Newspoll marginal seats survey

The Australian has published marginal seat Newspoll results from two key seats in New South Wales, Lindsay and Page, and three in Queensland, Flynn, Dawson and Longman. Whereas yesterday’s national poll gave Kevin Rudd cause for relief, today’s results are grim for Labor in every case but Page – and particularly so in Lindsay. According to Dennis Shanahan’s report, the poll shows:

• A 12 per cent swing in Lindsay, which David Bradbury holds for Labor on a margin of 6.8 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s disapproval rating in the electorate is 61 per cent, and both Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard are preferred as prime minister (Abbott by 44 per cent to 40 per cent). UPDATE: Psephos in comments questions the utility of a poll conducted simultaneously with the Penrith by-election, and there may well be something in this.

• There is a collective 6 per cent swing against Labor in Flynn, Dawson and Longman, held by Labor with margins of 2.2 per cent, 2.6 per cent and 1.9 per cent, resulting in a Liberal two-party lead of 54-46. However, Kevin Rudd apparently leads as preferred prime minister.

• It’s a very different story in the north coast New South Wales seat of Page, where the poll shows Labor picking up a swing of 2 per cent.

Full tables presumably forthcoming.

UPDATE: It turns out that the Lindsay and Page polls, and the combined poll of the three Queensland seats, each had samples of 600 and hence margins of error of about 4 per cent. We also have today courtesy of Essential Research data from the weekend’s survey on firmness of voting intention, which – believably enough – shows the Greens’ surge has been muted by an increasing proportion of “soft” support. The “very firm” share of the Greens vote has fallen from 41 per cent to 31 per cent, “might change” has gone from 39 per cent to 45 per cent and “soft” has gone from 18 per cent to 22 per cent. While Labor’s vote has gone up and the Liberals down, both parties have a higher proportion of firm and a lower proportion of soft votes.

UPDATE (23/6): Today The Australian reports that Galaxy has polled 1600 respondents in Brisbane, Petrie, Bowman and Ryan on behalf of WWF Australia, which shows the Liberal National Party with a 51.5-48.5 lead – reversing the result from the last election. The 3 per cent swing this points to, if uniform, would cut Labor very fine in Brisbane and Petrie without actually costing it either of them. Although the Michael Johnson ruckus in Ryan might have dragged down their result. Labor is said to be on 34 per ent of the primary vote, down 9 per cent on the election, but the Coalition are only up one to 46 per cent. More evidence then of Labor bleeding votes to the Greens and getting most back as preferences – depending on how you do the calculation, of course.

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. View all posts by William Bowe