Reuters poll trend: 54.8-45.2

Reuters’ fortnightly labour-saving device, Poll Trend, shows the two-party gap narrowing to 54.8-45.2 from 56.2-43.8 last time out. This is achieved by aggregating results from Newspoll, Morgan and ACNielsen and “smoothing volatility by using a five-term Henderson moving average”. Labor’s primary vote is down from 48.3 per cent to 47.8 per cent, with the Coalition up from 39.5 per cent to 40.8 per cent. A weekly breakdown shows that almost all of this movement came in the week before last.

UPDATE: Surprising news from SportingBet: “punters have flocked to the Coalition since this morning’s rate rise with 96% of money bet with Australia’s biggest bookmaker, Sportingbet Australia, going to the Coalition since the Reserve Bank’s announcement was made”.

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.

658 comments on “Reuters poll trend: 54.8-45.2”

Comments Page 13 of 14
1 … 12 13 14

  3. Havent been watching much TV lately, so might have missed something.

    If Labor wants to remind the voters about what was said about interest rates in 2004, why cant they replay a 2004 liberal ad like the one below superimposing “2004 Liberal Ad” and finishing up with authorised by XXXX.

    “How much will an increase in interest rated cost on a $200,000 mortgage?”

    “0.5% increase, you pay $83 dollars a month extra”

    “A 1.0% increase, you pay $167 dollars a month extra”

    “2.0% increase, you pay $333 dollars a month extra”

    “And if they rose to the average they were last time labor were in power you
    pay $950 a month extra, and that’s after tax.”

    “Mark Latham and interest rates. good luck”.

    I’m pretty sure this one was on tele a bit longer than two nights and to me it
    gives the impression they were telling the punters we can avoid a 2% increase. But that’s just me.

  4. CL @ 599. That’s certainly what I’ve been hearing this morning. While many of the houses (especially in the US), still think the economy’s in for a soft-landing, and that while there might be a recession in corporate earnings, it shouln’t have such an impact on the overall economy, every piece of research I’ve seen over the past few days flags near-term serious disruption. I don’t agree that this stuff should automatically favor Howard as a safe pair of hands, but Rudd needs to come up with a cut-through response that completely squashes this new line.

  5. Well, I might let first year students ruminate on this, viz:

    Question: Discuss the impact of the policy formerly known as “Workchoices” in the campaign formerly known as “Go for Growth”.

    (20 marks)

  6. Seat of Sydney, Johnnie’s here, but only on postal vote application forms. Bugger knows who the Lib candidate is around here anyway.

  7. According to the GG.

    The Nation Top Stories
    Ben Cousins ‘back in Australia’
    Balibo Five ‘cover-up’ claim
    Aussie tipoff in child sex arrests
    AFP to raise armoured unit
    Ban on toy containing party drug

    And not one mention of Interest Rate Rises.

  10. DEO – sorry, for the delay just wanted to check a couple of things:
    Hasluck is looking good
    Stirling is close
    Brand is close – suprisingly.
    Swan is close

    Taking the middle ground WA is being seen as win one lose one -so break even.

    Other points from some smaller sates if you are interested:
    Tassie – Franklin had resources moved out of it and into Braddon because Franklin is looking good, Braddon was looking bad but the hospital mess is making it look good again. Expecting to get 4 out of 5 there, but a clean sweep is not out of the question.

    SA, looking like a gain of 3 – Makin and Wakefield and whatever the hell the one that has about 80 votes in it (been running on about 4 hours sleep a night for 4 weeks now so mind is slowly turning to mush), although a couple of others are certainly in play.

    NT – Solomon depends on the day at the moment. Hopeful, but one of the problems there is that organising on the ground is anything but organised to be honest and it is one of those seats where the locals get annoyed if too many people are flown in to help.

    Oh, on the downside Bob Debus is in a real ding dong battle in Macquarie. The redistribution of Bathhurst from Calare into electorate is making it tough on both sides. Andren was loved there so now people don’t know what to do.

    But I should stress that this election is still up for grabs, there has been no corks popped at all.

    To me though it does smell of Vic in ’99 around the place.

  13. Say, Scorp and mad cow.

    If still there. Advice re broadband. Not actually off topic. Recollect I had the 12g etc broadband offer? Guess What? Telstra letter today. Some ambiguous inability to connect me to ADSL? Cannot do my number on exchange. Which I know to be absolute rubbish. Now, I rarely swear on line. But. WTF?

    A futile hour and a half on phone, to Telstra. Some Telstraists agree. Also, WTF?

    Seems that they have no ADSL ‘spots’ left on the exchange.

    But can get same package, sounds like, via cable, in street. I did say, this is a contract, you are held to it.

    Their line kept dropping out.

  14. Glen,I didn’t speak in terms of only one man.I spoke of the parties and the make up of the Parliament.To reduce the argument of experience to one man only is patently ridiculous.It takes more than your superhero to run a government after all.Your experience argument is still unsupported and is still quite silly.The only ppl perhaps supportive of it would be the great dictators of the 20th Century(your choice as to political persuasion!!)

  16. I never said that i’ve always maintained that Labor’s front bench is much more inexperienced compared to ours.

    My good standards of experience.

    MP more than 10 years.

    Shadow Minister for 3-4 years in the same portfolio.

    Opposition Leader for at least 3 years.

    I don’t think this is too much to ask for Bob, i’d expect it of the Coalition if we were in Opposition.

    What you fail to understand is that you can gain experience in Opposition but the current ALP front bench and leadership team is very inexperienced. Rudd and Gillard have been MPs for less than 10 years and been leaders for less than 1 year. And many of Labor’s front benchers haven’t been in the one portfolio for more than 3 years either let alone been in Parliament for 10 years.

  19. [Crikey, Internode are now doing a special deal for telstra ‘rejects’.]

    Unless Internode have their own infrastructure in Crikey’s exchange, then the no spare ports problem will still occour.

    Crikey,

    If you want to see how many ports are free in your exchange go here:

    http://www.telstrawholesale.com/products/access_broadband_reports.htm

    clicking on the second and third links in the table will allow you to download excel files which will tell you how many free ports there are and when Telstra will add additional ports.

  20. I can highly recommend internode meself!

    Dont normally plug – but frankly, i need all you election obsessed cats reliably online to

    a. endure my own complusive electoral blathering
    b. furnish me with electoral minutiae otherwise not within my grasp
    c. generally make me feel less alone in this deranged and monomaniacal state.

  24. Cl @ 608. Not sure at this point, as it opens in 8 mins and everyone’s a bit frantic. Will chase up and get back to you if there’s anything telling that not also being splashed across yr screens over there.

    BTW, CD @ 615. Amazing stuff.

  25. Thanks, mad cow.

    Additionally, more than infuriating, as I said to the Telstraists.

    The friend I asked Telstra to contact, upon their offer to me, accepted the offer and installed her modem today, though not wifi, unlike me, and has gone from dial up to delighted, as she had no idea of the difference it would make.

    The ambiguous letter suggested no adsl to my phone. Rot, as said.

    The phone call concessions are nice, but the cable stuff, as I push this contract, would surely be attractive? Speed matters? And I would ensure that they installed for free.

  27. Great, 619 Frank Calabrese, will check.

    Did have Telstra checking exactly that this afternoon, but usual carry on, as I have said.

  28. [Rudd and Gillard have been MPs for less than 10 years and been leaders for less than 1 year. And many of Labor’s front benchers haven’t been in the one portfolio for more than 3 years either let alone been in Parliament for 10 years.]

    Hmm, I see what you mean, as those fresh new members are totally outperforming their tired opposites maybe you have a point there. Yes, you’re right Glen, it is indeed time for fresh new people with fresh ideas and vision for the future, new leadership sounds pretty good 🙂

  31. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22721389-952,00.html

    PM seeks more trust

    JOHN Howard will plead for another leap of faith from the battler voters he has built his prime ministership on in a last-ditch effort to remain in office.

    Mr Howard, whose Coalition fought and won the 2004 campaign on a platform of keeping interest rates low, apologised to voters for the latest increase, but said this was not the time to change government.

    …… Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said it was game over for the Prime Minister, who had broken faith with the people once too often.

    How low can you go?

  32. Well, looks like Howard has more problems, it is still raining in Brisbane and the first cricket test starts today. Might have to don the raincoat and fly back to Bennelong nothing to see here.

  33. VoterBoy, thanks for that. Sounds like an interesting day or two ahead!

    Chris in LDN – thanks also. AU$ now apparently around 94USC. When will it hit par?

    This is all going to play into the campaign. Hope Ruddie knows how to play it. Swan on Lateline tonight was very calm and sober, wouldn’t promise anything to help the battlers pay their mortgages other than infrastructure and capacity enhancement programs (education etc). Looks much more responsible than Costello at the present. PC looks distinctly unhappy.

    Have a fun day guys! The Newspoll state by state should be fun …

  34. ,blockquote>JOHN Howard’s past has come back to bite him, with more than 100,000 Australians to be officially “mortgage stressed” as of this week.

    And a fired-up Kevin Rudd yesterday moved to cash in on that economic uncertainty – all but calling John Howard a liar and urging voters not to give him another chance after breaching their trust on interest rates.

    In one of his strongest attacks of the campaign, Mr Rudd said Mr Howard’s credibility was in tatters after the sixth interest rate rise since the last election, when the Coalition promised to keep them at record lows.

    Mr Rudd accused Mr Howard of a “pattern of inaction” and demanded he accept full and unqualified responsibility for the rate rises, which he said would put extra pressure on working Australian families already struggling from rising petrol and grocery prices.

    “Mr Howard today was still arguing the toss about whether in fact his promise to the Australian people back in 2004 was seriously meant or not,” Mr Rudd said.

    “Well, working families did take Mr Howard seriously, they voted for him and he has breached trust with them on this core undertaking on interest rates.”

    Shadow treasurer Wayne Swan said neither the Prime Minister nor Treasurer Peter Costello understood the “new interest rate reality”, and the debilitating impact any rises had on the community.

    “They don’t understand the fact that these days you have to borrow three times as much, so a relatively small nominal interest rate rise carries a really big punch,” Mr Swan said.

    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22721494-5013650,00.html

    Howard needs credibility to convince 540,000 voters to change back to him in the next 16 days, around 34,000 a day, and methinks he’s blown it.

  38. Letterman just showed Bush congratulating Howard on his “Grandfatherhood” as part of the “Great Moment in Presidential Speeches.

  39. Have to say Ross Gittens is the best and most straight forward economic editor we have. George M is getting there but Ross is still more straight forward.

    ohn Howard claims rates are up because inflation is up and inflation is up because of the drought and the world price of oil. But, like many of the things he says about interest rates, it isn’t true.

    The drought has had little effect on the consumer price index so far and petrol prices in the September quarter were actually lower than a year earlier. In any case, the Reserve Bank explicitly ignores such volatile price movements, focusing on “underlying” inflation pressure.

    No, inflation pressure is building because the economy has been growing too strongly for too long. So much for Go for Growth.

    …..
    As to Mr Howard’s claim to be better able to limit future rate rises than Labor because Labor plans to recentralise wage fixing, it’s another lie.

    In any case, he is implying that wage rises would be lower under the Libs.

    Although Labor is hardly any better, Mr Howard has form when it comes to misleading the electorate about interest rates. Is it so gullible as to be conned two elections in a row?

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/dont-believe-crocodile-tears/2007/11/07/1194329318917.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

  40. Have to post this observation from Peter Hartcher, it really cracked me up

    Howard adds a new concept in evasiveness

    Howard has tried to talk his way out of it. He even invented a new concept in evasiveness yesterday to add to his other creations, the “non-core” promise and the “two-night” promise. Asked if he should be accountable for his 2004 pledge to keep rates at record lows, he said voters shouldn’t look at every one of his utterances but only at the “aggregate impression” of what he had said.

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/howard-adds-a-new-concept-in-evasiveness/2007/11/07/1194329318908.html

  41. Ahh Hartcher is finally unravelling Howie and Glen’s other great lie.

    And the “aggregate impression” of his last campaign, Howard said, was that rates would always be higher under Labor.

    This is the line that the Coalition is running in its new anti-Labor attack ad. It is not true – average mortgage rates were higher in the Fraser years than in the Whitlam years, for instance.

    And Labor’s wages policy is no longer inflationary. Howard claimed yesterday that Labor would reintroduce pattern bargaining, allowing a wage rise in one firm to be applied automatically to others.

    But this is another false claim by Howard. Labor is the party that first broke the pattern when it introduced enterprise bargaining in 1993. And its new industrial relations policy specifically prohibits pattern bargaining.

    Labor would be no better – it is promising to mimic Howard’s inflationary fiscal policy – but it is most unlikely to be any worse.

    Howard’s attempt to spin his way out of this one is desperate and dishonest. For the 40 per cent of households that have mortgages, rate rises are spin-resistant.

  42. b4 i read the squillion posts i need to add my suppory to bb – mate i gave up 26 weeks 1 day ago =- a paltry 25 a day 16mg a day man – CT – i still wake up dreaming of a fag – but – my dad said i’d NEVER give up – he was an unimaginative prick (QED a queenslander) and he died of emphasema – PLEASE just say no to just ONE fag – the FIRST one (ps i went CT 2)

  43. Howard also argued today that most people wouldn’t have even seen his 2004 comment at the time, so it didn’t really count.

    He is an unmitigated shameless liar.

  44. Haha now George is on the case of Howie and Cossie myth of the “big lie” 🙂

    The thing that always stood out about the recession Howard presided over as treasurer in the Fraser government was that interest rates and unemployment jumped to double digits, together.

    Stagflation was always a poor term to explain what really happened back then.

    It made the economy sound like a slothful prehistoric creature, when it was, in fact, spinning madly out of control. Australia blew hot and cold all at once, like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

    Not even Gough Whitlam’s government could claim a record that miserable, if you follow the surreal present-day narrative of team Howard-Costello that whatever happens in an economy is entirely the government’s doing.

    Costello’s chart was more meaningful than the one the Prime Minister took to his press conference yesterday. Howard’s graph began in 1983.

    ,,, It was a plainly political chart because Howard didn’t want to remind people what Australia looked like before Labor transformed the economy.

    But Costello did. He added a second line, unemployment, and pushed the table back to 1975, so three regimes could be studied – Fraser-Howard (1977-83), Hawke-Keating (1983-96) and Howard-Costello (since 1996).

    Given the economy did best between 1992 and 2002, the kudos must be shared equally between Hawke-Keating and Howard-Costello. But that was then.

    On any honest reading of Costello’s graph, Australia is in a dangerous place at the moment. The low-inflation jobs boom is well and truly behind us. Inflation is stirring.

    The Coalition could have pointed this out before now, say in 2005 or last year. It might have given voters some inkling that we are in the middle of a new interest rates paradigm.
    …
    Good economic, and political, management is about keeping the surprises to a minimum.

    Team Howard-Costello never really expected to front the media yesterday to explain an interest rate hike to voters.

    That’s why they were forced to change messages mid-campaign. From Go for Growth to Hang On and Hope.

    http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics/index.php/theaustralian/comments/line_dancing_labors_way/

    Love the last line George, From Go for Growth to Hang On and Hope. 🙂

  45. From the Liberal Party website account of the PM’s press conferece today.

    JOURNALIST:
    In 2004, the 7th of October, […] you said you would keep interest rates at record lows. Why did you mislead the Australian people when you said that in 2004?
    PRIME MINISTER:
    Clinton, in an election campaign there are a lot of things said and not everybody listens to every interview, not even somebody as attentive as you would listen to every interview and read every newspaper article.

    http://www.liberal.org.au/team/johnhoward/documents/07112007PressConferenceBrisbane.pdf

    The new Liberal Party 2007 election slogan: “You Didn’t Hear it, So He Didn’t Mean It”

  46. When John Howard makes that doesn’t happen he will never accept the blame, never accept he made any such promise or redefine his promise as a ‘non-core’ promise (something he never intended to do).

    In other words you cannot accept anything John Howard says because he will say he didn’t say what you think he said. Who do you trust? How can anyone trust a man who has difficulty accepting what he has said when it is on the record in text and tape?

    When John Howard asks ‘who can you trust’ – it is actually he that is one of the most untrustworthy politicians around. Wonder if the public will ever work that one out?

  47. ESJ – WAY earlier – #40 or so -m it’s obvious u like the sinjin appellation – but i would dearly love you to expound on your wisdom – and its derivation – you know the kinda stuff – betta blood – betta schools – um – …

  49. Actually Midland is in the Federal Seat of Hasluck, not Swan.

    Oh and the Doctor’s Union are opposed to these Clinics as they are “Impersonal and Beaurocratic”

    OH and what about large Privately run Medical Centres ??

    [FEDERAL Labor’s plan to fund two GP super clinics in Perth has nothing to do with the fact they are in marginal seats, opposition health spokeswoman Nicola Roxon says.

    Campaigning in Perth today, Ms Roxon announced a Labor government would invest $5 million to establish a GP super clinic in suburban Wanneroo, in the Labor-held marginal seat of Cowan.

    The same amount would be provided for another clinic in Midland, and also in Labor’s other marginal West Australian seat of Swan.

    Ms Roxon said Midland was chosen because of a doctor shortage in the area, while Wanneroo was a growing area with many young families.]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22718438-5006789,00.html

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 13 of 14
1 … 12 13 14