Galaxy Senate poll

As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald (link broken at the time of writing), GetUp! has commissioned its third national poll of Senate voting intention from Galaxy. This is a highly dubious exercise which is producing very strange results. Make whatever you like from the news that Labor’s vote has slumped in the last month from 39 per cent to 33 per cent. The sample size was 1003; Family First and the Democrats were both on 2 per cent.

ALP LNP GRN
October 20/21 33 38 11
September 8/9 39 35 10
June 23/24 38 34 13
2004 Election 35.0 45.0 7.7

UPDATE: GetUp! press release here. Maddeningly, “other/don’t know” has been rolled into one.

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.

707 comments on “Galaxy Senate poll”

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  1. Oh and does anyone have a link for Antony Green’s report on tonight 7:30 report – the first one clicked has Jim Middleton (I think it was)and then the other AG report doesn’t have any content under it. Bloody ABC budget cuts!!

    Ta.

  3. Oh dear Glen, you’re jumping all over Rudd and excusing Ms Bishop this morning for going to that school unannounced.

    All events during the election are PR stunts. You think they cuddle babies just out of the goodness of their hearts?

  4. [Oh dear Glen, you’re jumping all over Rudd and excusing Ms Bishop this morning for going to that school unannounced.]

    The Difference was that the Centre was advised that Sidebottom and his guests were attending, just that they didn’t know it was Rudd and somehow Mr Squeeze “wasn’t told”.

  5. John Rocket @ 647

    I’m sure the Mad Monk will stick up for the Rodent. Might not be too many more though. I wonder when Ruddock (who used to be a pretty decent moderate) will get up and look in the mirror and realise what price he’s paid for entry in Club Vermin?

  8. 102 Labor seats
    46 Coalition
    2 Independant

    Labor dominant in the House. Libs a fueding rabble. Nats just as meaningless as the previous decade.

    Labor/Green majority in Senate to dismantle Workchoices and combat Climate Change.

  9. All this discussion about the accordion player and chorister are all going to take second stage in tomorrow’s newspapers to the story about the dead SAS soldier (and rightly so).

    So, Rudd will get off this “incident” easier than he thought (though not in the way he would have hoped…)

  10. What could save Howard from here?

    – Traction on the union scare campaign?
    – Scare campaing on the dreaded “R” word?
    – An EB orchestrated “incident”?
    – Boredom with this whole process?

  11. Q. What’s the difference between an accordionist and a terrorist?

    A. Labor built a Government of substance around The Accord.
    Liberals built their Government around Terror.

  12. yeah, I’m sure that accordianist and his mate must have been Liberal party members… they went in too hard and too aggressively. They should’ve had better advice – but most geriatrics in the LPA are in need of better advice (I’m talking to you Mr. Howard!)

    By the way, my good friends in Adelaide… I have a question for you! This morning Mr. Howard got a particularly rapturous welcome as he did his morning constitutional… were most of those people high fiving, hugging, and greeting him happily Liberal party members? They looked it to me…

  15. Chris in LDN Says: @ 651

    {does anyone have a link for Antony Green’s report on tonight 7:30 report }

    Chris, the ABC are pretty slow in putting all the content up on their web site. It should be all up by about 9.30 EST. Just keep refreshing until it is up.

    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/

  17. I have the same reservations about this Galaxy Senate poll as I did about the previous one. I see no reason to change my Senate prediction or my House of Representatives prediction because of it.

    There is a more comprehensive discussion of the Senate at:
    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/?p=602&cp=all#comments
    and
    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/585#comments
    so I will not repeat what I said on those threads.

    Don Wigan,

    I had not visited the thread “Morgan: 61-39” (the first of the above) until tonight and I saw a reply from you to me, so I apologise for seeming to ignore it and would like to respond on this thread in the hope that you might see it.

    I never hated the ALP, but I was highly critical of it and I do not resile from my view that the Split was caused by the left wing of the ALP. However, society changes and issues change. The ALP today is not the ALP of the late ‘50s or of the ‘60s. On some issues, such as IR, private profit partnerships, education, I would regard myself as to the left of the ALP. On historical issues, such as communism, I remain convinced that it was the right thing to oppose it. I basically believe what I have always believed.

    I had occasion to dig out some of the anonymous correspondence I received 35 years ago in order to illustrate to my students the depth of bigotry in some people. As I read it, I asked them to substitute the word, “Muslim”, for the word, “Catholic”. The DLP was often misjudged – understandably so – but to me it was a moderate centrist party. I see a similar attitude today in discussion of Family First.

    My commitment to the ALP comes from my experiences of the Kennett Government. I saw from the inside the damage it did to education and the way in which it manipulated the press to accept its madness as good sense. I decided that it had to go – and now it is gone! (I’m still working on getting rid of its policies.) I now look at the Howard Government in a similar way, particularly because of WorknotcalledChoicesanymore, a thoroughly foul piece of legislation, part of which I regard as unconstitutional under the “just terms” provision of the Constitution.

    I am not a Howard hater. He’s just another politician with whom I have a profound disagreement. I regard the Howard haters as contributors to his electoral successes so far because the extremity of their language has turned people away from the ALP.

    I think Robert Manne is an intelligent commentator on politics and society and have enjoyed a few discussions with him over the years. He articulated the way in which the elites and the working class base of the ALP are in tension. Frank Knopfelmacher is the only person to have written to me with the salutation “Dear Curtis”. Nowadays, that just makes me think of Giles in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

    I still hate economic rationalism and remain bemused by the hold it has over the ALP. Having defeated communism, fascism and Nazism, Western democracy has now to defeat economic rationalism. The market has its place, but the way in which it has come to dominate is bad news for our society.

    Bob Santamaria had four great political strategies – and all of them failed. First was to influence the ALP from the inside. (Taking it over was never really on.) The second was the DLP as the road block – which could never last for ever. Third was to amalgamate the DLP and the National Party – the maddest of the lot. The fourth was Malcolm Fraser as saviour.

    This is a bit of a ramble. People need to revisit their categorisation skills. The school with the best conditions in the state of Victoria was not the one full of Greens or Trotskyites – it was the one whose timetable was done by a former state official of the DLP.

  18. 654,

    Frank, how did the West Australian handle Howard’s visit today? Cousins was in the main page of the online editions of The Age and the SMH with his picture and more stories again today

  19. Actually, Howard’s WA Media day has been blitzed by Ben Cousins leaving for the US to continue his rehab.

    Even his Roads announcement was criticised by the RAC.

    That, and the SAS Soldier will be on the front page of The West tomorrow.

  21. Yes Alan H, the Greg Sheridan article has been discussed with some amazement earlier today. It’s amazing how someone from the Australian can accuse the ABC (or any other organisation) of bias. They’ll shit themselves when Murdoch decrees that the editorial should back Rudd. Rupert always backs the horse called Self-Interest.

    On another issue…unlike a lot of the True Believers on this website, I don’t think it’s a good idea for Keating to bob up during this election campaign. Whether it’s right or wrong, he reminds a lot of people of high interest rates. Rudd is doing a good job and doesn’t need defeated leaders around him. However, the punters still love Hawkie (who never lost an election), and he’d be the bloke I’d keep trotting out to defend the role of unions and Labor’s economic record.

    I certainly know that, no matter how deep his doo-doo gets, Howard won’t be inviting Fraser to have a few words on his behalf.

  22. Oh, looks like all is not well with the intervention;

    A remote Northern Territory community has issued a High Court challenge to part of the Federal Government’s emergency intervention into Aboriginal communities.

    The Maningrida community east of Darwin has confirmed it is taking legal action but is not commenting any further at this stage.

    The ABC understands the proceedings were issued today and are focused on the parts of the intervention that involve the Northern Territory Land Rights Act.

    This includes elements such as the removal of the permit system in some areas and five-year compulsory acquisition of communities.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/25/2070685.htm?section=justin

  23. You know the Libs are gone when a soldier’s death isn’t even stirring any thoughts of people getting worried about national security and thus flocking back to Howard and Co.

    Back before he got picked to play Australia, they used to jokingly call Mark Waugh “Afghanistan” because he was the forgotten Waugh. Once again Afghanistan has been largely forgotten over Iraq – but I dare for Australia at least this is won’t be the case for much longer.

  24. Antonio, I couldn’t agree more. I cringed when I saw Keating tonight. You’re average swinging voter has nothing but bitter memories of him so to bring him out to talk about economic policy is a really bad move.

    As much as I love Paul, he should be kept quiet until after the poll.

  25. Have made an “over/under” bet in terms of ALP majority with a Lib fan – not a myopic one, but one who feels the 04 result makes it hard + WA a possible net gain for Coalition + Qld swings required too high.

    He predicted 4-8 at the beginning of the campaign against my 10-15. So, we’ve settled on 9. Am confident. These predictions of 95+ seats for ALP seem very gung-ho to me. Using 2PP as an indicator only, would expect 53-54 final result for ALP, or a 6-7% swing and a majority in the region of 15. More than 82 seats would be a great result for ALP. Anything in the high 60s for the coalition feels like a great result for them at this stage.

    This is a ’96 kind of swing. A lot here think its going to be UK ’97 or Canada ’94 (or so). Find that hard to believe. At what level of majority (and therefore time in opposition) do people think Costello might chuck it in – would he hang around as Opp leader with 2-3 terms in Opp likely… I wouldn’t think so?

  26. Yep, I agree with Antonio @ 671, Keating should not be used too much by Labor this time around. Actually, neither should Hawke be used too much, even though he is much more popular than Keating.

    The reason is that Rudd has been running (successfully) on themes of “newness” and “freshness” – all Hawke and Keating provide is a throwback to the old days – which seem to negate Rudd’s message. Hawke and Keating can be used in promoting local candidates, but should be kept off the national stage for this reason.

  27. Swing Lowe 676 – I’d say that’s all they will be used for.

    But I wouldn’t fear PJK’s appearance too much – there’s nothing better than for Howard and Costello to start trying to win 1996 all over again, it’ll just make them look more stuck in the past than ever – and Rudd will zoom ever more ahead.

  30. #470/ #475 Re Superannuation
    I’ve been following elections since around 1953 and mostly have been hugely disappointed by the propensity of the Australian electorate to be overly swayed by the elitist-delivered smear campaign (Reds under the Beds, 36 faceless men, etc) and thre pork barrel approach (Fistful of dollars, etc). This time it does not appear to be working!! TGFT!!

    I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, however my recollection of the great superannuation issue is as follows:

    1. Prior to Hawke /Keating superannuation was really only available to the Public Service (including of course politicians) and the staff of large international companies (and in that case not portable, ie you only got thr benefit if you stayed with the company until retirement, If you resigned the paternalistic attitude was that you only got back your own contributions plus a risory interest rate (about 4%).
    2. Under the Accord of the Hawke/Keating years with the ACTU, and as part of the transition between centralised and enterprise bargaining, which took place in that time, the union movement agreed for several years that part of the annual wage settlement would go to compulsory and universal superannuation. That is the union movement contracted that instead of employees receiving say a 6% wage increase, instead they would receive only 3% directly, and the employers would be obliged to pay the remaining 3% of thre wage settlement into compulsory, univeral and totally portable supperannuation. During the accord years this happened several time such that by 1995 a total of 9% of wages (that would otherwise have gone directly to employees) was channelled into superannuation on their respective behalves. Please note that this was at no cost to employers, nil!, zilch!
    3. Part of the LAW legislation of the last Keating government was that for the three succeeding years out of the wage settlements the employees would contibute 1% per annum (total 3%) out of their entitlements, while employers would be obliged to provide matching amounts (totalling 3% over the three years- this would have been the employer’s only contribution to compulsory superannuation.) Thus a total of 15 % of wages would have gone into saving for people’s future, 12% of which would have come by employees foregoing wage increases and only 3% from the employers!!!!

    4.Since this was “Government Policy”, at the time the election was called John Howard stated that he would honour it if elected. However once in government Howard found “HUGE BLACK HOLES” which caused him to jettison the above as a “NON-CORE PROMISE”, along with several others, of which others posters to this thread are no doubt well aware!

    5. Personally I think this was one of the worst examples of economic mismanagement by Howard/Costello. Saving 9% of earnings is not enough to provide a livable income in retirement. If one believes the actuaries saving 15% of earnings over a lifetime is!!!!

    Sory this is a bit long, but I feel very strongly about this.

  31. Chris Curtis Says: @ 667

    {Bob Santamaria had four great political strategies – and all of them failed. }

    At least five, Chris. You forgot about the Movement/NCC attempted take-over of the Union movement and hence, infiltration/control of the ALP.

    I know quite a bit about this era, having worked with a couple of NCC operators and am astounded at the levels that they went to in this strategy.

    The Coalition links with the EB and Hill singers is quite tame compared with this. Eg, NCC operatives attending as delegates to ILO Conventions in Communist countries, links with the CIA through the American Chamber of Commerce, (CIA Branch) and the Israeli Chamber of Commerce.

    I would thing that the Coalition neocons would still have very active links with the later mentioned organisations.

  34. I’m calling Warringah for Zochling Says:
    October 25th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
    The other day Howard said to some seniors “never trust Labor with money”.
    I think you have summarised very succintly the claptrap that the conservatives have used over the centuries to try to marginalise the ordinary people of the world.
    Unfortunately they have often succeeded as exemplified by the blue-coolar Howard’s battlers!!

  37. The deep, deep irony is that whilst the message is “Only the middle class can be trusted with they money” – an elitist message – anyone who criticises the message is called an “ay-lite” or a “latte sipper”.

  40. Been There at 680 – I am also very interested in the superannuation question. From the earliest days the Coalition opposed some aspects of the superannuation guarantee as per The Accord. In an article in AFR (p.4) on December 21985 Deborah Snow in an article called “Unions Forcing Pace on Superannuation’ stated that John Howard, then the Leader of the Opposition claimed a particular deal ‘created a $3billion a year “slush” fund which would be controlled by union bosses and would have “huge implications for the future balance of economic and industrial power in Australia”’ . The rhetoric hasn’t changed much.

  42. [Yep, I agree with Antonio @ 671, Keating should not be used too much by Labor this time around. Actually, neither should Hawke be used too much, even though he is much more popular than Keating. ]

    Keating never is used. Why should we go along with the coalition’s myth that they are good at economic management?

  43. The problem, Swing Lowe, is that it may be true that Keating and Hawke are only used for marginal seat campaigning, but whenever they say anything interesting, it is reported nationally. Rudd himself is perfectly capable of defending unions and Labor’s economic record, and did a pretty good job in the debate (though briefly).

    Rudd and Labor could put a bit more emphasis on Labor’s introduction of universal superannuation though. That’s been a winner for individuals and the economy as a whole, and was (and still is) a factor in wage restraint. And the rich have done even better out of it than the poor, so there are a lot of Howard supporters who could do with a reminder about super. Howard and business opposed universal super at the time, saying the nation couldn’t afford to introduce it. I think time has proved that the nation could not have afforded NOT to introduce it – it’s the only real attempt at national savings there’s been in recent years. Everything else has gone on the credit card.

  44. From Michael Gordon in today’s Age.

    “The truth of it is that Howard, whose appeal has always been as the ordinary man with extraordinary convictions and determination, succumbed to hubris, just as Keating did at times before him. ”

    Hubris. Who’da thunk it?

  45. 686,

    Wish we could co-opt Fraser for this campaign. Can you imagine the image and how the publicity would be good/bad for both sides? :):)

  47. I kinda liked it when the old guy had a go at Rudd. Imagine if we were singing along in some group and JWH appeared with camera crews and sang along. I would do something similar.

  49. Tassie readers,

    If there isn’t a poll on Lateline, can you report who or whom is the interview tonight? Thanks 🙂 …. don’t want to stay up another 45 minutes unless it is worth it 😉

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