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.
Well, maybe not ‘only’ but mostly. Probably.
my say, it depends on his mood. if he is genuinely over the coup, and determined to be a team player he could be good. he’d probably have to make a comment at some stage acknowledging that he has come to realise that Julia is best to lead, but of course ta the time he wasn’t able to see this.
but he’d have to very much behind the cause or it would be a distraction.
Maybe because a few of us Labor supporters, like Thomas Paine and myself, don’t want to airbrush the man out of politics completely?
The way Gillard, Swan and Crean are going on, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there never was a PM named Kevin Rudd, who won an election in 2007. 😉
But the Labor backroom boys can’t rely on ill-health keeping him out of the spotlight forever. 😉
victoria
Just a hint of your theory would suffice.
I dropped a little hint of mine on the last thread. 😉
Mysay
Rudd and Gillard need to spend a day togethor – probably last week. Rudd needs to say “I want Julia as the nation’s next PM”. It will help in Qld.
[The decision has been slammed by the Australian Education Union, which has accused Labor of caving in to the demands of private schools.]
The Age in their gotcha style is trying to compare this to the backflip on climate change – beat up
[Some of the sartorially sensitive SNAGs on PB have noticed that Abbott had switched to tailored, body hugging shirts. This emphasized pecs when he was doing his swagger. Hence, ‘Tony Tightshirt’.]
Actually that was me – I tend to notice subliminal things. I also noted that his new shirts tended to emphasise his aggression, and I’ve noticed in the last 2 days he’s covered up with suit jackets.
[Maybe because a few of us Labor supporters, like Thomas Paine and myself, don’t want to airbrush the man out of politics completely?]
Who’s saying that you should? It’s just he is not the leader of the Labor party at the moment. I have nothing but respect for the man and I look forward to his services to this country (he has an awful lot of talent and skill) whatever they may be. However, right now I am focused (like others here) in getting this government re-elected and avoiding having the most extreme Liberal PM ever.
Speaking of education, my mother is a school teacher, and a lot of her colleagues are voting Green, because they were against the My Schools website & other Gillard initiatives.
[We are going to win. In a completely subjective, qualitative, gut instinct way, I just know we will…]
my dear pebbles i woke up on Monday morning with this most amazing calmness and i knew all would be ok i cannot explain it it stayed with me all day yesterday
has any one else had a day like that also, is as though we are getting spirtual guidance not to worry. even if you not religous most of us beleive there is perhaps some one out there a previous soul or angel looking after us.
i think when i see abbott fear strikes my very being and i get the wobbles again
thank you for that now i am going to take that darling dog for a walk he has missed out n so much time with me.
thankyou pebbles how do you like your on line name pronounced
[We are going to win. In a completely subjective, qualitative, gut instinct way, I just know we will…]
The only “gut feel” election where my gut was wrong was 1993 when I felt Hewson would win over Keating.
I thought Kimbo was unelectable, same with Latham. I thought Rudd would win and I think Julia will win.
my say
As I said it is my “given” name. Not name I go by.
[Big tobacco companies are using $5 million … to have an attack on the government of the day for taking labelling off cigarette packets,” Senator Brown said.
“We propose that tax deductibility for political advertising of this nature should end.
“It’s a perverse outcome that in a democracy, we’ve got these big corporations pushing to have Australians smoke more.]
EVan my daughter is at a private school and she loves it.
Please beg your mother not to put in a protest vote please please
write a nasty letter to julia instead explain to her and them that sometimes that does not work she could end up with liberal please.
so the nasty letters instead of voting green dont forget evan
I’m the anti-ruawake. My gut has been wrong in almost every election I’ve ‘watched’. I thought Latham would win for sure in 2004 and Howard in ’07. I also thought Rann, Bligh and Bartlett would all lose.
It’ll come as some relief to you all then that I expect Gillard to lose (at this stage) 😉
ruawake.
So what has your success rate been for federal elections over the long term?
[thankyou pebbles how do you like your on line name pronounced]
Call me what you want, just don’t call me late for dinner, as the old phrase goes.
Yes, I have been quite calm. I have been avoiding this place a little in the last couple of days as there are a lot of people acting like chooks with their heads cut off (not to mention the vultures trying to stir them.)
We’ll win. I know it.
Gillard shouldn’t go anywhere near Rudd. All the hard work over the last couple of days will be wiped out. Sucked up by the whole drama again.
[It astounds me that there are possibly more than 18 voters – excluding Mr Abbott’s immediate family and servants – who would seriously consider him as a suitable Prime Minister of this country.]
But you have to remember that since the ALP won the election the Coalition have been chip, chip, chipping away at the ALP’s credibility on everything.
A form of brainwashing. Negative one liners constantly. It only really stuck & was confirmed when Rudd said ‘Sorry’ about the insulation.
All that negativity from the Coalition was consolidated.
The Rudd government kept working like it was business as usual, ignoring the opposition rabble & failing to sell their successes.
Unlike the Howard government who scored high with the ability to sell failures as great successes to the electorate.
victoria,
[Seriously guys, I have some thoughts, but best left there for now. I may be subject to ridicule, and the fragile nature of this campaign is already stressing me out. No need to muddy the waters. ]
You are far from being alone in finding this election campaign stressful. Everyone else who doesn’t wish to see an Abbott led government after the 21st is in the same boat.
They are just dealing with it in their own particular way.
The Greens supporters by denying that their Party’s strategy to have a totally unrealistic climate change policy in place that failed dismally and set any chance back by years if ever and their equally unrealistic ambition to become a major political player in a system that will never allow that to happen.
Labor supporters who use self denial that the Party is in dire trouble and fighting a battle on three fronts at once, not counting the internal divisions that have been “very” counter-productive in its chances for re-election.
Labor supporters relying on supreme optimism that the trend is ok and everything will turn out ok on the night.
And half a dozen positions in between or swinging from one to the other as the twists and turns of the campaign unfold.
I’ve got no idea where I sit on the pendulum, but it is certainly “not” in the supremely optimistic part of it.
confessions…
possibly the covering up might be due other factors, courtesy of “ask yahoo”:
[Gay men are more likely to wear small, tight or fit shirts but straight men are not?
I’m not saying all gay men wear tight or fit shirts or straight men never wear them. But as one of my observation, I have two friends (both have about same height, but my straight friend is thinner than my gay friend) but my straight friend wears the large size of his t-shirt and my gay friend wears the small size. Just wonder if it’s true in general.
Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
More likely, yes, but, who cares?]
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100130054116AAa4UF7
[As I said it is my “given” name. Not name I go by.]
What name do you go by? Vicki? Tori? Tobias?
[e are going to win. In a completely subjective, qualitative, gut instinct way, I just know we will…]
my daughter say polls are crap mum you dont know who rings who its what people are saying on the ground she said last time at the school there was all this talk about getting rid of howard this time its like there is no election
Dee
What was your conspiracy theory on the last thread?
my say
While I was no fan of sevreal recent events, and very concerned at the direction of the first two weeks of Labor’s campaign, this has been a much better week for Labor. The Labor focus is now correct (economics), the leaks have stopped, the alleged leakers have confirmed it wasn’t them, and Abbott has shot his mouth of several times, while avoiding questions. I thought it was 50/50 at teh start of the week, with Abbott havign the momentum. However, if he has lost that momentum, then it is still only 50/50, and the good economic news favours Labor.
So it isn’t over yet 🙂
[I’ve got no idea where I sit on the pendulum, but it is certainly “not” in the supremely optimistic part of it.]
wish i had not read that wish you had not said that explain where do you sit
@856
Not surprising from The Age. It gave up reporting – in the journalistic sense – years ago.
[The only “gut feel” election where my gut was wrong was 1993 when I felt Hewson would win over Keating.]
I thought Hewson would win too. Mind you, I wasn’t really old enough to make too educated of an opinion back then. Just perceptions from the media. But everybody was just tired of Labor and Keating was on the nose, and the Libs had this fresh, energetic leader who came across as serious, yet not a fuddy-duddy. It was one of the most unexpected election results ever.
Victoria,
My partner does the same and her name is Elizabeth, I can see a pattern here..
[I’m the anti-ruawake.]
LOL you might want to rephrase ltep!
[Socrates
Posted Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 4:07 pm | Permalink
my say]
see my guardian angle does look after me i just hung around long enough to read
socrates
[So what has your success rate been for federal elections over the long term?]
My gut (it is larger know than it once was) has been right since 1993. Before that I was wrong when Fraser beat Whitlam – but I was maintaining my rage over the sleazebucket GG.
Antony Green’s Senate calculator:
http://www2b.abc.net.au/Elections/View/SenateCalculator.aspx?e=10&ca=nsw
TSOP@872
Tobias?! Yes, it’s Tobias, you got me!!
Hmm my entrails have never been much good at telling me anything much apart from which curry bars I ought to avoid in future.
Some have commented on the quietness of the opposition on Rudd. There are several plausible reasons:
1. They don’t need to. The polls are reasonably consistent and consistently favourable at present. Both parties are watching polls clearly. Anyone that says they don’t is lying (poor Julia last night, I think said something to that effect). In fact, I think we have a new breed so we ought to spell it “Pollitician”. First piece of legislation, I’d suggest. Ruddy was to blame, the poll was his ‘factional support’ throughout his tenure. His faction dumped him weeks before he got a cleaver in the back.
2. You don’t drown your chips in tomato sauce. Just enough is great. Rudd can be used later if needed and you are seen to give the guy a break.. he’s been in hospital. I bet Tony gave him a ring, maybe Julia could do that?
3. The ‘Rudd-Knifing’ line has stuck where it was most needed: QLD and NSW.
I have been going on gut feeling for all the elections since 1987 and have never got them wrong before. Gut feeling is a reasonable Labor win with swings against in all the wrong places but holding most of the marginals.
ruawake@882.
That is a pretty good success rate I must say. Let’s hope it continues!!
Victotia
Tobias? realy? I thought it was Bernard. I prefer my middle name which is Tiberius
[Dee
What was your conspiracy theory on the last thread?]
Mine wasn’t about the Coalition or their actions or lack there of.
I just pointed out that Rudd had been unwell for a while. Can’t say more than that but alluded to it becoming more apparent after the election.
Dagget
I think we can start a poll on our gut feelings!
1990 was an interesting one, especially being in Victoria surrounded by Liberals at the time, I knew they would loose despite the huge swing in Vic. Took a while for it to sink in to the others.
A lot of voting decisions will be made at the last minute. Labor can make it with a small majority of these people.
It’s been mentioned before, but it is amazing just how often the ABC leads with the Libs, even when they are responding to a Labor policy announcement.
Quite often the Libs instantly adopt the policy as their own, sometimes with the addition of a few dollars. Lazy, cynical campaigning.
Dee
I remember that comment now. Are you suggesting that Rudd’s decision making over the past six months may have been impaired due to his declining health?
[Tobias? realy? I thought it was Bernard. I prefer my middle name which is Tiberius]
You have the same middle name as Captain Kirk.
Victoria: I, of course, chose Tobias in tribute to one of the funniest TV characters ever: Tobias Funke.
The ”keep Oakshotte in the tent’ strategy
[AustralianLabor New GP Super Clinic for Port Macquarie Under Federal Labor http://dlvr.it/3My3s #ausvotes #AusLabor ]
It is quite obvious Abbott cannot handle the hard questions. He walks away instead exploding. They just need to prod some more and he will explode.
If they want fireworks — they should be going in with both barrels.
Victoria
It would be more accurate than Newpoll/Galaxy, then again maybe not. The rusted on aspect looses the objectivity. I remember in 1996 I had to do the party donation round to prospective/current MPs and the Libs were all worries and thought they would lose like in 1993. I guess you can be too close to the action.
I didnt think Abbott would do as well as he’s done to be honest.
I still think though that Turnbull would have been a better campaigner than Abbott.
I wouldnt be surprised if Abbott did win the election. Gillard is still the favourite though as she has incumbency.
This election is not predictable no matter how much hubris you add to your pizza pie 🙂
I’m hopeless at picking. I hated Howard before his first victory and predicted he would lose every election he faced. I finally got one right in ’07. i’m terrible at footy tipping for the same reason. all heart no brain.
victoria
You were asking about the journo Mark Kenny yesterday. If you have Foxtel he is about to be on a panel on SyNews Agenda.