Morgan: 58-42

The first Roy Morgan face-to-face poll to catch the full force of the OzCar aftermath shows Labor’s two-party lead up from 55-45 to 58-42. Conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 1190 (smaller than usual from a poll covering two weeks), it has Labor up 0.5 per cent on the primary vote to 46.5 per cent and the Coalition down a sharp four points to 35 per cent. The slack has been taken up by the Greens, up 3.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent.

Here’s an incomplete sampling of the past week’s action. This site’s normal energy levels will resume in about a week or so.

• Monday’s weekly Essential Research survey had Labor’s two-party lead up from 58-42 to 59-41. Supplementary questions showed a spike in confidence in the economy, but a somewhat paradoxical increase in concern about employment; Joe Hockey favoured over Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader by 17 per cent to 13 per cent; and the Labor Party viewed more favourably than the Liberals on 11 separate measures.

• The South Australian Liberals have a new leader in Heysen MP Isobel Redmond. Redmond succeeds Waite MP Martin Hamilton-Smith, who was mortally wounded after accusing the government of doing favours for an organisation linked to the Church of Scientology using what proved to be faked emails. Hamilton-Smith called an initial spill last Friday after Mackillop MP Mitch Williams quit the shadow ministry, which was universally interpreted as an attempt to undermine Hamilton-Smith ahead of a future pitch for his job. However, Williams declined to put his name forward at the ensuing spill, at which the sole rival nominee was deputy leader and Bragg MP Vickie Chapman. After inital expectations he would comfortably survive, Hamilton-Smith emerged from the vote without the support of a party room majority: while he won the vote 11 to 10, one member had abstained. Hamilton-Smith called another spill to clear the air, but when Redmond (who had been newly elected in place of Chapman as deputy) said she would put her name forward he announced he would stand aside. The result was a three-way tussle between Redmond, Chapman and Williams, in which Redmond defeated Chapman by 13 votes to nine after Williams was excluded in the first round. Goyder MP Steven Griffiths won the vote for deputy ahead of Williams by eight votes to six (since only lower house MPs get to vote for the deputy, whereas members from both houses have a vote for the leadership).

Antony Green crunches some electoral numbers to conclude that, contrary to widespread belief, Labor’s position in the Senate would be better if the next election were for half the chamber in the normal fashion, rather than a double dissolution.

• Against his better judgement, Peter Brent at Mumble enters the world of blogdom. He’s also written a piece on Inside Story which delivers on what I emptily promised a few weeks back, namely to review the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report into the 2007 election.

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.

681 comments on “Morgan: 58-42”

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  1. Since there is a discussion about sport I might as well add some more politically controversial. Gender desegregation.

  2. Newspoll sure didn’t seem to have bowled them over at the OO. Not a word yet.

    Strange… They do own it, don’t they?

  3. [Newspoll sure didn’t seem to have bowled them over at the OO. Not a word yet.]
    The main page is usually updated at 1 AM EST.

  4. 653

    That shows those that those Socialist in the ALP in the 40s had the highest debt in the history of the Commonwealth.

    And all good Liberals know that had Howard and Costello been running Australia during the Second World War we would have had a surplus and tax cuts.

  5. [Great pic of Mr Howard. It’s a shame the native resolution on my screen is 1920×1200 pixels.]
    I changed over to the HD channel but as I did they had gone back to the game.

    I’m sure he will be at Lords for the second test, so I’ll try and get a HD one.

  6. [And all good Liberals know that had Howard and Costello been running Australia during the Second World War we would have had a surplus and tax cuts.]
    Yeah, they would’ve just abolished income tax and introduced a 50% GST.

  7. [Yes, it is hilarious when ShowsOn shoots himself in the foot.]
    This is the height of idiocy. Are you honestly suggesting that Curtin and Chiefly should’ve put the security of the country at risk just so they could run a budget surplus?

    Or was that part of WWII when the Japanese bombed Darwin and sent submarines into Sydney Harbour only a movie?

    This is a perfect demonstration of G.P.’s problem, he is part of a budget surplus cult that puts surpluses ahead of every other public policy priority, including defending the nation during a world war.

  8. No 665

    ShowsOn, the height of idiocy really is in fact demonstrated by the fact that you actually thought I would put surpluses above security. LOL

  9. I have a 1920×1080 here at home, but used to use a 1920×1200 at work for CAD purposes. The extra 120 vertical pixels do make a difference.

  10. [ShowsOn, the height of idiocy really is in fact demonstrated by the fact that you actually thought I would put surpluses above security.]
    Oh OK, so your comment at 661 was just an example of the sort of abject nonsense that we have all come to expect from you.

    The graph demonstrates that in historical terms our debt is extremely low, and anyone who says other wise doesn’t know anything about economics.

  11. News are honestly a joke. Main page of news.com.au:

    “Turnbull wins back voter support”

    …with a big smiling face of Malcolm. Do they seriously think that is a fair assessment of the latest poll?

  12. [“Turnbull wins back voter support”

    …with a big smiling face of Malcolm. Do they seriously think that is a fair assessment of the latest poll?]

    It is what’s technically known as “Turd Polishing”, in both the Liberal’s and Limited News’s own conduct. Also they’re probably glad Michael Jackson’s death sucked any oxygen in Turnbull’s shenanegans with the Debt Truck etc.

  13. Psephos at 617:

    [ Are you referring to that tedious European activity where they all run around in circles for two hours and never kick any goals or take any marks, ]

    Didn’t know Fremantle was part of Europe… 😉

  14. [As you rightly point out, the desalination plant is a half-arsed panic-stricken reaction by a society that has yet to learn to live within natural limits.]

    Boer, as I have asked you before, what are the ‘natural limits’ for Australia?

    Post-European – about 3 million? More?

    Until you quantify this figure, it’s hard to discuss the rest of your argument.

    If you can’t quantify it, then continually making statements like the above is pretty meaningless, and just suggests you’ve got a kneejerk reaction to the subject without any real facts to back it all up.

    I think you’re cleverer than that, so am mystified as to why you seem reluctant to talk numbers.

  15. And Boer, given the present circumstances (a prolonged, unpredicatable drought, with climate change meaning that these might be more frequent) what is the non half arsede panic stricken reaction?

    The scenario is: Melbourne has its present population. It hasn’t rained properly for many years, as the result of an unprecedent drought. How is the population of the city to be assured of water supply in the future, given that it can no longer rely on rain?

    You may provide alternatives to any part of the problem.

  16. Shows @ 647. Indian cricket has it’s problems, but when they catch players dealing with illegal bookies [- they punish them. I certyainly don’t recall Waugh or Warne being given lengthy bans. I also note that in the interests of transparency and honesty CA stated that all they did was provide weather and, think, pitch, information to the bookies – something that any cricket fan would know by watching the BBC coverage. I’m sure that the bookies would pay big dollars for this hard to come by information. And on top of that we give a drug cheat half of the minimum sentence so that he can win games for us. Who was in charge of CA for most of this?

    Tom.

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