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”

Comments Page 14 of 19
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  1. My guess is that they will replicate the Queensland targets of ‘a national
    greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 60 per cent below our 2000 levels by 2050’.

  2. I was just looking up some economic statistics (a statistics tragic?) and I found some excellent news for Glen, Malcom Turnbull and anyone else overly pessimistic about the Australian economy: the IMF rates us as one of only two major economies in the OECD (the other is Canada) not likely to go into recession next year. Most including UK, Germany and USA are already in recession. The IMF are foreasting growth to drop to 2.2% in Australia in 2009. Canada is forecast at 0.3; most other countres are expecting negative (-0.2 to -1.3). So according to the IMF, Asutralia is in the BEST position of the OECD countries. See Table 1 at
    http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/update/03/index.htm

    I’m sure Malcom will be the first to contratulate Rudd and Swan! 😉

  3. MayoFeral @ 642

    On GW pessimism – is there an identifiable threshold at which stage would you enter an ‘On The Beach’ last ever motor car race? That is to say, when would you give up worrying about the inevitability of it all and decide to live life to the full, while it lasts?

    BTW, IMHO, 20% for some countries only is a fair bit too little, too late. See, for example:

    http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=5kzEVCMnHVI

    Also, BTWk, Bishop’s line on this stuff is divorced from reality. She just doesn’t get it.

  4. Socrates @ 652

    Actually, impressive stats, but…

    After the accuracy of last year’s IMF predictions, what confidence limits would you apply to this year’s predictions?

  5. Yes but Dio, are we going to continue building coal fired power stations given that demand for energy is going to increase or are we going to have some balls and go Nuclear?

  6. Boerwar, tomorrow will be a defining day for the Federal Liberals, all signs are that they will be confused, lost and totally irrelevant to the major political debate in Australia once the targets are announced. Big Business is gearing up for the change while the opposition pedals backwards. If the Tories haven’t bothered getting their act together on targets ready for tomorrow then the likelihood is they never will. The reaction from Bishop today was just more excuses for Liberal laziness on this defining issue.

  7. [Yes but Dio, are we going to continue building coal fired power stations given that demand for energy is going to increase or are we going to have some balls and go Nuclear?]

    Again, stop pretending that the choice is coal and nuclear.

    You said nuclear had as low emissions as renewable. You were asked to point out your source for this. You said “I can’t be bothered”. Then other sources were shown to you demonstrating the “baseload” capabilities of renewables, their shorter implementation time and their significantly low emissions even when compared to nuclear. Either come up with sources to rebut those or hush.

    On another topic, this ABC article has me puzzled:

    [Thousands of Hamas supporters gathered in Gaza City to mark the 21st anniversary of the creation of the Islamist movement which violently seized control of the Gaza Strip last year.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/14/2446064.htm?section=justin

    I thought Hamas won the elections, Fatah and the Israeli’s couldn’t hack it so they attacked/blockaded and then Hamas had to militarise the streets?

    “Violently seized control” is an extremely narrow way of putting it.

  8. Laurie Oakes statement about the words leadership and Costello surely being in the context of a joke was clever, but his statement about Turnbull being under pressure for ONE BAD Newspoll was not. EVERY Newspoll has been bad, the latest one being diabolical. It sure seems that the MSM is really giving Turnbull a free ride, when his latest ratings on PPM are approaching Nelson’s and the 2PP is worse

  9. Oz, I’d have thought twelve years in Government and one year in Opposition would have been enough to produce a workable climate change position. I have yet to hear where these nuclear plants will be located and what mix of coal, nuclear and renewables is acceptable to the conservative parties federally. In short they are too busy doing nothing to attempt anything to progress the debate.

  10. steve @ 656

    LOL. What with there internal problems, every day is a ‘defining day’ for the Liberal Party. Their defining days are like the Zimbabwe dollar. (Around about $Z150,000 to $Au1 at the moment).

    It will actually be a defining day for Australia, with the Rudd Government doing the defining.

    Here’s hoping.

  11. Regarding targets, I think the Government will end up going for 20% tomorrow. Because everyone’s expecting 5-15% and because we all think for some reason 20% is the “safe level” they’ll be lauded in the media.

    It’ll be achievable and won’t damage the economy.

  12. [Regarding targets, I think the Government will end up going for 20% tomorrow. Because everyone’s expecting 5-15% and because we all think for some reason 20% is the “safe level” they’ll be lauded in the media.

    It’ll be achievable and won’t damage the economy.]

    I have a funny feeling that will be the case too…

  15. Oz @ 657
    Hamas did take control violently. That is to say that went around killing people with guns. As you say, there was a bit of context to it, which the article does not report.

    Israel let some of the surviving Fatah fighters through Israel and released them on the West Bank side. On the West Bank side the Fatah fighters have dominance and, at least some of the time, the Isrealis appear to want to keep it that way.

    Gilad has apparently said there is no military solution. IMHO, he is right. Gaza is virtually a prison managed externally by Israel which has the military power to enforce decisions about the movement of people, goods and services into, and out of, Gaza. Israel routinely enforces collective punishment on the citizens of Gaza for the acts of individual Gazans and for the acts of Hamas.

    While it remains that way, one of the chief products of Gaza will continue to be a murderous hatred of Israel.

    If the solution is thought to be military, then Gaza will have to remain a prison forever. Of course, looked at from the Isreali perspective, the difficulty is: ‘If you have a tiger by the tail, and the tiger has murder in its eyes, how do you let go of the tiger?’

    Everyone has different ideas about how it all started. The really difficult bit is to figure out how to stop it.

  16. Boerwar

    True teh IMF statistics have not been reliable in this crisis. Still, they use the same methodology oneacj country, so the comparative performance of Australia (best) is still valid.

  18. Boerwar, I’m not denying Hamas is a violent organisation who kills a lot of people. And I sort of don’t want to bring up an Israel/Palestine debate. I mean if we can get fired up about nuclear power, what’s going to happen with this?

    I was just wondering if I had things wrong or whether the ABC was just being lazy when they were neglecting that Hamas won the elections and then had acts of war declared on them by their neighbours, international superpowers and the losing party.

  19. will probably be a overly complicated formula in various stages for various industries while doing a 3.5 twist with pike.

    score: 8.5

    rudd in speedos. ewwwwwwww

  21. Zommbie, another Knowledge Nation you reckon? I would have expected the target to be printed as a large 20% on the back of a postage stamp, just so the opposition was in no doubt as to how simple the process can be.

  22. I reckon Penny Wong or whoever makes the announcement should get up at the National Press Club tomorrow, say the target is X% by 2020. Are there any questions?

  25. zombie mao, lin @ 673

    Oh, oh

    Looks like the Europeans may have flubbed it. I was wondering how they were going to get Poland into the cart… The answer appears to be: lower the cart to about 4% of ground level but raise the sides of the cart so that it looks like it is actually 20% above ground level. Next step is to brag about it so the citizens who care are dudded and then do a bit of blustering about to try to get the rest of the world to jump to a real 20%.

    Looks like we are going to have to rely on the Crisis to fix the problem, because the politicians certainly aren’t.

    steve @ 672

    If the answer is: X% = 25% plus or minus 20%, what is the question?

  26. Steve @ 672 Oops, my bad, the equation should have been something like:

    X% = 0%, plus between 5% and 25%.

    Even Julie Bishop should be happy with that one.

  30. 😀

    [
    Iraqi journalist hurls shoes at ‘dog’ Bush

    An Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes and an insult at George W Bush, without hitting him, as the US president was shaking hands with the Iraqi prime minister at his Baghdad office on Sunday.

    Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. After Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers beat the statue’s face with their soles

    http://www.theage.com.au/world/iraqi-journalist-hurls-shoes-at-dog-bush-20081215-6ye9.html
    ]

  31. Juliem – and the message with the shoes “its a farewell kiss, you dog!” I wonder what Bush’s popularity rating is in Iraq?

  32. JulieM @ 679
    For a second the humane impulse triumphed and I was tempted to feel sorry for Bush, but only for just a very, very small second.
    Then I remembered the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead and injured, the years of deprivation for Iraqi children, the 2-4 million Iraqis displaced from their homes and/or their country, and I thought,
    ‘D*mn, he missed.’

  33. Boerwar
    Posted Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 11:19 pm | Permalink

    MayoFeral @ 642

    On GW pessimism – is there an identifiable threshold at which stage would you enter an ‘On The Beach’ last ever motor car race? That is to say, when would you give up worrying about the inevitability of it all and decide to live life to the full, while it lasts?

    I already do that, plus I don’t think anyone alive today is going to see the end, though the young will likely face horrendous challenges.

    I guess the ‘give up’ point will be around 2015. By then even the most skeptical skeptic should be in no doubt that GW is the greatest threat we’ve ever faced. If that doesn’t cause all nations to take united action with very deep CO2 cuts then you’d have to wonder what will.

    Sadly, my reading of history leaves me with little hope that they will. I keep going back to the people that cut down the last trees on Easter Island knowing full well that they were condemning their civilization to a slow death because without timber to repair and build boats they would eventually be unable to catch the fish they needed to survive, or to escape. But they hacked them down anyway. Unfortunately, I don’t believe we are any wiser or less greedy than them.

  34. I wonder what Bush’s popularity rating is in Iraq?

    Considerable less than Saddam’s I suspect.

    I find it incredible that 20% of Americans still believe he’s done a good job! Makes you wonder what he’d have to do to loose their support. Admit an affair with bin Laden who he’s been hiding in the WH basement? Come out as an atheist card carrying communist? All of the above?

  35. Phillip Coorey gives the fibs some well deserved stick :

    [ But the Senate episode was also an example of a continuing inability by some to accept that the Coalition was no longer in power. Another example is still a lack of recognition the Coalition needs to replenish its gravely depleted ranks. ]

    and

    [ On policy, the Coalition is all over the shop. It keeps declaring “Work Choices is dead”, but continues to eulogise it. All while saying Labor has a mandate for its industrial relations laws but then going on the attack by ascribing to Labor’s legislation provisions that do not exist, such as pattern bargaining, or grossly exaggerating the right of entry provisions for unions. ]

    [ On the global financial crisis, Turnbull has sought to balance bipartisanship with staying relevant, but has found himself frequently caught offering support for various initiatives and then proceeding to tear them apart. ]

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/glory-without-power-coalition-versus-reality/2008/12/14/1229189440009.html

  37. The shoe scene takes the cake for the funniest scene for 2008, just at the tail end of the year. Imagine the funniest home video prizes this guy will get- all over the world

  39. Mayo

    Sorry to say but I partly share your pessimism. I think that humanity will eventually respond to GW in an effective way, but only after it has advanced far enough to kick us out of our complacency. Given the time lags involved, by then it will be too late to stop millions of deaths, whether from storms, flooding, famines, sea level rise or wars caused by any of the former. Arguably Darfur fits that category now.

  40. Interesting to compare the cultures at different organisations hit by the same circumstances. Toyota is in far better shape to respond to teh GFC than GM adn Ford, but it is still taking losses. So whats their first response? Cut the salaries of their executives!
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/15/2446164.htm?section=justin

    That is on top of the fact that Japanese corporate executive salaries are on average less than half of Oz executive salaries to begin with, and much less than US execs. No wonder their workers are more loyal than ours. And to think that some management consulting idiots claim its because of their QA systems!

  42. I dont think Bush is an idiot but i do think he has made some unforgivable errors in office…Fraser deserved the Tomatoes because he really is a fool and a two timing fool at that lol!

  43. Ooo Glen just because Fraser left the dark side of the force and has come to join the Jedi, it doesn’t mean you have to insult the man. By the way everyone are we still part of the coalition of the muppets, or did we lose our membership once howard was rejected?

  44. I agree with the comments of others that today will be a defining day for the LNP. With as important a policy as the emissions target which will influence all of us and especially business and the economy for the next 10 years, I think it’s absolutely pathetic that the LNP don’t even have the beginnings of a policy.

    Whatever Rudd comes up with, he at least will have thought it through and chosen the evidence for his case and reasoning. Turnbull will have NOTHING. Yet again he will demonstrate his irrelevance to Australia by getting up and whingeing at Rudd no matter what. All Australians know he will do this. As Kate from triple j yelled at him during an interview just before the last election “You aren’t giving us any targets, you aren’t giving us any plans, Mr Turnbull YOU’RE GIVING US NOTHING!”

    I disagree with Adam when he says that the first year in Opposition should be a policy free zone and I think today will show that.

  46. Bush showed he is good at ducking!! maybe he could take up cricket!! Bush would make a better batsman than Howard would have made bowler!!

  47. Rudd has decided to give the address to the Press Club himself, instead of Penny Wong. It doesn’t sound like Rudd is going to go soft on CC from this. MayoFeral and I might well be wrong. I normally hate being wrong but I’d be very pleased this time.

    [Senator Wong was to have announced the targets today in an address to the National Press Club but in a surprise announcement last night the Prime Minister’s office confirmed that he would now deliver the news on the targets.

    “We will see serious and credible targets from the Australian government,” Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said today.

    “But I want to make this point. The scheme that the Prime Minister is releasing today … will be the biggest structural economic reform since the opening up of the Australian economy in the 1980s and the 1990s.]

    “It will be a scheme that enables Australia to reduce its carbon pollution so we can tackle climate change.”

  48. Lefty E who posts here pointed out on Larvatus Prodeo that in his opinion he doesn’t believe the ALP will come up with stronger targets until they start losing seats to The Greens. I think part of that may be wishful thinking but he makes a point.

    Surely the government would consider the fact they have a number of seats within an attackable of The Greens? I know letter pages in newspapers are hardly scientific barometers of public opinion but every single one on the topic of climate change in today’s Herald were scathing of the government’s low targets and failure to implement promised environmental policies.

    The government and Rudd aren’t stupid or naive, they’re extremely clever political operators. They must believe that they have enough political capital to withstand any attacks on their target levels and commitment to acting on climate change.

  50. Diogenes
    Kev might just be being a gentleman protecting Penny in case there are any mad greenies throwing boots because the target isn’t 100% by tomorrow!

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