Morgan: 57-43

The latest weekly Morgan face-to-face survey of 883 voters shows Labor’s two-party lead down from 60.5-39.5 to 57-43. Labor’s primary vote is down two points to 48.5 per cent, the Coalition’s is up substantially from 34.5 per cent to 39 per cent, and the Greens are down two to 6 per cent. Between Morgan, Newspoll and Essential Research, there is now significant evidence that some of the gloss has come off the extraordinary spike Labor enjoyed from its response to the global financial crisis.

Elsewhere:

• The Geelong Advertiser reports on the federal Liberal preselection for Corangamite. Prospective nominees: former Kennett government minister Ian Smith, “considering his position”; Graham Harris, head of the party’s Corangamite electorate council; Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay; “Moriac district resident” Rod Nockles; Simon Price, unsuccessful Colac Otway Shire Council candidate and former electorate officer Stewart McArthur who lost the seat in 2007.

• Mark Kenny of The Advertiser reports that “pressure is mounting inside the Liberal Party to dump its candidate for the state seat of Newland, Trish Draper”. Draper was federal member for Makin from 1996 to 2007, when she forestalled what seemed to be very likely defeat by retiring. Draper is seen to have been damaged by reports an ex-boyfriend has been identified as a suspect in a murder investigation, which is currently the subject of a defamation case. A Liberal source quoted by Kenny says Right faction powerbroker Senator Nick Minchin has told Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith to dump her.

• The ABC reports “speculation” that Premier David Bartlett is “planning to visit Tasmania’s Governor on Monday and send Tasmania to the polls as early as April 18”, resulting from the government’s failure to table long-promised legislation to enact fixed four-year terms. Bartlett denies this, and he would have to be pretty silly to ignore the still-accumulating evidence that unnecessary early elections are a bad idea.

• The ABC reports that Labor is courting Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb as a possible state election candidate for Bass.

• An interim report by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommends an end to trials of electronic voting for the vision-impaired and overseas defence personnel on the grounds it is too expensive. The report said the 850 votes cast electronically in 2007 cost $2597 each, compared with $8.36 for each non-electronic vote. A dissenting report by Bob Brown argues the government should pursue electronic voting to assist disadvantaged voters, and investigate its use in the Australian Capital Territory and overseas.

• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published papers on women parliamentarians in Australia and the possibility of dedicated indigenous representation, a la the Maori seats in New Zealand.

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.

556 comments on “Morgan: 57-43”

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  1. Juliem @ 297

    I can see your point about why you are pleased to be in Oz as compared to the US.
    The way the right wing media over there (eg FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc) are rabildly mobilising is quite scary.

  2. Socrates at @66:

    [The joys of international banking meltdowns. I was rung today from someone in a call centre with an Indian accent, asking me to confirm my personal identification details. Obviously I didn’t,…]

    The same thing has happened to me with both Amex and Citibank. Amex were far more aggressive than Citi though.

    I explained to “Kevin from Amex, Bombay” (the name he gave) that I had just received a letter from Amex telling me not to give my details out to anybody at all. Kevin was obsequious at first and patiently told em that of course Amex didn’t mean “Don’t give your name out to Amex”. I was patient with the poor fella, but firm. Then he turned nasty.

    Turned out he really was from Amex and had reported me as a “recalcitrant” customer because i wouldn’t give him my mother’s maiden name etc. etc.. Seeing as my payment was late I was also “delinquent”. I guess that meat I was a “racalcitrant delinquent”. The “recalcitrant” bit was an entry on their secret database, and I was later told by a senior Amex exec in Sydney (after complaining about this treatment) that the entry would stay on their books for 2 years, and that even he (very senior) couldn’t remove the “stain” off my record.

    So I paid out my card (a trifling amount, under $100), cut it up and cancelled the account.

    Had a good chortle when another Bombay type rang me to “see if anything was wrong?”.

    “Nothing that cancelling my account with Amex couldn’t fix,” I replied and hung up.

  3. Last night I said I would make a post at 9.30am about the QLD election. Running a bit late, but better late than never.

    The SENSATIONAL news is that all the corporate bookmakers have gone CHICKEN, ruled off their books and have ceased betting.

    It is going to be close bludgers, VERY CLOSE. But the mail is:-……………………………………………………………………………………..

    that Anna Bligh will hang on!!! 🙂

  4. I too have been through the Amex experience. He seemed genuinely perplexed that I wouldn’t give him personal information to confirm that I was the person *he* had rung.
    Crazy.

  5. Juiem another thing about Australia is that our religious nutjob parties are probably pretty harmless compared to those in the USA. Ours have a spat and then want to build a wall down the middle of their office so they don’t have to look at each other 🙂
    And to think our Mayor was on their Upper house ticket last election
    [IN WHAT may be dubbed the Great Wall of Macquarie Street, the split between Fred Nile and his Upper House colleague, Gordon Moyes, has boiled over to the point where the two cannot share an office and want a wall built between them.

    Mr Nile forced Dr Moyes’s expulsion from their Christian Democratic Party last Saturday and demanded he quit Parliament. But Dr Moyes, who is appealing the decision, is refusing to go. “We have become more of a personality cult than a political party,” he said.]
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/off-the-wall–odd-bother-ignites-an-unholy-row-20090320-94fh.html

  6. [Mr Nile forced Dr Moyes’s expulsion from their Christian Democratic Party last Saturday and demanded he quit Parliament. But Dr Moyes, who is appealing the decision, is refusing to go. “We have become more of a personality cult than a political party,” he said.]

    Vera, gordon moyes sometimes appears at MIL’s church.

    a decent chap who is surprisingly quite liberal in his thinking.
    having chatted to him a couple of times, I feel that his is a centrist position as opposed to fred’s extremism.

    that said he is facing some real oppn because he is not radical enough for the parties ruling clique.

  7. Gusface i got that impression myself when I read what Moyes said about Nile, he might be better off becoming an Independent.
    [Dr Moyes does not dispute the words, but denies he raised his voice. He says it is all about Mr Nile’s “anti-gay, anti-Muslim agenda”.]

  8. [Gusface i got that impression myself when I read what Moyes said about Nile, he might be better off becoming an Independent]

    I think Moyes is trying to be a concilliator and make the CDP more moderate.

    That said he is a billion times more intelligent than fred,but unfortunately,like howie had, fred has ‘ownership’ of the party.

  9. Fred must be getting a bit long in the tooth, any chance he will retire soon, or is he like Howie and will stay put as long as he can?

  10. [Fred must be getting a bit long in the tooth, any chance he will retire soon, or is he like Howie and will stay put as long as he can?]

    And there is the rub

    I think fred is clearing the path so that his values live on long after he has shuffled off.

    ps Gordon aint a spring chicken either!!

  11. Surely the C.D.P.’s biggest challenge over the next decade will come from Family First. Moyes is right that they need to adopt a more moderate stance.

  12. Shows
    I think it would be easier for voters if the Christian parties were more upfront

    ie We are fairly moderate and dont want to shove christian values down your throat
    acceptance, tolerance those sort of things
    OR
    we believe unbelievers should be burnt at the stake and sod the rest of you cos we have the ‘word of god’

    The problem is that CDP FF etc is full of both groups and

    There should be a truth in political advertising law 😉

  15. For Gusface at #312

    Here is an interesting non answer by Fielding to the question of whether or not Family First supports the teaching of creationism in schools.
    Bear in mind that the single largest contributor [as far as can be ascertained] to Family First in Victoria at the last election was a director of the pro-creationist City Life church that Fielding attends.

  17. BB302

    Interesting. They were quite pushy with me too, saying I “had to give them details”. I contacted my bak this morning and they confirmed they had had a number of complaints. They agreed it shouldn’t have happened and were investigating. I am with BOQ and up to now have been happy with their service. Apparently they changed their card services to Citi two weeks ago (lack of funds I presume…) If I don’t get a satisfactory answer I’ll be cutting up my card like you. Its a pitty because I think its good if smaller banks can provide competition in the sector, and have had no problems with BOQ up to now, even though I live in Adelaide. They only have one branch in the city, but plenty of ATMs. If this is any indication though, Citi suck from top to bottom, not just the cowboy traders who ran up their debt.

  19. re Moyes & Nile split – this has been brewing for a while. Nile ALWAYS votes with the ALP Govt, even though he says all sorts of things about them, preferences against them etc. Moyes on the other hand votes isue by issue. They often end up voting on opposite sides of the chamber, like when the ALP, to get Shooters Party votes on planning reform, gave them their watered down gun legislation. Nile voted with the Govt, Moyes against, calling it an unChristian Bill that could not be supported. What he was saying about Fred is fairly obvious. But at some point Nile will just get too old to go on and wil relinquish the party to unknowns – Moyes at least has a small profile even if not at the Nile level.

  22. From the Australian on Fielding’s election in 2007, he will NOT hang around next election, early or not. He will make a hasty exit, these numbers are bad, didn’t realize that they were this low ….

    [
    Fielding is Victoria’s least-supported senator. Elected in 2004, he secured the state’s last Senate place with 1.88 per cent of the popular vote, or 56,376 primary votes — a fair football crowd at the MCG.

    In his post-election analysis, Antony Green noted that despite polling only 0.13 of a quota, Fielding harvested preferences from groups including the Christian Democrats, the Aged and Disability Pensioners Party, Non-Custodial Parents Party, One Nation, the Australian Democrats, and the surplus from the Coalition to overhaul Labor’s third candidate, Jacinta Collins.

    A pre-election deal between Labor and several groups then carried Fielding past Greens candidate David Risstrom, who had polled 263,481 primary votes.

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25218292-5013871,00.html
    ]

  24. it’s not Springborg’s campaign that didnt get him over the line it was labors dirty tricks and smear campaign that stopped him becoming premier, i thought it was his party that was caught out handing out dodgy how to vote tickets.

  25. [Mr Turnbull said the Coalition had helped make the laws “less bad” so they would destroy fewer jobs.]

    Turnbull probably doesn’t realise but this is an amazing admission that WorkChoices actually does destroy lots of jobs and, that it was a bad law.

    Wonder if Labor picked up on this?

  27. Wanna see how spiteful, irresponsible and how little Republicans care about the USA?

    [Sanford Rejects $700 Million In Stimulus Funds

    South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he won’t spend $700 million in federal stimulus cash.

    In all, $2.8 billion in federal money is headed to South Carolina, which had the nation’s second-highest unemployment rate in January.]
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/20/sanford-rejects-700-milli_n_177491.html

    When do these Governors have to go to the vote?

  29. The member for Dickson has been betting on Labor it seems:

    ” A KEY member of the shadow front bench was investing heavily in Australian banks at the very time Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull was attacking the Government’s banking guarantee for promoting “risky behaviour”.

    Shadow health minister Peter Dutton – who served as assistant treasurer in the previous Howard government and then as shadow finance minister last year – apparently did not think the “risky behaviour” referred to by Mr Turnbull would have a detrimental effect on the share price of the big four.

    Mr Dutton began buying bank stocks just weeks after the guarantee was announced as parliamentary debate over the decision was ramping up.”

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/liberal-invests-in-big-four-banks-20090321-94yy.html

  30. [Mr Dutton began buying bank stocks just weeks after the guarantee was announced as parliamentary debate over the decision was ramping up.”]

    Could this be construed as Insider Trading and result in the Member for Dutton facing criminal charges ? 🙂

  31. [Could this be construed as Insider Trading and result in the Member for Dutton facing criminal charges]
    No. He simply has to declare the shares on the public register of M.P. interests.

  33. While the ethics of Dutton’s action is another question, I don’t see how it could be construed as insider trading, or even a form of conflict of interest. He didn’t have any influence over the decision. Of course, it does show he didn’t believe a word of what he himself said in criticising the bank guarantees 😀

  34. Also, this information was disclosed a few weeks ago, so it is a bit stupid for the SMH to go over it again.

    But hey, that’s what most papers seem to do in their Sunday editions.

  35. Gee the Pope is spoiling the party for dead Peruvian babies as well.

    [Pope Benedict XVI has now revised this traditional teaching on the so-called limbo, approving a church report released Friday that said there was reason to hope that babies who die without baptism can go to heaven.]
    http://journalperu.com/?p=935

  36. WHAT!? My understanding was that the Catholic church abolished limbo in 1993, they said they stuffed up and that it didn’t actually exist.

    Are they now saying THAT was wrong!? Are they EVER right about ANYTHING?

    Don’t answer that…

  37. This thread is to the Pineapple Party Thread as the Senate is to the House of Reps: considered, on a higher intellectual and philosophical plane and far more gentlemanly and considered in tone. Let the riff raff have their instablogging and their short one-liners, all those ka-ching sound effects and not one, not two but three pundits running the show. In short, give me Poll Bludger rather than Pineapple Blogging anyday.

    Anyway, I had this to say: I reckon yesterdays fulfilling of the Work Choices election promise in Federal Parliament was a stark to the voting public in Queensland that Labor stood for something, and can push through a cause by reason, not just numbers. They showed good faith with the voting public and sophistication in dealing with the problem at hand.

    I’m just wondering whether yesterday’s victory in Canberra didn’t swing a few votes back to Labor in Queensland. How the Libs thought they could get away with advertising increasing the ability of bosses to sack workers as “good for jobs” I haven’t got the foggiest. Perhaps the Queenslanders woke up just in time?

  39. Well it certainly showed Labor as being successful on a major issue. It may have had the effect of distracting the attention of some and that is often what it takes to break a chain of thought and cause a rethink.

    I listened to Ebetz talking to the motion in the Senate and he was fairly riled and made a number of personal attacks on Gillard. What I didn’t see or realise was that Gillard was there in the Senate with Combet watching the death of WorkChoices. I think Ebetz’s reaction would have made Julia feel just that much better.

    What a great moment it must have been for them both, especially Julia who carried this huge weight on her shoulders to the end. And Combet of course because also held Hardies to account when governments were letting them off.

    I feel so proud of Gillard. She had do so much negotiating, fighting, suffering attacks all the way. But she carried it off with dignity, humor, wit, strength and class and great deal of intelligence and guile.

  41. To add to my earlier comment, not only do I think the Work Choices repeal helped, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Springborg boasting he would sack thousands of public servants wouldn’t have gone over too well in the current climate, either. It was a terrible, cliched campaign promise, so typical of conservatives.

  42. The CLP lost the NT election because they said they were going to reduce some public servant numbers. Labor immediately came out and said they were going to increase them!

    It was just 200? votes in one seat that would have won the CLP the election, Fannie Bay I think it was. Darwin has a large portion of public servants since it has to administer the entire NT. When Clair Martin first won for Labor she made a promise that she would not touch public servants…a very smart move.

    There is no doubt that Springborgs economic plan cost him votes.

  43. The Pine Bark Beetles are very sorry that Borg has announced that he will not run again. Sooner or later Labor will really wear out and the Beetles were very curious to know what Borg was going to do to all those volcanoes that cause climate change.

    Nevertheless, the Pine Bark Beetles are pleased that only 12% of Queenslanders put Climate Change as the number 1 election issue. This is an excellent outcome.

    The celebrate, the International Bark Beetle Collective has announced that it is awarding the Gold Kyoto Award to the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae).

    These ‘have already destroyed huge swathes of Canadian forest (and) are on pace to release 270 megatons of carbon dioxide (C02) into the atmosphere by 2020, says a study released Wednesday.

    That is the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions that Canada is committed to reducing by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol, and would effectively doom that effort to failure, the study says.’

    http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Beetles_may_doom_Canadas_carbon_reduction_target_study_999.html

  44. Cf Qld, hearty congratulations to the winners and their helpers. I do regret a little bit that Fielding was not joined by Hanson as a BOP arbiter at state level. What fun it would have been!

    Also thanks to William et al (inc Anthony G) for an information-rich election run up and election evening.

    Much upon which to ruminate.

  46. bob1234

    One Nation dead but not buried;
    subsumed by Howard, the hate lives on,
    coursing through the veins of the flag thugs,
    and clotting the heart’s blood
    of the once-decent liberals.

  47. [Springborg boasting he would sack thousands of public servants wouldn’t have gone over too well in the current climate]

    That was the defining issue in the campaign BB. Formal membership of a union might not be as strong as it once was but common decency and compassion hasn’t deserted us altogether. The Libs and Nats don’t understand that.

  48. [It now seems Fielding and Xenophon are locked in a bizarre state of permanent competition, with each jostling for public attention by threatening to oppose just about every major piece of legislation that crosses their desks. The contest came to a head on Wednesday, when both paraded around the chamber during a secret ballot for a spot on the Senate’s inquiry into the emissions trading scheme. (Xenophon won.) The Greens, in contrast, are personifying responsibility…….

    The balance of power may bring power, but doesn’t it also bring responsibility? And isn’t their responsibility to respect a mandated government, rather than what they consider to be their own mandate? Although Labor doesn’t yet have the necessary ammunition for a double dissolution (two successive rejections in the Senate of a bill passed twice in the lower house), it remains a growing possibility as long as the shenanigans continue.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/imbalance-of-power-20090321-950o.html?page=-1

    Let me repeat again. Two pygmies who think they are giant. It’s time the Govt calls the bluff with these two pygmies. After the QLD election, in the right context, an early election is no longer an issue. Next time these two pygmies try to do a peacock again, bring on the DD.

  49. [I listened to Ebetz talking to the motion in the Senate and he was fairly riled and made a number of personal attacks on Gillard. What I didn’t see or realise was that Gillard was there in the Senate with Combet watching the death of WorkChoices. I think Ebetz’s reaction would have made Julia feel just that much better.]

    Not to mention she gave at least a couple of people hugs as they left the chamber. Hence all the jeering and catcalling from ‘those opposite’.

  50. Regardless of the exact combination of reasons voters decided on in Qld, I can’t see any good news for Turnbull coming out of it:
    – Rudd was heavily involved in the campaign and is still clearly a campaigning asset in Qld at least
    – Polls had moved in Bligh’s favour in the last week since Springborg fluffing an answer on job losses (12000) due to the reduction in debt of $1 billion. Clearly, given a choice between less debt and more jobs, they prefer more jobs. This undermines Turnbulls whole attack on the stimulus.
    – Even given polls a week out, there was a further shift to Bligh since Workchoices was killed
    – the old style politics conservative leader (Springborg) gained no traction with voters

    This time the LNP ran a united and error free campaign, though uninspiring. They were in front two weeks out. The fact that they still clearly lost is a direct repudiation of their leader, candidates and policies.

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