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”

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  2. [I find it hard to believe she gets too stressed by QT]

    Grog, she is giving Malcolm encouragement to ask few more questions.

  4. GG
    Rees has been looking OK the way he’s handled the Della affair and he’s even seemed dare I say statesmanlike now in dealing with this ‘explosive tape” story
    O’Farrell on the other hand is looking like an idiot IMO 🙂
    I wouldn’t even be surprised if Rees preferred Premier ratings went up!

  5. [The Police were very quick to deny that.]

    Unless the officer he spoke to failed to record the visit in the Occourance Book.

  6. Vera, obviously Barrell consulted Malcolm. As the past master, Malcolm said to Barrell: “You got to go early, go hard and go for the kill”. 👿

  7. Diogenes, that article is a joke.

    [It reported Mr McGurk went to Surry Hills police station on the day of his death to make a formal complaint about the officer, who then learned of the complaint and asked the businessman to “take care of matters”.

    Police are yet to respond to the claims.]

    That was posted at 8:01 pm.

    An hour earlier, the Police responded:

    [Police respond to Channel Seven media report – McGurk murder
    Monday, 07 Sep 2009 07:06pm

    NSW Police has no record of Mr Michael McGurk attending Surry Hills Police Station on the day of his murder, nor any record of Mr McGurk making a complaint to any other police station on that day.]

  8. Vera,

    Absolutely right.

    O’Farrell calling for a Parliamentary inquiry is nonsense. All it would do is compromise the Poilce Inquiry in to the murder and the ICAC inquiry if it is deemed necesary.

    When in doubt STFU.

  9. [Unless the officer he spoke to failed to record the visit in the Occourance Book.]

    Which, if the police officer was corrupt as suggested, he probably wouldn’t do.

  10. STOP PRESS
    The following statement has just been issued by the Royal North Shore Private Veterinary Clinic:
    “A celebrity member of the genus rattus has been admitted to our clinic, having suffered a serious analphylactic reaction to a routine operation at the Castlecrag Private Veterinary Hospital. The celebrity was hoping to undergo an operation to remove his four frontal incisors but, due to the analphylactic reaction, the operation could not be conducted. The initial decision by the celebrity to undergo the incisors’ extraction operation was due to his ongoing anguish at continually being called cruel names, even by his friends. For privacy reasons, we cannot divulge the identity of the celebrity, except to say that he has fully recovered and until a few moments ago was sitting up and gnawing away happily at one of the supports on his four-poster bed. As he is now having a snooze, all we can say is that the celebrity patient is a lying rodent.”
    END OF STOP PRESS

  13. He’s had his come uppance, Acerbic. Poking ridicule at him while he’s sick only reflects on us.

    By the way, I usually enjoy your posts, keep them coming. 🙂

    Whatever happened to your distant cousin, Cerdic Conan?

  14. [Finns had Howie not saved all that stim cash for Rudd to spend jobs would be down, (interest rates would still be down because of the GFC) and we’d be in recession!]

    Glen, normally you speak a lot of sense for a Liberal, but not this time. You’re just sloganeering and regurgitating Liberal cant. Note well: Howard was not a saver; he was the Drunken Sailor bigspender.

    ‘His’ surplus of around 20 billion – less than half the value of one stimulus package.

    This, after he had spent or given away $314 billion between the 2004-2005 budget and the 2007 election.

    If he’d spent less in his final term we would now be needing to borrow less.

    Don’t you find it more than passing strange (as Julia would say) that as soon as the global economy nosedived the Australian government had to go into debt to cope?

    Where’d the massive mining boom windfall go? What was there to show for it at the end of the Howard tenure?

    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/09/05/morgan-61-39-7/comment-page-14/#comment-326356

  15. [ Unless the officer he spoke to failed to record the visit in the Occourance Book.

    Which, if the police officer was corrupt as suggested, he probably wouldn’t do.]
    And, in which case, it wouldn’t be a FORMAL complaint.

  16. Just watched Four Corners on ‘Clean Coal’. In terms of probability, I think I would rather punt on the Melbourne Cup than on clean coal making a difference in my lifetime, optimistically-defined.

    How depressment.

    I hope that the PR genius who came up with the term ‘clean coal’ is rewarded appropriately.

  18. 4 Corners was interesting, especially because of the attention paid to the US and China. Even if fantasy coal was viable, American analyses predict that on current funding it would be unable to make a meaningful contribution to carbon reduction until c.2040.

    Not enough time. Abandon it? Can’t, not politically or economically. It’s just the same here. Ferguson was interviewed (mad fringe- his hair loss issues must be as bad as mine), but was careful not to say anything much beyond the need to protect living standards.

  19. [He’s had his come uppance, Acerbic. Poking ridicule at him while he’s sick only reflects on us.]

    Fulvio (761), I see your point, but I haven’t forgotten how they treated Bernie Banton.

    And as for Cerdic, he wasn’t my distant cousin, but my mad uncle. LOL.

  22. K

    The really depressing thing was that there are no technological barriers that can make CCS a good solution. The cost looks more than nuclear and there’s a big chance it won’t work.

    It looks more like a delaying tactic than anything.

  23. [The cost looks more than nuclear and there’s a big chance it won’t work.]
    On Lateline last Thursday it was claimed a new CCS coal plant would cost $4 billion.

    I mean a full scale version, not just a proof of concept version.

  25. Diog,

    It seems politically impossible to say “we’re going to have a planned shutdown of the coal industry”. State governments have even been unwilling to go with gas rather than coal over the past 20 years. The idea of Australia saying “that’s it – we have 20 years to give up on coal completely” just seems a bridge too far.

  26. LOL just read this summary of the comparrison of the two parties on the perception questions:
    The most significant lead Labor has over the Liberal Party is in the area of having a good team of leaders (+30%), looks after the interests of working
    families (+28%), and understands the problems facing Australia (+18%). Liberal has the strongest lead over Labor in the area of divided (33%) and
    out of touch with ordinary people (20%).

    I’m not sure that they are things that the Libs would want to be ‘leading’ in. 😀

  27. Diogenes,

    Yeah, it certainly is a delaying tactic now, even if Labor/Democrats/etc. had faith in it a few years ago.

    I’m drawing a long straw 🙂 here but failure at Copenhagen, and more generally in responding to AGW, could be the beginning of the end for our current democratic systems. An AGW world, if somewhat dystopian, could more easily be turned away from the systems that failed so spectacularly to respond to it or its consequences. That’s a long-term view, of course.

  30. I just got sick of hitting refresh and did some delving!

    GG,

    The alcohol content would probably attract the higher tax rate if it was bottled 😉

  31. I’m waiting for a retraction from Psephos about his earlier comment that the “vast majority of Catholics vote Labor”. It met with much scepticism at the time and the scepticism was well-founded.

    Of Catholics, 50% vote Labor, 29% Liberal.

    Still Catholics are Labors best religious demographic.

    Anglican and other Protestant are the Liberals best.

    Non Christian and No religion were the Greens best.

  33. The 4 Corners story was pretty even handed I thought. It probably could have been far more critical of its likely success in Australia. While Vic and WA have a fair few potential storage sites it’s pretty lean in Qld and NSW (mostly due to a lack of petroleum exploration). Even if we can prove up the technology at scale, we are looking at some pretty significant pipelines to take the CO2 South and West.

    I’m still of the view that it is better to spend the money now and work out if it can be done ASAP. If it fails it will be expensive but at least we will be able to move on. If it works, we can start making deeper cuts earlier (provided the will is there). We still need a carbon price though.

  34. Diogenes,

    The other thing to note is that this was a sample that voted 61-49 for Labor. 61-49 is a ridiculously large figure that will not be replicated at an election. So the figures for the religion breakdown are probably inflated for Labor.

  35. Dave55

    I think they should try it but they need a back-up plan if it doesn’t work or is not viable commercially or can’t be used at enough sites.

    I can’t see a back-up plan.

  37. Diogs,

    Anything over 50% plus 1 is boasting.

    The more interesting factor is that the Liberal leadership is dominated by Catholics.

    Could the Libs have cultural problems because their leadership does not represent the values of their supporters?

  40. N Rudd’s personal popularity has lifted to a six-month high, despite problems with the economic stimulus spending, rising unemployment and fears of interest rate rises.
    Personal satisfaction with Malcolm Turnbull’s performance has also continued to recover after the near-fatal collapse of his support over the political debacle of his handling of the faked email and alleging improper conduct by the Prime Minister.

    But while both leaders have had a small boost in the past two weeks of the parliamentary recess, the Labor Party has continued to hold a commanding 10-point lead over the Coalition.

    Mr Rudd also continues to dominate the Opposition Leader as preferred prime minister.

    According to the latest Newspoll survey, taken last weekend exclusively for The Australian, satisfaction with Mr Rudd’s performance as prime minister rose three percentage points to 64 per cent, and dissatisfaction fell from 29 to 26 per cent.

    After some slight declines in the wake of the budget, Mr Rudd’s satisfaction levels are now at six-month highs and back to near-record levels.

    Primary vote support for the major parties was virtually unchanged in the past two weeks, with the Coalition on 39per cent and Labor on 44 per cent.

    Based on preference flows at the last election, the primary vote translated into a two-party preferred vote of 45 per cent for the Coalition and 55 per cent for the Labor government – exactly as it was in mid-August.

  41. [You (sort of we) need more Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics and atheists!!]

    I’m actually very surprised at the non-Christian but religious figure being so high for The Greens. I would never have guessed that Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists voted disproportionately highly for The Greens.

  42. [I’m actually very surprised at the non-Christian but religious figure being so high for The Greens. I would never have guessed that Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists voted disproportionately highly for The Greens.]

    Well with the Green’s opposition to the Anti-Terrorism Laws, and their positions on Asylum Seekers etc, I wouldn’t be surprised.

  43. I guess Turbull’s figures haven’t improved that much or they would have printed them.

    A 6% rise in Rudd’s net satisfaction is pretty big I’d have thought.

  45. [I’m actually very surprised at the non-Christian but religious figure being so high for The Greens. I would never have guessed that Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists voted disproportionately highly for The Greens.]
    Wiccans and Druids…

  48. [Well with the Green’s opposition to the Anti-Terrorism Laws, and their positions on Asylum Seekers etc, I wouldn’t be surprised.]

    Good point. My scepticism comes from the fact that whilst The Greens vote is higher in areas with a higher proportion of atheists, it’s nowhere near 14% in places with high Muslim/Hindu/Sikh populations.

  50. Frank

    [Well with the Green’s opposition to the Anti-Terrorism Laws, and their positions on Asylum Seekers etc, I wouldn’t be surprised.]

    You’re probably right there. I’d never thought of Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese and other SEA people being Green voters but that would explain it (I should add that it was only 17% of the Non-Christians who voted Green).

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