Quarterly cumulative Newspoll and other stories

The Australian has published its quarterly accumulation of Newspoll results, allowing large-sample breakdowns over state, sex, age and capitals versus non-capitals. Samantha Maiden of The Australian judges the salient feature of the results to be a bounce to Labor in “non-capitals” from 49-51 to 53-47, but a look at the results over time suggests the earlier result was an aberration. In the capitals the score has been in a narrow band from 58-42 to 60-40; currently it is at the high end. A shift to Labor in Queensland from 51-49 to 56-44 looks a little counter-intuitive, and again the previous result looks to have been out of character. Interesting to note the Greens are up three points to 17 per cent among the 18-34 group, but basically stable elsewhere. Labor has dropped four points among 18-34s since the election, while edging up slightly in older cohorts. All told, the figures point to Labor swings of about 2 per cent swing in New South Wales, 5 per cent in Victoria and Queensland, 6 per cent in Western Australia and 7 per cent in South Australia.

Two ageing items I forgot to include in the previous post:

• Way back on December 13, The Sunday Age reported unions appeared to have scuttled a plan to cap corporate donations and double public funding of parties, which had been the subject of negotiations between Labor and Liberal. The plan was to bring Australia roughly in line with Canada and New Zealand by capping donations at $1500 and increasing public funding from $2.20 to $4.25. Significantly, Mark Skulley of the Financial Review reported in October that Labor had conceded to the Liberals a ban on corporations, third parties and associated entities that would extend to union affiliation fee, which had union leaders fearing a Rudd plot to “Blairise” the party. The plan also included an amendment to restrict political advertising by third parties.

• Andrew Fraser of The Australian reported a few weeks ago on a deal in which Hajnal Ban, who was the Nationals candidate for Forde in 2007, would sit as a Liberal if successful in her bid for the new seat of Gold Coast hinterland seat of Wright. All Coalition candidates in Queensland will run under the LNP banner, so a deal has had to be arranged as to which party rooms they will join.

Note also that Ben Raue at The Tally Room has completed 41 out of 150 profiles for his federal election guide, the last addition before a new year hiatus being North Sydney.

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.

1,061 comments on “Quarterly cumulative Newspoll and other stories”

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  1. TheTruthHurty probably applauds people so desperate to get somewhere that they try to bypass a law or two along the way. That sort of thing happens in Tully all the time (?).

  2. [What practical differences to your life would there be if 5000 people arrived by boat vs the same number arriving through Sydney airport?]

    It offends my morals and values that this government should treat people who are blatantly abusing a loophole in our immigration system with the red carpet treatment, while the real refugee’s sitting in real refugee camps are let to rot because these people steal their spots.

    I often wonder how the left sleep at night knowing this.

  3. HTT, every time you crank out your fake indignation about boat people, I am reminded of John Howard, the Pacific Solution, Unlawful Detention by DIMEA, Unlawful Expulsions by DIMEA, Senator Vanstone, Phillip Ruddock, the SIEVX drownings, the Children Overboard lies, razor wire, children in prison, concentration camps in Sri Lanka, murders by the Taliban, bombings, rapes, torture and executions in Iraq.

    I think of people I know who escaped Viet Nam and Cambodia and made it against the odds to this country. I think of my own family, who migrated here with a free pass and were fortunate enough not to have come as refugees.

    Every time I hear a so-called Liberal trying to make political capital out of the misfortunes of the desperate, I am reminded of why I longed for the end of the Howard Government. I know I am not alone in this. You may think you are on a winner, but I assure you, the politics of boat people is not a one-way street. If you think I’m wrong, you should reflect on sentiments in WA. Much more than half the people who live here were not born here. We are overwhelmingly a migrant population. Nearly all the asylum seekers arriving by boat are detected off our coast. Many of us know the perils of the crossing to the Kimberley. And where has Rudd made his biggest gains in 2009? Where have the Liberals lost the most support? Western Australia.

    The people of WA will not fall for your toxic, politically-motivated jingoism, and nor will the rest of Australia.

  4. [It offends my morals and values that this government should treat people who are blatantly abusing a loophole in our immigration system with the red carpet treatment]
    Oh, p-lease, spare us this BS.

  7. [….it offends my morals and values]

    Spare us the false indignation, HTT. You wouldn’t know what a value was it if hit you on the nose.

  9. [Slavery was justified by the god-botherers as an evangelical exercise in bringing the word of god to the ignorant.]

    Not true at all. They didn’t need to ship them from Africa to the Carribean to do that. It was greed and racism.

    The Church (except the C of E who wanted the money) actually helped end slavery. Most of the abolitionists were devout Christians. Wilberforce certainly was.

  10. Also j/v

    th latest Polls prove people ar happy with Rudd increasingly over 2007 electon , and given working families KNOW th close assocaton of Labor & Unions , then IF unionists working families thought your nonsense that Unions were failing them & somehow ‘selling’ out to Labor there would be a drop in Labors suport FROM working families but this is not so , and therefore your argument is nonsense

    you run circular arguments simply as a Greens snip at anything Labor or Union

    As i said neither Unions nor Union oficials ar all perfect , mistakes ar made some incompetent & some value judgemnt , some not as good quality , some ar career minded , some an embarasment like buildng Trade , but to use a minority who do so in any of these Groups as you j/v do as an argument , as a generalities as if its a majority who do so is simply Greens carping

    further Unions do and hav confluict with Labor govts for there members intersts , on pay , conditons , safety etc , so your aserton to th contrary is also false what Unions often do is also negotiate with govt , its caled conflict resoluton

    generaly Unions do a fine job , and were a key reason for highliting th unfairnes of Workchoises to th public and th polls then prove that

    yu seek uptopia , like a 25% ETS or nothing , well its may sound fine in theiopry books but not in th reel world

  11. Dio

    You should read about William Walker,who was an early Pres of Nicaragua,and a Southerner.

    basically wanted to turn Central America into “southern states” to counter any anti slavery bill.

    Greed is the defining characteristic of slavery.

  13. Researching the question of Lara Bingle being at the opening night of Ladylux nitespot, has been difficult. There are no media reports of her being there. However, Tito Media Image number 00424969 ( Grand Opening of LadyLux ) has a woman in a skimpy black number with others and just captioned “Guests”. Looks like a Lara Bingle look-alike.
    Then there is the report that Bingle grew up with the Freeman boys in the Sutherland area, and at one stage dated one of them as a teenager.
    Ah, mysterys are wonderful.

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/john-ibrahim-i-dont-need-it/story-e6freuy9-1225787877278

    http://www.titomedia.co.nz/site/show_preview/424969#guests – Ladylux Grand Opening

    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/sport/nrl/story/0,26746,26548279-5016380,00.html

    Personally I reckon the Freeman boys are much cuter than Michael Clarke, but I guess there is no accounting for taste.

  14. Gus

    The Governors of Jamaica etc thought about seceding from Britain and joining the southern US states to avoid having to free their slaves but the US wasn’t in a position to provide a military to quash slave rebellions in the Caribbean.

    In the end, it came down to huge amounts of compensation being paid to the slave owners for giving up their “property”.

    Where have I heard that before?

  17. Dio

    The wilberforce story is amazing.

    I posted along long time ago,about how slavery existed in some form or another up until the late 60’s in a lot of “undeveloped nations”

    The latest UN estimates put slavery in existence in nearly 20 countries.

    Some economists would argue that is a gross misrepresentation.
    Whether they mean it is overstated or understated depends on their politics

  20. r/Ron
    [if you were not such an econamic ilerate and big goose]
    That’s “gooose” to you, remember.

    Still, I am happy for you to call me an econamic ilerate .

    However, I draw the line at “youse th nutty facton of th Greens .” , because I’m nothing whatsoever to do with The Greens.

    Although I am a friend of the natural environment, and I’d like to think it was a friend of mine. 🙂

  21. The reasoning that led to 30 years of market deregulation is now officially subject to review against empirical outcomes. And the findings are: markets do not always behave rationally; and further, the markets have behaved irrationally, leading to financial and economic collapse. Funny, we always kind of knew that to be the case.

    The corollary is that markets need to be regulated, supervised and checked, both in the broad public interest and in the interests of the markets themselves. The question is should these functions be undertaken by market players or by the State. Since only the State has powers of compulsion and the financial resources needed when things go wrong, the regulation and supervision of markets is very much a State function. This is accepted by all players these days because everyone has a stake in the security and stability of the financial system.

    The same should also be true of environmental systems. There is a direct analogy with financial markets: in a system in which the ability to pollute is neither priced nor unregulated, there will be excessive pollution – think of it as environmental speculation – even though this is contrary to the interests of everyone, including the polluters themselves.

    If it is good enough to regulate the entirely “artificial constructs” that comprise global financial markets, why is it so hard for people to accept that pollution also needs to be regulated, supervised and checked? Why is it that people are so reluctant to accept and act on the obvious?

    [ Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) — Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist and Columbia University professor, said economists are among those at fault for the financial crisis, which exposed “major flaws” in prevailing ideas.

    The now-flawed premises include the ideas that economic participants behave rationally and that financial markets are competitive and efficient, Stiglitz said today in a slide presentation prepared for a speech today to the Allied Social Science Associations meeting in Atlanta. Instead, for instance, the housing bubble was fueled by the idea that prices would go up forever, Stiglitz said.

    The bursting of the bubble resulted in the recession that began in December 2007 and is now the worst since the Great Depression, having claimed more than 7 million U.S. jobs. Homeowners, investors and “probably” financial executives showed “marked irrationalities” and may have “bought into their own false arguments,” Stiglitz said. ]

  22. [However, I draw the line at “youse th nutty facton of th Greens .” , because I’m nothing whatsoever to do with The Greens.]

    Nudge nudge,wink wink.

    say no more gvnor

    😉

  23. TTH
    #102

    “It offends my morals and values that this government should treat people who are blatantly abusing a loophole in our immigration system with the red carpet treatment, while the real refugee’s sitting in real refugee camps are let to rot because these people steal their spots.”

    goodness gracous , j/v runs circular arguments on unions and you run circular arguments on assylum seekers

    Th same criteria by th immigration dept for defining a ‘refugee’ from a boat arriving here applied under both Howard & Rudd , ie ALL assylum seekers deemed to be a Refugee under Howards govt were granted ‘refugee’ status and allowed to come to oz

    So IF your point is valid that your morals ar upset that these found/processed to be “refugees” (ex boats) ar pinching spots of people waitin in a q , then you should be also critising th Howard Govt with th SAME alegaton you ar making , and be as “moraly upset”

  24. j/v

    Ron

    Ron “if you were not such an econamic ilerate and big goose”

    j/v “That’s “gooose” to you, remember.

    Still, I am happy for you to call me an econamic ilerate .

    However, I draw the line at “youse th nutty facton of th Greens .” , because I’m nothing whatsoever to do with The Greens.”

    “goose” yes , i should hav typed gooose” re you
    my first speling mistake of th year

    “am happy for you to call me an econamic ilerate .”
    well at least you know 1 of your limitatons

    “however, I draw the line at “youse th nutty facton of th Greens .” , because I’m nothing whatsoever to do with The Greens.”

    porky , and you remeber i said you had a touch of ‘porky’ as a biger gooose , now you hav confirmed it

    your substanse about Unions , well you could not rebut my post #110 exposing your argument flaws against Unions and th Labor Party

  29. From the OO’s Twitterfeed:

    [The Australian australian

    Coalition offers small business tax relief: THE Coalition is preparing to fight the next election with an agenda th… http://bit.ly/72xcTy 43 minutes ago from twitterfeed ]

  30. Briefly@103, well said! The lack of compassion in TTH’s repugnant racist dog whistles is a poor reflection on him/her. I have just read your comment to my wife,she found it very moving.

  33. I have now accessed the Defamation Act 2009 :-
    http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2009/a3109.pdf

    The relevant section is:-

    [ 36.—(1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter
    shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on
    indictment to a fine not exceeding Euro25,000.
    (2) For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters
    blasphemous matter if—
    (a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial
    number of the adherents of that religion, and
    (b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.
    (3) It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value
    (4) In this section “religion” does not include an organisation or cult—
    (a) the principal object of which is the making of profit, or
    (b) that employs oppressive psychological manipulation—
    (i) of its followers, or
    (ii) for the purpose of gaining new followers.]

  34. 102 said

    [It offends my morals and values that this government should treat people who are blatantly abusing a loophole in our immigration system with the red carpet treatment, while the real refugee’s sitting in real refugee camps are let to rot because these people steal their spots.

    I often wonder how the left sleep at night knowing this.]

    So in answer to my question whether it makes any practical difference to your life whether arrivals come through an airport or by sea you appear to answer, No.

    So what’s the problem? Oh, your morals and values have been offended? I’m afraid your moral compass is on the blink as demonstrated by your posts on this one issue here for weeks now. Your values mean SFA to anyone but you so no harm to the Nation there either.

    All up it looks like you have the problem and no amount of complaining here is going to help. Best you put your tin hat back on and row back out to sea and prepare to turn back any boats that might come in off the Coral Sea.

  36. j.v. @ 95

    I’ll start off by saying that I find the unions very difficult to work with. They seem reluctant to have anything to do with local campaigns and very condescending (they tend to have a ‘we own you’ attitude towards the ALP).

    However:

    [going soft on action, particularly at critical times for the party.]

    Well, my experience is that most unions, even affiliated ones, don’t give a stuff about the fortunes of the party. The way they carried on about helping the ALP in 2007 demonstrates this. We were all meant to fall at their feet because they actually helped us campaigning.

    Meanwhile, I was trying to draw attention locally to one of the practical consequences of Howard’s industrial relations laws – disabled workers being replaced by non English speaking migrants, on the grounds that the latter were cheaper.

    I was told to drop it, as the workplace involved was partly owned by a union. I wouldn’t have, but all sources of information about the workplace and employee conditions also dried up.

    So it wasn’t the interests of the ALP at campaign time which were paramount here. (And I do have more than one experience of this kind).

    [the decisions that protect the party from embarrassment.]

    Again, I’m sure this happens, but I can remember plenty of incidents where the unions didn’t care whether or not they were embarrassing the party or not. The tram driver strike, credited with helping bring down Cain, is one.

    I can also remember the teachers’ union urging us all to hold out for better pay and conditions and ignore the Minister’s repeated claims that the state couldn’t afford these, followed by the election of the Kennett government who wound everything that had been won in that campaign back (and beyond).

    The dishonesty and greed of the union officials in this case ultimately cost their membership more than it gained and (again) had a part in the downfall of the government.

    [It’s just a leftover form the days when the party and the unions were as one. Weren’t those the days? I think the Accord was the final extinguishing of that old light on the hill.]

    Ah yes, those golden days of the past when politicians were upright and honest, with squeaky clean private lives you could eat your dinner off, and Question Time was used in a meaningful way, and journalists researched their stories properly and only presented the facts, and voters weighed up their options at election time in a rational, selfless manner, casting their vote not for the party but for the best individual, and…

    Look, sorry I missed them. Obviously way before my time.

  37. However, it seems it may be a lot of papal bull.

    [ Ivan Rodionov, a Russian professor, said in an interview with Pravda.Ru that he did not have an idea of how the Vatican was going to observe copyright on the Pope.

    “The notion of copyright consists of three aspects. First and foremost, a publisher can not change anything without coordinating all the details with the author. Secondly, the name of the author must be indicated clearly on the piece of work. Finally, the author can surrender the right on his work to other people.

    “How can all this be related to the Pope? I do not see any way to register such copyright – there are no adequate laws for that. The Pope cannot be a trademark because the Pope is a natural person. Why would they do something like that ? Is there a need for that? Even if the Vatican managed to have it all legalized, I doubt that it would win considerable profit from it,” the professor said. ]
    http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/25-12-2009/111400-pope_copyright-0

    Cade Metz at The Register says:
    [ Apparently, the Vatican has mistaken copyright for a trademark. And it has no legal means of enforcing its declaration across the globe. But this is the Vatican. Presumably, it’s assuming that you’ll obey its “copyright” in an effort to avoid spending the rest of your life wallowing in guilt. ]
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/21/vatican_copyright/

  38. PC@54:
    [But the fact remains that trade union members are only a small fragment of the workforce, less than one quarter, and it’s impossible for the ALP to win based on trade union support alone.]

    I agree, and that’s even supposing that union members vote the way their union would wish. But trade unions still command a lot of cash, and that is always useful to have.

    The difference these days is that Labor is getting increasing monetary support from big business. This would have been unthinkable when I first started voting. It was an “us and them” mentality, as Scorpio no doubt would confirm, with his extensive union experience.

    [I believe it’s also the case that many people in the “swing” demographics will be be people who are hostile to trade unions, and close ALP/union links may well alienate such voters.]

    I doubt there are many left who matter who are hostile to trade unions. Trade unions are a dead duck, their membership continues to decline, except in isolated cases. The independent teachers union in NSW is a case in point. There it is more a case of union insurance against litigation than unions gaining money and conditions for the members, though improvements in those are always welcome.

    Those who might be anti union (people of my vintage, over superannuation/pension age) have already decided which way they are going to vote – and even there, support for Labor is increasing, if I remember correctly. Possibly because the anti union voters are inexorably dropping off the twig, as baby boomers enter that demographic. Poss’s analysis of that, the way that voting intentions are a matter of cohort rather than age was a myth busting insight for me.

    Younger voters have no feelings one way or the other towards unions, is my guess, they hardly know they exist.

    So a scare campaign based on an anti-union message by the Liberals is more likely to paint the Libs as fighting yesterday’s battles than today’s.

  40. An exchange from a US Senate hearing in September 2009:

    [Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.: How many tanks do the Taliban have?

    Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: I’m not aware they have any.

    Graham: How many airplanes?

    Mullen: None.

    Graham: Well, how are they doing this? … They don’t have an air force, they don’t have any armor. But they’re winning. So, that makes me conclude something is going awry in Afghanistan.]

    From memory, the conclusion was that they needed to send more troops.

  41. Zoomster@140:

    [Graham: Well, how are they doing this? … They don’t have an air force, they don’t have any armor. But they’re winning. So, that makes me conclude something is going awry in Afghanistan.]

    As was said in The Princess Bride (1987), I can’t find an earlier reference:

    [Never get involved in a land war in Asia]

  42. This is not looking good, cut and running. The key question, what is Saudi Arabia going to do what it, especially it is in its backyard. Between Yemen and Somalia, they control the Red Sea exit of the Suez Canal.

    [January 4, 2010 – Western embassies in Yemen shut down after al-Qaeda threatens attack – The British and American embassies in Yemen were closed yesterday as al-Qaeda threatened an attack in response to Western promises of a renewed counter-terrorism effort in the country.

    Spain also shut its embassy in the face of what a senior US official said was a direct threat from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group behind the Christmas Day airline bomb attempt.]

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6974700.ece

  43. zoomster
    [those golden days of the past when politicians were upright and honest,] etc
    I agree none of that ever existed – although I haven’t seen “Avatar” yet, maybe there’s some of those wondrous times hidden in there somewhere. 🙂

    As for the unions, my experience was of there often being a holding back of campaigns and local action to assist the party. There was also an impact on enthusiasm for these things from the leaders as they got closer to their own ambition of political office through the party. I’m not saying it stymied every campaign or local action -of course it didn’t – but I am saying it happened. I was there. And it caused friction with the rank and file when it was obvious to them (it usually isn’t).

    But as Winston said things may be changing a bit in some unions (since my own experience) with them acting more alone on the basis of putting their members’ concerns first. A major part of the reason for that I’d say lies in what …

    Don says @ 138
    [The difference these days is that Labor is getting increasing monetary support from big business.]
    and also in the attacks on the unions from Labor that threaten their exstence, like electricity and other privatisation.

    As Labor has moved to the right, the role of the party looking after the archetypal battling blue collar worker – union member or no – has diminished like a … well, a dying light on a hill.

    That’s why the Libs try to win the blue collars over, and have already shown they can have success at that during Howard’s years, with labels like “Howard’s battlers”.

  46. Troothy won’t like this!

    Funny how he/she hasn’t mentioned this article? 😉

    [INDONESIA has rejected a proposal by Tony Abbott to tow seaworthy asylum boats back to Indonesia, saying Australia must deal with boats in its own waters.

    As Border Protection Command yesterday intercepted a boat carrying 76 asylum-seekers off Christmas Island — the first this year — former immigration minister Philip Ruddock said the Howard government towed four boats back to Indonesia shortly after the Tampa crisis of 2001.

    But Mr Ruddock acknowledged there were problems with such measures, saying people-smugglers began sabotaging their boats once they realised they were likely to be turned back on the high seas.

    “Certainly, smugglers . . . would encourage people to sabotage vessels to ensure that they weren’t seaworthy and that the return was not possible,” Mr Ruddock told The Australian. “And in many cases that happened.”

    Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
    Related Coverage

    * Jakarta may use force to end stand-off The Australian, 6 days ago
    * Don’t dump your boat people on us Herald Sun, 20 Nov 2009
    * Twenty-four hours to remove refugees Daily Telegraph, 4 Nov 2009
    * Indonesian patience wears thin over ship The Australian, 4 Nov 2009
    * Inertia as impasse enters third week The Australian, 1 Nov 2009

    End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

    The Howard government minister’s remarks followed a pledge by the Opposition Leader last week to tow asylum boats back into Indonesian waters.

    The proposal, which was also endorsed by Kevin Rudd prior to the last election, was attacked by refugee groups and migration law experts as inhumane and illegal.

    Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser described the suggestion as “miserable”.

    “The idea of turning the boats back is pure Pauline Hanson,” Mr Fraser said.]
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/jakarta-bars-abbott-asylum-boat-plan/story-e6frg6nf-1225815742763

  47. And attacking both parties for attacking each other is his solution to good governance in Australia.

    Talk about holier-than-thou!

  48. j.v.

    are unions inherently left wing? Some of them are – others are to the right of Labor. The White Australia policy was union driven.

    Certain unions are agitating fairly heavily for no action on climate change – I would be as inclined to blame unions as much as big business for the smaller than I’d like targets of the CPRS, for example, based on my own experiences trying to get climate change friendly policies through conference.

    And, as I’ve already said, the CFMEU instructed unionists at the local mill to vote Liberal for Forests in 2004 (which was weird, given it’s a soft wood mill and would have benefitted from the locking up of the Tassie wilderness). They’ve also given the floor to representatives of right wing parties at some rallies I’ve been to.

    My experience has been that of obstructionist unions, offering grudging support to local campaigns (rarely going beyond lip service) but expecting an almost servile ‘jump when we tell you’ response in return.

    I once rang up the relevant local union officer to ask why there was a picket line outside one of the local factories (pretty essential information for someone running the local ALP campaign). I was told that I didn’t need to know and that when I did need to know (that is, if they needed my support) they’d tell me.

    I gave up, rang the factory and asked to talk to the CEO. He filled me in (very fairly, I thought) on what was going on. Half an hour later, I got an indignant call from the union, asking how I was able to talk to management when they weren’t.

    I have lots of examples of that kind from personal experience spanning many campaigns. Maybe it’s different in winnable seats!

  49. [The big 2 party’s are taking cheap shots against each other. Just another reason why things need to be done differently and a 3rd force in politics is necessary.]

    Yep, so the third party can take cheap shots at both the others – which is exactly what’s happening in the article you link.

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