Morgan: 56-44

UPDATE: This post was originally called “Newspoll minus three days”, but has been changed after Roy Morgan broke their normal fortnightly pattern by issuing results from last weekend’s face-to-face polling (i.e. before the stimulus package was announced). From a sample of 853, it shows Labor’s two-party lead down from 59.5-40.5 to 56-44. Labor’s primary vote is down four points to 46.5 per cent, the Coalition is up two to 38 per cent and the Greens are up half a point to 8 per cent.

The excitement of the past few days has quickly overloaded Tuesday’s thread, while adding real interest to the next set of opinion polls. Unless ACNielsen and Galaxy have something planned over the weekend, the next ones up are the regular Monday double of weekly Essential Research and fortnightly Newspoll. John Hewson tells Crikey he’s expecting an election later this year, presumably a double dissolution:

You’d have to think that the odds are narrowing on the possibility of an early election, towards the end of this year. At best, the Rudd Government’s second stimulatory package will just buy some time – simply delay the inevitable. As long as the global recession continues to deepen and, as a consequence, China’s growth continues to stall, the best Rudd can hope for is to hold up consumer spending by the cash handouts sufficient to avoid a technical recession – namely, two consecutive quarters of negative growth … Moreover, the ETS is to be introduced next year with all the scaremongering opportunities that carries for the major polluters. So why not go the people for a “mandate” to continue with the strategy, especially now that Turnbull has so clearly nailed his colours to the mast, becoming such a fixed target, from both outside and within?

Of course, there’s much here that might be contested, not to mention the lack of a double dissolution trigger at this stage. In brief:

• Possum dissects the electoral impact of the stimulus package here and here.

• Antony Green analyses the finalised federal redistribution boundaries for Western Australia.

• The Senate has amended legislation abolishing tax deductible political donations, which will instead be limited to donations from individuals rather than companies. Deductions applied for donations of up to $100 from individuals before the Howard government’s 2006 “reforms” jacked it up to $1500 and extended it to companies. The legislation as amended maintains the $1500 threshold.

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.

1,270 comments on “Morgan: 56-44”

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  1. [Againg it should be pointed out that an economy recovers much faster if jobs are saved rather than having to create new for those unemployed. A business at a certain break even turnover might keep their staff on but a person will not start up a new business at that same turnover, wanting of course to make a profit. Business investor waits longer for a higher available turnover to start their business. Saving jobs is thus of utmost importance.]

    The business might be able to survive with the handouts, but once those handouts are expended the jobs will inevitably be lost anyway. The Government cannot be expected to prop up demand with huge cash injections every quarter. Furthermore, such a strategy is short term and ultimately damaging for the economy.

    A more efficient way of achieving sustained growth over the long term is to lower income and business taxes such that supply and demand are fuelled. There’s a reason why conservatives suggest tax cuts all the time – it is inherently long-term and that’s where all governments should be focussing.

  2. [it took the Coalition 10 years to eliminate government debt.]

    well bully for them. Would that it had taken them longer if it meant they did more infrastructure spending along the way.

    debt is only a concern if it is not manageable.

  3. This won’t make the Libs Happy 🙂

    [The Reserve Bank has slashed its growth and inflation forecasts, but predicts Australia will avoid a recession, while warning the jobless rate will rise significantly as the nation suffers fallout from the global financial crisis.

    The central bank says its round of cash interest rate cuts since September – which this week cut the rate to a 45-year low of 3.25% – and a further large fiscal stimulus proposed by the Federal Government should help cushion the economy.

    The RBA sees GDP growth remaining positive, albeit at just 0.25% for the year to June 30, before ticking up to an annual pace of 0.5% by the end of 2009 and quickening further to 1.25% by the June quarter of 2010, according to its quarterly monetary policy statement released today.

    The bank’s estimate that the economy can dodge a recession is a ”little surprising,” Nomura International economist Stephen Roberts said. ”My view would be that we’re not going to escape without one or two negative quarters.”

    The Federal Government earlier this week halved its growth forecast for this fiscal year to 1%, and 0.75% next year. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is also attempting to win Senate support for a four-year $42 billion stimulus plan to prevent the economy sinking into recession.

    The Australian dollar initially eased back after the RBA’s statement, recently buying 64.86 US cents, from about 65 US cents prior to the release. Australian shares also pared gains, trading about 0.7% higher for the day, down from earlier gains of as much as 1.2%.]

    http://business.watoday.com.au/business/australia-set-to-dodge-recession-rba-20090206-7zhj.html

  4. [The Government cannot be expected to prop up demand with huge cash injections every quarter. Furthermore, such a strategy is short term and ultimately damaging for the economy.

    A more efficient way of achieving sustained growth over the long term is to lower income and business taxes such that supply and demand are fuelled]

    They’re not doing it every quarter – next quarter (after the budget) there will be tax cuts.

  5. Funny that while they were thinking of the small kiddies, they abandoned small business. Who’d have thought it after all the pro small business rhetoric over the years. I never thought I would see blockage of $ billion 42 worth of help to small business.

    [Small Business and General Business Tax Break
    The Government will provide an additional $2.7 billion temporary tax break to small
    and other businesses to boost business investment.
    Small businesses will be able to claim a 30 per cent deduction for the cost of eligible
    assets costing $1,000 or more that they acquire from 13 December 2008 to 30 June 2009
    and install by 30 June 2010.
    For eligible assets costing $1,000 or more that they acquire from 1 July 2009 to
    31 December 2009 they can claim a 10 per cent deduction if they are installed by
    31 December 2010.
    Other businesses can receive the same deductions for eligible assets greater than
    $10,000.
    This trebles the investment allowance announced in December 2008.]

    Page 21

    http://www.budget.gov.au/2008-09/content/uefo/download/Combined_UEFO.pdf

  6. [and a further large fiscal stimulus proposed by the Federal Government should help cushion the economy.]
    I thought I’d just emphasise that point made by the RBA.

  7. Mr Turnbull believes everyone who disagrees with his view is wrong.

    RBA
    ACCC
    Treasury
    ACCI
    AIG
    Master Builders
    etc. etc.

    Next week he will have almost every lobby group in Australia telling him he is wrong.

    So what? He is The Messiah (well at least the latest one) he is infallible.

  8. No 112

    As Turnbull said, and I have to agree, Business groups are hardly likely to oppose a cash injection that boosts their short term prospects.

  9. When asked whether they would prefer the $950 hand out or one off or permanent tax cuts, the 350 recently sacked workers from the Yabulu nickel refinery north of Townsville replied;
    Well tax cuts don’t mean much at the moment, we aren’t getting any more pays to tax

  10. SA is broke. And while we all ask complain that Howard wasted all the money from the boom times, so did Rann and Foley.

    [A $1.5 BILLION “black hole” has appeared in South Australia’s finances – which means the State Budget will be plunged even further into deficit.

    Government departments are also being ordered to “cut to the bone” as the Treasurer Kevin Foley grapples with a huge shortfall in revenue to the state from the GST.]

    Foley reveals South Australia faces a $1.5bn Budget black hole

    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25016342-5006301,00.html

  11. Why the package is wrong”

    [The Federal Opposition has, rightly in my view, refused to endorse Kevin Rudd’s helicopter dump of an additional $42 billion of cash on the Australian economy. It is right to consider its likely consequences, and almost certainly, they are that its net stimulatory effect is likely to be either zero, or at most negligible, within the context of a global decline in the demand for our exports.

    To understand this we need to revisit J.M. Keynes’s The General Theory Of Employment, Interest And Money, which hit the Depression-devastated world like a bombshell in 1936.

    Keynes recognised that when economies are faced with vast amounts of both under-utilised labour and capital, additional government expenditure may be used to boost demand and put idle resources to use. This theory became known as the Keynesian income multiplier; whatever amount is spent by the government results in an increase in national income greater than that amount.

    But if this multiplier is zero, an extra dollar spent by government “crowds out” an equal amount of private expenditure. The total output remains unchanged, but its composition reflects the new nature of the spend – from private money to public.

    By contrast, new converts to Keynesianism, such as Rudd and Barack Obama, believe in a positive multiplier. They believe extra government spending, like handouts to those most likely to spend it, creates new income on top of the governmental spend, as the unemployed are put to work.

    This process is brilliantly satirised by Norman Lindsay’s magic pudding, which freely recreates itself the more that is eaten. The magic pudding perfectly captures the unmet promises of Australian politicians.]

    …and:

    [So what should be done? Given the poor state of infrastructure in Australia, projects with high ratios of benefits to costs should be adopted. Converting the entire Pacific Highway to dual carriageway, for instance, has been promised for 20 years, and will take another 20 years to complete, while poor coal loading facilities at Newcastle are hampering trade and shipping. Improving infrastructure like this would be much better spending, even if the projects cannot start immediately.

    The quality of the spend is paramount. Cutting taxes on private sector investment can encourage more of it, including increasing the allowances for depreciation on long-term infrastructure. The position taken by the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, essentially leaves more to the private sector to determine what is good and bad. In general, lower taxes – Turnbull would bring those proposed forward – do have a stimulatory effect on the economy.

    But short-term handouts are a flash in the pan without lasting benefit. They are, like the earlier $10 billion giveaway that created a temporary Christmas blip, the centrepiece of the Rudd Plan. And they should have no place in a sensible package based on neoclassical growth theory to build long-term sustainable wealth.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/why-its-wrong/2009/02/05/1233423401914.html?page=2

    An excellent article.

  12. [a huge shortfall in revenue to the state from the GST]

    So much for the Liberal rhetoric about the GST sending rivers of gold to “Labor states”.

  13. GP

    Thanks for the article – as it points out infrastructure spending is the priority now, as it was for the past decade.

    Remember productivity growth fell to zero under Mr Howard? Why did we not use the surpluses to spend on infrastructure, that would add to productive output?

  14. Cuppa

    Foley seems determined to borrow his way out, and cut services as well. That’s a lot to borrow and it will drop our credit rating, making the loan more expensive. We’re used to it after the State Bank disaster. When you add the $2B of unfunded Workcover liability, it’s not all that rosy here.

    A question for everyone.

    What state should I move to ❓

  15. Does anyone else feel Turnbull is still getting a free kick from the MSM on this. & Noos just showed Turnbull walking the street with two rusted ons saying “Keep them honest” and “This will be a one term government.” The journalist then implied that Turnbull was the one getting all the plaudits not Rudd. The next lot of polls should tell us where he stands with the electorate.

  16. ruawake

    You probably missed a question I asked you yesterday at 1380 on the last thread. It said a study showed that the Sunshine Coast had the lowest affordability of housing by wages of any area in the world (Honolulu was second, Gold Coast was number 3). The locals in Coolum on JJJ said their town was going the same way as Noosa.

  17. [Does anyone else feel Turnbull is still getting a free kick from the MSM on this. & Noos just showed Turnbull walking the street with two rusted ons saying “Keep them honest” and “This will be a one term government.” The journalist then implied that Turnbull was the one getting all the plaudits not Rudd. The next lot of polls should tell us where he stands with the electorate.]

    As illustrated by the video of Seven Perth News 🙂 With Insiders returning on the Weekend it will be interesting to see how they will cover this.

  18. [Does anyone else feel Turnbull is still getting a free kick from the MSM on this]

    Every time a Liberal opens their mouth it seems the ABC is right there with a microphone, ready to headline their soundbite on the front page. Every bit of economic “news” gets the headline treatment, from way out crank “predictions” to any doom and gloom available from anywhere on the globe.

  19. [Does anyone else feel Turnbull is still getting a free kick from the MSM on this. & Noos just showed Turnbull walking the street with two rusted ons saying “Keep them honest” and “This will be a one term government.” ]

    Yes and no… the Channel 7 and 9 news yesterday (or was it Wednesday?) was an ad for the stimulus package.

  20. The ALP will be stupid not to do some amendments:

    [Greens leader Senator Bob Brown wants more energy efficiency measures included in the infrastructure spending.

    “We’re all mature enough to say ‘let’s come up with a better result’,” he said.

    “A bit of flexibility from the Government here will be applauded.”]

    I agree. Feileding is asking too much – $4b for the unemployed… but surely Rudd and Swan can do a bit of give and take – or at least a lot of, we’ll take care of them in the budget.

    Time to sit down and get this done.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/06/2484778.htm?section=justin

  21. Antony,

    “Pearce LIB 9.1% becomes LIB 7.6% Held by Liberal MP Judi Moylan since 1993. Loses some rural areas to Kalgoorlie, as well as Clarkson and Mindarie to Moore, while gaining parts of Beechboro from Perth.”

    Good on you for reporting some good news for this leftie 🙂 ….. Pearce is my new electorate.

  22. One thing though GB, if this package doesn’t get through, it will be very easy for Today Tonight and ACA to find lots of stories of people who “could’ve done with the money” and lots of stories of schools that “could’ve done with a library”.

    those shows love battlers doing it tough (and one would think the ALP could point them in the direction of a few of them – after all those shows hate doing any research…)

  23. Diog

    You asked about Coolum House prices recently. They are still going through the roof, You would be lucky to buy a 500sqm block for less than $350,000, there are next to no 3-4 bedroom homes for less than $500,000.

    The “Esplanade” is being redeveloped at a cost of $20 Million – the old buildings started being demolished on Monday.

    I live opposite the Hyatt Resort – they just put a new golf course and lake opposite my house. 🙂 You could buy a house there for a Lazy $1.5 million.

  24. The ALP could be doing deals with the Greens, Mr X and Mr F but yet they blame the Libs for not supporting their splurge!

    Seeing Kevin blathing about how it is not fair is classic and there is nothing they can do about it…

  25. [“Pearce LIB 9.1% becomes LIB 7.6% Held by Liberal MP Judi Moylan since 1993. Loses some rural areas to Kalgoorlie, as well as Clarkson and Mindarie to Moore, while gaining parts of Beechboro from Perth.”]

    Pearce is my Electorate as well :-), and Beechboro is part of the State seat of West Swan which is held by former Carpenter Chief of Staff Rita Saffiotti.

  26. Can I add “shovel ready” to the list of phrases we’ve heard plenty enough of:
    I’m thinking:
    “Whitlamesque”
    “pink bats” (thank you Barnaby)

    are two others from this week to add to the list.

    Also can we please ban any politician from predicting “we’ll take a hit in the polls”. We all know they only do it so they can have a win-win from the next newspoll.

    On the newspoll, as the package won’t be voted on till after, I think a good newspoll for the LNP wil embolden Fielding to block it. (the greens won’t – because they’re mostly after assurances that the educaiton building are energy efficient – a good thing anyway), and Xena is no fool, he’ll see good things for him in the education spending.

    But if the newspoll is flat or goes to the LNP in anyway, I’m thinking the package won’t get through by the end of next week.

  27. I should add that during the last Federal Election, the ALP Candidate Chris Myson performed best in the booths which were part of the Swan Hills electorate.

  28. 133 – that’s true but you and I both know the package will go through one way or another.
    I think Rudd is playing to the average Joe when he singles out the Libs for blocking it just in case it doesn’t get through. The average Joe doesn’t know the make up of the Senate, let’s be honest. The Libs would be seen as the culprits, not The Greens or the independents.

  29. I’m actually prediciting no change in the newspoll. At least Turnbull has given the LNP some time in the spotlight. But I do predict it’ll be a short term reprieve.

    (But then again my predicitons of newspoll are generally consistent only in their innacuracy)

  30. Diog

    Wages are not really a relevant way to judge this. People who can afford to live in Coolum did not make their money here.

    Ray Martin lives up the road, but his income is not derived in the area. Ms ru and I live on Carer payment and DSP but we made our money in Canberra.

    No debt, mortgage free, guaranteed income – lifes good. 😉

  31. No 142

    GIven that support in the media hasn’t been unanimous, I suspect Turnbull should come out ok in the newspoll.

  32. I will be glad to be wrong GB. My general pessimism shining through!

    I still think Turnbull was a dill to reject all of it. He should have ok’d everything except the $950.

  33. [I think Turnbull will have consolidated the rusted ons but he already had those]

    I thought his repeated talking about Whitam was his way of reaching out to rusted-ons. I mean, who, apart from rusted-on anti-Labor 35+s is going to dogwhistled by negative mentions of his name?

  34. [What it does – aside from stimulating economic activity, which is the point of the stimulus package – is achieve that emissions target more cheaply and easily than might otherwise be the case. ]

    I can live with that outcome Oz. Sounds win-win to me…

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