Morgan: 56.5-43.5 to Labor

Morgan has published its first face-to-face poll conducted on Julia Gillard’s watch, other recent efforts having been phone polls. This one combines polling conducted over the last two weekends, and it shows Labor’s two-party lead up from 53-47 in the last poll under Rudd to 56.5-43.5. Those of you who have already looked at the Morgan press release might be surprised to learn this, as the headline figure is 55-45. This is because Morgan has apparently decided to switch from the “preferences distributed by how electors voted at the 2007 election” measure to “preferences distributed by how electors say they will vote”, and as has been widely noted this is less favourable for Labor. The Morgan headline’s statement that Labor has picked up a 6 per cent swing is based on comparison with last week’s anomalous phone poll result. Interestingly, the poll reports the opening of a huge gender gap, with Labor leading 60.5-39.5 among women and trailing 50.5-49.5 among men. The primary vote has Labor up 4.5 per cent on the last poll under Rudd, with the Coalition down three points to 38 per cent and the Greens down two to 10.5 per cent. Curiously, the sample was only 299 for the first of the two weekends, immediately after the leadership change, which explains the lack of a face-to-face result last week. The more recent weekend’s sample was a more normal 879.

A bit of federal news:

• South Australian Labor Senator Annette Hurley, who had the top position on the Senate ticket for the coming election, has instead announced she will retire. Her Right faction must now decide who will replace her as candidate for one of the two unloseable positions, the other of which is held by Left faction incumbent Anne McEwen. Another incumbent, Dana Wortley of the Left, is expected to remain in third place (UPDATE: I am informed Wortley is now in the Right, which has mostly absorbed the “Duncan Left” sub-faction of which she formed part).

Denis Atkins of the Courier-Mail last week quoted a “senior Queensland LNP campaign official”. Herbert and Petrie in particular are nominated as seats Labor is now likely to win.

• Andrew Wilkie will be making yet another bid for parliament, this time as an independent in Denison. He narrowly failed to win one of the five Denison seats at the March state election, polling 8.4 per cent of the vote.

New South Wales news:

• State Greens upper house MP Sylvia Hale has failed to win her preselection bid for the inner-city seat of Marrickville, which the party is expected to win at the election in March. They have instead nominated the candidate from the 2007 election, Marrickville deputy mayor Fiona Byrne. The NSW Greens have also been struggling with the revelation of Lee Rhiannon, currently in the state upper house and endorsed to run in the Senate at the coming federal election, has used state parliamentary resources on her federal campaign. Bob Brown has called on her to resign her upper house seat sooner rather than later, but she is insisting she will resign when the election is called.

• The Wentworth Courier has published a list of Vaucluse Liberal preselection hopefuls which includes former Malcolm Turnbull staffer Anthony Orkin, together with previously noted “PR professional Mary-Lou Jarvis, Woollahra mayor Andrew Petrie, Woollahra councillor Peter Cavanagh, restaurateur Peter Doyle”.

• The Daily Telegraph reports on nightmarish opinion polling for the NSW Labor government.

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.

1,408 comments on “Morgan: 56.5-43.5 to Labor”

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  1. To speak of Pebbles, when’s your next stand-up routine?

    No stand up routine re: the Star Wars thing, just a very geeky childhood.

    When I was young, I think I watched Return of the Jedi every week. It was one of my favourite movies. Now that I am older, I prefer Empire Strikes Back, but still have a love for Jedi. It’s not just Star Wars movies either.

    I recently demonstrated what a total nerd I am when I received a chain email alleging that this week was the date that Marty McFly visits in Back To The Future II. Having seen that movie a million times, I knew it was actually October 21, 2015. So I sent a correction, not just to the sender but everybody whom she sent it to!

  2. are we getting both Neislen and Newspoll this week? Predictions? Neilsen goes down to 54/46 or 53/47 with commentary that the honeymoon is over because of the East Timor issue. No change in Newspoll but Shanahan finds some way to twist it against Labor.

    Would really love a rogueish 57/43 type one. Would really set the cats amongst the pigoens

  3. Under the old Commonwealth-State Weather Equalisation Scheme, the states were guaranteed 250 days of good weather a year, with extra good weather being transferred from Qld and WA to the southern states. But this was abolished by the Howard Government on the grounds that it was a socialist scheme which penalised the warmer states to subsidise lazy southerners. So now the states are exposed to the full force of the free market in weather, with Qld and WA having too much nice weather and Vic and Tas not enough. Of course this didn’t apply to the ACT, which gets its weather direct from the Commonwealth.

    Just because NSW can’t manage its weather, it shouldn’t take it out on the rest of the nation. Maybe here in SA, we actually like cold wet winters and blistering hot summers (Adelaide actually has the highest variation between extremes ie. coldest winter nights v. hottest summer days out of the capital cities.)

    WA are just being greedy because they are finally getting lots of sunshine, they were never like this when it was cold there all the time!

  4. Cable trams began in Melbourne in 1885, with the first service running along Flinders St from Spencer St to Spring St.

    In 1889, a private developer built the first electric tram line from Box Hill station to Doncaster, as part of a land promotions scheme. The scheme failed during the Great Bust and the line stopped running in 1896.

    The next electric tram was started in 1906 and ran from the city to North Melbourne. The MMTB then took over all the private tram companies and built an integrated public network of electric trams.

  5. Andrew. Not sure about the poll numbers for this week, but if something substantial is agreed to with East Timor during the coming week, it will definitely impact on future polls in an upward trajectory.

  6. Neilsen goes down to 54/46 or 53/47 with commentary that the honeymoon is over because of the East Timor issue.

    Got it in one, though the numbers might be different.

    And if the 2PP was unharmed, any drop in Labor primary will be the “evidence” of “the honeymoon’s end” and if that fails, the PPM. Failing that, the issues opinion part. Failing that, they will invent something

    …or just not mention the poll.

  7. http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/article.aspx?id=483211&articleID=

    [However, Mr Sullivan said Labor was still firm favourite to retain government at $1.25.

    With the election now expected to be called anytime from this weekend, Sportingbet has released odds for 41 electorates from Perth to Brisbane.

    There are almost unbackable favourites like Liberal Wilson Tuckey at $1.35 to retain his West Australian electorate but there are plenty of tight races like Solomon where both major party candidates – Damien Hale and Natasha Griggs – are at $1.90.]

    Hmmm

  8. World Cup Third Place (aka the one nobody cares about) match on tomorrow morning!

    Germany v. Uruguay!

    Go Germany! a) because I actually like Germany and b) because I like seeing South Americans cry. The idea that no South American team is in the top 3 would make me smile.

    Schadenfreude, I believe our Teutonic friends would call it! 😀

  9. Cant remember who asked but the hurt locker is a great film, well worth watching. Inevitably with all the awards it is overhyped. I saw it a long time ago unhyped and it was much better that way

  10. Hi All,

    Was rung by Nielsen today for their poll, but they already had their quota for my age group. This was at 10.00am, so they must have been in the field for a while. Would not surprise me if there was an early release. Do they ever release their polls in the affiliated Sunday papers?

  11. [It can’t be any more eggcruciating than hearing Abbott say over and over in his grating tone “if you want to stop the boats you have to change the government”, “if you want to stop this great big new tax, you have to change the government”,
    “if you want to stop the wasteful spending, you have to change the government]

    If you want to get rid of Tony Abbott once and for all just re-elect the government.

  12. [Building LRT track in roads can easiyl run to $10M/km plus rolling stock. That ain’t cheap]

    As a matter of interest does anyone know how much it costs to build a km of freeway?

  13. Has JG been to S.A. yet? I have a strong feeling that once she’s been to each of the capitals she’ll call it

    SA would be a good place for her to finish a tour. The “returning home” theme would play well in the local media. Especially with footage of her going to have dinner at her folks’ place, or something to that effect.

  14. Just been through the Sportingbet betting for individual seats. Based on the 88 seats Labor holds notionally, the maket has Labor losing 6 seats (Swan, Gilmore, Robertson, Macquarie, Dawson, Melbourne), while 3 seats are tied (Solomon, Herbert, Bowman). Surprisingly there is not yet a market for Flynn

    Howver Labor are also predicted to pick up 3 seats (Hughes, McEwen, Ryan)

    Seats the market is predicting Labor to hold are include Bennelong, Dobell, Eden-Monaro, Lindsay, Page, Corangamite, Deakin, Dickson, Forde, Leichardt (1.80 to 1.95),Longman (1.35 to 3.00), Hasluck (1.80 to 2.00), Bass, Braddon.

    At this early stage of the market there is a net loss predicted of 3 seats, with 3 tied (1 LNP, 2 ALP seats).

  15. 955

    The 1906 line built buy the North Melbourne Electric Tramway and Lighting Company was from the Terminus of the cable tram line at Flemington Bridge to Essendon. The Victorian Railways built a tram line the same year from St Kilda Railway Station to Brighton (although it was officially a Victorian Railways Electric Street Railway and was built with 5’3″ rather than the 4’8.5″ of the rest of the tram system). It was a project backed by Sir Thomas Bent MLA (for Brighton) (of Bent by name, bent by nature fame), was never taken over by the M&MTB and closed in the 1959. From 1910 several municipal tramways trusts built and operated electric tramways. In 1916 the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company`s franchise on the cable tram system expired and the Melbourne Tramway Board took it over. In 1918 the M&MTB was created and took over the cable tram system in 1919 and then in 1920 it took over the Tramways Trusts and then the Northcote Municipal Cable Tramways and the North Melbourne Electric Tramway and Lighting Company (the SEC bought their Electricity business that year too).

  16. [At this early stage of the market there is a net loss predicted of 3 seats, with 3 tied (1 LNP, 2 ALP seats)].

    so what would that look like

  17. Glen@871

    A war in 1938 would have been different to the war we had in 1940.

    Yes. Britain would have lost. That was the advice of the General Staff to Chamberlain and their reasoning seems sound, even with the benefit of hindsight.

    You’d have Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Holland, Belgium and Britain all lined up against Germany

    The Polish Lancers would have been no more effective against Panzers, the Czechs would have fought just as bravely and still been overwhelmed, the French would have been the French, the Dutch and Belgiums not in the same league, and Britain would have been without air defence within days. Biplanes against Messerschmidts and more advanced bombers, and without the early warning Chain Home radar network stood little chance!

    who I might add wouldnt have Mussolini as an ally

    You sure about that?

    “we cannot foresee the time when our defense forces will be strong enough to safeguard our territory, trade, and vital interests against Germany, Italy and Japan simultaneously.”
    GS advice to Chamberlain in 1937 (Dunbabin J, The British Military Establishment and the Policy of Appeasement pages 174-196, 1983)

    OTOH, the Empire, particularly us, South Africa and Canada were telling Chamberlain that they did not want war and there was a real feeling that many would remain neutral. To quote Geoffrey Dawson, the then editor of the Times:

    “No one who sat in this place, as I did during the autumn of ’38, with almost daily visitations from eminent Canadians and Australians, could fail to realize that war with Germany at that time would have been misunderstood and resented from end to end of the Empire. Even in this country there would have been no unity behind it”
    (Dutton D, Neville Chamberlain, 2001 page 208)
    Fry MG, The British Dominions and the Munich Crisis, pages 293-341, 1999; is also instructive

    The only Dominion that was prepared to stand along side Britain in 1938 was New Zealand, and even this was conditional.

  18. 977

    Had the Fiduciary Notes Bill become an act after the ALP calling a DD in 1930 then the ALP would have stood a chance of re-election and being a long term government and might have been the Government in 38, may well have beefed up our Military partly as stimulus and been like the New Zealanders who had a Labour Government at the time.

  19. Yes, I think that’s right. There were two events after Munich that turned public opinion away from appeasement. The first was Kristallnacht in November 1938, which showed the barbarism of the Nazis very starkly. It was front-page news in Australia, and horrified liberal and conservative opinion. The second was the occupation of Prague in March 1939, which was a blatant breach of the promises Hitler had made at Munich. Chamberlain was deeply offended and was then mentally prepared for war (or more correctly resigned to war), as was opinion in Britain and the Dominions. And as noted, the year’s grace was vital for British rearmament. It wasn’t ready by 1939, which was one reason why so little was done on the western front to help the Poles (the other being French defeatism). But just enough of it was ready by 1940 to make the difference.

  20. More Tom fantasy scenarios. Scullin was an outright pacifist. A re-elected Scullin-Theodore government might well have engaged in economic stimulus, but it wouldn’t have been via military spending. None of FDR’s stimulus spending was on the military. In 1939 the US Army was still smaller than Portugal’s.

  21. 980

    Would Sculling have been leader all that time? Quite possibly but he might have been rolled on the subject of defence. This is of course all speculation.

  22. William said (quite a while ago):

    #218

    Nice try, Sam.

    Let me put it another way then. According to the ICAC Act [ref], John Hatzistergos has a duty as a minister to report reasonable suspicion of corruption to ICAC. Under the act, corruption for an MP includes “a substantial breach of an applicable code of conduct”.

    John Hatzistergos as Attorney-General would have sought legal advice on this already and would also know that he would be severely prejudicing any case by going public with his claims.

    The fact that you heard this news from him on Twitter before it became an ICAC investigation is proof enough that it’s a political stunt and there is little substance to the allegations of misuse of resources.

  23. Yes it is. Scullin was an admirable man in some ways, but both Labor and Australia were lucky that Curtin became Leader when he did. He used the time between 1935 and 1941 very effectively to wean Labor away from pacifism and prepare for his wartime responsibilities. His advocacy of air defence in the 1930s was quite visionary and things might have been different in 1942 if he had been listened to in time.

  24. In 1938 ,a group of conspirators in Berlin led by General Beck,were so alarmed at the prospect of war in Europe,that they planned a coup in Berlin against Hitler.

    General Beck,later to commit suicide after the failure of the General’s Plot” in 1944,in which he was a central figure, was able to unwind the 1938 plans without the Nazis learning of it.
    Had Beck and the others succeeded they would have removed the Nazi regime and the whole of German and world history would have been very different!
    What prevented them from acting was the decision of Chamberlain the UK PM,to fly to Munich and seek peace with Hitler…in the end it only gave the world another year of peace,but suited Hitler’s plan .
    Crucial to the 1938 crisis was that Russia under Stalin was also committed to defend the Czechs in the face of German aggression and that was the main worry of the German generals around Beck

  25. Yes Bent the then Premier ran the Tramline right past his front door.

    That is one Tramline that I would like to see re-introduced.

  26. Via Gusface at 960:

    [ There are almost unbackable favourites like Liberal Wilson Tuckey at $1.35 to retain his West Australian electorate ]

    $1.35 is not unbackable… below $1.10, now you’re talking. That could mean there’s some money being bet on the Nationals… Labor can’t win O’Connor (either the old or new version), but the Nats just might. Who Labor pick as a candidate will be interesting… last time they just ran a UWA Young Labor kid (the kind of person you pick when you want to come third), and still got got a slight swing which can probably be blamed on Kevin07. (Also, country WA got more of a swing to Labor than Perth for some reason, not that it helped Labor’s chances in Forrest, Pearce or O’Connor.)

  27. 988 by Bird of paradox,

    The ALP primary vote will likely be about 5% to 10% higher in the new O’Connor which will block the Nationals from 2nd place and ensure a victory for Wilson Tuckey. Meanwhile in Durack the reduced ALP vote has made Kalgoorlie MP Barry Haase’s job of getting re-elected much easier.

  28. For those PBers with Foxtel it will be worth a watch to see if the new Sunday Agenda (0830 EST) maintains the high standard it set on debut last Sunday.

  29. John Hatzistergos as Attorney-General has scored a home goal.

    With the vast resources of state/private available to the muck raking dirt squad
    that the cesspool which ALP now exists in can invent,
    the squeaky clean image of the Greens has been elevated even more..

    LOL

  30. ManundaGreen,

    [Has JG been to S.A. yet? I have a strong feeling that once she’s been to each of the capitals she’ll call it ]

    Just jetted in to Adelaide this morning and tipped to visit the GG sometime this week according to 10 News.

    You might be right on the money for once! 😉

  31. Darn
    [ Building LRT track in roads can easiyl run to $10M/km plus rolling stock. That ain’t cheap

    As a matter of interest does anyone know how much it costs to build a km of freeway?]

    This is very rough and does nt include the cost of acquiring land (hence my comments on the critical nature of planning and preservign transport corridors:
    Heavy rail = $2M/track km + $2M/track km for electric power
    Light rail = same as heavy rail on ballast but $10M/km in street (concrete slab etc)
    Freeway = $5M/lane km + bridges etc (so a four lane freeway, 2 each way, costs $20M/km)

    Put it in tunnel or elevated and I’d say the costs increase like this in an urban area:
    at grade to bridge to tunnel = 1 to 2 to 5
    This doesn’t include rolling stock or maintenance depots for public transport, or ITS for freeways.

    For a given capacity, freeways are not necessarily cheaper to construct than PT. The problem with PT is that there is a much higher operating cost, unless the PT makes an operating profit, which is rare unless you have medium (for bus and LRT) or high (for heavy rail) density. Bus tends to have lower capital but higher operating costs. Also, buses have a much shorter operating life than trains, and have to be replaced every 10-15 years. LRT does make an operating profit in a few French cities. Heavy rail can make an operating profit if the staffing arrangements are sensible (the truth is they can be almost fully automated, despite what the train unions would like you to believe, but that is politicaly hard to achieve in an existing system). Road maintenance is cheap; no more than 1-2% of capital cost per year.

    Now that is the cost to government. The trouble is, for cost to community it is the reverse. Buying and operating cars is a high expense for residents, especially if PT services are poor and they have to shift form a 1 to 2 car household. Once households have 2 or more cars their PT use plummets.

    Griffith uni researchers Jago and Sipe have mapped this using GIS. The results are very clear cut: areas with no PT services are poorer and vice versa:
    www98.griffith.edu.au/…/Dodson2006ShockingTheSuburbs_ATRF.pdf

  32. [the squeaky clean image of the Greens has been elevated even more..]

    Who said the Greens were squeaky clean, or that they have to be squeaky clean? Do you believe in one standard for one party and another for another party?

    Well, I shouldn’t ask that. Because I believe Labor should have a higher standard than the Liberals. But ever since Whitlam’s dismissal, Australian politics and the public have become so hollow. Now there’s only bits of difference here and there between the parties.

    That is why I as a socially liberal person vote Green. Not cause I think they’re the bees knees, but because socially i most closely associate with their ideals and they aren’t either of the major short-sighted vote-grabbing major parties.

    I’m loathe to pay credence to anything that puts Howard in a positive light, but I was reading an article the other day, and it was so so true. Rudd/Gillard Labor caves in left right and centre when a policy is unpopular because they believe following what people want is the way to electoral success – NO! This, like their policies, is a very short term event. The way a PM builds popularity is by not always going with whatever’s popular at the time, but actually holding convictions, fighting for those convictions, convincing the public, and bringing them along with you, making it popular after the fact, not before. This is how a PM gains respect. Yes, Howard had his fair share of backflips too, but populism seems to be a trademark of Rudd/Gillard Labor more than at any previous point. No doubt some will attack this as pro-liberal/anti-labor, but perhaps that’s the price one pays when one has an independent mind.

    Australian politics really did go shockingly quickly downhill when Whitlam was sacked…

  33. Julian Burnside on Meet the Press this morning was a calm voice of reason on the issue of Ayslum Seekers, answering all questions put by the panel with assurance and batting away the falsehoods by quoting the facts.

    Scott Morrison, by comparison, was his usual blustering and bellicose self, unable to fully justify Abbott’s ‘turn back the boats’ policy, and regurgitating the other usual contradictory assertions.

    Nothing out of the ordinary there, so now onto Sunday Agenda and Insiders!

  34. [THE televised debate between prime ministerial candidates will be scrapped for the coming election in favour of a contest in which the candidates woo voters by pelting asylum seekers with rotten fruit and eggs, Canberra sources say.

    Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard will assault the bearded, dole-bludging terrorists on a modified coconut shy in front of a live studio audience, before balancing on a high beam, Gladiators-style, and bashing each other with gigantic padded cotton buds.

    The winner gets a tiny toy koala waving an Australian flag and a plastic tiara that will break and reduce them to tears before they’re back in the limo.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/fleeing-torture-dont-forget-your-passport-20100710-104om.html

    LOL love it!

  35. ‘Insiders’ was fairly balanced today, with Gerard Henderson, Mischa Shubert and Karen Middleton all giving reasonable and fair analyses of the week just passed, albeit with little canvassing of the Opposition’s extreme and contradictory AS policies. Stephen Smith forcefully rebutted some of Barry Cassidy’s question constructions, keeping up the recent Government policy of rejecting the underlying biased premises of some of the questions.

    On the whole, and lot better than the ABC has done in recent months, and the absence of either the exteme Bolt or the wingnut Ackerman is a welcome outcome that should be extended permanently.

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