Galaxy: 52-48 in “marginals”

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Galaxy has conducted a poll for SBS’s Insight program showing Labor leading 52-48 across a sample of marginal electorates: Dobell, Eden-Monaro, Blair, Moreton, Deakin, Stirling and Wakefield. The average margin in these seats is 3.5 per cent, so this suggests a combined swing of 5.5 per cent.

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.

911 comments on “Galaxy: 52-48 in “marginals””

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  1. Thommo, Santoro didn’t seem to have much better to do with his time than lodge complaints of bias with the ABC. Fierravanti-Wells doesn’t have too much to do with her time either.

    If it’s good enough for senators surely its good enough for us lowly commons.

    On the poll… it really tells us nothing new. Labor will win some of these marginals but not all. 52-48 really tells us nothing because I’d bet some of these seats are swinging a lot more than 52-48 and some a lot less (read Stirling).

  2. Kevin, I would reckon this lot of seats would have a whole bunch of different swings. I don’t understand why, when we have a poll of selected marginal seats, the pollsters won’t release per-seat breakdowns.

  3. Thommo Says: “That really is Sad BV….do you have nothing better to do?? There are plenty of left leaning journos did you email them as well??”

    Thommo, that was really witty.. really good! Did you have to think about that for a while, or just whip it out of your azz?

  4. Interestingly Anthony Green poo poohed this poll last night on Lateline, while Michael Costello said that it was ‘a very good poll’ on Radio National Breakfast this morning.

  8. [There are plenty of left leaning journos did you email them as well??]

    If they were as blatanly biased but posing as non-partisan I probably would yes!

  9. “54
    Ave it 07 Says:
    November 20th, 2007 at 8:33 am
    46/47 HEHEHEHEHEHEHE

    Labor getting worried now!”

    Yes… just a pathetic eight points ahead on the latest Newspoll. Labor’s gripped with fear, and the Libs are so confident, that they can aford to indulge in their usual pastime of backstabbing and leaking…

    BTW, Ave it 07, don’t you have a BNP rally to get to?

  12. Fran Kelly’s comments would have been right if there were 6 months to election day, but there’s not there’s not there’s only one week.

  13. I don’t think people should be making complaints about Fran Kelly. She’s warm and engaging and produces an intelligent programme. People may perceive a bias – either because they themselves have a bias, or because Fran has a bias – or both.

    Either way, it can hardly be argued that she is outrageously biased – there is nothing more than the occasional subtle suggestion.

    LEt her get on with her job I say.

    M

  15. Ave it, I’m with you on the cricket – it would be nice to see Sri Lanka win this one. Would be an all time record 4th innings chase. I don’t give them much hope on a day 5 pitch though, and apparently it’s raining down there.

  16. Timbo, worse… there’s less than one week. It really is nonsensical. There’s no way you can construe it as ‘good news’ for the Libs. At best it’s not news.

  18. Re cricket, Qld-Vic is probably the better paradigm anyway 🙂

    Especially with former Qld player Greg Rowell due to knock off the senior Lib Can’t-Do Campbell next March – as Lord Mayor of Brisbane LOL

  20. I think the suggestions that Fran Kelly be sacked are terribly unfair. She is a public servant and should be compensated if it came to that. Far better that she be moved somewhere mroe sympathetic to her beliefs. How about the new on-air voice at a suitable rural location, like ABC’s Dubbo or Roma radio stations 🙂

  21. “59
    Ave it 07 Says:
    November 20th, 2007 at 8:42 am
    58 – oooooooh! Getting narked now!”

    Yes I am. How dare you talk such nonsense? I mean, who are you? What do you know about Australian politics, you fool? I’m vewy vewy craws!

    (Stamps tiny foot and storms out)

    Sorry, just channelling Dolly Downer there…

  22. Looks like the GG is slowly, but surely, turning:

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22786862-16741,00.html

    The last paragraph says: “Reluctantly endorsing a return of the Howard Government in 2004, The Australian expressed disappointment at the way both sides had attempted to use big-spending programs to win office. This time, in rhetoric at least, Mr Rudd has been prepared to break the mould in a bid to convince voters of his economic credentials. By contrast, rather than spend the last week of the campaign explaining what the Coalition will do with a fifth term, Mr Howard has promised to spend “every waking hour of every waking minute” driving home the risk of Labor.”

  23. 64 sensible comment!

    No i dont really expect Sri lanka to win tho

    But will it be Mr H smiling on Saturday night!!!!

    See you later y’all!!!!

  25. Socrates, if Fran Kelly could rightly be construed as a public servant there is a public service code of conduct that maintains public servants are to be impartial. If a public servant demonstrates they are not able to demonstrate the judgment to act impartially then they should quit the public service.

    There’s a difference, however, with acting frankly and fearlessly and promoting a particular political party. I’m not passing any comment on Fran Kelly because I’ve never once listened to her.

  26. More gold. Howard sows up green preferences for Labor, ensuring that they will win seats like Wentworth, Sturt and maybe even North Sydney if they go down to the wire:

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22788091-601,00.html

    Howard talking up the fears of a Labor Green prefernce deal is exactly what is needed for Labor to get the 90% Green preference flow reported in the Wentworth poll. I don’t say this out of fear – at 54/46 overall the election is won whether ESJ and co are psychologically capable of admitting it or not. This is just about mopping up the borderline contests.

  30. I couldn’t say that I was a Fraser fan, but he did at least stick to his principles, and still does, hence I can respect him. His principles were genuine, as demonstrated by the years of work after politics for Care Australia and the like. But really, it shows just how far Howard has shifted Australian politics to the right. Fraser was a small-l liberal in the 70s, then a right-of-centre position. Without changing his principles, he now finds his views to the left of the entire Liberal Party.

    And it isn’t just Fraser. I wonder if 70s/80s Liberals like James Killen, Fred Channey or even Andrew Peacock would be able to get pre-selection now? I had assumed Bruce Baird was similar but someone posted yesterday that even he has turned.

    I suppose I empathise with them because I feel the same; I was relatively conservative in my uni-student days, but now find myself with views that are edscribed as “left-wing” even though I think they are not even remotely socialist. Thus I can’t vote Liberal.

  32. 4
    Julie Says:
    November 20th, 2007 at 6:07 am

    Malcom Fraser endorses the ALP in all but name…
    ——————————————

    I don’t think so. I find that hard to believe. Many of his criticisms include concerns about the ALP, too. I’m in South Africa at the moment but last time I saw Malcolm Fraser on TV he was wearing a Green tie… I can guess who he is really endorsing. Independent Defence Policy, Refugee Rights and many other things he says are Green rather than Labor. 🙂

  34. LETP 74
    I just meant that I would hate to see precipitate action agaisnt people like Fran Kelly give them a financial free-kick. I was not defending her partisan nature.

  36. This 52-48 “poll” seems to be an attempt by Briggs to swing some momentum, any momentum, towards the coalition. I doubt the ALP will be worried by it.

  39. I do enjoys everyone’s conspiracy theories about media in Australia.

    I am sure you can also tell me who shot JFK, where is Harold Holt living China and the whereabouts of Flight 19 from World War 2.

    I think overall all parties have tried to control the spin but have been exposed on their strentgths and weaknesses.The public have got bored and just want a change, so, Labor will win on the weekend.

    Sorry ,I know my pluralist views are what is wanted in these threads

  40. Jason Koutoukis in The Age on the web pseph sites

    “These people are not commentators and have no intimate daily connection with politics like journalists in the Canberra Press Gallery. They are literally just amateur observers who prefer to call it as they see it.

    Unlike those of us in the Canberra Press Gallery, they most probably don’t spend their days talking to politicians, and nor would they spend much time talking to the legions of strategists, spin doctors, and advisers that we spend so many hours a week chatting to.

    Yet my prediction is that the amateur observers will be a lot closer to the mark than us professionals, which gives me a slightly uncomfortable feeling.

    The reason of course is that most journalists live in terror of offending one side or the other and of being cut off ‘the drip’, with the main consequence being that few of us actually say what we really think.”

    http://blogs.theage.com.au/koutsoukis/archives/2007/11/psephologists_v.html

  41. Diogenes

    We just got the huge full-color booklet mail out from the Liberals in Sturt yesterday. That was o top of another letter from Pyne (on official letterhead??!!) filled with nothing but an “electoral update” that was purely campaign material. the cynical bastard. At least that booklet mailout must have cost them a bundle. 8 pages of glossy colour A4, stapled, to every household, payed for by Liberal funds. It is now being mulched 🙂

    BTW, quite apart from the cost and futility, whoever did the art work and layout on the Liberal glossy package ought to be shot. It had the most horrible red-yellow colour scheme that was so garrish we hardly wanted to look at it. Plus in the centre there was this bizarre double-sided set of slogans, one warning against Labor, the other saying “go for inflation”, oops, I mean “go for growth”. It was all quite confusing, even by the standards of Liberal election garbage. At least whoever ghost-wrote the perssonal letter woman-to-woman from “Carolyn” Pyne, knew how to write, if in a rather old fashioned way. Whoever did the glossy brochure must have barely passed high-school english.

    Its so nice to think they are sufficiently scared of losing Sturt that they have to divert resources from defending the seats they need to hold onto to actually keep government. I’d love Sturt to fall, but as long as the count is 16+ on Saturday night I’ll still be opening the bubbly.

  43. Re 89 Paul Hodgson

    Jason Katsoukis is essentially saying he thinks the ALP will 90 odd seats – but that he’s too scared to come out and say it!!!

  46. It would put it in perspective if Koutsoukis posted the predictions of the same psephologists from the ’04 election.

  47. Sinic,

    No this is great. It means Labor is in front by a clear margin even in the marginals. Labors score for the four sampled is 4 out of 4! There are about 30 such seats, and Labor only needs 16. Do the maths and smile. This is not a national sample, so it leaves out safe seats where Labor might get a bigger swing, but is still consistent with the 54/46 overall result, which ensures victory. Smile 🙂

  48. RA @ 92

    To win 90 seats we would need a swing that Labor hasn’t achieved since 1969. An that was an election we still lost (we all know why)

  50. I presume Labor lost in ’69 because they were absolutely smashed in 1966 and they had to pick up a massive number of seats.

    Probably similar to 1998 or even 1990….

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