The Australian offers geographic and demographic breakdowns of the last two Newspoll surveys, achieving reasonable samples from each subset due to the unusually large samples (around 1700) Newspoll uses during the election period. Age breakdowns offer the interesting finding that Labor has bounced back under Gillard in the 35-49 bracket, but if anything gone backwards among the young and old – or rather, remained stable on the primary vote while the Coalition has picked up a few points. The gender gap is four points on voting intention, seven on Gillard’s approval rating and ten on preferred prime minister, and appears to have widened steadily through the year on Tony Abbott’s approval.
The state breakdowns give us a useful opportunity to confirm their findings with Nielsen, the Fairfax papers having conducted a similar exercise from the three most recent polls (extending it to four for South Australia and Western Australia to boost the sample). I also offer a third measure of what the betting markets think, which involves a rough estimate of the statewide swings suggested by the odds SportingBet and SportsBet are offering on individual seats (more on this subject from occasional Poll Bludger commenter Dr Good). The table shows Labor’s two-party preferred vote:
| 2007 | Newspoll | Nielsen | Bookies | |
| NSW | 53.7% | 49% | 51% | 53% |
| Vic | 54.3% | 59% | 54% | 54% |
| Qld | 50.4% | 46% | 47% | 47% |
| WA | 46.7% | 46% | 46% | 46% |
| SA | 52.4% | 56% | 51% | 53% |
Some further (alleged) intelligence courtesy of internal polling:
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Liberal polling in NSW has them doing “well” in “about five Labor-held marginal seats”, which include Macquarie and Robertson and to a lesser extent Dobell. The other two presumably include Gilmore, with a fifth harder to identify: the pendulum suggests Bennelong, Eden-Monaro and Page, where in each case the markets favour Labor. However, they Liberals were also said to be in trouble in Hughes and Macarthur. In Queensland, Leichardt and Dawson are said to be at risk, but Labor looks set to hold Longman and Flynn.
• The West Australian reports Nationals polling has Wilson Tuckey leading them in O’Connor by just 51-49, from primary votes of 38 per cent for Tuckey, 23 per cent for Nationals candidate Tony Crook, 21 per cent for Labor and 8 per cent for the Greens, with 10 per cent undecided.
• Markus Mannheim of the Canberra Times reports Liberal polling in the ACT shows the Greens vote actually falling since the 2007 election, which if accurate would put their dream of a Senate seat well beyond reach, if the Democrats’ decision to direct preferences to the Liberals hadn’t done it already.
We’ve had conflicting reports in recent days on party finances and campaign spending:
• Richard Gluyas of The Australian today reports the Liberals are struggling to raise funds. A media-buying source is quoted saying Labor ad spending has been especially conspicuous in the past week, with $19 million in advertising commitments for the length of the campaign splitting “55:45 in favour of Labor”.
• The Sydney Morning Herald, by contrast, reports Liberal television advertising has been 51 per cent more active than Labor’s, “as measured by audience exposure”:
Labor officials wondered aloud where a cash-strapped Liberal Party had managed to find the money, an answer which will not be disclosed officially for a year and a half. And the Liberals were struck by the fact that Labor had all but withdrawn from the advertising market in the second week of the campaign. After an active first week, Labor advertising airtime fell to zero in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and near zero in Sydney, in week two. Labor continued normal campaign-level advertising only in Brisbane, presumably reflecting the high concentration of at-risk seats in Queensland. In a week in which Labor was taking a hiding in the news media and in the polls, the party decided to stop trying to reach voters with paid advertising as it husbanded its resources. “Labor have obviously come off for a reason,” Mr Durrant said. “I can’t see that it would be because they have run out of money but more likely it is a strategic decision to perhaps blitz the market in the final stretches when people are closer to making a decision, which could be quite smart given how much coverage and PR is being generated by them both.”
I can only say that the the Liberal Party doesn’t seem starved for funds in Western Australia. As well as running highly visible campaigns even in Labor’s safest seats, there is talk the state branch has found $1 million to spare for the national campaign.
So much for what they’re doing with their own money – here’s some of what they have planned for ours.
Petrie (Labor 2.3%): Last week Labor promised to spend $742 million building a fabled rail line from Petrie to Kippa-Ring. The Liberals responded by bringing forward their own planned announcement that $750 million would be put into the project. This evidently came as news to LNP Petrie candidate Dean Teasdale, whose initial reaction to Labor’s announcement was that this was not the time for such an expensive project. Tony Koch of The Australian notes the rail link has been the subject of fruitless election promises for 40 years, and it was first proposed as far back as the 1890s. The state government dropped plans to build the link six years ago after a study suggested it would be unviable, but last year was reported to be pushing to get the project “shovel ready” so it could be considered for federal funds. It emerged as an issue in the state election last March when Shadow Transport Minister Fiona Simpson flew solo with a promise it would be built by 2016, causing great embarrassment to her party.
Leichhardt (Labor 4.1%), Dawson (Labor 2.4%), Flynn (Labor 2.3%), Herbert (notional Labor 0.4%) and Hinkler (Nationals 1.5%): Queensland’s regional coastal seats were clearly the target of Tony Abbott’s announcement last week that they would limit the future expansion of marine parks, by requiring “peer-reviewed scientific evidence of a threat to marine diversity”. The announcement was made at Mackay in Dawson. Mackay has also been the scene of a bidding war over the construction of a new ring road: Wayne Swan promised $10 million for a feasibility study into a new ring road one week into the campaign, and Tony Abbott trumped him two days later by promising $30 million for design and engineering work.
Hasluck (Labor 1.0%) and Swan (notional Labor 0.3%): Labor last week promised to provide $480 million of $600 million sought by the Western Australian government to improve roads around Perth Airport, which will include widening Tonkin Highway to a six-lane freeway. There was also an as yet uncosted promise to provide funding to an upgrade of 4 kilometres of Great Eastern Highway.
Bass (Labor 1.0%): Last week Labor promised $11.5 million in finding for Launceston’s flood levees as part of the Natural Disaster Resilience Program.
Sturt (Liberal 0.9%) and Makin (Labor 7.7%): The Prime Minister last week announced $100 million in funding for stormwater harvesting and reuse, the first cab off the rank being a $10 million contribution to a pitch for $33 million by councils in eastern Adelaide. With the councils to fund half the cost, this left a $6 million hole which Labor wanted filled by a previously reluctant state government. The next day Tony Abbott trumped Labor by promising to put up the full $16.5 million. The Coalition has also promised $7.5 million to improve Fosters and Gorge roads in Sturt.
Gilmore (notional Labor 0.2%): Late last week Tony Abbott promised $20 million to upgrade a notorious section of the Princes Highway between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay.
Legal action:
• The GetUp!-sponsored legal challenge against the law requiring the electoral roll to close on the day the writs are issued will be heard in the High Court tomorrow. According to the Australin Financial Review, GetUp! will be supported by most of the legal team that acted for Vickie Roach in the 2007 action that overturned a Howard government law prohibiting prisoners from voting.
• A “Tasmanian antique dealer” has launched a legal challenge against Eric Abetz’s right to sit in parliament, arguing he remains a citizen of Germany, from which he emigrated in 1961 at the age of three. Constitutional expert and Labor preselection aspirant George Williams tells The Hobart Mercury there are “numerous pitfalls for any politician born overseas, or whose parents or even grandparents had been born overseas, to fall into, unawares and without intent, which could make them ineligible to sit in Parliament”.
Finally, there has as always been some interesting wash-up from the unveiling of Senate group voting tickets on Sunday, which I have summarised for an article in Crikey. Note the launch of the new awareness-raising website Below the Line, on which voters are encouraged to order and then print out their own Senate “how to vote” card.
First post? Wowee. 😛
O’Connor: the West (Monday’s) also mentioned Tony Crook intends to sit as an independent if he wins, and share potential balance of power with the other three independents. It’s be interesting to see Warren Truss’ opinions on that… and those of the independents (all ex-Nats from over east).
As for the eastern suburbs:
[ Labor last week promised to provide $480 million of $600 million sought by the Western Australian government to improve roads around Perth Airport, which will include widening Tonkin Highway to a six-lane freeway. ]
I wonder if that takes into account the airport rail link (from Bayswater, next to Tonkin Hwy across the river) that the state Liberals don’t want to build. When the new combined international / domestic terminal gets built, they’ll be changing all the roads around there anyway if that goes ahead – if built, the rail would likely replace Brearley Ave and the main road into the airport would be elsewhere. Hopefully the next member for Canning’s filled them in on that.
I think the liberals election campaign has died. It has died on the altar of taking $5 million from the killers to try and stop a major world first health issue.
Tobacco, former Howard staff, British tobacco and US tobacco companies will fund ads. to stop plain packaging of cancer sticks.
Bye bye Tony, can’t say it’s been nice.
Getting big tobacco funds ……… double ouch.
Will MSM run with it though.
night
Paul_J@5
Lateline has already let the cat out of the bag:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/08/04/2972652.htm
[Blah blah blah.
Perhaps an insight into Liberal party economic policy?
And a merry blah blah blah to you too.]
Gerry should be spruiking for Labor – just so they can hand out more $900 checks for his plasma screen 🙂
shepherdmarilyn@2
And here it is in Black and White:
http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/australian-tobacco-companies-to-pay-for-5-million-anti-labor-ad-campaign/story-e6frfllr-1225900842337
Ahh Paul Murray (the WA Lib Stooge one)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/paulmurray/post/2009/comment/1
[Tobacco, former Howard staff, British tobacco and US tobacco companies will fund ads. to stop plain packaging of cancer sticks]
News has the story, $5 million worth of advertising for the libs to help them win government. Abbott says plain packaging of cigarettes will hurt small businesses who will sell less cigarettes.
Add also the money from the mining lobby to stop the mining tax and the media organisations backing of the libs to kill the NBN which is a serious challenge to their revenue.
If those Newspoll and Nielsen figures are true and hold up it’s looking like game over for Labor.
Glad to report that the Hobart Mercury online has this prominent headline:
[Abbott’s campaign gaffe]
When Kim Beazley mixed up Karl Rove with Rove McManus, and everyone made such a fuss about it, I thought it was a minor thing that meant nothing and would go away. I was very wrong and I wonder if this is Tony’s Rove.
[if this is Tony’s Rove.]
More like Downers “things that batter remark” which saw him lose the liberal leadership.
Both trivialise and find humour in violence against women, but as to it being a vote changer probably not.
Women who already distrusted Abbott will find him more offensive whilst men who like him will just think him more of a blokes bloke and laugh with him at his clever wit and put down.
[If those Newspoll and Nielsen figures are true and hold up it’s looking like game over for Labor.]
If you take Newspoll alone (the worst poll) and calculate the swings eg 53.7% down to 49% = an 8.7% swing to the Coalition, and plug it into Antony Green’s calculator you get 77 seats to ALP, 70 LNP, 3 other.
Why is it that the voters are apparently quite willing to pay extra tax, to fund a PPL of up to $75,000 to very high income earners and yet do not want to pay extra tax to fund our Public Health System?
That’s a $75,000 baby bonus and here am I thinking that a $5,000 baby bonus was exorbitant.
[News has the story, $5 million worth of advertising for the libs to help them win government. Abbott says plain packaging of cigarettes will hurt small businesses who will sell less cigarettes.]
Nice one – what are they going to do? Roll in half-dead from lung cancer and say what a wonderful contribution they’ve made to small business from buying cigarettes?
That’s a truly awful stance for the Coalition to take.
The Business Council of Australia – hardly friends of Labor – has savaged Abbott’s PPL policy.
So what does the OO have to say on it (online)?
Crickets.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/abbott-not-unelectable/story-fn59niix-1225900814866
[This testifies to a bigger and more complex country than the smug and narrow “Abbott is unelectable” mantra can comprehend. It contradicts the intellectual arrogance of the southern city Canberra-Sydney-Melbourne cultural elites that their ideas and prejudices control Australia’s destiny. Any Abbott victory will shatter this assumption.]
Just watched 7 and 9 for the last 30 minutes or so – channel 9 gave the gaffe a decent run, not a mention on 7 unless it came out during Alana Hill joking about the DJ’s sexual harassment claim story I changed channels for.
Will he do it again?
Does anybody remember an election campaign where a candidate has put their family out there as much as Abbott has??? One of his daughter’s was there again yesterday.
Vote 1 Australian Sex Party
One write up in teh SMH has a poll that Labor shoudl eb concerned about and explains the Qld and NSW results: Asked “will state politics affect your Federal vote, 54% said Yes. I woudl say that most SMH polls favour Labor positions about 60/40, just as most Australian polls favour the coalition. If so, this poll suggests some NSW Labor supporters are being influenced by State politics.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/coalition-storms-ahead-in-battleground-states-20100804-115pi.html
I always worried that Sussex Street could bring down Federal Labor, but I never realised they might do it so directly.
Hawks
[Gerry should be spruiking for Labor – just so they can hand out more $900 checks for his plasma screen]
Ryan from the other thread, who was trying to say the insulation scheme was a waste, and then used a Gerry Harvey quote against Labor. Should know ironically that Gerry Harvey set up a business of selling insulation batts to take advantage of the Governments HIS.
It’s also ironic that I see him in the news banging the Government, but has also used the governemtns stimulus schemes to also make money.
[
‘banging the government’ lol lol woops 😀
Thanks Triffid. Surely small business is worth sacrificing a few lives for?
It is a demographic that almost certainly votes Liberal, so I think Labor should not “me too” that one. Instead, point out that a former health minister is willing to tolerate teh continuation of smoking forever, to keep small business going (because this excuse will always be there). Gillard could make more of health: will Abbott gut it again, like he did when Minister? Probably, as there is no “gospel truth” written statement to say otherwise.
[THE Australian tobacco industry will secretly fund a $5 million anti-Labor advertising blitz cooked up with the help of Liberal Party strategists for the final two weeks of the campaign.
The unprecedented election attack ads over tobacco plain packaging are being fronted by a US-style retailers group registered only last week with the Australian Securities Commission and dubbed the Alliance of Australian Retailers.
However, the campaign has been devised by former Howard government advisers and Liberal Party strategists and is being almost entirely funded by the tobacco industry.]
Is this the long awaited Liberal Health Policy?
Bird of Paradox
I have seen planning documents for that road project. My understanding is that the State is not yet ready to build the rail line (corridor not preserved) however it will be sorted out in the road project. So the funds will only build the road, but will allow the rail link to be built in future. It isn’t possible for anyone to just put the cash into the rail line yet as I understand it; more work need to be done.
I woudl agreee Labor shoudl say they support it in principal, and consider it for future funding submissions when the State is ready, then point out that the coalition did NOT fund urban rail projects while in office, preferring urban and rural (of course) highway projects, plus the silly rail line to Darwin.
The unhinged one says that the net cost of his $3000 to companies to employ 50+ people who are on unemployment benefits will be zero because the social security costs for these people will offset the $3000.
This is based on the assumptions that the jobs would not be filled if the subsidy did not exist and that the job would not have gone to anyone else on benefits.
Rubbery figures.
And will the MSM call him out?
Yeah, sure!
BK
It is way more complex than that with all the tax breaks older workes get to save for super. No way Abbott can say that, but the real answer would take a bit of work.
BK
I was thinking the same thing. The subsidy only saves money if if creates extra jobs. It will not. Even if more 50+ get jobs that must mean that less <50 get jobs.
Mor Robb abacus fiddling.
[If those Newspoll and Nielsen figures are true and hold up it’s looking like game over for Labor.
If you take Newspoll alone (the worst poll) and calculate the swings eg 53.7% down to 49% = an 8.7% swing to the Coalition, and plug it into Antony Green’s calculator you get 77 seats to ALP, 70 LNP, 3 other.]
LTEP jumping the gun a little are we. Go back to the Peter Brent first principles before he became what he is today. The polls are right until proof that something different is actually happening.
Quick question. What does “OO” stand for (in reference to The Australian)?
[It contradicts the intellectual arrogance of the southern city Canberra-Sydney-Melbourne cultural elites that their ideas and prejudices control Australia’s destiny.]
What a wank of an article. Someone still fighting the so called culture wars?
[LTEP jumping the gun a little are we.]
Yes. I was looking at the Nielsen originally. The Newspoll figures are better for Labor and the internals William mention provide a bit more comfort as well. I’m a bit surprised to here Flynn looks like holding up (less surprised about Longman). Do you have any views on that Steve?
Token, either Opposition Oracle or Opposition Orrifice depending on how kind you are feeling.
NSW is about to get worse for the ALP, this is my experience since Friday
Friday night train … I sat on the trian at the station in the city for 30 minutes, the train travelled slowly. There was a train breakdown in Central, I got home 1 hr late and had to forgo dinner and just made the movie I went to.
Tuesday morning train … My train terminated prior to the city, meaning I have to wait 5 minute in the rain with 150 people, because my train was send out west to the Bankstown line to cover a breakdown in that line …. was told there was major delay in the northern line as well
Tuesday night train … train was out of order meaning I have to wait 15 minute to get the normal train
Wednesday morning train … cancelled … I was at work 15 minute late on a packed train
There are a lot of people really upset at the ALP in NSW at the moment. If it was just 1 incident, it might be forgotten … but NSW people will be out with baseball Bats
[channel 9 gave the gaffe a decent run,]
I don’t see Abbotts “remark that “no doesn’t mean no for Julia as a gaffe but more as a deliberately targeted dog whistle to blokes who feel women want it all their own way.
It is absolutely disgusting that the Liberal Party takes money from tabacco companies. But it fits with their Businesses Uber Alles mentality (except when they need to hide workchoices for one election).
Hi dogma,
Please show me where I used a quote from Gerry Harvey to back up claims about the HIS.
Because I didn’t.
[Liberal polling in the ACT shows the Greens vote actually falling since the 2007 election, which if accurate would put their dream of a Senate seat well beyond reach]
The Greens appear to be working well in holding the balance of power in the ACT assembly thought it would have earnt them points, maybe people think they haven’t done enough at that level.
Best chance to gain the senate seat was in 07. Abbotts pledge to cut 12,000 public service jobs would remind people of Howard in 96 when he gutted Canberra after winning power. But Rudds freeze on the PS has not won labor any friends either, libs will hold their senate seat, probably get a good swing to them across the ACT.
waznaki 9
You over looked the fact that most of ALP marginal seats are in NSW and Qld, while they are unlikely to make massive gains in SA and Vic.
The lost of all the marginals in NSW and Qld would easily cost the ALP government
LTEP I’m finding it very difficult to get a line on what is happening in Flynn. The newspapers around there are truly dreadful too. I’d be wanting to see a bit of polling later in the campaign before I’d write off Leichardt, Flynn or Dawson.
From tht eother thread:
Perfect: the “I’m alright Jack” syndrome.
Incidentally, what if another GFC hits with the Libs’ PPL in place? Would bosses be able to retrench workers (like Tracy above was retrenched) by putting near-term pregnant women off to be paid their full salaries as dole money? Would women, faced with either the dole (the real, $200 per week dole) or 6 months on full pay (and let’s not forget they’re pregnant anyway) complain about this? When she had her first daughter it would have been a neat fit to retrench her just in time for the GFC… and on $150k (60% of her full salary) for at least six months. Beats the dole, eh?
Abbott yesterday said something about wtte “a full consultative process” before the PPL was introduced.in two years’ time. He’s leaving himself open to
can it, er, “relaunch it in a more sensible form”. We’ve heard a lot about how the well-off will be struggling to pay their mortgages and support the violin lessons, but what about the women on more than $150k? Are we going to see the obscenity of $500k salary earners being paid $150k per annum – un-means tested – to have babies?What beats me about this is why Labor quibbles around the edges. They should critique the policy for its fundamentally wrong approach, not on the details, which (as we have seen) can be changed at will as the criticisms bite and reported not as a “disastrous backflip” but as “sensible changes that make the policy more workable” by the anti-Labor media. If such a policy backflip had been put in place by Gillard it would have been Game Over” as the government gets lost in a mire of incompetence, economic mismanagement and spin. The Libs just get the Big Tick of endorsement.
The revelation that Big Tobacco is funding the Liberal Party will make a lot of people feel uneasy and it certainly raises questions about the ethical base of Tony Abbott and his party. It appears that the tide has turned again with Tony Abbott looking weak in running away from a second debate while making Julia Gillard look much stronger.
I hope that after the election and assuming a Labor victory a new tax/levy is imposed on cigarette companies along the lines of Abbott’s PPL slug but with the revenue going directly to the health budget. If that increases the cost of cigarettes well and good.
[The lost of all the marginals in NSW and Qld would easily cost the ALP government]
Dovif, we are not looking at the lost of all the marginals in Queensland and New South Wales though, are we?
Labor can make plenty out of the reported entry of the big tobacco interests into the media blitz. This industry can, with ample proof, be characterised as a filthy, corrupt and self-interested one. It is without scruple as has been amply demonstrated in courts around the world.
If it is true that the Liberal Party is in cahoots with them it is an absolute disgrace. Whatever the Libs’ health policy will be it should be shot down in flames by the hypocrisy of the association of these two bodies.
Unbloodybelievable!
Then again, the US Republicans have form and it is them that the Libs seem to be channeling.
I think what we will see to at least a reasonable extent in this election is what as a croweater I might term the “Isobel Redmond Effect”. By this I mean the conservative vote will be sured up in electorates at which labor did well last time. So I think a fair portion of the swing to the coalition will occur in their own seats or in safe labor seats. Labor will lose a few seats, particularly in regional queensland, but the more urban areas will not warm to Tone. Labor also has the “sophomore surge” in its favour in a fair few electorates as so eloquently described by William during the SA election campaign.
I justed watched that Lateline video ( [http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/08/04/2972652.htm] ) on the tabacco lobby. So by Thursday we will see ads against the government forcing the removal of all branding from cigarette packs. No doubt having lots of sad looking small business people saying that they will go under.
There should be counter ads that say that the Liberal party promotes smoking. If Labor can be accused of basically killing people with the insulation program then the Liberals should be in a world of pain too!
The tobacco industry’s ads are reported to be saying that the latest ALP impost on the price of fags is responsible for “increasing the cost of living”.
Actually it increases the cost of DYING!
Bronwyn Bishop got sacked after one day as Health Minister because she didn’t think that smoking was addictive. Nothing has changed obviously for the Liberal Party.
[You over looked the fact that most of ALP marginal seats are in NSW and Qld, while they are unlikely to make massive gains in SA and Vic.]
Yes, but those figures don’t show ‘massive gains’ in terms of seats in SA and Vic. They show a couple that are possible (McEwen and La Trobe; to a lesser extent Sturt and Boothby; and to a much lesser extent Dunkley). If Labor hold onto any of these and the Liberals also fail to hold onto seats such as Hughes, Eden Monaro and Bennelong, it’ll make it much more difficult for them.
Steve
If there is a 4% swing in NSW and Qld, ie if NSW 2PP falls from 53-49 and Qld 51-47
On a uniform swing the ALP would lose Herbert, Robertson, Macquarie, Gilmore, MacCarther , Dickson, Bennelong, Longman, Flynn, Eden Monaro, Page, Dawson, Forde, Dobell, Leichhart
Even if they lose only 8 of the 15, it would be a hung parliament …. and then there might be movement in WA and Tasmania (where state ALP and Greens are unpopular), and there might be rogue seats… If the ALP loses 4% in Qld, they would be lucky to hold 8 of the 15 seats they won by a margin of less than 8%
The unhinged one’s principled stance on smoking http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/moronic-abbott-in-health-row/
Remember that, Tone