Morgan: Rudd 55, Turnbull 30

Roy Morgan has released a mid-week phone survey of 574 respondents on attitudes to the party leaders, which has 55 per cent favouring Kevin Rudd against 30 per cent for Malcolm Turnbull. Kevin Rudd has a 55 per cent approval rating and 31 per cent disapproval; Malcolm Turnbull’s figures are 43 per cent and 24 per cent. The sample produced a two-party result of 57-43 in favour of Labor: no further detail on voting intention is provided.

UPDATE: Aristotle in comments points out that primary vote figures from the survey are available on Morgan’s poll trends page: Labor 46.5 per cent, Coalition 34.5 per cent, Greens 8 per cent, others 4.5 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.

451 comments on “Morgan: Rudd 55, Turnbull 30”

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  1. [Costello argues the Liberals are captive of “a cult of the leader”, which he contrasts with Labor’s “cult of the party”. Labor removes the leader when necessary; the Liberals, argues Costello, are the leader’s captive.]

    A Liberal PM yes, but a Liberal Opposition Leader has no such support, as proven by the frequent turnover during the Hawke/Keating era

  3. Adam,
    Re the appropriate attitude of oppositions:
    I’m sure that you’re familiar with Curtin’s address to Parliament, when Menzies was urging a national (all-party) government to prosecute the war effort, after the 1940 election, and its knife-edge result. Curtin’s magnificent speech, opposing the idea, in which he struck the appropriate note of compromise between opposition and support:
    “the obligations of my (Curtin’s) office….shall be conducted …(so) that it will be free from anything but reasonable, honorable and straightforward criticism and opposition….
    “I accept …(the electorate’s)…decision and shall do my best to have carried out by the government as much as possible of the programme in which I believe. I shall not permit myself to do anything that would jeopardise the free parliamentary system of this country, which is the chief instrument of the freedom that we are striving to preserve.”
    Paul Hasluck (imho justly) characterised this speech as a classic statement of parliamentary government in Australia.

  4. Adam @ #373
    “Labor lost Bass Hill in similar circs in 1988”

    There have been changes to NSW electoral laws since 1988 which prevent a repeat of the Bass Hill by-election circumstances.

    At the Bass Hill by-election, the Liberal Party obtained an injunction to prevent the ALP from handing out their HTV card because it was missing the line “Printed by….”.
    The ALP were unable to use their HTVs for 1.5 to 2 hours while they stamped “Printed by….” on each HTV.

    The relevant changes since 1988 are:
    Candidates’ Political Party affiliation is now printed on the ballot paper.
    All election material, including HTVs, must be approved by the electoral commission in advance.

  5. Peter: Yes, but that didn’t stop Curtin, even in wartime, voting against Fadden’s 1941 budget, and, with the support of Coles and Wilson, bringing down the government.

    Barry: That may have cost Labor some votes, but the main reason Labor lost Bass Hill was because Unsworth’s government was in such bad odour. Unsworth nearly failed to win Rockdale on the same day.

  7. If anyone ever wondered how Howie won three elections, perhaps this will help. Without putting too fine a point on it LOTS OF AUSTRALIANS ARE RACISTS.No prizes for guessing which group was mentioned most frequently.

    [On average, about one in 10 people said it was not good for people of different cultures to marry and about the same number said not all races are equal.

    People were asked which cultural/ethnic groups do not fit into Australian society. NSW topped the list with 46 per cent of survey respondents saying some ethnic groups should not be in the country. The ACT had the lowest such response with 28 per cent. ]

    40pc believe others don’t belong here
    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24415273-5005962,00.html

  12. “The difference between a cane toad and ackerman?”
    I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Possibly cane toads have higher ethical standards.

    Anyone who is too partisan for GP’s liking must be falling off the edge of the scale.

  20. [A pantry]

    I thought you were referring to Christopher Pearson for a minute then.

    But that would’ve only made sense if you wrote “closet”.

  22. [Pearson is not a closet queen, he has said on the record he is gay.]

    He has also said that sexuality is fluid; so maybe he will jump back in the closet and turn non-gay.

  24. GP @ 411:

    [Well he got through Insiders without mentioning Heiner. Astonishing.

    He’s much too partisan for my liking.]

    There’s hope for you yet, GP.

    For your next exercise please repeat, “Rudd has won this week in politics,” one hundred times.

    Pies was very quiet today. I think he’s been read the riot act (it’s hard to imagine any self-censorship going on). He only tried to bring up one wacky theory: that the condensate tax would completely cut off foreign investment in Australia. But that was howled down by Farr and Crabbe who pointed out that condensate and Woodside had enjoyed a tax holiday for (to quote a scowling Farr): “THIRTY…… ONE YEARS, Piers.”

    After that we hardly heard a peep out of the Large One in the fat chair. Quite refreshing.

  29. Good article by Gittins:

    http://business.smh.com.au/business/ideology-our-guard-against-opportunism-20080928-4ppi.html?page=2

    [I can’t help thinking that, unless Mr Rudd can demonstrate his own convictions, values, sense of direction and priorities, it’s just a matter of time before the electorate becomes disillusioned with him, seeing him as a man of straw.

    Against a lightweight like Brendan Nelson, it hardly mattered. Against someone as smart as Malcolm Turnbull, it will matter a lot.]

  31. Interesting conclusion to a Paul Sheehan article on how Turnbull white-anted Nelson, in the SMH:

    Dr Nelson declined to be interviewed for this column. His loyalty is commendable, though I’m not sure what exactly he is being loyal to. As of now the Liberal Party is not a political movement or a political philosophy but, apart from a band of idealists, a collective of opportunists masquerading as a cause. The deeper you go, the less you find.

    (my emphasis)

  32. Coorey still on about the Prime Tourist and other assorted ancient history…

    [Rudd is starting to resemble the home handyman in a house full of half-finished jobs, while still eager to begin more. He’s out in the backyard building a shed while the wife is yelling at him to finish the kitchen renovation and rehang the screen door out the front.

    The timing of his UN address meant he almost missed the AFL grand final. It was bad enough he missed the traditional breakfast.

    That may sound trite but Rudd has yet to develop any warm attachment between his Government and the people and he now faces an articulate and learned opponent, every bit as ambitious and self-confident as himself.]

    Trite? A Fairfax gallery reporter? Tell me it ain’t so!

    I would have thought a successful election a year ago demonstrated a little warmth from the electorate in Labor’s direction. An election that got rid of the genius, invincible politicians Howard, Costello, Downer, Vaile, has seen off one Opposition Leader, Nelson, and which sees the winner of that election still ahead in the polls by a record amount would evidence some success by Rudd and his gang of bumbling home renovators. But no, Kevin-747’s still floundering around.

    And yes, Coorey nominates yet another “test”…

    [Outwardly, it’s back to work for Rudd today with a community cabinet in Newcastle and then later this week at the premiers’ conference in Perth.

    Colin Barnett, the first Liberal Premier since the stone age, will test Rudd’s ability to reform the Federation while Rudd will again be forced to try and rescue his computers in schools package, another old project still uncompleted.]

    Actually it’s an ongoing project, going ahead in tranches, as was always the plan. Apart from a recent choke by NSW, hundreds of schools already have their computers. And the first Lib premier “since the stone age” is going to “test” Rudd? Who’d have guessed that?

  34. Has Milne sniffed the wind and realized the old Turnbull narrative of “Swan is talking down the economy, while talking up inflation” is over?

    [Glenn Milne | September 29, 2008

    Market injection well-planned

    THE decision by the Government to pump $4 billion of confidence boosting taxpayers’ money into the non-bank mortgage lending sector is a significant milestone in the developing stature of Treasurer Wayne Swan.

    It may also be the first signal lesson that the phase of policy constipation in the Rudd Government is coming to an end; that the period of policy review and consideration is moving on through process to resolution and final implementation. In other words, things are finally happening.]

    Would that be a concrete measure to “put downward pressure on interest rates” perhaps?

    [In April, Swan attended meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington. He returned, convinced of the proposition that Bear Stearns wasn’t the end but in fact just the beginning. Rudd, who had also been to Washington and heard the whispers on the institutional wire, concurred. ]

    Gee, but what about Glenn’s column (just yesterdayweek wasn’t it?… in the Telegraph?) about the “Prime Tourist” not having a clue about the impact of the global financial crisis on Australia? Writing on on of Rudd’s responses to a journalist in Nw York, Glenn intoned,

    [Roughly translated, it means: “I have a reform plan for the G20, but no idea about the on-the-ground impact of this crisis in Australia.”

    http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24411595-5001031,00.html

    Forget a week… a day is long time, at least in political commentary.

    OK, so Glenn hates Turnbull, and this might just be a roundabout way of sniping at him,

    [Turnbull floated his fuzzy and often confused idea of a similar nature, including buying bad mortgage loans: the exact cancer that has the US markets in a potential death spiral. The key, of course, to the Swan plan was to buy only triple-A rated mortgages. ]

    …but Milne’s message is clear: Chapter 1 of The Rudd Era is over.

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24415571-33435,00.html

  35. #434 – Swannie is proving the so called weak-link is turning out to be the strongest welded joint, no stress fracture here. The ugly duckling is flying high like a swan.

  36. Why, you’re a poet, Fins!

    In my last post I wrote that Milne’s critical article on the trip was “yesterday week”. Error! It was actually yesterday. The little bugger’s completely changed his tack in the space of 24 hours, turning Rudd’s trips overseas from “not having a clue” about the local ramifications of the global economic crisis into a series of masterstrokes of pre-emptive planning and information gathering.

    Something’s up (besides Glenn being up himself, that is).

  37. [Its a bit odd that the Curious Snail could not bring itself to mention a TPP swing to Labor, since the election, in Qld.]

    It is isn’t it. Malcolm is the saviour! Oh, but not the Liberals…

  39. I think the worry for the more right wing of the Liberal Party is that as and if Turnbull becomes more popular he attains more leverage to weed more of them out and drop more of their ideology from policy. This might bring those white ants out, such as Costello and Milne (if he is one) and so forth.

  40. Actually, what I was wondering was whether Murdoch has a hand in this, after the meeting in NY with Rudd. Milne’s reversal is 180 degrees in 24 hours. He even used the word “judgement” about Labor in nice way for once. Kelly was calling for “two cheers” for Rudd on Saturday. Only Shanahan was still waffling on about wadting taxpayers’ money in his audio piece (no written backup).

  42. Michelle Grattan demonstrates why she is so respected by the political class:

    [It will take a while for Labor to get a handle on the degree of threat that Turnbull will pose, but it’s certainly greater than that presented by Brendan Nelson.

    Similarly the Senate, now flexing its muscles, could be just an irritant or a serious block.]

    Shorter La Stupenda: “Turnbull is more popular than Nelson and the Senate could be a serious block… or not.”

    Do they blush when they pick up their pay cheques?

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/bringing-the-world-home/2008/09/27/1222217582515.html

  45. A pretty vacuous piece, but Grattan is not the worst offender. I recall from the days when I used to read the Murdoch press that they are much worse. The fact is that we have far too much political commentary in our media, and they struggle to find something suitably portentious to say every day. If they don’t have anything to go with, they just make it up.

  46. I think Milne’s 24-hour, 180 degree switcheroo on the wisdom of Rudd’s trip has to take the cake, from plonking contempt to portentious praise overnight. Nevertheless, to me it potentially signals what Glenn would call “a paradigm shift” in media emphasis.

    The “Tourist PM” and “Swan stole my homework” angles have just about disappeared in seas of irrelevance and bi-partisanship respectively, today.

    Coorey’s “Rudd didn’t even turn up for the GF breakfast” will sink without trace.

    Pies’ “Taxing condensate will wreck foreign investment” was smacked down before he even got it all out on Insiders.

    The “unpopular alcopops” meme is long dead (thanks to that Newspoll).

    What’s left? “Rudd hates pensioners”, and maybe “Rudd hates private health insurance”.

    There’s a bin marked “Sub-Prime Meltdown” and every economic skyrocket the Opps send Labor’s way will disappear into it.

    A good week.

  49. Uncle Rupert had a good meeting with Rudd in NY last week, and afterwards he had a chat with the editors of The OZ & asked them to go easier on Labor?
    I nearly fell out of my chair when I read the Poisoned Dwarf’s latest opinion piece this morning.

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