Analysis and discussion of elections and opinion polls in Australia
Morgan: 60.5-39.5
Roy Morgan’s first face-to-face poll of the Rudd era shows Labor with a predictably bloated two-party lead of 60.5-39.5. Read all about it here.
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.
View all posts by William Bowe
Mr Slipper forgot to mention Brisbane City Hall in his list of unelectable areas of interest for the coalition.
Very funny.
The Mayor of Noosa, Bob Abbott, despises amalgamated supercouncils so much that he wants to be the Mayor of a supercouncil.
A Queensland mayor who once vowed to fight “to the death” forced council mergers now wants the new Sunshine Coast super council’s top job.
Noosa mayor Bob Abbot today announced he would run for the position of mayor in the Sunshine Coast Regional Council at the local government elections next March.
Running under the slogan “Big Bob for the big job”, Mr Abbot said he was excited about what he could offer the Sunshine Coast.
“I’ve long followed a commonsense approach, and I’m keen to apply that to my vision for the first Sunshine Coast Regional Council,” he said.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the super council moves to allow high rises in Noosa, Gold Coast style, as they are now allowed in Maroochydore.
All those people with their $5 million houses aren’t going to take a halfing of their property values lying down.
But the developers aren’t going to give up the chance of fast buck or three either.
One of the problems of the defeat of a longterm government is that they have to use the dregs to fill the shadow ministry – particularly when Dr Nelson owes a lot of favours.
#446, yes, methinks she got “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
458 No it’s the second. The first one was the tax cuts that were given away by the coalition on the first day of the election campaign following hard on the heels of the ones announced in the budget. It is good to finally be finished with the coalition’s ‘Great Economic Management’ mantra that they employed as propaganda for almost twelve years.
Without reading the link, I see where you are coming from and I can’t disagree.
Will Rudd see the folly in introducing this abomination on our economy?
Or will he rethink the strategy and return to the basic economic mantra and re-examine the hand he held.
The “trump!”
scraper @ 458 – No, it must all be just a huge misunderstanding because the self-claimed “greatest treasurer we’ve ever had” told us only a couple of days ago that:
the economy Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan inherited made them “the luckiest lotto winners in the history of Australia”.
And he couldn’t be wrong, could he?
Sadly, I suspect we are in for some interesting times in the years ahead. It does seem Labor is always fated to repair the coalition’s excesses in difficult international circumstances.
just to clarify Mcewen is still a lib win or is andrew onto some alternate source
BTW comrade glen im not gus (at least i hope im not)
On board appointments, Christopher Pearson’s term on the SBS board is about to come to an end. He should then be sent to de-briefing where Clock Orange-style, he’ll be forced eyes wide open to watch all the advertisements he has inflicted in the middle of movies on SBS.
461
The reality will become apparent in the first quarter next year.
There will be pain in the next year, but this has to ensue to re-allign the culture on consumerism?
Indeed Labor has the runs on the board historicly, but the bounce back strategy is what will define this nation for decades to come.
Will Rudd be up to it or will another force come into play to take the nation forward???
461 Scaper
I don’t think next year is the critical year provided the first budget makes decent spending cuts, contains middle class welfare via means testing. China will keep going till at least past the Olympics. 2009 is looking a bit ordinary though. The wise money seems to saying increase your cash holdings just in case though.
Bill Bowe @462 – do we believe this; there have been so many other premature ones before????
Actually Scaper on more thought, the force that will come into play will be the Garnaut report. This has the potential to not only redefine the economy’s parameters but open up investment opportunities and hurt those not prepared to adjust.
Why spending cuts? Why can’t they ditch the tax cuts? Answer the middle classes and people in work will not be happy. Spending cuts if they happen should focus on the private health care rebate and rich schools. But guess what they will not. Instead i bet it is programs to the poor which will be targeted and what policies is this reformist government going to implement on climate change?
Why wait for the Garnaut Report. Why not start now. Solar Energy and wind power does not require a Garnaut report.
Spending cuts are the only political option. Keeping election promises.
I agree Marky but that is not the political reality. I wish they would just get on with it also but we have a cautious PM. I do think that Garrett will be announcing the ‘local’ CC intiatives though.
On CNN they say Australia’s former PM was “Paul Howard” !!!!
And a stupid election promise it was, the twin deficits theory strikes again. The view that governments create recessions, if we happen to go into a hole spending cuts will either make it worse or send us into a recession. A recession will occur if world economies begin to falter and if the private sector which is fuelled by money slows and then slows further due to spending cuts.
Yes Ed@471, Rudd & Co have to “keep faith” with the electorate, and that means keeping even the bad and stupid promises made during the election 🙁
Hopefully for just this term, or even their first year – they didnt promise much beyond that. See how Swannie makes his maiden Budget.
Prime Ministers are remembered if they do things which help nations and which help the people who need people- the marginalised and Howard was not one of these people, already he has been forgotten about and will go down as a dud Prime Minister who did nothing to help this nation prosper.
I see tax cuts as the price for getting elected. My spies in Treasury though tell me they are chomping at the bit to rearrange profligate LNP spending and Tanner sees it as his big moment to make a substantial mark on the economy.
Yes must keep the tax cuts, but if the spending cuts are harsh and are on programs which effect the poor than in reality this government will be only slightly better than the prievious.
Yep Tanner the great reformer, now i am really worried.
Has anyone got the margin for SA Senate? The AEC computer distributed the preferences there today producing,as anticipated, 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 Xen, 1 Greens.
And Vic?
Access Ecoomics targetted Security spending and means testing in their report. ALthough 10Billion cuss per year is a pretty hefty task. I just think the Garnaut Rpt will change our economic thinking radically and redefine what is possible.
Sorry ‘cuss’ = cuts typing in the dark
Is it just me or has the ABC given up on being “unbiased”? I’ve agreed with everything I’ve seen on it since the election. I asked an ABC journalist why their reporting was so biased with continual spinning of pro-Liberal stories when the Libs were so crap. She said at the ABC, they were all petrified of being hauled up before a disciplinary committee and being sacked if they didn’t give exactly 50:50 coverage. I responded that given Labor was ahead 55/45 at the time, 50/50 was knowingly biased in Libs favor. If the current Lib joke party continues at 60/40 why should they get 50/50 favourable press? That’s undemocratic. Next they’ll be asking for preferential draft picks!
478
marky marky Says:
Why not stamp your feet really really hard until uncle Howard is allowed to become prime minister again? That’s what you want so why not come out and say it?
483
7.30 rpt has picked up. Trioli has gone from radio and she hadn’t changed. The shrillness of the B teams on commerical radio makes up for it.
484 Diogenes
I didn’t know if I was projecting my enormous sense of relief on the ABC but I feel like I’ve got the ABC back. The worst thing about the ‘balance’ requirements was that so much stupidity was talked. It seems as if the ABC IQ has suddenly leapt 20 points (not that I believe in IQs but you know what I mean).
Steve i prefer a government in power which actually does things than just ponders and than one that helps the wealthy get wealthier. You are just a rusted on labor person who sees all labor policies as being profoundly gratifying.
And by the way Steve, now we have a government that has a tradition of doing things which help minorities, are we all meant to now go back into the cave and be taciturn.
Ed or anyone out there.
I’m having issues with copyright and the demands of the sponsors of the web site.
They are positioning themselves to profit tremendously from the logo design and are demanding that I put forward the structure over a pissy $913.
I don’t care if you and your like-minded friends piss into each others pockets in a back room at trades hall but heaven forbid that you have any influence over labor government decision making. Ideas like yours (e.g. scrapping tax cuts which Rudd and Swan went to great lengths to justify just last week post election) would see labor ousted after just one term and would result in the silly party returning to government. You may detest modern labor policies but that’s where the community sits at this stage. If labor pitched it’s appeal where you would have it they would be out of office across the country. The times they have a-changed.
It’s offical – Fran’s back.
[LIBERAL Fran Bailey has won a recount in the Victorian regional seat of McEwan by just 12 votes in one of the most extraordinary results in recent electoral history.
Almost a month after the election, and after Mrs Bailey’s Labor opponent Rob Mitchell had originally won the seat by seven votes, the Australian Electoral Commission is expected to announce the result of a recount of 100,649 votes as soon as tomorrow morning.
Mr Mitchell believed he had won the seat with a swing to Labor of more than 6.4 per cent – higher than the national average, but Mrs Bailey demanded a recount.
Mrs Bailey said tonight she felt “a bit numb”, but elated after her come-from-behind win.
“This has certainly vindicated the call for the recount, no matter what it would have been I was prepared to accept the umpire’s decision,” she said. ]
Well we’ll have to wait for the final result from McEwen no use jumping to conclusions. Still McEwen is a dog of a seat i mean more than 100,000 people for just 1 person to represent in Parliament i mean cmon!
For instance David Cameron the Tory leader in the UK holds his seat of Whitney with a majority of 14,156, the total number of voters in 2005 was 53,869 (70% turnout) and yet in Australian with seats like Canberra and McEwen with 100,000 plus i mean this has got to change, it will probably help Labor more than us well i dont really know that for sure maybe neither side will be better off than the other but having 100 or 90 thousand people in one electorate is not good for democracy IMHO.
The problem for Rudd is he’s wedged himself, he promised massive tax cuts but these will then raise rates either way its not looking good for the Rooster and Tin Tin. Anyway im not complaining ill get tax cuts and see interest rate rises which will bring the Libs back into play.
Peter Slipper hmmmm agree with him on the merging part, but not that we aren’t electable, it’s just that State wise we have bad leaders of the opposition.
True Steve, but now, for Labor, it should be a matter of getting rid of the residual Howelloism so we can all get on with the job of turning the place into a decent, great, more or less independent nation once again. The times certainly had changed, as you say, but they need changing once again, and for the better this time!
Well the ALP can contest the result to the High Court…i wonder if they will???
Well…you need a good reason to contest an election result. You can’t take it to court just because you don’t like the outcome.
I guess with only 12 votes in it you could put some sort of argument together. Problem is it has to be something big and obvious (100 voters were given the ballot paper for Scullin, for example). The public is not going to be happy to be dragged back to the polls for some technicality. Look at Lindsay for the reaction to a perceived dummy spit by a losing candidate.
If the election result hung on the McEwan outcome, or if Labor had a very shaky majority, that would be a different story. But you wonder whether Labor would want to spend that much time and money just for one extra seat.
Part of me says not worth it to challenge, but I guess Rob Mitchell would probably disagree. I guess it depends on where the extra votes came from, seeing as the AEC was so confident they counted all the original ones correctly.
I’m trying to look on the bright side of still having a Liberal MP: it makes my prediction that the ALP would not win McEwen correct and makes my prediction that the ALP would win 82 seats only one away from being correct. Even brighter is the likelihood that Labor will win it in the swing to Kevin Rudd at the next election. A court challenge would, if successful, backfire ont the challenger as voters would resent an early return to the plls.
493
Rod
Rod, Of course there must be changes. Labor went to the election with several distinctly different policies over the silly party. The main difference was work choices and already the cabinet has met to start the process of changing the industrial relations system. We are now a player in the international climate debate and the first australians will soon receive the symbolic apology that they have called for and deserve. I support these decisions whole heartedly. One area where there was little difference between the parties is taxation. All I’m saying is that Labor should deliver on the promised tax cuts. It is a pity that Howard bribed the voters once again on tax but that’s where we are at. It could cost labor dearly to renege on this election promise.
Distractions like David Hicks are just that and the government is well advised to do nothing to make Hicks’ situation any fairer. He has after all served almost the whole of his sentence and the condition that he report to police a couple of times each week is not terribly onerous. Nelson will be keen to claim the labor is soft on terrorism so giving Hicks the keys to the city isn’t sensible at the moment.
12 Votes:
did she have them in her handbag?
i’ve got a couple of thousand for the greens in a shoebox in my wardrobe.
…but funny,Spiros!!
Mr Slipper forgot to mention Brisbane City Hall in his list of unelectable areas of interest for the coalition.
Very funny.
The Mayor of Noosa, Bob Abbott, despises amalgamated supercouncils so much that he wants to be the Mayor of a supercouncil.
A Queensland mayor who once vowed to fight “to the death” forced council mergers now wants the new Sunshine Coast super council’s top job.
Noosa mayor Bob Abbot today announced he would run for the position of mayor in the Sunshine Coast Regional Council at the local government elections next March.
Running under the slogan “Big Bob for the big job”, Mr Abbot said he was excited about what he could offer the Sunshine Coast.
“I’ve long followed a commonsense approach, and I’m keen to apply that to my vision for the first Sunshine Coast Regional Council,” he said.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/abbot-to-run-for-super-council/2007/12/17/1197740151124.html
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the super council moves to allow high rises in Noosa, Gold Coast style, as they are now allowed in Maroochydore.
All those people with their $5 million houses aren’t going to take a halfing of their property values lying down.
But the developers aren’t going to give up the chance of fast buck or three either.
The fight should be a rip snorter.
M*R*N Alert
The shadow deputy defence minister, Big Bob Baldwin, has made the war in Iraq all understandable. A very reliable source has told him that Iraq’s WMD have been moved to Syria.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:9oatX7a8COkJ:www.forster.yourguide.com.au/news/local/political/baldwin-makes-bold-weapons-claim/1103319.html+wmd+syria+baldwin&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au
One of the problems of the defeat of a longterm government is that they have to use the dregs to fill the shadow ministry – particularly when Dr Nelson owes a lot of favours.
#446, yes, methinks she got “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
Is this the first crack???
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,22936886-462,00.html
458 No it’s the second. The first one was the tax cuts that were given away by the coalition on the first day of the election campaign following hard on the heels of the ones announced in the budget. It is good to finally be finished with the coalition’s ‘Great Economic Management’ mantra that they employed as propaganda for almost twelve years.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2007/12/rivets-are-popping.html
Steve
Without reading the link, I see where you are coming from and I can’t disagree.
Will Rudd see the folly in introducing this abomination on our economy?
Or will he rethink the strategy and return to the basic economic mantra and re-examine the hand he held.
The “trump!”
scraper @ 458 – No, it must all be just a huge misunderstanding because the self-claimed “greatest treasurer we’ve ever had” told us only a couple of days ago that:
And he couldn’t be wrong, could he?
Sadly, I suspect we are in for some interesting times in the years ahead. It does seem Labor is always fated to repair the coalition’s excesses in difficult international circumstances.
Andrew Landeryou reports Bailey by 12 in McEwen:
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2007/12/flash-fran-bailey-wins-mcewen-by-12.html
Hi all
just to clarify Mcewen is still a lib win or is andrew onto some alternate source
BTW comrade glen im not gus (at least i hope im not)
On board appointments, Christopher Pearson’s term on the SBS board is about to come to an end. He should then be sent to de-briefing where Clock Orange-style, he’ll be forced eyes wide open to watch all the advertisements he has inflicted in the middle of movies on SBS.
461
The reality will become apparent in the first quarter next year.
There will be pain in the next year, but this has to ensue to re-allign the culture on consumerism?
Indeed Labor has the runs on the board historicly, but the bounce back strategy is what will define this nation for decades to come.
Will Rudd be up to it or will another force come into play to take the nation forward???
461 Scaper
I don’t think next year is the critical year provided the first budget makes decent spending cuts, contains middle class welfare via means testing. China will keep going till at least past the Olympics. 2009 is looking a bit ordinary though. The wise money seems to saying increase your cash holdings just in case though.
Bill Bowe @462 – do we believe this; there have been so many other premature ones before????
Actually Scaper on more thought, the force that will come into play will be the Garnaut report. This has the potential to not only redefine the economy’s parameters but open up investment opportunities and hurt those not prepared to adjust.
Why spending cuts? Why can’t they ditch the tax cuts? Answer the middle classes and people in work will not be happy. Spending cuts if they happen should focus on the private health care rebate and rich schools. But guess what they will not. Instead i bet it is programs to the poor which will be targeted and what policies is this reformist government going to implement on climate change?
Why wait for the Garnaut Report. Why not start now. Solar Energy and wind power does not require a Garnaut report.
Spending cuts are the only political option. Keeping election promises.
I agree Marky but that is not the political reality. I wish they would just get on with it also but we have a cautious PM. I do think that Garrett will be announcing the ‘local’ CC intiatives though.
On CNN they say Australia’s former PM was “Paul Howard” !!!!
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/17/australia.afghanistan/index.html
And a stupid election promise it was, the twin deficits theory strikes again. The view that governments create recessions, if we happen to go into a hole spending cuts will either make it worse or send us into a recession. A recession will occur if world economies begin to falter and if the private sector which is fuelled by money slows and then slows further due to spending cuts.
Yes Ed@471, Rudd & Co have to “keep faith” with the electorate, and that means keeping even the bad and stupid promises made during the election 🙁
Hopefully for just this term, or even their first year – they didnt promise much beyond that. See how Swannie makes his maiden Budget.
Prime Ministers are remembered if they do things which help nations and which help the people who need people- the marginalised and Howard was not one of these people, already he has been forgotten about and will go down as a dud Prime Minister who did nothing to help this nation prosper.
I see tax cuts as the price for getting elected. My spies in Treasury though tell me they are chomping at the bit to rearrange profligate LNP spending and Tanner sees it as his big moment to make a substantial mark on the economy.
Yes must keep the tax cuts, but if the spending cuts are harsh and are on programs which effect the poor than in reality this government will be only slightly better than the prievious.
Yep Tanner the great reformer, now i am really worried.
Has anyone got the margin for SA Senate? The AEC computer distributed the preferences there today producing,as anticipated, 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 Xen, 1 Greens.
And Vic?
Access Ecoomics targetted Security spending and means testing in their report. ALthough 10Billion cuss per year is a pretty hefty task. I just think the Garnaut Rpt will change our economic thinking radically and redefine what is possible.
Sorry ‘cuss’ = cuts typing in the dark
Is it just me or has the ABC given up on being “unbiased”? I’ve agreed with everything I’ve seen on it since the election. I asked an ABC journalist why their reporting was so biased with continual spinning of pro-Liberal stories when the Libs were so crap. She said at the ABC, they were all petrified of being hauled up before a disciplinary committee and being sacked if they didn’t give exactly 50:50 coverage. I responded that given Labor was ahead 55/45 at the time, 50/50 was knowingly biased in Libs favor. If the current Lib joke party continues at 60/40 why should they get 50/50 favourable press? That’s undemocratic. Next they’ll be asking for preferential draft picks!
478
marky marky Says:
Why not stamp your feet really really hard until uncle Howard is allowed to become prime minister again? That’s what you want so why not come out and say it?
483
7.30 rpt has picked up. Trioli has gone from radio and she hadn’t changed. The shrillness of the B teams on commerical radio makes up for it.
484 Diogenes
I didn’t know if I was projecting my enormous sense of relief on the ABC but I feel like I’ve got the ABC back. The worst thing about the ‘balance’ requirements was that so much stupidity was talked. It seems as if the ABC IQ has suddenly leapt 20 points (not that I believe in IQs but you know what I mean).
Steve i prefer a government in power which actually does things than just ponders and than one that helps the wealthy get wealthier. You are just a rusted on labor person who sees all labor policies as being profoundly gratifying.
And by the way Steve, now we have a government that has a tradition of doing things which help minorities, are we all meant to now go back into the cave and be taciturn.
Ed or anyone out there.
I’m having issues with copyright and the demands of the sponsors of the web site.
They are positioning themselves to profit tremendously from the logo design and are demanding that I put forward the structure over a pissy $913.
I’m at tlmack@optusnet.com.au
Advice please.
488
marky marky
I don’t care if you and your like-minded friends piss into each others pockets in a back room at trades hall but heaven forbid that you have any influence over labor government decision making. Ideas like yours (e.g. scrapping tax cuts which Rudd and Swan went to great lengths to justify just last week post election) would see labor ousted after just one term and would result in the silly party returning to government. You may detest modern labor policies but that’s where the community sits at this stage. If labor pitched it’s appeal where you would have it they would be out of office across the country. The times they have a-changed.
It’s offical – Fran’s back.
[LIBERAL Fran Bailey has won a recount in the Victorian regional seat of McEwan by just 12 votes in one of the most extraordinary results in recent electoral history.
Almost a month after the election, and after Mrs Bailey’s Labor opponent Rob Mitchell had originally won the seat by seven votes, the Australian Electoral Commission is expected to announce the result of a recount of 100,649 votes as soon as tomorrow morning.
Mr Mitchell believed he had won the seat with a swing to Labor of more than 6.4 per cent – higher than the national average, but Mrs Bailey demanded a recount.
Mrs Bailey said tonight she felt “a bit numb”, but elated after her come-from-behind win.
“This has certainly vindicated the call for the recount, no matter what it would have been I was prepared to accept the umpire’s decision,” she said. ]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22940310-5005361,00.html
Well we’ll have to wait for the final result from McEwen no use jumping to conclusions. Still McEwen is a dog of a seat i mean more than 100,000 people for just 1 person to represent in Parliament i mean cmon!
For instance David Cameron the Tory leader in the UK holds his seat of Whitney with a majority of 14,156, the total number of voters in 2005 was 53,869 (70% turnout) and yet in Australian with seats like Canberra and McEwen with 100,000 plus i mean this has got to change, it will probably help Labor more than us well i dont really know that for sure maybe neither side will be better off than the other but having 100 or 90 thousand people in one electorate is not good for democracy IMHO.
The problem for Rudd is he’s wedged himself, he promised massive tax cuts but these will then raise rates either way its not looking good for the Rooster and Tin Tin. Anyway im not complaining ill get tax cuts and see interest rate rises which will bring the Libs back into play.
Peter Slipper hmmmm agree with him on the merging part, but not that we aren’t electable, it’s just that State wise we have bad leaders of the opposition.
True Steve, but now, for Labor, it should be a matter of getting rid of the residual Howelloism so we can all get on with the job of turning the place into a decent, great, more or less independent nation once again. The times certainly had changed, as you say, but they need changing once again, and for the better this time!
Sorry to break this but fran baily won mcewan by 12 votes
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22940310-29277,00.html
Well the ALP can contest the result to the High Court…i wonder if they will???
Well…you need a good reason to contest an election result. You can’t take it to court just because you don’t like the outcome.
I guess with only 12 votes in it you could put some sort of argument together. Problem is it has to be something big and obvious (100 voters were given the ballot paper for Scullin, for example). The public is not going to be happy to be dragged back to the polls for some technicality. Look at Lindsay for the reaction to a perceived dummy spit by a losing candidate.
If the election result hung on the McEwan outcome, or if Labor had a very shaky majority, that would be a different story. But you wonder whether Labor would want to spend that much time and money just for one extra seat.
Part of me says not worth it to challenge, but I guess Rob Mitchell would probably disagree. I guess it depends on where the extra votes came from, seeing as the AEC was so confident they counted all the original ones correctly.
I’m trying to look on the bright side of still having a Liberal MP: it makes my prediction that the ALP would not win McEwen correct and makes my prediction that the ALP would win 82 seats only one away from being correct. Even brighter is the likelihood that Labor will win it in the swing to Kevin Rudd at the next election. A court challenge would, if successful, backfire ont the challenger as voters would resent an early return to the plls.
493
Rod
Rod, Of course there must be changes. Labor went to the election with several distinctly different policies over the silly party. The main difference was work choices and already the cabinet has met to start the process of changing the industrial relations system. We are now a player in the international climate debate and the first australians will soon receive the symbolic apology that they have called for and deserve. I support these decisions whole heartedly. One area where there was little difference between the parties is taxation. All I’m saying is that Labor should deliver on the promised tax cuts. It is a pity that Howard bribed the voters once again on tax but that’s where we are at. It could cost labor dearly to renege on this election promise.
Distractions like David Hicks are just that and the government is well advised to do nothing to make Hicks’ situation any fairer. He has after all served almost the whole of his sentence and the condition that he report to police a couple of times each week is not terribly onerous. Nelson will be keen to claim the labor is soft on terrorism so giving Hicks the keys to the city isn’t sensible at the moment.
12 Votes:
did she have them in her handbag?
i’ve got a couple of thousand for the greens in a shoebox in my wardrobe.