it may be a meaningless oberservation but Latham’s worst poll in the lead up to the election was roughly where he ended up. Is there something in the spread of polling reasults that indicates what there is to gain over the campain?
Ouch! That Glenn Mine article is absolutely vicious!