Morgan: 60.5-39.5

Morgan’s latest survey combines two sets of phone polling conducted in the middle of this week and last week, producing an unusually large sample of 2231. Normally their phone poll figures consist of only one such set of polling. It shows Labor leading 60.5-39.5 per cent on two-party preferred – down from 61-39 at the phone poll of March 11-12, and from 63.5-36.5 in the more recent face-to-face survey released last week.

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.

314 comments on “Morgan: 60.5-39.5”

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  1. Cut the Prime Minister some slack. Regardless of your politics, Kevin Rudd has done a fine job representing our economic and foreign policy interests on his 17 day trip abroad. Yet he made headlines when he offered a salute to President George W Bush.

    Opposition leader Brendan Nelson thought the salute was conduct unbecoming of a PM, meaning Rudd had not shown sufficient deference to Bush at the NATO meeting in Bucharest. The Greens found it equally unbecoming but for the opposite reason. It was, said Bob Brown, a sign that we were still playing deputy sheriff to Bush.

    Anyone who has met the PM can vouch for the fact that this simply his rather awkward form of greeting. No subliminal messages. Just a hi-there salute.

    http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/pms_salute_much_ado_about_nothing/

    How long does JA have to go on the ABC board? Maybe she is the first to see that the times they are a changin’ 😛

  2. Thomarse,

    I suspect that Janet A is thinking more about an extentsion on the ABC Board than any fair play about Rudd.

    She will do ANYTHING to stay in Conroy’s good books.

  3. [I made a response to Albrechtson “When are you leaving the ABC board so it can start to recover its former glory?”]

    Which I suspect won’t be printed, or she will respond with some Smartarse comment.

  4. Thomarse @199

    A vain attempt at restoring some integrity. It must’ve been getting cold outside with the clowns (Ackerman), show ponies (Shanahan), dwarfs (Milne) and freaks (Bolt). She wants to get back inside the tent, where she might thrill her audience like in Howard’s times by inserting her head in a lion’s jaw (the ABC), swinging madly on the trapeze of truth (AWB, the Pacific Solution) or dragging around a comatose dancing bear (Costello for PM).

  5. [Obviously their reason for existence is a deep seated ideological base of…being different to the other blokes.]

    But in some ways they are more different from each other than the Liberals are from Labor.

  6. Yes Shows On… the difference between Liberal and Labor is that the Libs are very anti-intellectual (i.e. very stupid) and the Labor Party is anti-intellectual ( i.e. stupid) … gees .. what a choice!!

  7. 213 Dingo
    It just boggles my mind to think about how people in the future will look back and question why we actively fought against our best evolutionary asset in this time.

  8. “Can I just say how absolutely delighted and how proud I am that central council decided, so overwhelmingly moved yesterday, to step forward with the creation of a new, non-Labor entity in Queensland,” he told reporters on the Gold Coast.”

    Hence the reason for their continual failures; the way they see themselves. Their greatest assets seems to be, being non-Labor. Well I guess they are fairly chuffed among themselves that ‘at least we aren’t Labor’.

    Are they going to go to elections on the basis of what they aren’t rather than what they are? AND if they look at the polls and election results they are saying that ‘we are the not what the people people vote for party’.

  9. Being such a critical issue of possibly ‘biblical’ proportions I hope the Opposition will, when the time comes, offer mostly bi-partisan support for solutions put in place rather than play politics.

    Iceland: life on global warming’s front line
    If any country can claim to be pitched on the global warming front line, it may be the North Atlantic island nation of Iceland.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/06/2209125.htm

  10. Kina @ 218,
    I think the point is not so much that the Liberal and National parties don’t stand for things (normally, though there’s a bit of an identity crisis at the moment).
    The point is that the things they stand for are quite different from each other.
    What do, say, Malcolm Turnbull and Ron Boswell have in common, apart from being non-Labor?

  11. Kina@219
    Speaking of ‘biblical’ proportions, I see that Charlton Heston has shuffled off this mortal coil. So goes another of GWB’s elderly supporters…

  12. [Speaking of ‘biblical’ proportions, I see that Charlton Heston has shuffled off this mortal coil. So goes another of GWB’s elderly supporters…]

    Who’s next? Ernest Borgnine or Jon Voight?

  13. As important as the brazen, inappropriate salute was…..maybe things like below are just a tad more important. I wonder if the press will run with this at the same level as the ‘salute’?

    Cabinet linked to wharfies dispute
    Dr Shiel said: “ACIL I defines the terms of the activist strategy that the cabinet signed off on. It canvassed the prospect of industrial action that would give the stevedores the option of dismissing their employees. That means cabinet approved provoking a national strike and that is sensational.”
    http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cabinet-linked-to-wharfies-dispute/2008/04/06/1207420201380.html

  14. Oh, Really! The press is down to salutations and costumery.

    I like a nice outfit, myself. Some do, some don’t care. Aspect Ratio matters, as well.

    On the other hand, no matter how well I dress, I am not likely to be the Prime Minister. Nor a Prime Minister’s partner. It takes a little more than clothing.

    I noted, as I would, Jeanette’s deliberately grey dress, on the occasion of her husband’s, if I am correct, his tenth year in office. I assumed she and her advisers intended a less than triumphal appearance. When they thought they had it made. Whilst observing this, I thought it appropriately foreboding, as a shroud.

    Not that this prevented Jeanette from wearing, on the night of the 24th, wattle in pale satin. Oh, I bet she wished she had brought another outfit. The old grey would have worked. And saved them some money.

  15. The Myer Group has written to anyone who will listen to complain about interest rate rises and in particular their effect on retailers. Apparently, there is a whole range of economic data due out this week that is expected to confirm that the economy has been slowing slightly lately. This will make Swan’s job of framing the budget much easier than if everything was tearing along at break neck speed.

    “Retail sales figures released on Friday show sales dipped by 0.1per cent in February following a similar fall in January. Although the official Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show department stores did better in both months, the Myer and David Jones chains are exposed to an economic downturn because a large share of their turnover is discretionary sales.

    Reporting strong profits for Myers two weeks ago, Mr Wavish said that excluding store openings, sales were down in March, from the previous months.

    Myer is particularly exposed, having been the subject of a private equity takeover at the peak of the market 18 months ago. Private equity shareholder Texas Pacific Group’s strategy of turning around the company’s profitability and then selling would be jeopardised by a retail slowdown.”

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23495905-601,00.html

  16. Poor old Peter Costello seems to have snookered himself. No employer will offer him a job because they want to see him lead the Liberal Party and no liberal will offer him the leadership because they want him to get a job with an employer.

  17. Bill’s back. About bloody time too. Nicholson’s does a fine job, but Leake delivers more consistently brilliant work, im(extraordinarily)ho.

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/opinion/cartoons/

    Kina at 224, even Janet “PNAC” Albrectson agrees that the salute was nothing to get into too much of a flap about, even though it was delivered to her personal lord and obermeistrefuhrer, The Imbecile himself.
    The salute was hardly like the ones snapped off by the sar. major in the pom comedy “It Ain’t ‘Arf Hot, Mum” that’s for sure.

    And yes, Kina, the rather good ABC “Bastard Boys” shown on telly before last years FedEl left little doubt that the training of strike-breaking mercenaries (mainly ex-Oz military personel) was not news to El Rodente’s Cabinet of the time.

  18. Re Frank Calabrese at 176…

    One wishes Mr Tuckey was an outgoing member of parliament… what use he is to the Libs I’ll never know. Unless his use is to make the rest of them look more relevant and sane by comparison.

  19. Crikey Whitey @ 225 –

    Oh, I bet she wished she had brought another outfit. The old grey would have worked. And saved them some money.

    This brings up an interesting point. Does the PM’s sig other get a clothing or any other allowance?

    steve @ 277 – I doubt Cossie’s phone isn’t ringing because business wants him to become Lib leader. It’s more likely that business doesn’t want him, full stop.

    The people may have been fooled by his claimed economic brilliance until recently, but I don’t believe the suits ever were.

  20. Just read the latest piece by the great Australian Dwarf (in keeping with recent discussions here, no link).

    I agree with a lot of what he’s saying about Stevens, head of the RBA. But why oh why does Milne have to gild the lily with a description of him as “a boring Protestant”? And then why does he have to “prove” it with a nasty little description of him as being a guitar player at Sunday church services when he was a kid? And meeting his wife at a church function?

    I mean, the whole “folk mass” thing (as the Catholics used to call their version of it) is not my cup of tea, particularly, but what’s compellingly, absolutely, unarguably boring about it, enough for Milne to describe Stevens with the phrase he used?

    Milne has a few character rough spots himself, and not from when he was a kid, either. Milne’s moral slips have been of much more recent vintage.

    I’m sick of this man continually writing off people in his column with unsourced innuendo, unimportant factoids and greasy segues from one aspect of a person’s character to another.

    Milne is morphing into a nastly little piece of work, more so as his delusions of grandeur from hitching himself to Costello’s wagon recede into the history books.

  21. The “Liberal” Party’s right-wing course appears to be being set.

    Jack the Insider, The Australian, 3 April 2008:

    http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/jacktheinsider/index.php/theaustralian/comments/no_easy_listening_for_nelson/

    The word from within the Liberal Party is that right wing power broker, Senator Nick Minchin is already counting numbers in support of the current deputy, Julie Bishop. Knowing that if Nelson stumbles then Turnbull will make his move, Minchin has taken precautions to ensure that the right’s great nightmare does not come true.

  22. 230 Mayo
    I didn’t bother saving the words, but Macbank and ANZ were quite specific about how they regarded the former future leader. An examination of the political donations list, and in particular the volume of donations, suggests that business saw the coalition in a much dimmer light than the opinion polls suggested.

  23. Blogs need a little sarcasm or irony icon to tag the end of sentences so we don’t get misunderstood. ;]

    228 Enemy Combatant: J.A is playing with our minds, surely. Or do I start believing in Doppelgaengers?

  24. 230 [I doubt Cossie’s phone isn’t ringing because business wants him to become Lib leader. It’s more likely that business doesn’t want him, full stop.

    The people may have been fooled by his claimed economic brilliance until recently, but I don’t believe the suits ever were.]

    I was hoping someone like you might be able to set him up with a job outside of politics, MayoFeral. Because the Nightwatchman sure doesn’t seem to be in the anyone but Costello camp.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/07/2209408.htm?section=justin

  25. steve @ 235 –

    I was hoping someone like you might be able to set him up with a job outside of politics, MayoFeral. Because the Nightwatchman sure doesn’t seem to be in the anyone but Costello camp.

    Steve, these days I’m careful about what I write so no longer have much need of lawyers, and being retired a 5 year old can do my tax return…um…okay bad example… 😉

    As for Nelson, that article alone is proof that he is unfit to govern. Calling Lord Lunchalot a “valuable resource” suggests he’s also several sandwichs short of a picnic and the sooner his shrinks connect his temples to the national electricity grid and flip the switch the better! IMHO, about the only value Dolly still has would be as blood and bone.

  26. 236 [the only value Dolly still has would be as blood and bone.]

    There must still be some hope for Dolly, after all he has just seen the Minister for Horseflu promoted to head of the racehorse breeding industry.

  27. OMG, he’s roaming around with his hands in his pockets when he should be saluting the wardead, that was the comment last night from the shock horror RWDB’s when they saw that photo.

  28. Rx @ 232 –

    Minchin is also stirring the pot in the SA branch just as the opposition was starting to make some headway with the electorate. The Chris Pyne aligned ‘moderates’ have just bought preselection for the state upper house forward by 12 months in an attempt to head off Minchin’s right wingers gaining control of the process.

    These turkeys just can’t help themselves. The only thing they hate more than Labor is each other!

  29. With Rudd overseas and all sorts of interesting things are happening as we get represented to the world’s political scene it is a wonder any journalist is bored. Are they intellectually challenged that they must concentrate on trivial issues and really do not know how to inform the public of the important issues? I wonder if they are missing the “spoon feeding” that the Howard Government allegedly gave them (and therefore the Howard Government’s slant on the news). I am talking of the “journalists” in a general sense but we all know which ones are the main offenders.

    Also their negative/trivial reporting could be a self interested attempt to get the Rudd Government to “spoon feed” them in the same way.

    But they do seem lost at the moment.

  30. I’m wondering why my respect for Michelle Grattan is sliding rapidly? I really thought she’d be above the personal potshots that seem to characterize mainstream journalism, and yet there she it talking about salutes and Rudds method of delivery at the moment.
    How about having a constructive go at the substance Michelle?
    I’m certainly not asking for glowing praise, but if you’ve got misgivings about the leadership, then holding back until you understand intellectually what’s wrong might be a bit more appriopriate. A little bit of analysis about the possible plus’ and minus’ to Australia’s economic and social development in relation to Rudds trip seems more worthy than trying to anticipate next weeks New Idea cover.

    I agree with ‘spoon feeding’ comment Doug. Heaven forbid that journo’s might have to think about their work.

  31. I sense the journalists at home are starting to question the tactics of their touring colleagues. Yesterday on “Insiders” both right and left leaning commentators were dismissive of the salute and suggesting maybe their fellow journalists were struggling to find topics that would interest people back hiome. JA in the OO has come out with the same thing.
    Today Mitchell, on 3AW made a meal of Rudd’s bureaucrat speak and went on to say that this will put an end to Rudd’s honeymoon. Is this bloke for real? Talk about wishful thinking. Mitchell did say however that he thought commentary on the salute and Therese’s attire was “a bit rough”.
    I still believe if this type of tripe continues the journalists and their reporting will become the news.

  32. Well my comment didn’t get published no surprise there.

    Couple of posters showed Janet wasn’t moving leftwards much at all.

    I have spent a bit of time on the Akerman blog (until the Fraser article) and one thing has really really struck me. The redhot vicious venom directed at Rudd who has been PM for barely over 100 days! You would think Rudd had introduced 95% taxation and hung ever firstborn for telephone poles! He has hardly settled in!

    When Howard won in ’96 I didn’t like it. I heard him make his first public speech and groaned “Oh no, not 3 years of this!”

    It was his actions, lies, Hicks, Iraq, wasting of minerals boom windfall etc that turned me into a Howard Hater YEARS after he was first elected!

    So right wing born to rule causing this abundant unearned venom?

  33. I’m not a person that readily yells “conspiracy” even when there seems to be one but I must admit I’m getting the distinct impression Rudd has enemies in the press corp and they are out to get him politically. I don’t recall Howard receiving this much negative attention in his early days.

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