Morgan: 61-39

The latest Morgan face-to-face poll gives Labor its best result since April: a 61-39 two-party lead, up from 58-42 last week. Labor is up three points on the primary vote to 50.5 per cent, the Coalition down one to 33.5 per cent, the Greens steady on 9.5 per cent and “others” back down to 4.5 per cent after a spike to 6 per cent last week. Some quick ones while I’m away:

• The New South Wales ALP has taken a possibly unprecedented move in banning state MPs from seeking federal preselection. Nathan Rees claims this is to prevent unnecessary by-elections – a believable motive for the state government – but is also being interpreted as a move to “stop state MP’s tarnishing the Rudd government”. Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports “rumours that the state ministers Joe Tripodi and Paul Lynch have been eyeing off the western suburbs seat of Fowler, while the former police minister Matt Brown has been linked with Gilmore”.

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports a “growing sentiment” in the New South Wales Labor Party that Belinda Neal should retain preselection for Robertson, due to sympathy over her husband’s misbehaviour together with the fact that she has “worked hard” and “kept her head down” since the Iguana’s incident.

• Andrew Landeryou of VexNews reports Victorian Liberal chatter that “controversial Baillieu faction honcho” Bruce Atkinson faces a preselection threat in his Eastern Metropolitan upper house region. This threatens to boil over into an “open slather” that could equally threaten Atkinson’s first-term Eastern Metropolitan colleague Jan Kronberg.

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.

862 comments on “Morgan: 61-39”

Comments Page 1 of 18
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  2. [Has anyone looked at the effect that the do-not-call register may have on phone polls?]

    Polling firms are exempt from the Do Not call Register 🙂

  3. Diogenes linked an American study that found left wingers sleep in later so an early morning call could be biased to the right and possibly a later one could have the opposite effect. When handing out how to vote cards I reckon I noticed more left votes in the evening.

  5. FC @ 2 – I’ll take your word for it. But more generally, I wonder if there are more people out there who have incoming call recognition configured, and who simply don’t answer the phone any more when they don’t recognise the caller? I’d have to say that personally I am so brassed off these day by being called, usually when dinner is cooking, by these serial pests from call centres, that I treat it as a challenge to get them so riled that they hang up on me.

  7. [I see the Greens also have an exemption!]

    All political parties have exception 🙂 Here is the full list.

    [Exemptions

    While it is generally unlawful for telemarketing calls to be made to numbers listed on the register, there are some exemptions. Certain public interest entities are allowed to make specific types of calls to numbers on the register. These include:

    * charities
    * educational or religious organisations
    * registered political parties and independent members of parliament
    * electoral candidates
    * government bodies.

    Market and social researchers conducting opinion polling and standard questionnaire-based research calls are also permitted to call. However, these calls will be subject to the industry standard for telemarketing and research calls. Further information about exemptions is available. ]

    http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_100642#exemptions

  8. [educational or religious organisations]

    Does that include Scientologists and Exclusive Brethren?

    The only religious organisation I’d be interested in getting a phone call from would be the Amish.

  12. [Scientology isn’t a religion, it’s a money making scam.]

    Or rather, it is a money making scam that has not had the benefit of centuries of aggressive marketing.

  13. [ Polling firms are exempt from the Do Not call Register 🙂

    Unlisted number is the best answer.]

    Not really when they ring a whole batch of numbers in sequence.

  20. [Oh come off it Bob! Point to something serious. Bugger a political compass that draws a distinction between psycopathic mass-muderers like Stalin and Hitler.]

    Antony, it’s all good and well to dismiss it, but are you seriously prepared to state that the political compass at http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 holds no truth?

    Are you saying that Nelson Mandela is not to the left economically and socially to Rudd? Or that George Bush is not to the eco/soc right of Rudd? Or that Mugabe isn’t economically left and socially right?

    Yes it is a simplification, but it is still completely valid.

  21. [Has anyone looked at the effect that the do-not-call register may have on phone polls?]

    Has anyone looked at the effect that young people who are more likely to vote Labor/Green are more likely to be out on weekends, and/or not have landline phones?

  24. GG

    I’m sure you will join me in saying how pleased we were to see the Ruddster so overjoyed at the football result.

    Brisbane wasn’t the winner tonight; football was. 👿

  26. SO

    The funny thing is that the guy to the right of Rudd is Mike Fitzpatrick who is a Carlton legend now working as AFL Commissioner. Rudd’s presence seemed to induced him to start barracking for Brisbane. I’m not sure what GG made of that.

    Rudd is obviously a very persuasive man.

  30. [ Malcolm has the followig stats

    15,906 Following
    15,677 Followers

    All Young Liberals, I presume.]

    Actually I Follow him as well (for purely educational and research purposes only I might add).

  34. Err Frank, just jokin.
    [From the the “Terror”. AUSTRALIA could be heading for another rampant house-price boom, fuelled by cashed-up superannuation investors exploiting generous government concessions.]
    Cashed up? Are they kidding?

  35. [An exclusive Sunday Mail/Galaxy Research poll reveals that just 27 per cent of people support Ms Bligh taking part in the first celebrity version of Channel 10’s popular cooking show.
    The poll of 415 voters, conducted on Friday, found 31 per cent were against her initial two-day work on the show, with 42 per cent undecided.]
    The CM are trying their hardest to make Bligh into an ogre. I bet they didn’t like seeing these results. The spin they’ve placed on them is something to behold. 69% either don’t know or agree with Anna taking part on the show. How in the world is that bad for Anna?

  36. [I’ve never had one, been unlisted for over 5 years.]

    You sound like one of those Boltbots who claim the polls are rigged because THEY have never been called (just kidding).

    My number is unlisted for 10 years and I’ve been called by Newspoll once. Had another call on the other line, asked for a sec to sya cheerio to the other caller, and by the time I’d got back to Newspoll they’d gone. It’s the quick and the dead when it comes to polling.

    Actually, when you work out the maths, say they poll 1200 people, and (like me) there are a few drop outs or “Did Not Participates”. So let’s make that 2,000 calls per poll. By a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, roughly 20 million telephone numbers (a guess, but reasonable) that would make the odds of any number being called roughly 1 in 20,000. At two weeks per poll your number would be called every 40,000 weeks, or once in 769 years, or approximately every 10 lifetimes.

    I’m sure these numbers are wrong somewhere, but I think youse would get the drift that being asked to participate in a Newspoll is probably at best something that occurs very rarely for any one person.

  37. [The New South Wales ALP has taken a possibly unprecedented move in banning state MPs from seeking preselection.]
    I originally read that to mean they couldn’t renominate for their own seat!

  38. 37

    That might be worth trying for most of the current lot. Disown the problem people and send in a new team to try and make the losses less bad.

  39. 20…..bob1234

    “….the political compass…is a simplification, but it is still completely valid.”

    This “compass” is perhaps not a very helpful device. Think about a series of related issues like, say, arbitrary arrest, detention without charge, torture, secret trials and the suspension of the usual rules of evidence and appeal. These were instruments of policy in George Bush’s administration and he deserved to be described as an authoritarian on these grounds, as well as for his willingness to use immense military force with very little regard for the consequences.

    However, I think it is more helpful to think of Bush as a Texas Ranger gone feral, in the sense that he was willing to try to manipulate judicial processes and adopt all kinds of extra-legal devices in order to free his Presidency – that is, to disencumber himself – from Constitutional restraints.

    I’m sure he thought he had his reasons, but the long and the short of it was a radical willingness to distort, subvert, frustrate or manipulate the rule of law. In this, he had a good deal in common with Richard Nixon – who probably had psychopathic tendencies – along with a good many other villains of note.

    Likewise, it is hard to see why Bush should be regarded as an economic liberal, except in the spurious sense that he permitted the SEC to give up regulating the financial markets while he cut taxes for the rich. In other respects, he did not liberalize the US economy, but acted to protect his friends and benefactors while permitting the Treasury to be looted.

    It is hard to see what Sarkozy and Berlusconi have done that would place them in the same constellation as Bush. As far as I know, torture is not an official policy in France or Italy, and though Berlusconi has certainly contrived to create a personal immunity from prosecution, this hardly counts as a program of economic liberalization. At the same time, the declared willingness of Sarkozy to intervene in the economy and to regulate key institutions are a rejection of neo-liberalism.

    All in all, I think your “compass” needs a few more dimensions added.

  40. Hmm, according to the Einstein Factor St Bob has spent time her Majesty’s chain of corrective institutions 🙂

    [Bob Brown was elected to Tasmanian State Parliament after the resignation of Norm Sanders, and was actually interned in jail at the time; having been arrested at the Blockade. He went from prison to Parliament inside 24 hours!]

    http://www.abc.net.au/einsteinfactor/txt/s2665986.htm

  41. 30
    Frank Calabrese

    “Malcolm has the following stats

    15,906 Following
    15,677 Followers

    All Young Liberals, I presume.”

    (pure guesswork here)…….I don’t think there are that many Liberals, whether young or old. In WA, you would be hard pressed to make up more than a thousand. The age of mass parties is well and truly over.

  42. 40
    Frank Calabrese……”Hmm, according to the Einstein Factor St Bob has spent time her Majesty’s chain of corrective institutions….”

    Yes, it was the making of him, Frank. It is one of the qualities about the Senator that I admire and makes me want to forgive him for his various other misdeeds and calumnies.

  43. I took one glance at INSIDERS this morning, saw Porky Piers, and abruptly changed channels! Obviously another “Bash ALP” show today!

  44. Do any of the Sydney Bludgers know anything about rezoning of the CSIRO land?

    [Sydney businessman Jim Byrnes last night said he had listened to about 45 seconds of the tape, which he said named several current and former state ministers. He said the tape related to the rezoning of CSIRO land at Eastern Creek five years ago.

    “It was to do with a property acquired four or five years ago for less than $10 million that subsequently has now been, I believe, sold for $400 million,” he said.

    Mr Byrnes said the tape could put several current and former Labor figures in jail for the rest of their life.

    “Police have told me not to say anything more,” he said.

    It is understood former planning minister Frank Sartor and his department were approached by a developer and the CSIRO about the rezoning of land near Badgerys Creek.

    Mr Sartor knocked back a request to rezone the land and release it for development. However, the State Government commenced a study in 2007, understood to cost around $2million, into rezoning the land parcel as part of a wider proposal.]

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/valuer-michael-mcgurk-feud-yes-killing-no/story-e6freuy9-1225769839696

  45. Diogenes, I’ll suspend judgement until it’s proven that a) the tape exists, and b) it implicates anyone in any dodgy dealings.
    Then again, Rees would be privately happy if this finished off Sartor, another leadership rival.

  47. The N.S.W Labor Government is doomed anyway, but this could potentially end the career of someone like Tripodi, so we’ll see how long it takes before the transcript is leaked to newspapers.

  49. I wouldn’t believe anything that McGurk – a professional scumbag, standover merchant and all-round nasty piece of work – said about anyone else being in trouble. The same goes for Jim Byrnes. All they seem to do is borrow money from other lowlifes and then try to welch on the deal, or bash similar people to themselves. They even tried to muscle the Sultan of Brunei! Legends in their own lunchtimes.

    Molotov cocktails, dodgy deals, hitmen, trophy cars they don’t (and never did) own, houses thrice mortgaged. They’re all full of it, anything to make a buck so they can pay off the last person they chiselled out of dirty money. There’s have been a queue of people wanting to assassinate McGurk. You can just about hear the cheering from your living room that he’s gone.

    So what do we have? A alleged tape, about alleged behind the scenes shady goings on, involving alleged ministers, state and federal, all going back to 2007, involving CSIRO land in Western Sydney. Who was in government then federally? Who ran the CSIRO then? Not Labor. They’ll be in jail for the rest of their lives, allegedly? Pull the other one.

  50. BB

    McGurk started out being referred to by the media as a wealthy businessman.

    He’s now “SLAIN loan shark and standover man Michael McGurk”.

    And you’re right about the cheering, even from a suspect!

    “A PROPERTY valuer who claimed he was bashed and fire-bombed by Michael McGurk, yesterday expressed relief he was dead – but insisted he did not kill him. “

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