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. [Given the events in the polling period we’re looking at, explain why there would be a substantial shift from Labor to the Greens.

    I can understand why a number of Libs, disenchanted with MT and unable to face voting for unionists, would shift to the Greens. I can’t see any rational argument for a substantial shift of the Labor — Green vote.

    Willing to listen.]

    Margin of error. Last 6 Newspoll Green primaries – 10, 11, 10, 9, 11, 9. Ooooooh.

  2. Centre, Was that the Nostradamus who after the 2004 election(?) said he was a Labor voter all along. Got his kicks stirring, pretending to be a Lib? Think he was off overseas?

  4. Zoom,

    The Greens in general are quite happy to acknowledge that yes, some votes go straight from Lib to Green, not many, but some.

    I know many Lib voters that have done this several times before settling to become solid Green voters.

  5. I think it was sour grapes vera. I remember one day, after Howard called the Democrats the party of the terrorists, Nostradamus kept calling Obama “Barrack for Hussein Osama.

    Many bloggers didn’t know Obama’s middle name was Hussein at the time, me included.

    *I’m crashing, night guys*

  6. Didn’t think we were talking newspoll, bob – the thread’s about Morgan.

    But if you want to admit that your party’s vote isn’t growing, I’m willing to accept that.

  7. [Didn’t think we were talking newspoll, bob – the thread’s about Morgan.

    But if you want to admit that your party’s vote isn’t growing, I’m willing to accept that.]

    Not only are you giving Morgan credibility, but you’re looking at the minor party polling of Morgan?

    *laughs, gasps for air, then laughs some more*

    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/07/08/greens-%e2%80%93-structural-change-or-parked-vote/

    From Possum himself. Enjoy 🙂

    Check – and mate.

  9. [Tomorrrow we celebrate Gough’s 93rd birthday. So delighted he’s still around.]

    I’m shocked that you’d support someone to the left of Rudd economically and socially – shocked I say!

  10. No doubt tho, the vermin that are News Ltd will craft up some stories comparing the big spending government of Whitlam with Rudd.

  11. Bob,

    You think you know a lot about political theory but the reality is you know nothing. Sewerage for the outer suburbs, engagement with China and better educational opportunities are not and never have been left wing policies.

    Gough was a hard centre (where the votes are).

  15. [ bob1234
    Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 at 10:44 pm | Permalink
    Gough was a hard centre (where the votes are).

    So what’s Rudd in comparison?]

    Who’s in government and why is he in government?

    Tom.

  16. bob

    of course I’ve read Possum. Don’t assume ignorance is catching.

    I asked the question as a hypothetical – IF votes move from A to B and not from C to B etc (go back and read the post).

    It’s interesting how much you avoid even approaching admitting that perhaps sometimes a block of Liberal votes become Green votes.

    Were you scared by a Liberal as a child or something? (can imagine that happening. you might have seen Malcolm Fraser on the TV when you were alone and without protection).

    There are nice Liberals, truly there are. They were brought up to believe in a party which no longer exists. They’re there for the wooing. Embrace them.

  17. Economically, pre-Whitlam, Labor was left. Whitlam Labor was centre-left. Hawke and onward have been centre to centre-right.

  21. Well done to Leigh Sales hitting Southcott right between the eyes over the Libs hypocrisy re Hu and Hicks. He had nothing.

  22. 24

    The Democrats were mainly an upper house party. They won only one seat in the HAT (which they lost to Bob Brown on countback when their MHAT resigned) and the Greens have won five and would win six if the Parliament had not be shrunk to reduce the number of Green seats. The Democrats won a seat in the HASA once or twice and the Greens have won one in the LAWA. The Democrats never held a seat in the HoR and the Greens have. The Greens have a better lower house record than the Democrats and a better Legislative Council record in NSW, Vic (partly due to electoral reform) and i believe WA too.

    I did not say that the HAT has single member seats. It is a lower house and I was using it to point out that an attack on the Greens (saying that they were not going to win any lower house seat wherever it is) was likely to be factually incorrect.

  24. [I missed it Dario. What happened?]

    He started pontificating about how the FM and PM must be immediately contacting their opposite numbers in China to sort this out given that Hu was an Australian citizen being held without charge. Leigh just said wasn’t it a bit rich for him to be saying that after Hicks had been held in Guantanamo without charge for 2 years and all up for 5. Southcott started scrambling after that and babbled for a while. Hilarious.

  25. The Greens are set to have 2 SA MLCs from the next election there. This would be from electing one MLC at each election which is what the Democrats did at most elections in SA. The Democrats got two in one election only in 1997. Given time the Greens will probably overtake the Democrats on longevity. They may overtake the Democrats for most Senators for a minor party and SA MLCs too.

  27. [He started pontificating about how the FM and PM must be immediately contacting their opposite numbers in China to sort this out ]

    Russell Smith pointed out earlier today that the Chinese Ministry of State Security is way above the Chinese foreign affairs minister’s head and that Aus has nothing like an opposite number.

  29. I’m feeling much the same way about Clark at the moment Whitey. Sure he’s 67 not out and going along nicely but when will Johnson get a go

  30. I’m NOT anti Green (why some of my best friends are Green, and I got a lovely Christmas card from the local Green candidate, saying how approachable and helpful I was…) but I’m a bit puzzled by their reluctance to accept that some Liberal voters by pass Labor and move directly to the Greens, even when the figures suggest very strongly that this is what’s happening.

    Who’s reluctant to accept that?

    It’s pretty obvious on the figures, no matter what state you’re looking on. The Greens do fairly well in seats like Nedlands, Vaucluse, and in the Liberal-voting inner-south of the ACT – places which Labor goes down like a ton of bricks – and where they haven’t already (they already have in Vaucluse), are probably likely to start running second within an election or two.

  31. Given time the Greens will probably overtake the Democrats on longevity. They may overtake the Democrats for most Senators for a minor party and SA MLCs too.

    …they’ve already just about surpassed the amount of state and federal MPs the Democrats ever had in their currently sitting MPs alone…

  32. Hi guys. About the Hu affair, the latest report coming out of China is that he bribed a top Chinese official from one of the biggest steel producer in China. The official was in charge of negotiation with Rio Tinto. In return Hu was given access to the agenda and record of internal meetings of Chinese negotiation team. He also gained access to data such as production schedules, gross and net profit and average stock turnover time etc.
    This is being described as an “earthquake” in Chinese steel producer cycles. Two additional executives (of Chinese producers) have been detained and several more from the Chinese Steel Producer Association are under investigation.
    This was published on a influential newspaper. Take it however you like.

  36. Probably my fave bit from depressed England commentors, who cheered themselves by rejoicing in how badly the Oz women were performing in their Test …

    This does seem a bit like a mid-90s test, just substitute Peter Such and Alex Tudor. Ok, so maybe it isn’t that bad, but we seem to be a schizophrenic team. One good session, one bleak one … I still think we can draw this, but we’ll need to shed the mental shackles of Test series past.” A huge LBW appeal from Collingwood against North. Umpire Doctrove is entirely unfussed, and, well, the covers are coming on and the players are going off.

    Yup, We’ve got a flurry of rain sweeping across Cardiff.

    In other, scarcely less depressing news Australia’s women are enjoying a ridiculous revival in Worcester, having been 28-5, they’re now 200-5 thanks to a superb stand of 172 from captain Jodie Fields and no7 debutant Rachel Haynes.

  38. From the horse’s mouth:

    [Govt: Proof against Rio spies sticks
    By Tong Hao and Wang Linyan (China Daily)
    Updated: 2009-07-10 08:39

    Sufficient evidence exists that employees of a multinational mining group committed acts of espionage and stole State secrets, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

    Stern Hu, a general manager for the Chinese operation at Rio Tinto’s iron ore division, as well as three other employees at the mining company were detained July 5 for alleged spying. Their acts caused huge losses for China’s economic and security interests, said Qin Gang Thursday.

    During iron ore price negotiations that China held earlier this year with Rio Tinto, Vale of Brazil and BHP Billiton of Australia, Hu and the three Rio Tinto employees procured national secrets by bribing insiders with Chinese steelmakers, according to Shanghai’s State Security Bureau.

    Though authorities have not revealed details of the State secrets and how they affected the price talks, the 21st Century Business Herald cited an anonymous source close to the issue that Hu was in close contact with a senior executive from the Shougang Group, the sixth largest steelmaker in China.]

    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/10/content_8405768.htm

  40. Re left and right, which, undefined, seem to have been thrown about with wild abandon (above): please do us all a favour and take time to read Left-right politics, noting in particular:

    The terms left and right are often used to spin a particular point of view, rather than as simple descriptors.

    This is a quite comprehensive coverage of the continuum from its beginnings late C18 beginnings to the current era, and in some different contexts.

    Technically (& by the most widely accepted definitions) the ALP is centre left – just how far to the left depends on the PM, which term and, in many cases, the year or less within a term if political and/or economic conditions change; hence Curtin, Chifley, Hawke and Rudd all changed (are changing, in Rudd’s case) in response to war, recession and, in Hawke-Keating’s case, to a major shift from Industrial to PostIndustrial imperatives like production and employment.

    Note: For almost all of its history, the ALP has been, and been open about being, a Fabian Socialist party:

    The group, which favoured gradual incremental change rather than revolutionary change, was named – at the suggestion of Frank Podmore – in honour of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus (nicknamed “Cunctator”, meaning “the Delayer”). His Fabian strategy advocated tactics of harassment and attrition rather than head-on battles against the Carthaginian army under the renowned general Hannibal Barca.

    Thus cries of “I voted for Rudd, but he’s let us down” because he hasn’t gone far or fast enough on a range of social justice and environmental issues, are either pure (& over-emotional) rhetoric, or a reflection of one’s failure to understand the ALP’s & Rudd’s political nature & strategies (ie “not doing one’s homework” before voting). He’s a very Fabian Fabian Socialist. If you voted or preferenced the ALP in 07, that’s what you voted for!

    The Liberal Party, from 1949-c1990, was centralist and, more often than not, extended in one or both directions – Fraser, for example, was socially left but economically/fiscally right. From 1990-onwards, it shifted quite a long way to the right, although it still retained central to slightly left welfare policies even before the post-Election 2004 Middle Class welfare tsunami. Howard’s desertion of the centre (and the GOP’s in the USA, and, until very recently, UK Tories’; but certainly not Angela Merkel’s or other W European Conservatives’) and Rudd’s rapid move into it make the Liberal’s recovery much harder – qv today’s excellent articles by George Megalogenis Laying foundations for a Kevin Rudd re-election and Peter Hartcher Forget the windbags and follow windfall theory of leadership

    The Democrats, pre-Meg, moved into the central vacuum created by Libs’ shift to the right, although they had to share it with Hawke’s ALP.

    The Greens show an interesting (from a pol-analyist point of view) dichotomy between far right environmental pæleoconservatism (becoming more so as some special interest groups gain more power) and socialist in its social justice policies. It’s increasing passion for pæleoconservatism, as Rudd incrementally changes Howard’s socil policy, poses the greatest threat to Greens’ continuing support.

    The DLP, the post-Split political arm of CA Groups and the NCC, is and always was a RW mixed marriage of aspects French Revolutionary ideology (especially of Code Napoleon: Civil, which most Italian states adopted) and Vatican social dogma; oddly, the Code’s aspects it adopted had been dropped by the French (for their disastrous economic consequences) before policies of the groups on which CA was later based were formulated. Socially, rurally and industrially, it (in fact CA, in whatever political/union form in whatever country) is and always was Pæleoconservative.

    FF, here and its equivalents in the USA & other nations, can best be examined as Evangelical/ Pentacostal versions of CA. Its colonisation of the GOP, “marriage” to the NeoCons Right, and the aftermath of the Democratic ascendancy, can well be compared/contrasted to CA’s colonisation of the ALP – a great PhD thesis in the offing.

  41. Sydney is no longer voted into the top ten international destinations:
    http://www.smh.com.au/travel/where-would-you-rather-be–udaipur-or-sydney-20090710-dg2l.html

    A marketing guy thinks the solution is more marketing. What a surprise! I think the solution is changing the reality. Its a city whose economy is drowning under the weight of its own nepotism, the public transport system is corruptly run, under invested in and over staffed, and the state governmetn is still approving inappropriate developments in remote locations that will create huge future costs for services, even though they can barely afford to service what they have now.

    I was glad that IA didn’t cave in to NSW on the stiimulus package; there is no point funding badly thought out ideas that are not a solution. But a solution is needed. As the rest of the Australian economy gets going again in the next few months, Sydney is the one city that could sttill drag the numbers down. Its hard to be growing well if 25% of the nation is still stuck in decline.

  42. Dario surely Southcott must have realised being interviewed by Sales (who wrote the Hicks book) that she would bring up Hicks. Cant they see the hypocrisy?? And I love how Hu is an Australian citizen when Hui in the Fitzgibbon stuff was a Chinese businesswoman. Funny how the terminology changes to suit the story. What poor journalism we have

    And oh, the Rudd scandal of the day is him being caught by a microphone expressing pessimism about Copenhagen. Surely THIS is the end for Rudd…
    http://www.theage.com.au/environment/global-warming/rudd-gives-copenhagen-talks-little-hope-20090710-dg48.html

  43. [FF, here and its equivalents in the USA & other nations, can best be examined as Evangelical/ Pentacostal versions of CA.]

    Nice read Ozpol.

    Interesting article here on the Australia First Party.

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/rightwing-genie-out-of-the-bottle-20090708-ddfk.html?page=-1

    New home for One Nation, they ave always been around in one form or another.
    Could go potentially well in a time of rising unemployment and home repossession.

    Nice open pary also with a comment that members don’t necessarily have to be christians but should be white.

    WOuldn’t surprise me if FF do a prefernce deal with them.

  46. Castle @ 93 It’s the same old, same old racist, sectarian fascism (tho that’s insulting Benito) with the same old same old mainly poor white sectarian racists masquerading as Christian Patriots. Some original AFs were involved in founding the League of Rights and have been in all its fronts & reincarnations (even Confederate with the Confederate flag, would you believe!) OH loves homing in on them and arguing; I used to, but can’t be bothered any more. I prefer targeting the Opposition!

  47. Wait for it – the OO has decided that Uteman or Utemen is to be the new name to be given to Labor’s aspirationals. Two mentions in headlines today, one being a Shanahan article.
    The intention obviously is to associate Labor voting with cronyism and something vaguely improper.

    Nice try, but no cigar.

  49. Xenophobia and racism always re emerge in times of economic hardship in Australia due to job insecurity and our culture of complaint about others getting a bigger “suck on the sauce bottle”. My feeling is that a lot of it is harmless as it is primarily ignorant people letting off steam.

    The MSM seem to give some of these shadowy racist groups and personalities far more publicity and credibility than is warranted. Half of me says ignore the drop kicks. But half of me says that the press should be shining a light on these idiots as only by operating in secrecy will their obscene ideology be able to fester and influence the feeble minded.

  50. PS Thanks Castle

    To all: please excuse errors. I’m waiting (not very patiently) for a few brain fuses that blew out/retracked some neural paths to repair. Not an uncommon prob and there are now ways to speed repair. This is one of them.

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