Morgan phone poll: 53-47

The first opinion poll of the Tony Abbott era has turned up a surprise: Labor’s two-party lead is a modest 53-47, and the Coalition is in front on the primary vote 43 per cent to 41 per cent. However, there are all sorts of reasons to treat this with caution. The poll is a Roy Morgan mid-week phone poll, which have a rather erratic record, and the sample was a very modest 597 respondents. The normal weekly face-to-face poll, conducted last weekend while Malcolm Turnbull was leader but considered unlikely to remain so for long, had Labor’s two-party lead steady at 58.5-41.5. Labor was down a point on the primary vote to 47 per cent, the Coalition was down half a point to 35 per cent and the Greens were up half to 9.5 per cent.

The phone poll has also produced questions on preferred Labor and Liberal leaders, which find Kevin Rudd coming down off previous highs and Tony Abbott enjoying a new-found legitimacy that hasn’t been quite enough for him to overhaul Joe Hockey. Rudd also has a leads as better prime minister of 60-25 over Abbott, 55-31 over Hockey and 64-25 over Turnbull. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Abbott did not perform notably worse among women than men.

Couple of other things:

• The Wentworth Courier reports Steven Lewis, Slater & Gordon lawyer, anti-high rise activist and members of the Jewish Board of Deputies, will contest Labor preselection in Wentworth. Former Australian Medical Association president Kerryn Phelps has been mentioned as a contender in the past, but declined to comment when approached by the Courier. The Australian reports barrister Mark Speakman, University of NSW deputy chancellor Gabrielle Upton and “most of the losers from the Bradfield preselection” would be in the running to succeed Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal member. The Courier throws Arthur Sinodinos into the mix. Speakman, Upton and Sinodinos have all been mentioned as possible successors to outgoing former state leader Peter Debnam in the corresponding state seat of Vaucluse.

• It was reported on Wednesday that NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal might seek to assume the premiership by entering the lower house as member for Wollongong, whose sitting member Noreen Hay would then take his place in the upper house. This plan has presumably been overtaken by events, at least in the short term.

• The Liberals are pressuring Labor to drop Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly as the candidate-presumptive for the marginal Perth seat of Cowan after a Corruption and Crime Commission report spoke of “dealings” between Kelly and Brian Burke, without making adverse findings against him. Kelly has long been associated with the Burke-linked “old Right” faction, and ran as an independent against Margaret Quirk in the state seat of Girrawheen following the split that created the latter’s “new Right” faction.

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.

424 comments on “Morgan phone poll: 53-47”

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  1. [But the Greens votes tend to be bottled up in the top family income quartile of seats which are held safely by Labor or Liberal MPs.

    The battlefield is in the other 75% of seats where the real Australians live.]

    A big reason for this is that there isn’t the penetration of Greens message in the lower income seats, due to the lack of attention given to the Greens in the mass media. That’s as much to do with money and media lobbying power as it has to do with actual relevance.

    I’d be surprised if a significant number of Australians were aware of the Greens stance on the ALP’s CPRS.

  2. [Ahh it is funny how my labor-hack “trolling” remark didn’t get picked up, whereas Desert Fox’s did.]

    deconst, thats ’cause Desert Fox made more sense than you. 😛

  3. Socrates
    There are many lounge-lizards and parlour-pythons that survived long-term climate change and have found suitable conditions to thrive in the Liberal party. The two dinosaur species to survive to the present are crocodiles, and the slow-moving red-faced two-legged Dribblosaurus of the National party – now on the endangered list.

  4. It’s Time, you are correct about Senate timing.

    The analogy with the AIDS epidemic has occurred to me before, because I spent most of the 1980s engrossed in it. Then too we had denialists, in the form of Professor Peter Duesberg and friends, with the backing of the Murdoch press. The HIV denialists had terrible consequences, because Duesberg converted Thabo Mbeki to their theories and this derailed AIDS prevention in South Africa for a decade. A recent study held Duesberg responsible for about 300,000 preventable deaths in South Africa.

  5. I travelled past two other booths today one was Kooyong Park which is close to if not the safest Liberal booth in the seat and all i could see was Kelly O’Dwyer

    Next booth was Hawksburn better known locally as the South Yarra-Toorak Library and it was a sea of everyone from Kelly, the Greens, Democrats, the ASP and one or two others, actually the girl standing there actually looked like Kelly and if it was her, she was looking nervious biting her bottom lip.

    I had to laugh for one of the ASP peole looked like a porn movie producter with a beard and a potbelly.

  7. I’ve decided that we should christen Abbott’s boost in the polls a “sugar hit”. Makes you feel great, but then you go careening into the doldrums.

  9. [ But the Greens votes tend to be bottled up in the top family income quartile of seats which are held safely by Labor or Liberal MPs.

    The battlefield is in the other 75% of seats where the real Australians live.

    A big reason for this is that there isn’t the penetration of Greens message in the lower income seats, due to the lack of attention given to the Greens in the mass media. That’s as much to do with money and media lobbying power as it has to do with actual relevance.

    I’d be surprised if a significant number of Australians were aware of the Greens stance on the ALP’s CPRS. ]

    I’m sure that when it comes to either a normal election in 2010 or a DD, rudd and co are going to make sure voters are aware that the greens voted ETS down with the radical right liberals.

    Maybe you can answer the following :

    [why would ETS supporters vote for the Greens in a double dissolution or normal election over the ETS, if re elected Greens are going to oppose it again?]

  10. [The HIV denialists had terrible consequences, because Duesberg converted Thabo Mbeki to their theories and this derailed AIDS prevention in South Africa for a decade.]
    That’s dreadful. I didn’t realise that Mbeki had been ‘got at’ in that way.

    It adds more weight to the psychological explanation for denial whenever there is a large problem confronted by humans. I suppose it’s a bit related to the ‘flight or fight’ response as a third alternative – if you convince yourself there is nothing happening, then you are exempted from responding altogether. You don’t have to ‘fly’ and you don’t have to fight. You don’t even have to be anxious.

    I accept that there are many people who genuinely have this denial response, but I don’t accept that politicians are PERMITTED to have it. They are charged with doing what is right on behalf of us all. For them to be frozen in a their own warped psychological world of denial renders them useless in the face of peril.

    By extension therefore, as were the shell-shocked and terrified in the trenches in World War One, they should be taken behind the lines and summarily shot 🙂

  11. Bloody Poms. they dont think we are good enough to make it to the second round. We will and beat them in the second round. Especially if we have Ponting in our side 😉

    [England Draw Analysis: Dream WC Draw Maps Out Promising Path To Final Four – Coming into the 2010 World Cup with an unrelenting expectation to finally force England at very least past the quarter-final stage – and preferably to their second ever triumph in the tournament – he has been given a helping hand that might even make Thierry Henry blush.

    A group of half-death next door in D includes Ghana, Australia and Serbia – as well as top seed Germany. England could, in truth, face any of the four, but most likely one of those unseeded, with Serbia certainly having form on their side. They will certainly match England for strength, but are perhaps a team that, all things considered, Capello and his men would be expecting to overcome.]

    http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/85/england/2009/12/04/1667143/england-draw-analysis-dream-wc-draw-maps-out-promising-path

  13. JV @ 358, the relatively new book “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre covers HIV denialism and other varied quackeries (in particular anti-vaccinators) quite well. Really worth a read.

  15. Ru, the Poms are already expecting to win:

    [Frank Lampard proclaimed last night that anything other than an England World Cup win should be regarded as a failure. Fabio Capello’s side will travel to South Africa in good heart next summer with the manager aiming to reach the final, but the Chelsea midfield player will be satisfied only if they go one better.]

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/international/article6945194.ece

  18. [Malcolm Mackerras however, predicts that the Greens will win.]
    Well they shouldn’t even bother counting then! He’s always right!

    I assume you are referring to Higgins.

  19. Don’t waste your vote on the Greens in 2010, whose demands are economically impossible to meet for no benefit to the environment whatsoever, where the major polluters fail to act. There will be much higher electricity prices, a higher cost of living, loss of jobs, and our industries placed at a competitive disadvantage to the rest of the world.

    I really hope the Greens do well in Bradfield and Higgins today. The higher they climb, the further there is to fall. 😈

  20. Abbott is Howard less the word skills, but the methods will be similar.

    Main differences now is they are in opposition and people need a reason to 1. dump the Govt and 2. choose them. So the Govt has to be doing badly and they have to be seen as competent safe pair of hands.

    The Govt has been doing pretty well and they have been abysmal.

    For tactics to deal with Abbott they only need refer back to the Howard years, especially his defeat by Rudd.

    Rudd avoided getting into drawn out disputes with Howard over emotive issues as Howard loved issues the polarised. Howard was negative, Rudd was positive on everything and very rarely adopted a negative mode. Rudd also avoided mentioning Howard by name and co altogether as though they didn’t exist.

    I think it is pretty good way to deal with Abbott, he can address some of the silly issues but devoid of mentioning Abbott and Co. Don’t engage them in petty disputes, don’t have pitched battles where people can choose sides….keep the agenda moving backwards and forwards.

  23. Thanks Michael @ 363, I’ll seek out that book.
    Don’t get me started on the anti-vaccinators … going to the races and putting their child’s health on a 100,000/1 chance.

  25. deconst,

    [A big reason for this is that there isn’t the penetration of Greens message in the lower income seats, due to the lack of attention given to the Greens in the mass media. That’s as much to do with money and media lobbying power as it has to do with actual relevance.]

    What a cop-out and big load of codswallop! Just read again what you wrote and see how ridiculous it is!

    I was going to point out to you just what a nonsense your statement is but surely you “can’t” be that devoid of grey matter not to see it!

  28. JV, if you get hold of the book make sure you get the small paperback ed (rather than the original trade paperback) as there is an extra chapter- that chapter was withheld from the first ed due to legal action against the author.

  31. Those Galaxy results were not too flattering for Abbott really.

    Only 51% of coalition supporters actually support their brand new leader? That is a honeymoon? I can guess his overall support will be pretty much the same it has always been then, last of the bunch.

    Labor needs to isolate the factors that turn people off of Abbott as there certainly is something about him people don’t like considering those continual bad figures over a long period.

    With regard to the abortion pill RU-486 and Burnie Banton he was simply callous and cruel. This is a man that puts his personal ideology/religion above all people.

    Again with Workchoices it is callousness toward everyday Australians.

  32. [The HIV denialists had terrible consequences, because Duesberg converted Thabo Mbeki to their theories and this derailed AIDS prevention in South Africa for a decade.]

    There is a similar campaign being conducted against gaurdisil, a vaccine which prevents cervical and other cancers. The vaccine is effective if the women have it before they first have sex. Some church groups are pushing the message not to gets girls vaccinated as it promotes promiscuity and the most effective way to not get cervical cancer is to remain faithful.

    Same message as on aids, gods punishments if you have knooky out of wedlock.

  35. [ I’m 100% behind the Greens tonight. ]

    Mmm. I’m not sure the greens have earnt support given their squibbing in the senate this week. And lets face it they are going to vote anti ETS next time it comes up. They are a huge part of the problem.

    But voters have made up their minds by now for the two by-elections. The count shouldn’t take long.

    If both libs do well it will challenge current thinking about abbott etc.

  38. dave,

    Australia could do lots better than what Rudd proposed. And the real world will judge us on what we do, so when it comes to climate change we either do enough to prevent it, or suffer the consequences. Rudd was no where near prevention, so all his talk was spin.

    Lets see what the voters think in a few minutes …

  39. [ Lets see what the voters think in a few minutes … ]

    Of course. I’ve got mixed feelings. Would like to see a protest against abbott and the libs, but at the sametime, as I said above, not sure the greens have earnt support given their squibbing in the senate this week.

    The other thing is, if the greens do well tonight, we’ll never shut bob up. Not that that will ever happen anyway. 🙂

  40. dave, your Labor hackery vindictiveness is getting in the way of clever political and tactical judgement.

    Even the WA Lib supporters have caught on 😉

  41. The reality is the Liberal Senators said they would only support their amended bill. Fielding will never vote for it so the only thing available to the Govt if it wanted to pass a bill is what was put up in the end. Nothing else would have passed.

    That is the reality. We all would like something stiffer, especially world wide, but it is Senate wise impossible.

    However if there is a DD election then Rudd can do what he wants with the bill at a joint sitting, including whatever amendments he wants to make to the bill. So this is another reason for the Libs to pass this in February, Rudd may make it less soft than it is now, especially if Copenhagen and the rest of the world provide some sort of lead.

    There is no point at all in getting down on Rudd. He wanted something passed and to take to Copenhagen so Australia can at least be seen to be on board and with a range 5-25%. The option was either this bill or nothing.

    The Greens and Rudd both know there is nothing they could have agreed between them that had any hope at all of getting through the Senate. Thus the Greens were left with playing the politics of it all, biding their time until after the election.

  42. [ dave, your Labor hackery vindictiveness is getting in the way of clever political and tactical judgement.

    Even the WA Lib supporters have caught on ]

    This sort of reply just shows how the Greens cannot cope with being exposed to competing points of view. It is the tenor of the vast bulk of your posts.

    The opinions of others have every bit as much of a bearing as any of those of the Greens but you continue to display great difficulty with this concept

  44. Crikey, if this is a Labor supporter I don’t know how she can justify both endorsing Abbott and claiming stem cell research is cloning babies to experiment on! That is just plain wacky and typical of the line the religious right of the Liberal Party have been running for years!

    [I have never ever voted conservative and have serious concerns about Abbott’s union stance BUT he is right on abortion. It is an act which ends life and is degrading to women and babies. He is right on stem cell research. Cloning a baby to research on them is wrong. He is right on IVF. Couples who prioritise career should not be funded by the tax payer to make designer babies. He is right on no fault divorce. Too many people enter into marriage with little consideration of what it means. I will continue my work as a unionist peace campaigner but back Abbott in his defence of the dignity of life. ]
    http://mamamia.com.au/weblog/2009/12/tony-abbott-new-liberal-leader-a-bad-day-for-women-a-great-day-for-joe-hockeys-family.html

  45. Based on the first booth, the Greens received a 30% swing to 36%, the Libs dropped 24% to 48%, and Antony Green is projecting a Green 2PP of 62%.

    lol.

  46. [ Based on the first booth, the Greens received a 30% swing to 36%, the Libs dropped 24% to 48%, and Antony Green is projecting a Green 2PP of 62%. ]

    428 votes of 88,149 counted.

    lol

    As I said above I’ve got mixed feelings. Would like to see a protest against abbott and the libs, but at the sametime, not sure the greens have earnt support given their squibbing in the senate this week.

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