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. It is time we called Henderson’s bluff. Apart from the fact that he masquerades as a “commentator”, which implies that he is some sort of freewheeling essayist, in reality he is either a paid or an unpaid shill for the Liberal Party, and even on his own terms his column is load of badly constructed shite. The Libs should ask for their money back.

    One of the features of Henderson’s polemic is doctrinaire nit-picking in which he generates by way of his schoolboy swat to come up with irrelevant details about the subject in order to snow the reader into thinking that Hendo has throughly researched his subject and therefore, by inference, knows what he is talking about. (Hendo also goes to great lengths to “research” Kafka and tells us he was an “Austrian writer”, whereas he was a Czech Jew living in Bohemia, a part of the Austro Hungarian empire. )

    But the main beef is that in his Nov 20 Herald column Henderson conflates Kafka (the writer) and the adjective “Kafkaesque”. It is absurd.

    The point about calling the plight of Izhar ul-Haque Kafkaesque was to draw attention to the fact that what happened to ul Haque in a scenario where the rule of law simply did not apply. Thus it was like an event in a Kafka story and “researched” details about Kafka himself, the author are here irrelevant and obtuse.

    Kafka was concerned with “troubled individuals in a nightmarishly impersonal world”, created by bureaurcacy and shadowy figures from secret police.

    But stupidly, Hendo suggests that Kafka, the author, a struggling writer whose day job was as an insurance clerk in a government owned insurance company would have sympathy with the secret police because he too had a job with the government.

    Henderson is a low-grade, sweating, blinking dolt. Fairfax would do well to give him the flick. Now is as good a time as any.

  2. DLP

    The country has changed since 1969. Whatever I may post here, I am much more guarded in my comments elsewhere, but I still certainly detect a strong mood of change. When William did that prediction thread a few weeks ago I guessed Labor 87 seats, but if I could do it again now I’d up my guess to Labor 90. Nothing has happened in between to do anything other than erode the Liberal vote. It has been Howard’s worst campaign ever. Look at the polling going on now – nobody is even bothering to test Labor held seats, even if marginal. They are all looking at Liberal marginals, adn increasingly at Liberal moderately safe seats like Wentworth, North Sydney and Sturt where I live. Even if Labour only picks up a third of those safe seats, they will surely pick up almost all the marginals before them, and that means almost 30 seats. A few of the stronger local candidates will survive but this will be big.

  3. 90 — Lib head office in SA has barely offered any support to the individual candidates. Pyne’s going all out on his own, same with Bob Day in Makin.

  4. Socrates, I also found the Liberals mailout brochure very confusing. It appeared very amateurish and more than a little desperate.

    On the other hand, Rudd’s DVD is a waste of time. Who’s really going to bother playing it? We watch this guy on tv every night and he wants us to watch him more? More reasons the ALP’s campaign team needs to be fired regardless of the result.

  7. Michael,

    Really? That must cost him a bundle. Sturt has a population of 96,000. Being fairly gentrified, that would equate to around 40,000 households. If he did a mail out of the lot with a full colour brochure, that is big money. I’d rather Chris had just given me the $2 instead. Maybe he could develop a system whereby we could nominate a charity for him to donate the printing money to for households which are going to vote against him whether he likes it or not. Pyne might be better off saving for his retirement. Then again, he already qualifies for the pension, not that I feel sorry for him.

  9. Current SportingBet odds on these seats, ALP/LP, and margin:
    Dobell 1.20/4.15 4.8
    Eden-Monaro 1.15/4.50 3.3
    Blair 1.18/4.25 5.7
    Moreton 1.10/5.50 2.8
    Deakin 2.00/1.72 5.0
    Stirling 2.15/1.60 2.0
    Wakefield 1.05/7.50 0.7

    Sooo… bigger swing in 5 seats NSW/Qld/SA, lesser swing in 2 seats Vic/WA, making up the 4 point margin on aggregate?

  10. You’re getting Koutsoukis all wrong.

    He’s already come out and predicted an easy Labor victory (last Sunday Age, I think it was). He’s not supplying numbers of seats, but he’s certainly off the fence.

    Earlier on in the year Koutsoukis was the semi-official conduit of the “Senior Liberal Strategists”. Every nasty, smarmy, sneaky trick they were going to play on Labor (and Rudd in particular) was laid out by Koutsoukis gleefully, in some detail.

    I thought at the time this was quite useful as an insight into what the other side was thinking, and maybe it was. The publication of these tactics certainly would not have hindered Labor in avoiding the traps the “Lib strategists” were setting. One by one we heard the sound of hands being rubbed together as Jason reported the latest dastardly deed. One by one all these idiotic smear campaigns turned to hot air and wafted away into the ether.

    I think Koutsoukis finally got the message about mid-year when he started to write articles somewhat more sympathetic to Labor… let’s say at least more balanced.

    But the final nail in the coffin for the Svengali’s of the Lib strategy team was when Jason reported on the “Gillard Dirt File”, deriding it as “press clippings”. In case ‘Bludgers have forgotten, this article pretty-well directly precipitated the final parliamentary debate of the Howard government, as Jason’s report that he got his dirt from a “plush suite of ministerial offices” got a good airing.

    If I thank Jason Koutsoukis for nothing else, I thank him for writing that article and confirming that ministers were dishing dirt on Labor direct to journalists. I think the best thing about the debate itself was that it contained John Howard’s last ever words to an Australian parliament. Koutsoukis’ name itself was in the last ever speech of the Howard government, before the Speaker shut up shop at 5pm:

    Mr SECKER (Barker) (4.59 pm)—It is somewhat
    ironic that I am following the member for Lowe because
    nine years ago we walked together for our first
    day at parliament. So it is very interesting and ironic
    and I suppose we both hope these are not our last
    speeches. Can I point out that the Deputy Leader of the
    Opposition today suggested that someone might be
    thinking that Jason Koutsoukis, the journalist, made
    something up. Can I say to the parliament he made
    something up in reference to me some 18 months ago
    concerning whom I supposedly support.
    The SPEAKER—Order! It being 5.00 pm, the debate
    is interrupted.
    House adjourned at 5.00 pm

    … adjourned forever, that is, under Howard.

    All I’m saying is don’t knock Jason Koutsoukis too much. He went off the rails for a while there, earlier on in the year, but he has more than made up for it. He went out publicly on a limb, most likely got himself cut off from “the Drip” as he calls it. He told the Libs publicly to go jump in the lake. He deserves a lot of credit for that.

    Koutsoukis is a passionate guy. I think we’ll hear a lot more from him, and of him, in the years to come.

    (and no, I’ve never met him).

  12. I take no notice of this Galaxy poll.

    THIS IS A REPEAT of Galaxy’s fiasco with a poll of 4,000 voters over 20 seats , where there sample was 200 per seat spread over 3 nights per seat. Worse still , many states were completed after Howard’s Launch but before Rudd’s

    An average of these seats is meaningless given the sample will not be more than 200 per seat. Further we do not know the individual seat polling results

  13. It will be interesting to see how close the pollbludger crowd get the result. As I recall from the tipping the average calls about 88-90 seats for Labor.

    While I would be happy with that result, I think that like a Morgan poll, the Internet is a bit enthusiastic in favour of defeating the conservatives.

  15. Malcolm Fraser subtly endorsing labor.
    AWB lies becoming unravelled.
    And John Howard himself giving reasons to vote out his social conservatism.
    Good start to the day.

  16. Fran Kelly is a fine journalist as she has demonstrated repeatedly over the years. That she should irritate and delight people from all across the political spectrum is a testimony.

    It was said of the late, great Andrew Olle that one could have a conversation with him about politics and come away without knowing which way he voted.

    The same could be said of Kelly.

    We should be aware that Kelly and other current affairs journalists at the ABC work under the purview of the culture war warriors on the board and management.

    Hopefully this will change soon.

  17. Apologies if others have covered it but here is another truth-attack that will go down with the Coalition like media access to Tony Abbott:

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/downer-knew-about-awb-kickbacks/2007/11/19/1195321695303.html

    Looks like Downer was closer to the facts on AWB kickbacks than his gormless look would indicate. Anyone knowing the control freaks that run the Federal government would hardly be surprised. As if anyone could hand out $300 million without at least notifying their Minister. So the Coalition was soft on Iraqi dictators after all. Gee, its good to know we were helping Sadam Hussain when he was still funding suicide bombers in Israel. That must have been great for security.

  18. Yes Albert Ross, a very telling moment was during a Bennelong broadcast where Fran Kelly told a jeering crowd to “Be quiet or else we’ll get in trouble”.

  20. Koutsoukis has had a great year. His piece on the Gilliard dirt file was incredibly brave and a real service to this country.

    He then followed it up a few months later with a generous piece about the Democrats

  21. I have reached the highly jittery frame of mind where I believe the following 2 propositions with almost equal intensity, almost at the same moment. Just about any snippet of news can tip me one way or t’other:

    1. That Labor is coasting to a historic victory on a virtually unprecedented swing that will leave the Liberals pulverised and in-fighting for two terms or more..

    And

    2. That countless swinging voters are poised to return meekly, out of hip pocket self interest, to the Coalition column, setting the stage for Howard to scrape back in by a couple of seats..

  22. North Sydney was 60.5 / 39.5 last time around.

    These are the seats the coalition are concerned about: 60.5 / 39.5!!!

    And “hasn’t happened since 1969” doesn’t seem like a particularly strong argument to me. There’s been what, 13 or 14 elections since then?

    So we need a 1 in 14 occurence.

    And if it does happen this time it becomes a 1 in 7 chance! Bayesians Unite!!

    The standard MOE is derived from a 1 in 20 principle, in contrast.

  25. “That countless swinging voters are poised to return meekly, out of hip pocket self interest, to the Coalition column, setting the stage for Howard to scrape back in by a couple of seats.”

    Oh and they will add… “Sorry Tone we were just joshing ya.”

  26. Dembo. I wish that piece had gotten the Dems some more coverage. When i get past 40 and want to enter political life it was the Dems i wanted to join… bu alas… i’m only 36… i dont think they’ll be around when i’m 40!

  27. Albert @115 – couldn’t agree more. Fran Kelly is an excellent journo who takes balance seriously. She spoke at a briefing for the industry I work for recently and was well across seats, polls and drivers – and argued that the dynamic for marginal seats was incredibly difficult to read from a distance with the ‘all politics is local’ line she used this morning as the Coalition’s only chance. The tories frequently complain about RN Breakkie and AM for bias, if she’s annoying us that’s probably a fair call. Her interview with Centrebet didn’t seem biased – pretty factual and fair.

  28. Personally I think the Dems are a whole lot more credible than the Greens and will probably vote for them in the Senate for the first time this election. Just because everyone says they’re finished it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t vote for them.

  31. Socrates-Despite their similarities, Downer and Pyne detest each other. Pyne has always been pro-Tip. Downer will not be encouraging the Lib machine to lift one finger to help Pyne over the line. I have mixed feelings about Pyne. He clearly is intelligent and hard-working in his electorate. When my sister was stabbed in Spain, he helped evacuate her to London (she is fine). I’m not sure about the rumours and I don’t care much anyway. But I have met him through work and he really gave me the creeps as pompous and self-obsessed. His hard-line pro-Christian stances mean I will be glad to see the end of him. And Mia Handshin is fantastic! She can take Kate Ellis’s seat in the TV spot behind Rudd as PM.

  33. Also, this poll was done before this latest workchoices secret files fiasco which should be more worrying to the government in the last few days of an election than any concievable opinion poll. No government wants embarresment in there last week as seen in 96 with the incident regarding the bogus letters to ralph willis

  34. but if its so good in the marginals, why all this – ‘We’ll have to wait late into the night for WA’s results’ palaver from Fran-gipani this AM??

  35. Doesn’t this “secret workchoices file” thing dovetail very nicely with the “you can’t trust them not to take it further line from Rudd.

    It’s almost as if Rudd scripted it – not that I am suggesting he did.

  37. Diogenes,

    Regarding Pyne, I too couldn’t care less about the rumours, which were a pretty nasty little smear. But the way he used his wife politically himself in the woman-to-woman letter was really dissappointing. I was going to vote against Howard, but now I will be voting against Pyne and Howard at the same time. Also, some of his personal electoral promises for Sturt really are nonsense. He says he will fix the Brittania roundabout yet he hasn’t given any extra road funding to the relevant Councils, or gotten it included on the AusLink network. So he can’t possibly do it.

    LTEP
    I too will miss the Dems, especially Andrew Bartlett, who has a conscience and opposed WorkChoices. But here in SA I don’t think they have any candidates of that caliber left.

  38. Flash

    howard was gorn the moment Worstchoices was introduced

    this single Act was the most arrogant piece of social engineering yet seen in this country

    howard got in on the basis of fear and has used the ‘scare’ card to maintain power.

    Now most of Australia is scared of howard.

  39. I could be cynical and suggest it has a lot to do with our State Labor leaders, Rann and esp Foley. Foley is well-known to like to surround himself with gorgeous females. The Rann Govt is very media savvy (he was ajourn after all) and know that attractive people get more votes, about 2% evidently. Did you know that attractive people (matched for other characteristics) are more likely to be found not guilty by a jury, get a lesser sentence and are more likely to get parole than non-attractive people?

  40. Howard was very much calm and playing down expectations this far out in 04. I remember on the sunday program, he discretely and calmly said that he expected to win but thought it would be close. Such actions the norm when an incumbant govt exects victory. No such demenour this time and whilst the lib supporters may think that they are going to win and the labor supporters are worried, id like to see them deny that there is a significant swing.

  41. Diogenes

    Quite right about evidence on attractive people. We are a shallow lot at heart. That is why I gave up on a life of crime and pursued an engineering career.

  42. Spot on, Flash @ 120 – I think you’ve described how many of us are feeling.

    I thought Antony Green was pretty chirpy about the ALP’s chances last night on Lateline, so I took heart from that (although he did seem to suffer a slight spasm at one stage a little like JWH’s during the Great Debate.)

  43. This is a UNIQUE opportunity for like minded (most) bloggers to have SOME effect
    on the “right wing ” Newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne ??????
    (sorry other states you only get one paper a day ..Murdoch’s)

    My thought was someone setting a blog to encourage a network of like minded people to encourage HeraldSun (Melbourne) readers and Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
    readers to respectively SWITCH to the more even handed the ‘Age’ (Melbourne) and the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ (Sydney)

    Do not know how to set up a blog but if someone out there knows and can do it , maybe we can hurt the ‘right wing’ press where it hurts…in their pocket (via circulation)

    ????

  44. Diogenes. When i left QLD to find a career in Sydney my mum gave me the advice “Don’t worry good looking people always have a better chance at getting a job”. Unfortunately my mum was a bit biased about my looks. Lol!

  46. The head of Newspoll on Skynews this morning for 30 minutes with Helen Dailey, reckons the following.

    1.Labor to win because of consistency of polls throughout campaign, but the swing is patchy. An electoral pendulum will not indicate how many seats.

    2. No mention throughout interview of Margin of Error.

    3. Newspoll’s s 2.3 error of 2004 was only in the 2 PP. Their Primary vote estimate was accurate. This year they have returned to the method of calculating 2PP which they used before 2004 error-prone method.

    3. There’s less than 10% undecideds, but in the past week they have swung to Howard, so if nearly all remaining undecideds swing to Howard, then……?

    4. Howard’s satisfaction rating is “good” for such a long time in office, as is Howard’s closing the gap for Preferred PM to 4% less than Rudd for same reason.

    5. Rudd’s near record 64% satisfaction rating is irrelevant since it merely rates him as Leader of Opposition.

    6. Team Howard’s lead as better economic managers is significant. Team Rudd’s leads as better managers for education and climate change are mere “social issues”.

    7. Younger voters are supporting Rudd because many of them actually consider “social issues” more important than economic management. He reckons this is entirely due to their ignorance from having never experienced a bad economy.

    8. He generally sounded apologetic that his poll couldn’t have given more encouragement to Team Howard.

    9. Helen asked a few good questions, but she then swallowed whatever explanations/excuses he gave, no matter how much they were just his personal opinion and how little based on the polls, e.g. Hockey will retain North Sydney, despite being Member for Workhoices (Helen’s term for Hockey), and Bennelong won’t vote against Howard just because he’s the PM.

  48. An interesting perspective on political commentators and polls going into the 1996 election:
    http://blogs.theage.com.au/koutsoukis/archives/2007/11/what_they_said.html?page=2#comments

    Obviously some similarities. In fact if you go through interview transcripts of Keating in the 1996 campaign you see a lot of similar scare tactics that Howard is employing. Keating warned that if Howard was elected the economic gains over the 80s and 90s would just disappear… that his front bench did not inspire confidence etc. etc.

  50. More fibs for Labor could cost them dearly like in La Trobe.

    http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22787065-662,00.html
    Labor campaign letter misleads voters

    “Labor’s star candidate in La Trobe, Rodney Cocks, wrote to families this month spruiking his credentials as a parent and mortgage holder. But Labor confirmed late yesterday that he has no children.”

    Hmmm rather like Rudd saying Rosanna Harris would get money off her rent when she wouldn’t. But they are politicians aren’t they what do we expect?

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