Westpoll: Liberals lead in Perth marginals

A very encouraging result for the government from Westpoll in today’s West Australian, which has the Liberals holding firm in their Perth marginals of Stirling and Hasluck and set to win Cowan from Labor with a 5 per cent swing. The poll was conducted between Monday and Thursday with samples of a little over 400 for each seat. This is the second electorate-level poll Westpoll has conducted, and both have shown the Liberals travelling much better in these three seats than Westpoll’s regular statewide polling would suggest. If the overall 3 per cent swing indicated in today’s poll was replicated statewide, the two-party split in Western Australia would be at least 58-42 in favour of the Liberals. The last two statewide surveys showed Labor leads of 51.6-48.4 early last month and 53-47 early this month.

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.

293 comments on “Westpoll: Liberals lead in Perth marginals”

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  2. i had to write this somewhere.

    Its good to see that The Australian has a good grasp on Australian history. I think some of them should take the PM’s citizenship test.

    Kim Beazley snr farewelled at state funeral

    Four former prime ministers – Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Bill Hayden – were among those paying their respects.

  3. Nervous nellies – remember that ACN (probably the most reliable poll so far) shows a +10% swing on primaries from last election TO Labor.

    Still landslide territory.

  4. Nervous nellies – remember that ACN (probably the most reliable poll so far) shows a +10% swing on primaries from last election TO Labor.

    Most of that is in Vic, NSW & SA.

    The election will be won before we see any WA results

  7. Yes Oakshott, including the typo

    “…but did receive anything like the ecstatic response for the man she wants to unseat”

    Interesting!

  9. The Western Australian voters are historically as mad as a bucket of frogs.
    They are geographically, and increasingly economically, disconnected from the rest of Australia, so be prepared so see wild and at times strange polling that does not seem to connect with “east coast reality”. The Westpoll’s volatility could be a reflection of this rather than solely their small samples.

    In any event, WA will be irrelevant on election night. Kevin Rudd and the ALP will have won or lost on the east coast before WA scrutineers even bother to start counting votes.

  12. Western Australians are often more than a little strange. They refer to all other Australians as from ‘over east’. Their milk-bars are called deli’s. Its too strange.

  13. Ashley
    I think it is undeniable that they have conceded the first week of the campaign to the Coalition.

    Wait until the next round of polls before you draw that conclusion. The worst you can say about Labor at this point is that they have had a quiet week.

    But momentum is everything in politics,

    Not everything.

    Besides which, this is a long campaign and my bet is Howard will burn himself out early on. The truth is he has virtually nothing to offer, certainly nothing new. He said it himself that we all know what he stands for. But this means he cannot make any serious u-turns on major policies at this late stage, without people seeing him as an opportunistic hypocrite, and asking why he has suddenly seen the light after more than 11 years. Not to mention major problems in health, education, skills, and the environment, for which he cannot blame anyone else. There is simply too much baggage, too much ground for him to recover, and too little time to do it in. The basic problem for Howard is the electorate wants change across a range of issues, and he can’t (or won’t) offer it. Howard and the electorate are now travelling in increasingly divergent directions.

    All Labor basically has to do is keep its primary a point or two above the Coalition, and its 2PP above 52%.

  14. #52: That story was written by AAP not the Australian. The ‘breaking news’ section of the Australian site uses a feed from the AAP News Wire that updates automatically.

  18. bryce Says:
    October 20th, 2007 at 4:57 pm

    Saw a very powerful Labor Workchoices tv ad an hour ago during the Rugby. Not much of a tv watcher. Have these ads been on for long?

    Bingo. Evidently they’ve been reading my posts today 😉

  20. The ACTU workchoices ads will feature “real people, telling real stories” they also say they have a “few surprises” in store. 🙂

  21. 39
    Ashley Says:
    October 20th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
    Like George, I am more concerned with the lack of tactical sophistication shown by Rudd during the first week of the campaign than I am with the Westpoll. The Galaxy poll is a bit of a worry, but it’s gone down that low before. The drop in the polls, IMO, reflects a poor performance by the ALP over the past couple of weeks. Before that they were creaming them.

    I wouldn’t be worried at all Ashley in fact it is rather fascinating that in the Morgan polls and the Neilsen it shows a voter attitude that the LNP may find disturbing.

    The AC Neilsen voters basically lined up behind their preferences when the election was called – and Labor’s primary increased by 1%! Doesn’t look like a soft vote to me, and even with the tax cut!

    The Morgan would dissapoint the LNP in two ways as well – its own primary didn’t move even though Labor’s dropped 4% – it all went to the Greens. That indicates that much of the Labor’s primary if it does change hands may well go to the Greens anyway.

    The only joy the LNP got out of the two polls in reality was a 2% jump in primary that didn’t reduce Labor’s primary.

    To me this indicates that it is going to be difficult for the LNP to get into Labor’s primary vote.

    But as this is one poll the whole thing could be MOE and the next poll something else again – maybe 55/45.

    The Galaxy – well we saw the questions, know that earlier in the year the sister of a blogger here abouts was pushed polled by them, to get the 53/47. That was a bacon saving poll for Howard.

    AND the article excerpts I posted earlier from NewScientist magazine that analysed 30 years of elections world wide, seemed to suggest that elections choices were created by the progression of networking over time. Thus the current Primary should be steady because of that. It was a personal choice based on personal contacts and not by Polly’s campaigning.

    I hardly bother to watch any tv and I do not buy murdoch papers so I cant say how Labor has been campaigning this week. By all accounts they have left a little too much free air to the LNP – or that could be our conception because of hightened concern.

  22. Howard supporters should not be too confident about Bennelong. The Asian population certainly have worked him out.

    The Asians of Bennelong know Howard pretty well:
    “Indeed, some Chinese-Australian professionals have formed a Maxine Support Group, partly because of John Howard’s reticence on the immigration question when Pauline Hanson harnessed nativistic anxieties to propel her political rise in the late 1980s.

    Others, though, have been beneficiaries of Australia’s economic boom, and are culturally unused to changes in government.

    “Look at what he has done for the past 11 years for the economy,” says Danny Ng. “Everyone is better off.”

    “He’s too old and he’s a liar,” says another man. “He’s untrustworthy and tricky. I want him gone. He took us into Iraq.”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7048598.stm

  23. the LNP vote went up when they had to stop playing all those stupid tax-payer ads for months. Perhaps the ads were keeping their vote down. I know they drove people insane, even those that would vote for them.

  24. If Labor looks as though it’s had a small week (and I don’t agree that they have), that’s only because Howard and his whacky team have had to release their big numbered tax policy just to get some runs on the board. It’s early days yet, and Labor has it all in hand.

    Speaking of whacky, here’s a fantastic mood lifter for anyone anxious about the election:

    http://www.theage.com.au/multimedia/electionGame_oct07/

  25. Sample’s too small, the dates between the surveys are too far apart, and there’s no margin of error stated, which on a survey this small would be huge, maybe enough to say that the result could be anywhere between 45 and 55% for the ALP. And, holy hell, isn’t that what everyone’s been saying?

    This is just statistics for the fun of making statistics. If I were the Coalition MP for Hasluck or Stirling, I would be expecting a race that goes right down to the wire, and not a pro-government swing. If’d have to assume that people in Cowan just really, really like Luke Simpkins, but I’d also have to say that any seat the ALP didn’t lose in 2004 isn’t heading west (sorry) now.

  28. ruawake, the real people telling real stories sounds very promising.

    This poll is absolutely nothing to panic about. If Labor are to win this election they will do so before the West results are known. I think one thing we can garner from these polls is the ALP will hold Swan. Otherwise we’d be hearing about that seat a lot more. I find it odd that the West would poll Cowan but not Swan.

  29. Kit Says:
    October 20th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
    Yes Oakshott, including the typo

    I did a post on this type of plagiarism yesterday or the day before.

    It is absolutely rampant lately and I have noticed so many examples of it that if somebody influential doesn’t speak up about it so that something is done about it, then I really fear for the future of the printed media.

    The worst offenders are those who also have their articled published online.

  31. Hi EStJ
    The final 2 weeks of the 1993 campaign showed that the campaign period can make a huge difference. Therefore I think any ‘declaration’ at this stage is horses**t.

    Having said that Labor went into the campaign with a clear advantage and the first week, for both sides, did not produce anything to engage the great uninterested. therefore Labor is still favourite at this stage – but who knows.

    I think one of the great things about having psephology as a hobby is the anxiety that campaigns produce.

  32. For all those obsessing about primary votes.

    I dont agree that Labor automatically wins if it gets a primary over 40%. Ordinarily where there are minor parties this is true because preference flows come back.

    IMO this will be a very polarising election and by week 6 people will line up one way or the other. I would say the combined 2 major party vote will be at least 85% and possibly closer to 90%. Also this election will mark the final execution of the Democrats and their vote.

    Therefore to win I think Labor will need a primary vote of 45% or higher as I think the coalition vote will be close but not quite 45%, assuming a greens vote of 6% this should give Labor a reasonable shot of getting over 51% and a majority. (On the assumption Labor will not win a majority of seats with a 2PP under 51%

  33. mark, those ads were horrific. It wasn’t just the frequency. Those Ir ads with the guys standing around a barbecue and at a pub were so condascending and patronising that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it had some influence.

  34. Patterson’s decision to focus on Hasluck, Stirling and Cowan and not Swan would have been made some time ago. Given three seats to pick, I would have done the same, taking into account the impact of Graham Edwards’ retirement.

  36. Nath, I agree with you. The adds were contrived and condescending. if you compare those adds with the ACTU I think you can see a marked difference in impact. The ACTU adds will be back and having their impact.

  37. The majority of voters are going about their daily business without the slighest anxiety about the election or polls.

    In the back of their minds 54% reckon they will vote ALP and 46% LNP. Thats more than a million voters difference. AND they have been of that opinion all year. Calling the election didn’t change them, the tax cuts didnt change them…and we have a balancing Labor tax cut with education bonus to give some sense of differentiation.

    The Galaxy may well have been a deliberate attempt at momentum change in conjunction with calling the election and the tax cut. Can’t say that it is working too well as yet.

  39. Labor needs to be obsessed about Primary votes. Latham’s strength at the last election was through minor preferences. This time around it is in the Primaries – big difference between the two, primary votes are a much stronger indication of intention.

    I am sticking to my prediction – if no Media interference or electioneering on behalf of Howard then 20-25 seats to Labor. Otherwise about 5 seats.

  40. The Howard Haters cannot stand it when the shoe is on the other foot. Reading all your stupid comments questioning if this poll is accurate makes me laugh. Chalk up week 1 for our cute little Rodent. Tin Tin had a great year but is cracking under pressure. He is up against the Master Coconut.

  41. A little too early to start conceding! You’re all playing into Glen’s hands: remember, don’t feed the trolls!
    The results from that polling outfit in WA have been contradictory, all over the place and frankly unreliable.
    And Glen, don’t get too cocky, claiming victory prematurely could backfire on you come November 24.

  42. Gee how things change! The ALP is starting to crack and we all knew that they could never hold the big lead they had. If the ALP loose this it will be purge time for them but which side is the blame? It cant be the left because they are nearly extinct. It must be ‘Adams ‘ Right that need to take the blame picking a boring conservative leader and cloning the Libs. No wonder Adam is so vocal his credibility is on the line.

  43. Patterson have always done a marginal poll in 5 seats. Canning, Hasluck, Kalgoorlie, Stirling and Swan were the seats they polled last election.

    Does anyone remember what seats they polled in June?

  49. Get a grip people. Were not even one week into the campaign and the nervous nellies are getting the vapours. Labour is in good shape, strong lead on primary votes. WA is no big deal, this poll is so unreliable with small samples and Westpolls tragic record. The Tories here are just clutching at straws – there’s not much good news for them about the place and there will be even less after Rudd creams Howard in the debate. Roll on Newspoll

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