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.

2,158 comments on “Newspoll marginal seats survey”

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  1. From Zombie:

    zombiemao

    So they polled Lindsay at the same time as the local state byelection. Genius. 2 minutes ago via TweetDeck

  2. This is of course the same narrative News Ltd ran in 2007, only in reverse. In 2007 it was “Labor may be leading in the 2PV, but Howard is holding on in the marginals.” Now it’s “Labor may be leading in the 2PV, but it’s losing in the marginals.” In fact, Australian electoral history shows very clearly that there is, overall, a uniform swing, particularly in urban marginals. That’s what happened in 2007 – the marginals went down like ninepins. And in 2010 the same thing will happen again. If there is no national swing to the Libs, there will be no net gains. If Labor again polls 52% of the national 2PV, it will again win the election. If it loses seats A B and C, there will be compensatory gains in X Y and Z.

  3. I sure hope David Bradbury isn’t in trouble in Lindsay. Although people around here voted for Mrs ‘Penriff’ Kelly multiple times (yuck!). I doubt the RSPT is having a negative influence here but refugee bashing would go down a treat…. I would suggest to Labor to start putting up posters about how the Liberals will prevent them having faster internet. Talk up the improvements to Nepean hospital. All the new school infrastructure, etc…

  4. In regrds to the Shanahannigans, Longman will stay labor because the Nats are running a child, Dawson might be lost, but Flynn was made more Labor by the redistribution, and they’re running the candidate that lost the seat in 2007, and I’m not sure that’ll be in their favour.

    You also have to consider the fact that the Labor party will run a marginal seats campaign, and the SA election showed they’re very good at it.

  8. These results are not surprising to me. They reflect the errors made in the last 6-8 months by the Government and the wounds inflicted by Labor’s critics in the media. The Government would be extremely unwise to brush these results aside. They should be – and I’m sure they will be – taken as a catalyst to action.

  9. If any of you follow me on Twitter to get my world election updates, I am switching to a new name, PsephosArchive. Please switch over to keep getting my tweets.

  10. Darren Laver,

    [Scorpio – why do you still watch the ABC? ]

    Just following to see how my conspiracy theory is playing out that I posted on the previous thread last night.

    After Wednesday, I’ll be cutting off anything on the ABC related to political events.

  11. Psephos@9

    If any of you follow me on Twitter to get my world election updates, I am switching to a new name, PsephosArchive. Please switch over to keep getting my tweets.

    Retweet your old message using your new account so I can follow you – oh and keep the current one for bitchy stuff 🙂

  12. I wondering if it’s significant that Labor seems to be holding up very well in the lowest income of the five seats polled – Page, which had a median family income of $883 at the 2006 census. The seat where Labor is said to be heading for disaster, Lindsay, had the highest – $1256. The Queensland seats were $1045 for Longman, $1182 for Flynn and $1201 for Dawson, although this was on pre-redistribution figures.

  13. Has anyone posted this Australian editorial from 2007 (sourced from Grog):

    According to The Australian’s political editor, Dennis Shanahan, no Opposition since World War II has won government without two key indicators 12 months out from the election. These are that the Opposition Leader has a lead over the incumbent of at least five points on the question of who would make a better Prime Minister and the party has a nine point lead on a two party preferred basis.

    … on Shanahan’s current comments page?

    It tells you two things:

    1. Shanahan can’t interpret a poll – even the one his mob owns – to save himself. He used those figures as a categorical argument against Rudd winning the 2007 election.

    2. If he’s going to be consistent, Shanahan ought to have sounded the death knell for Abbott by now. The Coalition aren’t anywhere near a 9 point lead on 2PP – they’re 4 behind. So that’s a bad start. And Abbott himself – on the back of a big boost – is 9 behind on PPM, which is 14 short of where he needs to be (apparently).

    And this isn’t 12 months out from an election – the latest that could be is March this year, when Labor were ahead on 2PP 56-44, and Rudd’s PPM figures were 59-27.

    He really ought to be reminded of it. And asked why we should trust any interpretation he offers on Newspoll.

  16. John,

    [Dawson might be lost, but Flynn was made more Labor by the redistribution, and they’re running the candidate that lost the seat in 2007, and I’m not sure that’ll be in their favour.]

    Not quite right, Flynn is a new seat since the last election. Going by what I saw tonight, I don’t think the LNP can pick it up.

    Dawson will be hard for them too. Even though Labor is running a new candidate, Brunker is well known and is a seasoned operator. He will relate well to the miners also, coming originally from Collinsville and is well versed in miners issues and can talk on their level. He also has quite a good margin also.

  17. The more interesting numbers will be the sample size in each of the electorates named. Also the results from polling in other electorates not just those cherry picked by Shamahan would be of interest though I don’t expect we’ll get to see those.

  18. And yes, I will be using my old Twitter for political commentary. I’m splitting my Twits (so to speak) because I want to keep the Psephos website and its associated Twitter page non-partisan.

  23. If Labor is doing so bad in marginal seats in Queensland and NSW and if WA is a disaster then from where does Labor manage to get a lead in the overall polls?

  25. @ Scorpio,

    Sorry, DeAnne Kelly is running in Dawson. You’re right. Wright should be interesting, It’s notionally Liberal, and they’re running a National. Should be good.

  26. Billbowe went:

    [I wondering if it’s significant that Labor seems to be holding up very well in the lowest income of the five seats polled – Page, which had a median family income of $883 at the 2006 census. ]

    Was wondering the same thing – though it’s more likely to be a product of sampling error than anything else.

    These individual seat polls would have relatively small sample sizes, the uncertainty of which would, unfortunately, swamp any interesting observations like that income nexus you’ve picked up with a great big “yeah – but!”.

  28. [f Labor is doing so bad in marginal seats in Queensland and NSW and if WA is a disaster then from where does Labor manage to get a lead in the overall polls?]

    Exactly the point I was trying to make in 2 above. If Labor polls 52% of the national 2PV it will win the election, and no amount of trying to find local variations will alter that fact.

  29. [If Labor is doing so bad in marginal seats in Queensland and NSW and if WA is a disaster then from where does Labor manage to get a lead in the overall polls?]

    I think they are referred to the inner city latte set seats.

    Marginal seats around Australia are dotted around semi-urban area’s, inner city seats are pretty much locked in and are irrelevent in the election other than to make up the numbers.

    It’s places like Townsville Rudd has to try and please and I can tell you he’s doing a pretty piss poor job of impressing anyone here.

  34. [De-Anne Kelly is recontesting Dawson? Not for the LNP she isn’t.]

    Looks more like Billy Bunter or Hockey’s younger bro to me.

  40. I suspect that the Lindsay polling is a bit suspect as a longer term indicator, as it was conducted on the same weekend as the Penrith state by election which went badly for the State Labor Government – there would certainly be some bias to the Coalition leaking through on a phone poll like this conducted simultaneously with a by election brought on by the resignation of a corrupt former state member.

    The other seats in Queensland don’t look too crash hot on the face of it, but some comfort that the ship can be righted for the ALP can be taken from Rudd being the preferred PM still in Queensland.

    Not time to abandon ship yet, but certainly the watertight doors need to be closed, and the pumps manned for the time being. Women and children, stay in your cabins.

  47. john
    [@ Scorpio,

    Sorry, DeAnne Kelly is running in Dawson.]

    They’ve already beaten me to it.

    Probably a pity she isn’t. She got slaughtered in 2007.

  48. Andrew Bartlett is also running in Brisbane, for the Greens. Arch Bevis wil win, though. And people in the seat of Brisbane know what the Gambaros are like.

  49. Oh, and Teresa Gambaro is running in Brisbane. Arch Bevis has the honour of being opposed by two retreads, since Andrew “never touch a drop” Bartlett is running for the Greens.

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