Senate and Page polls

Morgan has published a survey of Senate voting intention aggregated from its polling over October. As usual the minor party figures look a little inflated, while major party support reflects the slight improvement the Coalition seems to have managed during the campaign. We also have a poll of 300 voters in Page conducted by Grafton’s Daily Examiner and Lismore’s Northern Star, which they stress is “not intended to be scientifically accurate”. It shows Labor’s Janelle Saffin with a decisive primary vote lead over Nationals candidate Chris Gulaptis, 44 per cent to 41 per cent. A poor level of recorded support for the Greens is not of interest in itself, but it elicits an admission from candidate Theo Jongen that the party’s vote is “running at six per cent”, compared with 10.8 per cent in 2004.

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.

986 comments on “Senate and Page polls”

Comments Page 17 of 20
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  1. Howard can solve the skills crisis and education in just one of his 1950s idea: just send all the school kids into cadets. Howard has always been anti-education since he first cut Federal funding to ribbons in 1996.

    Rudd has picked on exactly the right points to differentiate himself from Howard – investment in education and financial responsibility. He is still giving everyone making less than $180,000 most of the tax cuts anyway, but instead of wsating a lot of $ on pork, has targetted the rest where it is needed, and kept under Howard’s own target of a 15 GDP budget surplus. Strategically, I think this is excellently targetted campaign by Rudd.

  2. Rates Analyst: It’s not a disservice when you teach students about calculus (showing what a derivative or and integral is), plotting graphs, statistics and that. Yes its a disservice when it comes to arithmetic, so I think it’s a much of a muchness when it comes to maths. It can also be used for the 2 extremes of learning, the accelerated learning and the special needs learning.

  5. Jude. spot on. for 11 years the libs have been reinforcing that Lab screwed it all up. being a safe pair of hands for the economy is an essential message that they must get through to voters.

  8. Red Wombat nailed it withe the’Howard gives flagpoles’comment.It was a very good well controlled presentation…climate change and education came through with passion. The educations chapters are nationbuilding, and make one feel proud to be an Australian again….here we will have in two weeks a Prime Minister who values traditional labor values, and learning. What a contrast.
    No meetooism here!

  10. Sean 775….

    As I said mate playing devils advocate 😉 sadly I do read the papers.. nearly all of them, and particularly the Fin….Just thinking of what the msm could come up with as spin… no matter how many Ross Gitten’s are out there writing articles about overheating, if the Shanahan’s and Milne’s of this world try and spin it the other way sadly the economists will be drowned out. Still the impact of spending isn’t that crucial in the context of how much they have spent, more where they spend it.

  13. Oh, good to see they used QLD for their launch; the state with the lowest unemployment but the one that has 1500 people/week moving in to it. Last I looked they were also awash in cash. Great move, and Bligh is right about it’s time for a QLDer to run the country.

  17. I don’t have pay TV so I’ve never seen Speers in action before, watching him on the web stream is excruciating. He’s not in the Piers/Bolta league, but he’s pretty lame.

    Again with the ‘hip pocket’ crap. Computers in schools man! Free Pre School! Don’t you get it?

  18. Steven Kaye

    Australia has the most concentrated printed media in the western world – 70% murdock -its shades of greyof the right and they are normally not party politically fair – commercial TV is just that – no investigative journalism except sunday program and that’s being dumped down….commerical radio is just opinion, no independent information and investigative journalism – its not informing, just opinion and there is not diversity as well…
    THen theirs ABC/SBS – any movements the ABC has to the left on a values basis are very small but it does most investigative stuff/independent info

    the SMH barely moves from the middle – its centre/slight left – and is party politically independent – basically the US and Australian media there is no ideological diversity and its mostly opinion based, not information…

    the famous double standard of the media: people who are centre/left leaning bending over backwards to feed hard questions to both sides/and ideological diversity – when it comes the the real rapid right whingers, the same respect is not shown…

  19. 767
    mike Says:
    November 14th, 2007 at 3:19 pm

    Playing devils advocate here… the spending from both parties is fairly reasonable as a proportion of GDP, and neither side’s will have that huge an impact on inflation, compared to say the price of oil reaching, and staying at, US$100. Both will be coming out with a surplus in any case. The MSM could easily run this line and take the air out of the fiscal conservative spin of Rudd.
    …..
    mike, the trouble with your thinking is that loose fiscal policy (bribes to voters) will increase aggregate demand, adding to inflationary pressure. High oil prices (imposed externally) are in fact deflationary, acting like a tax increase in much the same way as high interest rates: they reduce discretionary spending and subdue demand. Higher prices for goods and services are the result of inflationary pressure, not the cause. If you think this is wrong, consider what happens when you try to put up prices in the absence of adequate demand: sales fall, prices correct downwards and then demand rebuilds.

    Rudd’s policy is less expansionary than Howard’s and is very much to be welcomed for this alone.

  21. Paul K I’m not on another planet. For Maths you’ve got very few programmes… and of these, most are not very effective for learning in the key areas that students need to learn in.

    Plus, you’d need to train all the teachers so they knew how to use the programmes etc. It’s a good first step, but computers for every student isn’t going to solve anything much.

  22. I agree with those who think that Rudd’s decision to spend significantly less than Howard was a very good move.

    A lot more people today have begun to connect the dots. They are beginning to understand that lots of government handouts might help initially, but when they add to inflation and contribute to driving up the cost of living and interest rates, then the short-term gain is ultimately lost.

    Howard is economically reckless. He always has been. He has simply done well to create an impression that he a great economic manager because we have gone through a boom and a lot of commentators in the media have worked hard to prop him up with all the spin that we all know so well. But with rising inflation and interest rates, the lies become much harder to maintain. And I think that is where Howard is right now. And Rudd is capitalising on it.

    Rudd needs to demonstrate that he is a safe pair of hands when it comes to economic issues, and with Howard being so reckless, he has made Rudd’s job VERY easy.

  23. bird @ 593

    Last night at a local campaign debate between ‘The Mad Monk’ and Labor’s Hugh Zochling. A local outreach worker brought up the topic of homelessness, specifically through the Northern Beaches. The first thing all the local Tories started ranting was – ‘that’s a State issue’. Heads firmly up each other arses, just in case they see it.

  25. Mike

    Fear not. All Rudd has to do is quote back to Howard the warnings of Glen Stevens about spending and inflationary pressures. Howard then has to either cnotradict his own Reserve Bank governor, or admit that Labor is right. It effectively uses teh Liberals own fear campaign against themselves: Inflation is coming, I better vote Labor!

  28. Agree Noocat (822). Even on 4 Corners this week one of the women said that
    when you got a tax cut it was eaten up by the next rate rise. People are beginning to understand the Howard sleight-of-hand on this, and his continuing insistence that massive bribes are fiscally responsible just shows them what a liar he is.

  29. My god! The contrast between the stilted, tired Liberal launch and the Ruddster’s effort today! Enough to bring tears to the eye of a spud! This will play well, methinks.

    Generic person: Say something slightly constructive, or piss off.

    Kirribilli Removals: Have you greased the truck? Are you in charge of recovering the bond from Hyacinth? The nation needs to know …

  30. Hey Jude 🙂 @820. A few of his regular barbs though. My favourite:

    ‘acknowledgement of the traditional owners – a genuflection to the new racism to which Labor is so prone.’

  31. re ed@bennelong

    The reinstatement of the dental plan is much needed. The costs of attending the dentist are criminal nowadays. The sign of a country’s wealth is its peoples’ teeth. Too often do I see poor people with missing teeth lately.

  32. hey Thommo,

    in case you missed the last 10 months. Workchoices delivered the whinging Wendys back to Labor.

    Labor are now going after the Leafy Lillians.

    enjoy the next decade pal

  34. [2.02pm: John Faulkner does the introduction. There’s an acknowledgement of the traditional owners – a genuflection to the new racism to which Labor is so prone.] – Nancy Boy Bolt

    Bolt can’t help him self. Why is it racist to acknowledge the traditional owners of Australia? If the High Court of Australia recognises the traditional owners, why can’t the general population?

  35. Well, Pancho @ 830, you can’t have everything! But there are many lines to savour, such as:

    “2:56pm: Tells his wife he hasn’t forgotten it’s his wedding anniversary today. Howard can start packing now.”

  36. I’ve got young kids at school, eldest of whom uses a laptop there.

    We’ve also got broadband, I got the laptop by salary sacrifice, but not all parents can do this.

    The laptop is brilliant for school, kids and teachers are networked and assignments and school work done electronically, research is fantastic thru the web.

    Labors plan to give opportunities to all kids is fair, very fair.

  39. If I may offer my perspective on computers in school. My daughter is in primary school and has been learning maths on computer (internet-based) for some months and she loves it. Interestingly, she was not able to access the program initially due to limited equipment.

    I know that the computer policy applies to secondary school but I believe that computer-based learning is the key to keeping students interested and engaged in the learning process – Im not a teacher so can only speak as a parent.

    I for one am excited by this. Im sure many other parents will be too.

  41. When I went to school, three or four children had to crowd around one slow, crappy computer. You could barely see the screen, let alone have any meaningful educational experience. Having a computer for each kid is amazing – the educational benefits will be astounding.

  42. my favourite line of Rudd’s was the dig that howard thinks computers in schools is exotic (or something like that). really added to the “you’re past it” narrative.

  47. Would have liked a bit more on Higher Ed like changes to HECs thresholds or abolishing differential HECs maybe increade funding per student but its a start.

  48. Observer

    Thanks for your post..homelessness needs to be looked at – The LIberals do not ever really come up with policies for stuff like that …I find arguing with GP so frustrating!!

    as a matter of interest, do you think that Gillard will become PM? Cause she is the true social democrat?…the problem with Labor is that there is some really good people in the ALP (non right wing machine men) who want to move out of neoliberal paradigm but really they get dismissed…I think they will still be the 2nd party of the Right for some time….but its better than this Govt. Whatdo you think?

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