Morgan: 57.5-42.5

No joy for Malcolm Turnbull from the latest Roy Morgan face-to-face survey of 1221 respondents, which has Labor’s two-party lead up to 57.5-42.5 from 55.5-44.5 in Brendan Nelson’s last poll (which was an unusually good result for him). There has been a straightforward 1.5 per cent primary vote shift to Labor from the Coalition, who are respectively on 46.5 per cent to 36.5 per cent. However, the number of respondents who think Labor will win is down from 57.5 per cent to 54 per cent, while the Coalition is up from 26.5 per cent to 29 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.

419 comments on “Morgan: 57.5-42.5”

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  1. without seeming to go agin the tide

    I must restate that at least 3 mths worth of data will give a more quantifiable result

    with the background noise of the WEC, i think most voters are still digesting the nelson period.

    writing off talcum this early is a tad premature

  2. [As weird as it might sound, the NineMSN Passion Pulse online poll was the most accurate or all the polls.]
    Is that assuming you looked at it on the day of the poll?

  3. The day before I think. I didnt actually look at it at the time (online poll thought I, why bother – silly twas me!). A nice chap sent me a spreadsheet of the results a little after the election on it.

  6. [Yes, it’s amusing Possum but what conclusions should we draw?

    Even broken clocks are right twice a day.]

    So very true. I will never trust an internet poll, no matter how good it looks.

  7. [So very true. I will never trust an internet poll, no matter how good it looks.]
    That Pulse one had an interesting weighting scheme, you had to entire how you voted at the previous election so it could weight the responses.

  8. [you had to entire how you voted at the previous election so it could weight the responses]

    What’s to stop you lying? In fact I think I probably did…

  11. The Passion Pulse poll, apart from having the most cringeworthy name ever to leak out of a third rate marketing unit, was interesting in that it ran really large samples (albeit self selecting) on every seat in the country. What surprised me, and makes me treat it a little more seriously than such a methodology would otherwise deserve, is that not only did it get the TPP figure close – it also predicted nearly every seat correctly and got an awful lot of seats right within a few percent of their winning margin.

    The poll poses quite the conundrum! The fact that it got so much right, and so accurately in terms of margin makes it hard to dismiss as just another worthless online poll even though that’s exactly what it looks like at face value.

  12. [it also predicted nearly every seat correctly and got an awful lot of seats right within a few percent of their winning margin.]
    I think it got Sturt (my seat) wrong. In the last week it said Labor would win it by 2%, but The Duchess of Sturt won it by 1100 votes.

    Having said that, I guess that could’ve been in the margin of error.

  13. [Nothing, but do they weight based on your supposed previous vote?]
    I assume it used it to weight the swing.

    A switch from Labor to Liberal in a marginal seat would be given more weight than a switch from Labor to Liberal in a safe Labor seat (because there were more Labor votes to start off with).

    How exactly it worked I don’t know. But it predicted Rudd would win comfortably, but not in a landslide. So that’s pretty accurate to the end result.

  14. [A switch from Labor to Liberal in a marginal seat would be given more weight than a switch from Labor to Liberal in a safe Labor seat (because there were more Labor votes to start off with).]

    Yes but I don’t know if other polls do that. Poss?

  15. Dario – I’ve heard of party polling and corporate polling elsewhere that does that, not so brutally, but by applying an encumbancy inflation factor for each political unit (which in our case would be seats). Weighting on the basis of seat change according to incumbancy is possible I suppose – an interesting idea in itself!

  16. [Weighting on the basis of seat change according to incumbancy is possible I suppose – an interesting idea in itself!]
    It would’ve been good if they wrote their exactly methadology somewhere on the page.

    Having said that, whatever they are doing seems to work, so maybe they wanted to keep it a trade secret.

  17. [Having said that, whatever they are doing seems to work, so maybe they wanted to keep it a trade secret.]

    Australian pollsters are like that – usually very hush hush on the nitty gritty of their methodology. Most of the pollsters seem to be quite happy to talk about their general systems off the record without going into the fine detail, but there’s one pollster in particular that is extraordinarily secretive and does themselves no credibility favours in the wider world by taking that route.

  18. Finished watching the rerun of Q&A from last night. Wow, what a cow Nicola Roxon was. Even a Labor-inclined viewer would be disappointed with her shameful and constant interjections.

  19. [Even a Labor-inclined viewer would be disappointed with her shameful and constant interjections.]
    You mean when Costello didn’t have the guts to admit he left the economy with high inflation?

    It brought back memories of his press conference last year when he kept repeating “It’s the underlying figure that’s important!”

    The journalists couldn’t stop laughing.

  22. And Roxon refused to provide the Dec 2007 inflation rate. It was 3%, which means they did not inherit 16 year high inflation.

  23. [Costello disputed the “16 year high” claim, which was a blatant falsity.]
    Well, it depends on what statistic you use. Costello always used whatever statistic suited his argument at the time, so why can’t others do the same?

    The weighted mean in December 2007 was 1.1% for the previous quarter, i.e. the last quarter Costello was Treasurer. It previously hadn’t been that high since December 1990, when we were part of a world-wide recession. See the second to right column here: http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/Bulletin/G01hist.xls

    The reason he suddenly shifted during the election campaign and said “it’s the underlying rate that is important!” is because that statistic let him pretend that inflation was low, even though many economists called him on it and said he was spouting nonsense.

  24. No 73

    [Costello always used whatever statistic suited his argument at the time, so why can’t others do the same?]

    The question is: was inflation at 16 year highs at the end of 2007? The answer is no.

  25. [The question is: was inflation at 16 year highs at the end of 2007? The answer is no.]
    The answer is it depends on what statistic you use. If you use the “weighted mean” the answer is yes.

    This is politics mate. You use whatever statistic works in your favour. Costello did it all the time, why can’t Roxon do it?

  27. [the RBA’s preferred measures of underlying inflation averaged 3.6 per cent in the December quarter (2007), a 16-year high.]

    Don’t show this to Costello! He will yell at you, then say you are casting aspersions on the Royal Australian Navy. 😀

  28. ShowsOn, talk about a rude awakening for Costello! It’s part of a fantasy that he dreamt up while dozing in the hammock. Along with the fantasy that the foreign debt when he left office was not the highest ever, housing the most unaffordable in the world, and the second highest interest rates in the developed world. Such a nice dozy dream he was having … till rudely tipped out of the hammock.

  29. [ShowsOn, talk about a rude awakening for Costello! It’s part of a fantasy that he dreamt up while dozing in the hammock.]
    I thought it was hilarious how much it got to him! He suddenly turned into a gangster SAY THAT AGAIN, I DARE YOU, I DOUBLE DARE YOU!

    He seems to be extremely sensitive regards defending his ‘legacy’.

    [housing the most unaffordable in the world, and the second highest interest rates in the developed world. ]

    I think I know why it bothers him so much. He knows that inflation got out of hand because the Government spent too much in 2005 – 2007, primarily because Howard was trying to get himself re-elected. So whenever people mention inflation going nuts, what he hears is “you should’ve challenged Howard so you could become P.M. and reign in spending”.

  31. [I reckon all he hears is “you should’ve challenged Howard so you could become P.M. and reign ”. :-)]

    Yeah, because then HE would’ve had to figure out how to get re-elected.

    He probably would’ve proposed something radical – abolish the top tax rate, something regressive like that.

  32. There is also the embarrassing admission he made to Howard’s biographers that he knew Howard’s spending was reckless and it didn’t sit comfortably with him… But (as usual) he was too gutless to seize control of the situation.

  34. On a side issue:

    This Henson creature is an abomination. Would you believe he scoured the children’s playgrounds in search of a model?

    [REVELATIONS that photographer Bill Henson selected children to pose nude for him by scouring primary school playgrounds at lunchtime have sparked anger and alarm among parents groups and principals.

    Four months after NSW police seized Henson’s work from a Sydney gallery, the photographer has sparked renewed debate after making his first public defence of his work.

    Yesterday, Henson told The Daily Telegraph he had been introduced to the principal of a Melbourne primary school, who agreed to let him scout for potential models.

    “I went in there – just wandered around while everyone was having their lunch. I saw this boy, and I saw a girl too actually, and I thought they would be great and the principal said, ‘Fine, I will give the parents a ring and let you know’.]

    An absolute disgrace that a school principal would allow such a thing or that Henson would even consider using a school to search for models!

  37. G.P. @ 83. Not all of us are guys, thanks. And @ 84, what the hell does the silly pixie’s behaviour have to do with the Morgan Poll?

  38. Resign would have been a good option, 83.

    How does any person with self respect cling on to a position when he knows that the course he is instructed to follow is ruinous for the country.?

    Are you suggesting Costelloe is entittled to rely on the Nuremberg Defence?

    Probably appropriate in reality…

  39. HSO, what does Henson have to do with the Morgan poll, or even federal politics widely: Nothing, but it makes a handy diversion from the lie at number 74:

    [The question is: was inflation at 16 year highs at the end of 2007? The answer is no.]

  44. The Age, 19 July 2007

    [The Treasurer also appeared to question the fiscal responsibility of some of the Government’s spending. “I have to foot the bill and that worries me, and then I start thinking about not just footing the bill today but if we keep building in all these things, footing the bill in five and 10 and 15 years, and you know I do worry about the sustainability of all these things.”]

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pm-v-costello-rift-reopens/2007/07/18/1184559867707.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

    But not “worry” enough to do the slightest damn thing about it – except complain to biographers well after the fact.

  45. No 93

    Yes, I predicted you’d bring that up, and yes I still think Henson is an abomination. Turnbull’s artistic taste is also questionable.

    No 94

    Cuppa, sounds like the usual thoughts of a Treasurer! It’s their job to worry.

  46. It is also the treasurer’s job to ensure the sustainability of spending. To just sit back and say, “Well, I worried about it didn’t I?” isn’t enough.

  47. No 96

    [It is also the treasurer’s job to ensure the sustainability of spending.]

    Costello was our longest serving Treasurer who delivered more budget surpluses than Keating could ever dream of. Such prudent economic management is now being claimed as the plaything of the Labor Party; the same party who delivered the worst economic slow down since the last World War, 1 million job losses and 17% interest rates.

  48. Oh and government debt of $96 billion.

    So, before you preach about sustainable spending – it would be best to check that your own house is in order.

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