Morgan: 59.5-40.5

The latest fortnightly Morgan face-to-face poll has not replicated the Newspoll bounce, but that’s cold comfort for the Coalition as they still trail 59.5-40.5, unchanged from last time. The Greens are up three points on the primary vote to 10.5 per cent. Labor’s primary vote is down from 50.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent and the Coalition is down from 35.5 per cent to 34.5 per cent.

We also have Newspoll’s latest quarterly aggregation of polling broken down by state and age group. The outstanding features is a picture of relative Labor weakness in New South Wales, consistent with the theme that the state government is damaging their brand there. Charts galore from Possum.

In other news, 65-year-old back-bencher Philip Ruddock has made the surprise announcement that he plans to run again in his blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Berowra. However, he seems in some danger of being blasted out by the state party’s vigorous Right faction, which did so much to contribute to the party’s success at the last election.

UPDATE: By popular demand, here’s a chart showing how Labor’s two-party vote has tracked across Newspoll, Morgan and Essential Research this year. I only have figures going back to June for Essential, and have generally only used every second poll for Morgan and Essential to keep the figures concurrent with Newspoll. Alternatively, you could just look at Possum’s chart dump, which includes ACNielsen.

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.

923 comments on “Morgan: 59.5-40.5”

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  3. [However, he seems in some danger of being blasted out by the state party’s vigorous Right faction, who did so much to contribute to the party’s success at the last election.]

    Gosh, a political opinion from William.

  5. Another virtually identical poll result. That starts making the MOW look pretty small. So it looks like disunity and constant negative sniping is a bad look after all…

  6. I want to correct my comment on the possible Australian fallout of the US Senate resisting the American Auto industry bailout. It might be worse for GM here than I thought. it seems Pontiac is one of teh brands GM is looking to cut in any rationalisation. That is the brand under which some Holden models are sold in the US. That would hurt the local operations a lot with no export income. Without them Holden might not be viable on their current local model lineup. They are supposed to be working on new local models but all I can say is they better get cracking. If the whole US parent folded Holden here would need to look for a foreign buyer fast.

  7. I find the intro a bit odd. “failure to show the newspoll bounce”??? I would have thought 59.5/40.5 is exactly in line with the 59/41 Newspoll, and the fact the Morgan detected the bounce earlier is a function of the timing of the polls. The “failure to show a bounce” sounds like a Shanahanism to me!!

  9. The state by state break-up is quite interesting. Its hard not to believe that there has been a spill-over from NSW state politics into the Federal result. As NSW State labor has slipped, so has the federal result.

    I can hardly blame the voters in NSW though. They have effectively been in a recession already for the past 12 months, when NSW economic and job growth has been zero to negative. If you took NSW out the national GDP figures would still be reasonable.

  10. Well Soc’s

    Aussie & Asian stockmarkets have dropped like pile drivers in the last 35 mins or so on the news that the US Senate have failed to agree a rescue package.

    “Maybe” it is better for this to happen in our markets trading hours, but the screens are red as far as you can see.

    I saw this elsewhere this morning – ” how come Honda, Toyota and others aren’t included in the US Bail out? After all, they make cars in the US, and employ tens of thousands of American car workers. They’ve also been suffering from a downturn in demand; they’ve also been losing money for their head offices.

    If the Big Three (Losers) don’t survive, Toyota, Hyundai and Honda will still be buying parts – that will save at least some of the fictional 3 million jobs that ‘depend on the car industry’.

    Heaven knows what will happen to our car manufacturers. Being foreign subsidiaries hasn’t stopped Ford Australia & Holden from sticking out their tentacles for money from the Australian government; Toyota Australia likewise.”

  11. So we see Morgan, Newspoll and Essential research all pretty close now. Does anyone know how usual it is for the results to be this similar? Does it mean anything?

  14. Federally Labor is still in front of the coalition in NSW and they are killing the opposition in QLD. On those figures losses in NSW would be made up in Qld one would have thought but of course an election isn’t being held now is it?

  15. Dave

    Thanks I hadn’t been following the markets but that doesn’t surprise me. However old fashioned and badly run, a lot of businesses still rely on the US auto industry for their market. I find it pretty eggregiousthat they can find 700 billion to rescue a few thousand invest mbankers in wall Street who can screw up or possibly even commmit fraud, while the cant find 15 billion to maintain hundreds of thousands. you may eb right about the 3 million jobs being fictitious, but teh flow on effects would come close. GM now employ 100,000 in the US; 6500 in Australia as of 2007.

    My previous post wasn’t suggesting that all 3 (GM, Ford and Chrysler) will all go down though. Ford are in much better shape than GM, and Chrysler are mid-field.

    However the point of my post 6 was in some ways even more pessimistic for GM locally. Even if GM in the US are bailed out, if they plan to kill Pontiac in any rationalisation that will hurt GMH. They could be in trouble either way.

  16. William I did read the whole thing. I am saying the “bounce” was already in the previous Morgan, so I dont know why you would focus on that rather than the fact that the absolute numbers are similar, unless you were trying to put a negative spin on it

  18. I’ve done a chart comparing Newspoll, Morgan and Essential. Barring a few quirky individual polls, Morgan is generally three points better for Labor than Newspoll. Essential was consistently two points above Newspoll for a while there, but it’s become erratic lately. They were a bit coy when I asked them whether they’d changed their methodology. Their sudden unanimity around 59-41 is indeed very unusual – it shows up as a bounce in Newspoll and Essential which is, as I say, not replicated in Morgan.

  19. zombie – thats why the repubs want GM Form etc to file chapter 11 – then the workers get right royally screwed – and the auto companies just leave the smoking mess and start over.

    charming indeed.

  23. William Bowe

    “The Greens are up three points (on Morgan) on the primary vote to 10.5 per cent, which was also not reflected in Newspoll.”

    But Newspoll already had Greens at 10% so wouldn’t expect Nrewspoll to take Greens to 13% It may be more that Morgon previously had Greens at 7.5% which thought was unrealistic too low (now corected to 10.5% with most offset reducing Labors primary 2%)

  26. Essential this year has provided the lowest Coalition primary vote while Morgan face to face has consistently provided the highest ALP primary vote. On the TPP it’s all over the place with the pollsters.

    All the polls this year are in the top three charts – they’re messy but give the idea. They probably need some LOESS regression fits run through them.

    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/chart-dump/

  28. The car company bailout in the US has collapsed. Unless Bush steps in ASAP, watch US markets on Friday and by extension, the ASX (on Monday), to tank big time

    🙁 🙁 ……….. glad my margin loan is topped off 😀

  29. No more Ford or GM lol how stupid are the executives for running their businesses into the ground.

    Looks like this is something even the Messiah Obama cannot fix lol!

  32. Socrates @ 15 –

    Even if GM in the US are bailed out, if they plan to kill Pontiac in any rationalisation that will hurt GMH. They could be in trouble either way.

    As I understand it GM wanted the Commodore/Pontiac because it satisfied a need some have for a powerful rear wheel drive car. Presumably, if they wanted to continue catering for that segment GM would continue selling them as Chevys or whatever.

    That said, if GM goes belly-up then we can kiss Holden goodbye anyway. I can’t see anyone else wanting to buy the operation given the state of the international financial market unless Rudd is prepared to put big bucks into the mix. Plus, by world standards, Elizabeth is small beer. No doubt they could build a much bigger factory in China for the money and export the cars to both America and here for a fraction of the price.

  33. Glen, for reasons I don’t fully understand (I’ve been trying to search out a net reference as to why today) the auto problems are only surfacing at GM and Chrysler. Now, it may have something to do with the fact that Ford is a majority owned family company, so while they trade on Wall Street, stocks owned by the public are < 50% of total available shares.

  36. Editorial from the Detroit Free Press (suspect that they had this written ahead of time, it appeared mighty quick)

    [
    A dreadful outcome for Detroit
    December 11, 2008

    “I dread looking at Wall Street,” U.S. Sen. Harry Reid said late Thursday night as he announced that the Senate could not reach agreement on a rescue plan for the auto industry.

    That may be nothing compared to the dread with which everyone in Michigan will be looking at each other today.

    Do General Motors and Chrysler have a Plan B? Can Ford really hang on, particularly if one or both of the others go into bankruptcy?

    Michigan knows the pain of hard times in the auto industry: the related businesses that go under, the stores and restaurants that die, the crushing load on the state budget, the families who abandon their homes and leave the state. It is incredible that anyone, even senators from Southern states that are home to the assembly lines of foreign car producers, could want to watch these hard times turn so much harder for so many people because of a domestic auto industry implosion.

    The final sticking point apparently was when — not whether — UAW workers would have the same wages for as the foreign automakers pay. That will seem like an incredibly minor dispute in the face of an industry collapse, and — in many people’s eyes — an anchor to hang around organized labor for the rest of recorded history.

    Perhaps it won’t come to that. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson could still devise a plan to extract short-term auto industry loans from the $700 billion bailout bill designed for the financial businesses. There may be other options that have not yet been proposed to tide the industry over until a new administration arrives. The Detroit companies may be able to limp along.

    But none of that will temper the fear rising today in Detroit, throughout Michigan and in the many other areas where the domestic auto industry is the economic mainstay.

    The Senate rejection appears rooted in the extraordinary assumptions that Congress can by legislation act as a bankruptcy judge or design the perfect car — so sexy, emission-free and cheap that every American will want one. Yet the final bill negotiated by the White House was, in fact, very much a form of bankruptcy lite. It would have caused plenty of pain here, if that was what Detroit’s opponents were really seeking.

    Job loss numbers have grown substantially since the automakers first went to Washington looking for help. But far worse apparently is to come.

    “Don’t 2.5 million people … deserve three months?” Michigan’s Sen. Debbie Stabenow asked Thursday night in a last-minute plea for a vote.

    Tragically, the answer was no.
    ]

  37. I wrote

    [ zombie – thats why the repubs want GM Form etc to file chapter 11 – then the workers get right royally screwed – and the auto companies just leave the smoking mess and start over. ]

    Glen wrote

    [ They voted for Obama though Dave lol ! ]

    Thats an interesting template to apply when fib voters complain in future.

    Rest assured i will treasure reminding you of such. 🙂 🙂 🙂

  40. 21 – Vera, you make a very good point. Given that Labor is doing so poorly in NSW you would have thought the coalition federally would be making up ground there, not going backwards so this is not a real bad result for federal Labor in NSW, not as good as it could be but not as bad as one might expect either.

  42. The fibs is the bastion of the selfish. It won’t affect glen so why should it really matter. his family don’t work there. Besides he probably owns a Honda

  43. Possum the figures might be a bit all over the place, but I can handle an “all over the place” 2PP for Labor between 54 and 65 without too much trouble!! And the year-end covergence at 59 is a nice Christmas present indeed!

    Thanks William for the charts

  45. Mitsubishi Cenataur…but my next car will be a Honda.

    Look i can empathise with these people but perhaps the downfall of those companies will spark new ones that are profitable and gives them employment…ie more fuel efficient cars ect.

  46. William Bowe

    “Thanks Ron, I had a false recollection of this week’s Newspoll showing the Greens vote in single figures, so I’ve chopped that bit now.”

    Actualy William , Essential hav Greens at 7% so thats what you may hav been tinking of …although feel that low Greens figure will move up

  47. Glen you are pluming new lows your comments taking delight on the coming suffering of an estimated 3 million people.

    Thats a disgrace.

  48. they could probably name cars after political parties.
    the labor- fuel eficient 4 cylinder/injected ute, hard working reliable, and all terain
    The liberal- 8 cylinder inefficient imported rubish. Unreliable can only drive in city, requires over seas parts and can only be serviced by Liberal dealer
    The Green- biodegradable 2 cylinder hybrid
    The National- a tractor

  49. From a purely political pespective, I’m surprised the Republicans didn’t support the auto bailout. What if the Big Three auto makers do go bankrupt on Bush’s watch? He’s a Republican president. Bush presided over a credit crunch, a market crash, a deep recession, and now there’s the possibility of the collapse of the US auto industry, in the country that invented the automobile. Bush can be painted by the Dems as the Herbert Hoover of the 21st century. Bush’s presidency will poison the Republican brand the same way Hoover and the Great Depression did.

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