At last, a second poll to back the notion that Labor has taken a hit in recent weeks. The latest Roy Morgan face-to-face survey has Labor’s lead at 56-44: healthy enough in absolute terms, but down from 61-39 last week and 60.5-39.5 at the previous regular fortnightly survey. Labor is down 4.5 per cent on the primary vote while the Coalition is up 3.5 per cent (CORRECTION: up 6 per cent) to 38.5 per cent. The Greens are down 1.5 per cent to 8 per cent; not sure where the remainder went. The normal Morgan poll release is not available yet, but it can be assumed that this is based on last weekend’s polling of a sample of about 1000. The numbers can be seen on Morgan’s Poll Trends page. Thanks to sharp-eyed/well-informed readers for pointing this out.
UPDATE: Morgan’s poll release informs us that this is one of those occasions where Morgan also unloads a mid-week poll conducted on the back of an unrelated survey. This one has Labor’s lead at just 52-48 – but the sample is only 573. The sample size of the face-to-face poll turns out to have been 874.
UPDATE 2: Jamie Walker and Lenore Taylor of The Weekend Australian inform us of a Newspoll survey of 1847 voters conducted this week across six Queensland marginal seats: “the Brisbane-based Liberal seats of Bowman and Dickson, Labor-held Longman to the north of the capital, Flynn and Dawson in central Queensland, also with the ALP, and the Liberal electorate of Herbert, centred on Townsville”. What we really need here is a table, but between them the reports inform us that:
• Support for Labor “has lifted 2.9 per cent since Mr Rudd was elected two years ago, against 6.2 per cent Australia-wide”.
• Two-party support for Labor in Dawson in Flynn has increased almost 3 per cent since the election, despite hostility in those electorates towards emissions trading.
• Satisfaction with Kevin Rudd’s performance as Prime Minister ranged between 46 per cent in Flynn and 61 per cent in Herbert, and averaged 54 per cent.
• “Mr Turnbull’s best results were in Bowman, in Brisbane’s east, and Herbert, where he scored 38 per cent approval; his worst was 27 per cent in Longman, lost to Labor at the last election by former Howard government minister Mal Brough. Satisfaction with the Opposition Leader averaged out at 34 per cent.”
• Preferred prime minister reflected the national situation, with Rudd leading 63-22.
• Overall, “only 26 per cent of voters across the electorates like what (Rudd) is doing with Telstra, only 27 per cent think he is doing a good job with asylum-seekers and 56 per cent think he’s being too soft on them”; however, “sixty-one per cent of voters in the six electorates thought Labor was doing a good job in handling interest rates”.
Other news:
• The Mercury reports former state Labor MP Kathryn Hay has pulled out of her comeback bid in Bass citing health problems. However, her media statement has made a point of telling us she “did not rule out” standing for Labor again, prompting suggestions she might yet seek to replace Jodie Campbell in the federal seat. Alison Andrews of the Launceston Examiner says Hay’s exit “provides the opportunity for newly elected Launceston City Council alderman Rob Soward to rethink trying for state politics”, after he failed to win one of the six positions in the recent preselection vote. For what it’s worth, a commenter on the Mercury article said he had it “on very good authority that Lisa Singh is also looking to jump the sinking Bartlett ship with an eye on Duncan Kerr’s Federal Denison seat”.
• Peter van Onselen in The Australian reports that Labor’s preselection politburo wishes to install social worker Louise Durack as its candidate against Liberal front-bencher Michael Keenan in the Perth seat of Stirling, which has a notional margin of 1.3 per cent after minor redistribution adjustments. Durack failed to carry the highly marginal new seat of Ocean Reef at the September 2008 state election. Another aspirant, Balcatta Senior High School chairwoman Janet Pettigrew, is reportedly being pressured to withdraw.
• James Massola of the Canberra Times reports the ACT Greens are likely to preselect Sue Ellerman for Canberra and Indra Esguerra for Fraser on Monday, but the more interesting question of their Senate candidate will not be resolved for a few more weeks.
• George Megalogenis of The Australian observes that “safe Liberal electorates have borne the brunt of the Rudd government’s clampdown on family payments”. All of the 15 electorates identified as most heavily affected are Liberal seats, including Wentworth, Curtin, North Sydney and Warringah.
• Andrew Crook of Crikey reports the Prime Minister is weighing up whether to stick with Belinda Neal in Robertson or “install a political cleanskin untainted by the saga surrounding the notorious events at Iguana Joe’s”. The opinion of local branch members is unlikely to have much to do with it.
All the ALP had to do was leave the asylum seeker problem as it was but no they had to be diferrent. Now they seem to be paying the price for their stupidity by allowing the MSM and the coalition the chance to gain traction on an issue that the average voter couldn’t really give a continental about. Perception counts for a lot. Before you lot start asking to show what evidence there is for this, look at how the polls have gone since the asylum issue has hit the headlines and look how much further south they go (from labors point of view) as the boats keep coming. I’m a labour voter and have been all my life and the reasons for being one are not for welcoming asylum seekers but for (hopefully) improving the lot of working class people who already reside in this country. I hope that I never see a coalition government re-elected because of this and thereby giving them the chance to re-introduce something like Work Choices. All because of asylum seekers. bah.
Crikey! Fielding is going off his head in the Senate at the moment over the Government’s Youth Allowance Bill!
He’s totally nuts!
I couldn’t imagine him going off any worse than this if Labor had suddenly declared that all first born males in Australia were to be eliminated!
1501 – A complete over reaction. Labor would romp in an election if one were held now.
So The”Truth”Hurts which uni are you at? Clearly a metro uni based on your diatribe. In the ALSF too I bet.
i want my newspoll!! yes its no better than neislen which told us 56/44 last week, but I still want it most…
Now, now, Andrew! Settle mate. All good things come to those who wait!
Not much longer to go now! 😉
Andrew
Don’t make me have to slap you!
Listening to Senator Hanson Young now!
It appears the Greens are similar to Fielding, desperate to provide another DD trigger to enhance their prospects by not needing the full 14% quota!
IF your aim was to have as many rural/regional students attend university as possible, you would avoid a gap year at all costs.
30% of rural students who take a gap year do not end up taking up a university position.
I can’t understand the Opposition on this one. They had a win, fer Chrissakes. Gillard agreed to amend the legislation so it wasn’t retrospective (and so she should have).
A half decent Oppo would be dancing in the streets, boasting to all and sundry that yes, it’s worth contacting your local Coalition MP if you’ve got a problem, because they can put pressure on the government to solve it.
Instead, they shift the goal posts and start talking about the students completing their VCE this year being denied the chance to do a gap year! And whinge that these students are being left in limbo because they don’t know what the rules will be next year (in which case, pass the f**ing legislation, dingbats).
For some reason, the Oppo regards a gap year as sacred, some kind of rite of passage which all (rural) students should go through before going to Uni. So why don’t they propose making it obligatory before any student goes to Uni?
As it is, if the legislation isn’t passed, nearly one hundred thousand students will be disadavantaged, compared to the 26,000 (mostly drawn from those who did the gap year last year) who were disadvantaged by the changes.
BH, I’m much impressed with the overwhelmingly negative reporting of the PM in particular. He travels overseas to advance Australia’s interests? Well he enjoys it, so it doesn’t count. What stupidity.
Thank you William, we are interested, and very interested in why there are the responses to the economic questions, given we just got through the GFC.
What has the Labor government got to do? Walk backwards on water? Turn wine into water?
Remember Carrie Prejean who became pals with Sarah Palin because she was a God fearing, bible bashing, anti-gay conservative? Well it’s just getting worse. She’s already admitted to the sex tape but not there seem to be eight.
Finns, she’d like them back. 😉
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26355355-5006343,00.html
Vera,
Just read the full transcript of both Kevvie’s and Turnbull’s speeches in the Parliament today.
Our Kevvie’s was streets ahead of Turnbull’s. Malcolm ought to get a better speech-writer. I bet Kev wrote his own.
Even though Malcolm pulled Nelson’s trick with the flood of tears, his speech didn’t have the same sense of passion and authenticity and genuine concern that Kevvie was able to put into his and the people in the gallery certainly picked up on that.
To me it was a truly historic moment that has been demeaned by the woefull manner in which they covered the event! Especially the ABC! There was not even a mention of it on the 9 News here tonight. Truly shameful!
Astrobleme:
Please explain “dichotomy” if what you meant was not that Greens has to deal with either Labor or Liberal. Supporting no one means 0% of its policy get through, the sign of an effective party!
Also please explain how the bottle of water analogy is flawed, bearing in mind that if the Greens stick to their current demand no one is likely to deal with them and that their voter bases is unlikely to increase. The current situation is that majority of the voters simply was not convinced about the 25% target is absolutely necessary.
Who’s been a busy girl then?
All in a days work.
Scorpio
This will cheer you up
On 10 news a reporter asked Abbott if Turnbull would still be leader in a fortnight.
Refreshing to see at least one of the media is still giving it to the Libs 😀
Diog, but i never had SEX with woman!!!!
Newspoll 48-52. Andrew, you can now commit hara-kiri. 👿
And was of course used by the meeja back in Whitlam’s day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIIksOcDgbU
Scorpio
BBC and CNN news on Pay TV did good coverages of the apology.
Finns you better be joking!
brother forget the missing newspoll
where’s my turtle
😉
I don’t know, gus – pink sorta suits you.
Vera, everything i post is a lie. now do you believe me?
Vera…Finns has little pointy horns for a reason, you know.
Oooohhh, forgot you have them too!
Finns. I don’t know, Is the truth out there?
Finns, did you know that exaggeration went up by a million per cent last year?
Gus, is this OK?
zoomster
I do have a nice pair of horns at that 🙂
So do you finns :kiss:
HSO – I was surprised by the ER breakup of economic questions. They seem to have leaned to the Libs very quickly. I wonder why. I still think Labor does not sell itself well enough and I don’t mean they should start advertising.
A case in point which I mentioned before. Last week – reports that consultancy fees were huge. Bronwyn Bishop threw it in to QT today to Lindsay T. Tanner, who sent a letter to the editor last week saying the journo should reread the report, told Bishop that Libs spent in 2006-2007 over $500+mill. Labor has spent in the $416 mill range.
Mistruths are reported. They are never retracted and the Libs repeat them over and over. Say something long enough and it becomes reality is the Libs’ mantra.
Like contact lenses, only in the eyes of the beholder :kiss:
Finns
You said you’d never release “those” snaps
😉
You’re not wrong, Frank. Loved the video, I’ve gotta say.
Light bulb over 2 neurones. You’ve got heaps of stuff about Labor and the history of Labor. Not to mention the musical references.
All the stuff that you’ve got should go under a new virtual Knowledge Tree. Think about it.
Vera – you can stick your nice pair of horns right through Finns butt if he scares the beejesus out of us again!! lol
i’ve been watching the Aliens movies all evening on the new Faxtel channel. I think it’s more scary here at PB waiting for the Newspoll.
Has anyone watched Al Jazeera since it started on Sunday. Some really interesting stuff on there and some good journalism.
BH, while the over 65s and some in the next age cohort might decide Labor was ill suited to manage the place economically, in the last Essential Media, I find it hard to reconcile with their actual performance. Are people so stupid?
BH, That naughty Finns isn’t good for the blood pressure sometimes 🙂
I’ve been watching Mythbusters and couldn’t help but think of some of the earlier posts here when Adam said “I reject your reality and substitute my own” 😉
I see another OO reptile on 7:30 report commenting on Reece etc. Also hewson applying the boot.
Why on earth is it that the abc is infested with OO reptiles on its shows ?
For heavens sake ! Is the abc incapable of producing political opinion programing with *significant* OO input ?
Why is it rare that abc reptiles are very rarely on other media outlets ??
with = without
56-44 Newspoll
Relax:
nice work diog you win!
Thanks diog, we can believe you can’t we?
I was right!
Newspoll 56-44
Newspoll 56-44
I missed that Vera – priceless.
HSO. It was only a couple of polls ago that ER had Labor in front on the economy. What has changed that apart from the Libs banging on about the ‘recession we never had’. I’m wondering what the reaction about the 35mill. population figure has been with the older voter.
Someone here pointed out that the figure really is only a continuation of what has been happening since the War. But you know what some oldies are like. They hate change and the thought that their country is going to be over-run.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/labor-increases-support-newspoll/story-e6frgczf-1225798362542
So is this a rogue poll too?
😛
While we’re all waiting for Newspoll, perhaps there could be some observations on the estimable Mr. Green moving to ABC Online?
Personally, I hope he “does” something with it.