Steaming hot off the press: a Roy Morgan phone poll of 435 voters conducted last night (that’s a couple of hours ago at the time of writing), covering the Perth marginals Brand, Cowan, Hasluck, Stirling and Swan. The result of 50.5-49.5 in favour of the Liberals points to a tiny swing in their favour of 0.8 per cent. To allow direct comparison with Morgan’s national poll of marginals on the weekend, a result for Stirling and Hasluck has been hived off from the other three. It shows that the respondents surveyed in these seats generated the overall swing to the Liberals, with the others moving slightly to Labor. For what it’s worth, the Stirling and Hasluck result was replicated in the similarly small sample survey on the weekend.
Good analysis on the preference flows.
WA will get the smallest state swing in Aus, but even that’s going to a good size.
In the washup WA doesn’t matter (electorally, in terms of seats, culturally, in any way you would care to name). Get over it.
Julia’s arrived to applause just bitch slapped John Faine when he complained about her being late – she did a Cassidy.
She WILL be PM.
Enjoy.
Faine just said ‘you’ve both (Gillard and Costello) got one thing in common you both want John Howard to lose his seat on Saturday.’ (boom boom)
Gillard just pulled up another of Costello’s LIES.
Costello is quite tetchy – he has to go.
Costello just said Abbots statement on 30B$ reserve was ‘innaccurate’.
Very similar to the Galaxy poll last week. For the optimists:
It’s still a line ball just after the PM fired all his promises in Perth the day before. The preference allocations are the same as 2004 and give only 68% of the Greens to the ALP. A 80% flow gives Labor another 1%.
It’s a phone poll.
If you’re on an AWA you were probably doing unpaid overtime when the poll was conducted.
Back to the entrails! ‘Labor View from Broome’
So jasmine, in other words you’re saying the polls are wrong? Or you’re just cherry-picking polling that looks good for Labor and ignoring anything which suggests they are not going to win Stirling and Hasluck? I mean, we’ll see in the end. I think it’s far more likely Labor will hold Cowan, Swan and Brand than they will win Stirling and Hasluck.
In other news… interesting exerts from an article by Alan Ramsey in the lead-up to the ’93 election.
“Keating’s campaign has been hit and miss – mostly miss. There’s been a lack of planning and professionalism completely alien to Labor’s winning campaigns of the last 10 years. Keating has been doing it his way.
And his way has looked real seat-of-the-pants stuff that has stuttered along, fuelled mainly by a seemingly bottomless bag of money for various interest groups and an undisciplined personal performance that has rarely looked better than lack-lustre and often downright gauche.”
“Hewson doesn’t like scrutiny.
Scrutiny means political risk. Scrutiny means being forced from the general into the specific. Scrutiny means detail. Scrutiny means, inevitably, mistakes. Thus the whole of Hewson’s campaign, from the manipulative muck of his formal launch to the programmed generalities of his day-to-day rhetoric, has been all about distancing him and his policies from scrutiny.”
“The new dawn is near upon us.
Keating’s campaign is again relegated to the background. The press is having an orgasm. Liberal Party headquarters is back in control. Their man is on a roll again, the GST notwithstanding.
And, despite the polls, I have no doubt Hewson has only to keep his head to win comfortably. Whatever ground it makes up elsewhere, Labor is going to lose the election in Queensland, South Australia and over in Perth. Ten years and a million unemployed are insurmountable.
I don’t believe it will be close at all.”
Very interesting to draw parralels with the ’07 campaign.
Not sure if someone posted this in another thread, but there’s an interesting 10 minute interview (streaming) with Graham Richardson from NightLine last night here:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=327119
He’s predicting a Labor win with 20 seats, and Howard to lose Bennelong. Richo has apparently picked every election result in the past 30 years, so he’s worth listening to.
Welll three more sleep and we find out. I’ve given up trying to draw conclusions from these small sample marginal polls.
Given this is from the same bunch of clowns who told us two weeks ago the aggregate 2pp was 68/32 – I’m prepared to ignore both polls and take a bead of the larger sample polls.
Have said that can I order a 53/47 2pp aggregate poll with a vodka chaser to settle the nerves.
I got a pre-recorded call from Howard yesterday. I don’t think calling people with a recorded message at 8pm is going to win any votes whatsoever. Living in the Petrie electorate, I think Gambaro might be in real trouble.
LETP – that was Alan Ramsey. Not the most renowned of forecasters.
The 2PP in WA at the last election was 55/45 was it not?
For there to be any pick up of seats for the Liberals in WA they would basically have to improve on this – which means them getting 56/44 or 57/43, even though the national 2PP will be the opposite.
And all of this in spite of there being no Latham, in spite of the interest rate fear campaign having lost its bite, in spite of Workchoices and in spite of an overall national swing in the other direction?
We need to cast the West adrift if they are going to swing in the other direction…
Julie @ 36
I’m prepared to temporarily suspend my complete disbelief in these dark arts to embrace these predictions. Every bit helps.
ND, that’s not necessarily true. It’s possible to have swings away in a state and gain seats. For instance the Libs could just fall over the line in Swan and Labor could make up ground in Canning, Kalgoorlie, Forrest, Moore etc. which would show a swing to Labor in the 2PP and a seat gain by the Libs. Personally I think that’s what’s going to happen.
I agree, CL @ 58. After Ramsay’s woeful efforts at predicting the outcome of last election, I worry that his over-the-top confidence of forthcoming Labor victory is a kiss of death.
LTEP
“Their man is on a roll again, the GST notwithstanding.”
There’s no GST equivalent in this election, a HUGE difference.
Graham Richardson says Labor will win 20 seats including Bennelong.
20 seats is less than most professional commentators are saying, quite a bit less in some cases, but I’ll take it.
In fact, I’d rather win 20 and have Howard lose his seat than win 25 and have Howard retain his.
Defeating a PM in his own seat would be an absoltely earth-shattering event. John Howard, the electoral genius, leading his party not just to devastating defeat but losing his own seat in the process. The Liberal Party will eat its own face over this.
FWIW, the betting markets have Labor strong favourites to retain their own seats and win Hasluck, but the Liberals winning Stirling. Sounds about right.
My old mate is spot on the money as usual, amazing considering the company he keeps
Julie @ 36. Pure gold. You put the sooth back into soothsayer.
Loved this bit for Old Grumps: “Examine matters that have not worked out so well and perhaps cut your losses and prepare for a new start.”
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, here he comes!
BTW, Jonathan Cainer in the Daily Mail over here said Howard was a goner a few weeks ago. Was referring to some comet that’s out and about and said something along the lines of – ‘some have said this could mean good news for Hillary Clinton (and named some others I don’t remember). Some say that it means the Aus Prime Minister John Howard might lose his election. Probably both.”
Being a hardened cynic, I laughed at the time. But like Jude @ 60 (named after the patron saint of hopeless causes, perhaps?) I’ve become a believer.
Gerr #52
That’s fine – I presume that our revenue also doesn’t matter?
ND #61
Cast us adrift, please – we WANT to go, but can’t get the rest of you to agree! BTW, if you lose us, you lose our revenues propping up the rest of the country. Your economic figures start to stink without us. Without Qld also, they completely stink. Good luck – we’ll be enjoying out boom economy without sending taxes to Canberra, thanks!
Ashley @ 55 – yeah I remember one election Kroger was sitting there sayingt he libs scutineers were recording good swings in whatever seat it was, Richo just sat there and said “yeah, we’re calling that – and we’ve increased our margin to boot”.
The ALP machine was just that much better than the libs back then (’twas a while ago now, can’t recall which election).
I don’t know LTEP, that is a pretty specific scenario and really only one for the pessimists. If we assume some sort of swing away from the government overall in WA and if the marginals all swing to the Government then this would mean that Labor must be in with half a chance in one the WA seats with a bigger margin.
I would suggest that if seats are dropping like flies in the east Labor will most likey gain in WA too. Thats was happened for the Liberals in ’04
LTEP: the eternal wet blanket!
I hope Kroger is on the telly on election night. He’ll be like Monty Python’s Black Knight, watching the seats fall one after another, plaintively insisting “it’s only a flesh wound”.
It doesn’t mean that at all. In the 1987 election there was a national swing of close to 1% away from Labor and they picked up a net of 4 seats.
Similarly, it’s quite plausible that Labor could record a swing of 1-2% to them in WA and still lose a seat or two, particularly given the inflated margins of some of the other seats from the last election, for instance Canning.
Has anyone ever done a study on the effect on WA voters late in the day and whether they are influenced by incoming news from the Eastern states?
It would be incredibly hard to do as I imagine a lot of people would tell the pollsters to just get nicked (would have to be an exit poll I presume) but I wonder if people see which way things are going back east and some either go that way, or do the opposite to be contrary.
58 – Has Ramsay ever correctly predicted an election outcome?
I love his articles – he’s the only reason I buy the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturdays – but I don’t go to him for dispassionate analysis.
Of course, the biggest difference between 1993 and now is the polls. Ramsay’s prediction then was in defiance of the polls. But polls can be wrong.
1987 isn’t really a good example though, there was a split in the Coalition which was more apparant in the areas of the country where the ALP picked up seats.
What was the state level 2pp vote at the 2004 election.
At the monent ALP hold 1/3 of the seats. To go backwards from there seems like the Libs are getting very good value for their votes.
Jude @ 62: sometimes, having regard to the distribution of chance events, even Alan Ramsey can be right. Or, tp put it another way – a broken clock is right twice a day.
VoterBoy: I think the Cinque Ports might demand a recount if they ended up with Howard.
What is this claim that Green preference flows are assumed be as they
were in 2004?
In 2004 in Stirling the flow was over 80% of Green votes to ALP.
http://results.aec.gov.au/12246/results/HouseDivisionTcpFlow-12246-246.htm
72 Spiros
Facing off against Richardson perhaps, quoting the dead parrot sketch.
‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This government is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the electorate ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-GOVERNMENT!!
27 Mr Squiggle – a clear case of denigrating a polling company when it goes against you but giving it credence when it is for you. How gullible can you get?
ND @ 76 : Is that due to the infamous Joh for PM campaign? If it wasn’t for some young Nat on his jury, the old man would have spent the rest of his life behind bars. Thank god people saw through the crap about Joh for PM campaign.
It’s funny how the end of this election campaign is turning into a bit of a fizzer. In 2004 it was ‘all happening’ in the last week. In 2007 it seems that everyone is sitting around going, ‘come on, let’s vote already!’.
Is it just me, or is this final week noticeably less interesting than in previous elections?
Needless to say ND, it still shows wierd results are possible. I’m not in the group of people that believe that just because there may be a swing of a percent or two to Labor on a statewide level that means they will pick up seats with margins of less than one or two percent, or that they will win seats on larger margins. It doesn’t necessarily hold true.
I agree Ashley – I think it’s because the campaign started about 10 months ago.
I’ve heard form a few sources that the pre-polls are way higher this time around too.
Michael @ 75, CL @ 78
In hindsight I realised I was reading Ramsay because he was telling me what I wanted to believe, but I haven’t forgiven him for dashing my hopes in 2004, with his echoing refrain of “Believe it!” I did. He was wrong. So I take his assertions with lumps of salt. Some consolation though in getting to read the PM being called a grub, toad and the like, all in the pages of one of our most “respected” broadsheets.
RA, how much higher? High enough to hold off the calling of seats?
mukOle (26) Settle down and relax. The vile little runt is finished. You can look forward to a very good weekend.
Dr Good – I used the Morgan primaries at post 39 above to get a 2PP of 51.3-48.7 LP/Lib. But if you use the Stirling preferences reported at the AEC site you refer to, the 2PP comes out at 52:48 ALP:Lib (i.e., Greens go 80:20, One Nation goes 45:55, others go 50:50)
83 Ashley
It’s not just you. Kevin’s playing it safe and his stop spending pitch last week put a stop to any significant new policy announcements. It’s also been going on for so long that we seem to be recycling issues that have already been aired 100 times before. So we end up endlessly analysing the polls.
LTEP, for the 57,698th time, this “which seats the swing happens in” stuff only matters if the overall vote is very close.
Here are the post war elections where the party who got the minority of the TPP won the election
Year winning party % TPP
1998 Coalition 49.02
1990 Labor 49.90
1969 Coalition 49.80
1961 Coalition 49.50
1954 Coalition 49.30
Notice the pattern? In every instance, winning partygot pver 49% of the national vote.
In 2007, the opinion polls all year have the coalition sitting at 45% of the vote; 46% of the vote at best.
We’re three days from the election and they are still there.
Let’s assume a late swing towards the coalition (though there’s no reason to think it will happen) and they get 47% or even 48% of the vote. It still won’t be enough.
So why are so many people saying that Labor needs 52% of the TPP to win the election? Because the pendulum based on the last election says that if the swing is uniform, then Labor needs that much of the 2PP to win enough seats.
But the swing is never, ever uniform. Never. Some seats swing more than others, sometimes much more. The insurance for the party getting the swing ias that if its overall vote is big enough, it will win anyway.
Will, indeed it was… There were numerous 3 cornered contests, especially in QLD and and it gave the ALP the chance to hammer the Tories for disunity, hence the ALP picked up 4 seats there. The overall swing was against the ALP though.
Spiros, I’m not talking about the overall result. I’m talking about the WA result. People are suggesting it wouldn’t be possible for Labor to get a swing to them in WA overall and lose seats. Of course it’s possible.
On an individual seat basis it might just be a changing demographic. For instance, in Cowan the new development and influx of ‘aspirationals’ in areas such as Darch. I’m not really familiar with Swan so I can’t say… but I’ve heard rumblings for a while now on Brand.
Now, I don’t believe individual seat characterisitics influence much of the vote… but when there’s very little swing I think they do. I’m not sure there will be much swing at all in WA. I think maybe 2% to the ALP.
Just thought I would pass on that the Navy is taking 16 ‘illegal immigrants’ to Christmas Island after intercepting them a little time ago.
Lead item on ABC news at 10 – the closer we get the more paranoid I am
I think I’m going to go crazy in the next 3 days, I just want it over!…..this morning driving to work I listened to Costello and Gillard on abc radio, I actually had to switch off because I felt like my head would explode, and people were giving me funny looks b/c I was yelling in my car at the radio….Costello is the is undignified, so stupid, so annoying , so un-statesmanlike………its not even about liberal vs. labor ideologies for me anymore, not that I even know what the liberals stand for, but it would be ok for me if I could just disagree on their love for free-market economics etc….but its just the completely and absolute disgrace that party is, the are an embarrassment in so many ways with NOTHING to offer at all……..
Spiros.
Good point. I’ve thought for some time this assumption that Labor needs 52% is pure fallacy. Using the same argument you could make an equal case that the Libs need 52% of the 2PP to win, why does it have to be Labor climbing the mountain? This all harks back to the Beazley election which has all and sundry assuming the Libs will always do better in the marginals and therefore need less of the 2PP. It’s complete nonsensicle crap.
No hard figures, but I believe there are approximately three times the number of pre-polls this election compared to last.
88 Darn,
I wish I would be so calm. This poll (albeit from Morgan) holds the door open for the rodent to survive. The scenario I worry about is
NSW & QLD 10 seats
SA, TAS – 5 seats
NT, Vic, Act – 0 seats
WA – -1 seat
Net gain of 14 seats
I don’t think its the most likely outcome but I do think it is possible.
Spiros,
I think Labor needs 52% to win. However as not one poll all year has been less than 53% it is an irrelevancy, Labor will win.
Whilst there is an outside chance scenario for Howard (ie win 1 in WA, Lose 3 SA, Lose 2 Tas, Lose 1 NT, None in Vic and keep it down to 4 or 5 in each of Vic and NSW) its just too difficult for him to do, everything has to “break right” and most of the undecideds come back to him. Thats realistically maybe a 15-20% prospect.
If Howard did pull it off it truly would make him the ultimate dark Sith Lord of Australian Politics and put Menzies well and truly in the shade.
At best a narrow loss is the most realistic “hope” for Howard. It will be a “conditional” win with everything to play for in 2010.
Kat @ 95 breathe in, hold to the count of 5, breathe out, hold 5. repeat till Saturday night.