Morgan: 57.5-42.5

Morgan’s weekly face-to-face poll has the two-party gap widening to 57.5-42.5 from 56-44 last week. Labor’s primary vote is up 2 per cent to 49 per cent, while the Coalition’s is down from 39.5 per cent to 39 per cent. The sample size was 1086.

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.

49 comments on “Morgan: 57.5-42.5”

  1. Chris B (1) – I’ve seen one Labor ad raising the spectre of further IR changes if the Libs are re-elected, and it should be pretty effective. However, I don’t venture on to commercial TV very often, so I couldn’t say how often its running. I do know that the ACTU ads will start to intensify over the next three weeks, and (having seen a few of them also), they will also have an impact.

    As for Morgan, more of the same flatlining 55-45 (or MOE) figure. It’s becoming more and more likely that those figures will equate the final election result. The ALP landslide that we’ve been seeing all year is getting closer.

  2. Standby for the Australian’s new tactic of running marginal seat polling instead of national polling, because it’s easier to spin the Coalition’s way.

  3. oh this is starting to get real and exciting … I do love a move in the right direction and don’t bore me with margin of error and nothing is changing rhetoric, just let me enjoy the right direction.

  4. [Has anyone noticed the ALP has yet to start its campaign? I still think starting next week, we’ll see the ads.]

    Labor has been running anti-WorkChoices ads for the last 4 days in S.A.

    These are actual Labor adverts, not union adverts.

  5. Did anyone notice that the smirks wife revealed yesterday that the intestinally challeged one ‘lays awake at night worrying about average people’ and practices his funny speech lines – the ones that get the press gallery and the govt hordes in a lather and appall everyone else- in the shower…..I kind of disturbing insight into life with the great man. When you get your wife out to tell stories like this you know you’re in trouble.

  6. Peter Andren’s sad death is a real loss. The NSW state example suggests that Independents have been able to pass on their vote. Might Calare voters be even more encouraged to pay homage to his legacy by supporting Gavin Priestley?

  7. Geoff

    I was going to ask the same question re Andren and Priestley as I believe Andren endorsed Priestley as a worthy representitive.

    However Mack did the same in North Sydney with I believe no luck as it went liberal and same with Hatton in the South Coast where his son ran, but again it went liberal.

    Mack and Hatton were true independents with the same respect as Andren but could annoint successors.

  8. Liberal and Labor are both putting Nick Xenophon last for the Senate in SA. But even if he doesn’t get a quota in his own right, he’ll sail in on the preferences of The Greens and Family First.

    Family First will preference sitting Coalition MPs in all seats but has not yet decided on preferences where there is no sitting Coalition MP.

    The Democrats will preference Nicole Cornes in Boothby and Mia Handshin in Sturt, departing from their usual split ticket policy.

    Wonder where DLP Senate preferencdes will go?

  9. [Liberal and Labor are both putting Nick Xenophon last for the Senate in SA. But even if he doesn’t get a quota in his own right, he’ll sail in on the preferences of The Greens and Family First.]

    Labor’s decision doesnt make sense. Xenephon is an anti-WorkChoices candidate. It doesn’t make sense to put him below the Liberals.

  10. Putting Xenophon last makes sense for them because neither of them wants to upset Tattersall’s Tabcorp and PBL, although they both say they do. Anyway, NX is too hard for them to handle and they don’t know how to deal with him, as evidenced by the SA experience. I’m not sure from here how he’s travelling, BTW – any SA PBs who can give us a rundown?

  11. Politics lecturer Haydon Manning surmises in the Sunday Mail that the SA Senate breakdown will be two Labor, two Liberal and Xenophon, with the last place going to The Greens or the third Labor candidate.

  12. Molotov, a preference deal between Labor and the Greens was announced last night. Peter Martin from the Canberra Times has an article about the effects in the ACT, and then there was this on Bennelong:

    Prime Minister John Howard faces an even tougher fight for his Sydney seat of Bennelong because of a preference deal between Labor and the Greens.

    The Galaxy Poll in the Telegraph shows preferences from the Greens may decide the outcome of the battle between Mr Howard and Labor’s star recruit Maxine McKew.

    It shows the PM holding 46 per cent support compared to 47 for the former ABC broadcaster.

    The Greens and Labor have agreed to swap preferences, which after distribution would give Labor a four point lead of 52 per cent to 48.

  13. The ALP housing affoordability plan is a dud, economically speaking, and for the same reason that first buyer grants are.
    By adding to the demand for housing without any balancing move to increase supply [in itself difficult for the more desiarable parts of cities] this will simply feed direcctly into house prices that will be higher than they otherwisw would have been.

    Thus it will be an added benefit for existing home owners who decide to sell, not first home buyers at all.

  14. Interesting piece by Shaun Carney in yesterday’s Age. He reports that (Nielson pollster) John Stirton has ‘done the averages’ for each federal election since 1996 and discovered that, with the exception of 2001, the difference between the average TPP through the campaign and the actual TPP was merely a fraction of 1%:

    “For example, at the last election, between Howard and Mark Latham, the Government’s average two-party preferred vote through the campaign was 52.2 per cent. On election day, it secured 52.7 per cent of the vote.”

    So much for The Narrowing

    Carney comment

  15. Xenophon says he’s splitting his preferences between The Greens and Family First in return for their support. Eventually, I think he also splits his preferences between Labor and Liberal.

  16. S

    I’m starting to get concerned about these bribes by both sides.

    We could be going into economic hardship and I’m not sure if any side can deliver on these.

    It is a sad day when Australians will cast their vote depending who will give them the most at the expense of the future generations.

  17. scaper, parties rarely deliver on their election promises. They’re just ‘re-gifted’ at the next election usually. How many of the election promises at the ’04 election were carried through with?

    I’m going to reject popular opinion and predict Xenephon will miss out on the Senate seat in SA. I’ve seen no evidence he’ll win it, and being preferenced last by both majors will, I think, put it just out of reach. How much publicity is he getting in SA as a Senate candidate?

  18. Phil Robinson 04 Nov 2007 at 12:59 pm
    Xenophon says he’s splitting his preferences between The Greens and Family First in return for their support. Eventually, I think he also splits his preferences between Labor and Liberal.

    So if FF gets nocked out (or vise versa, the Greens do) will the other half of the split ticket go to the Greens? If you get my drift

  19. Gary Bruce, it all depends on the Galaxy result. Who knows what that will be? So the markets could presumably still come down.

  20. scaper, i suspect your a youngster as most people have no faith at all in election promises/bribes/initiatives/whatever. We all know it’s crap.
    Every election i can remember (since 1966) there have been lots of promises about
    tax cuts and spending, i suspect the last time it had any real traction was Fraser’s ‘fist full of dollars’ back in the 70’s.
    So relax about the money stuff; it’s the vibe man, the vibe that counts.

  21. Darn (12.27) – I’ve seen a couple of ACTU ads that I’ve been told are going to air later in the campaign – I believe there’s a strategy to slowly turn up up the heat as the election approaches. I haven’t personally seen them on TV before, but if it’s not during a sports telecast, I’m unlikely to be watching commercial TV, so I couldn’t tell you if they’re brand spanking new or not. I do think, though, that they’ll be pretty effective – not only WC horror stories, and “what will they do next” hypotheticals, but pretty unsubtle reminders that this election is the one and only chance that people will have to knock over WorkChoices. If the government wins, we’re stuck with it. My thinking is that that line of attack will work pretty well.

  22. I’ve just read about the most *alarming* thing (from the Liberals point of view) that’s happened in this election campaign so far; an ALP leader is campaigning in the seat of COOK announcing a a major policy!!!

    I’m grew up in The Shire was an active ALP member there for quite a few years and the last time I recall an ALP leader making an appearance there was 1983, when it was a marginal seat that Labor just failed to win.

    There’s no way ALP head office would waste the precious time of their leader in a seat like Cook (13.3% swing required to win) unless they thought they were a shot of winning the seat. Which means that the ALP must be detecting some pretty huge swings in NSW in their private polling.

  23. Having watched Press the Meat on 10 and listening to David Briggs I think he’s doing a Sol Lebovich and coming around to the view that the Libs are facing a rout.

  24. I campaigned in Macquarie (Blackheath) with Bob Debus yesterday and the response to Kevin Rudd’s 10 point climate change plan brochure we were handing out was really positive. Very little negative feedback and an overwhelming number of people who accepted brochures, bought t-shirts, took bumper stickers and said “good on’yer” or “don’t worry about it – you’ve already got my vote).

    Even quite a few Liberal party types (well dressed, expensive clothes, & jewellery, negative body language when sighting the ALP stall etc) were taking the brochure saying things like, “I’ll take a look”, when we announced as “Kevin Rudd’s climate change plan”.

    Meanwhile, down the other end of the street, local Lib Kerry Bartlett wandered around looking for someone to talk to.

    There was also a Your Rights at Work stall in the local park, where markets were being held and they did a roaring trade handing out their balloons and signing up people to their petition.

    Debus may struggle in the western (Bathurst) end of this electorate where his profile isn’t as strong (apparently Bartlett has been working quite hard at that end), but I think he’ll strongly outpoll Bartlett from the lower mountains to Lithgow.

    I’m predicting a comfortable win for Labor in Macquarie.

  25. Yes Hugo, I agree with you that that would be a strong message.

    We also had Howard telling a meeting of business people that if the Coalition were returned at this election WorkChoices would stay.

    They need to emphasise the underlying (and already held) perception that the Liberal Party are the party of big business. People distrust big business more than the unions.

  26. Just posted this in last thread so will move it to here.

    Well I finally got off my backside yesterday and spent the day campaigning for ALP at a park stall in the very safe lib seat (13.9%) of McPherson. An amazing day and we were absolutely flooded with best wishes and cheers for Eddy Sarroff (local ALP candidate).

    No one mentioned the Garrett incident, not once. In fact seems no one is bothering to listen to any Lib stuff at all, all the talk was about Howard being past it and tricky, Rudd being positive about the country, need to fix the hospitals and of course workchoices.

    Considering McPherson is such a safe lib seat we were overwhelmed with the amount of support and encouragement we got and with how many people indicated they were ditching the libs this election. Rudd is very popular here and I have heard Maragaret May (won the seat for Libs in 98) has basically resigned herself to being over run by the ALP swing.

  27. Youngster?

    I’m flattered I think….

    I’ll tell you guys something…two years ago I knew jack about the political landscape and I can not tell you at what point it changed but I can tell you why.

    I have watched our great nation and people slide into an abyss created by the slimy social engineering of what will be known as our worst leader in history and that is the point that I decided to not only speak out but to get into the ears of the politicians who I think that can reverse the situation.

    Also because of my project I had to get on line to get my message out and I couldn’t even use a mouse two years ago!

    So please bear with me as I am still learning, but I must be getting it pretty right, as you can judge for yourselves by seeing my work at Blogocracy and Meganomics.

    I hope this explains my position.

    Respectfully,

    scaper…

  28. Sideline Eye,

    Exactly. Cook? WTF? Hughes, I could understand, Macarthur, Lindsay, Dobell, Robertson, even Greenway maybe, but Cook?

    Maybe we’ve found where that swing the Newspoll marginals poll is missing went to.

  29. I live in Bonner and run a small accounting practice – going by what a lot of clients are saying -its obvious Labor is going to do very well in SE Qld – even several Lib voting business clients are resigned to a Labor victory. There will be big swings in Bowman, Forde, Fadden and McPherson. The demograpics have seriously changed in the last 3 years and when you deduct the Latham factor (which got Bonner over the line in 04) plus Workchoices and Howard’s promise on interest rates then I believe Bowman will fall, Mcpherson and Forde a chance and Fadden a good prospect in 10. I havent been this excited since 89 when Gossie knocked off those Nats with their gerrymander. I had a small part to play in the Fitzgerald inquiry which gave me some insight into the Bjelke-Peterson Govt. and was so glad to see the end of those corrupt bastards.

  30. Group tickets up. Labor have preferenced Xenophon in SA. Labor have done well with the minor parties. Except of course the forces of darkness- libs, pornography first, DLP, Fred Nile, CEC (raving monster looney party), and the conservatives for climate change ( i new they were dummy candidates for the Coalition).

  31. Sideline Eye @ 1.46 pm,

    Good to see you fighting the good fight.

    I too believe that Debus will win Macquarie however my understanding of the electorate is at odds with yours.

    If you look at Adams maps of the electorate you will see that the east end is predominantly conservative and it is not till you are west of Hazelbrook and Lawson that a shades of pink tends to creep in. Lithgow and Bathurst are traditional Labor areas (ie Ben Chifley country) and I would have thought that these areas would still be Labor strongholds as is indicated by Adam’s maps. As an example I think that there is only one Labor booth east of Woodford

    I would have thought that this would be why Bartlett would be campaigning at the western end of the Division because unless he got some support from these western areas he would have no hope.

    You are right n saying that the Debus is well known in the eastern end of the electorate for this was the basis of his state seat. However, from memory I thought that the Labor support at a State election did not carry across all that well at a Federal level.

    However, when you are lifting a beer on election night to Bob’s win please raise one in the memory of Duncan for he would have been overjoyed at a Labor win. It is just a pity that he did not live long enough to see it.

  32. WhogivesaRats,

    You’re right; lefty refugees from the inner-city of Sydney only really start to kick-in at Hazelbrook, and from then on heading westwards, Labor’s vote becomes stronger. Whereas, many of the suburbs east of Woodford have in the past been pro-Liberal.

    But I was taking a more broadbrush approach here; the mountains region down to Lithgow overall will be better for Labor than west of Lithgow, simply because of the demographics (not many farmers in the former region, but many in the later) and Debus’ profile in his old state patch.

    Just on the east of Woodford area, I don’t regard them as rusted on Liberal and in a high-tide Labor election, like this one is looking to be, I believe they will swing hard to Labor. If you look at the socio-economic profile of people in this area they are pretty similar to (but may be a notch or two higher up the scale than) those that have voted for Jackie Kelly down around the Penrith area (eg Blaxland is known as “Penfiff Heights”).

  33. Scaper & Seajay, re. extravagant promises and the keeping/breaking thereof.
    Professor David Butler was an English political scientist, who began observing Australian elections in the (mid to late) 1960s. He was the first person I heard described as a psephologist, which brought the word to my attention.
    He remarked about the different nature of a policy speech in Australia compared to a party manifesto in GB. In Britain, the manifestos were much more general philosophical statements. In listening to the Oz policy speeches, Butler saw them as a kind of shopping list of detailed money-specific undertakings, which he observed seemed to be pitched at some hypothetical suburban voter, who was tallying up his personal profit and loss associated with each party’s promises, and then using the comparative tallies to decide which way he would vote.
    Whitlam’s obsessive attitude to “the program” probably ended all that, as his determination to honour what he considered to be binding commitments, when the economy turned sour, was a significant contributory factor to the Labor Government’s decline towards the disaster of the dismissal election.

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