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.
Does anyone know the viewer numbers for Sky News – I read somewhere it was less than 25,000? I could be wildly wrong.
Dagget the newspoll commitment questions pre-campaign showed the same % undecided as in 2007, funnily enough. Clearly more of them broke for the government in the end. Des this happen every election
Funny you should say that. I was chatting to my brother this morning and we both have a gut feeling that Labor will prevail. Unfortunately, neither of our guts can claim to be as infallible as your’s.
BK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ_zYZBDmls
Bob Katter Your Force From The North
Seems about right to me.
I expect the commentators to be saying on election night- “where is the queensland swing we expected”.
Glen,
The media have done it all for him Glen. They have praised him up at every chance, provided the most concentrated positive media I have ever seen for an OP Leader and have conveniently glossed over every negative.
On top of that they have been totally feral to Labor for the past two years and have twisted every Labor positive into a negative.
Abbott has just been the passenger on a gold plated, first class ride to the Lodge. It’s difficult to see his train get derailed now, but hopefully enough voters wake up to the fraud being directed at them.
Glen, honestly, do you reckon Tone got off lightly with his no means no comments??
jenauthor
The old dears were probably told it was Tom Jones turning up
$3000 for the old workers is a good deal, lets hope they extend the incentives to other worthy causes, the left handed, young and inexperienced, those with bad food odour, the clumsy after all once small business gets a whiff of free $ they will be back for more.
my say @ 821
Thanks for your vote of support in regard to my humble polling musings – I posted earlier in the day @ 326 and 601 that you may, or may not have seen amongst today’s mountain of opinions.
Re: pensioners, tones is running pretty hard on the grey vote, understandably.
I reckon the ALP would do well to run a simple add (perhaps one screenshot in GFC ads) to the effect that Tony talks, but the ALP govt walks: its actually raised pensions.
Just come home.
Only read some of the last posts, but I agree smoking is a despicable if not ridiculously stupid habit, I’ve never done it.
I wish it could be banned but that is impossible (more crime similar to prohibition), but I think they should at least be prohibited from donating to political parties or advertising in any way.
How are they going to advertise in this campaign, I’m not clued on that, they can’t advertise their product by law, can they advertise against a political party in an election campaign?
scorpio, i suppose i am biaised, but i have NEVER seen an OL get the free ride that Tone’s gotten. Its like they know he is crap so have to prop him up. They seemed in wk 1 to be getting into Abbott but after the 1st week poll, they have let up
evan, you have been a comrade for years, but you need to get a grip. Rudd is gone and do you want PM Abbott or PM Gillard? Rudd supporters have 2 weeks to get on the train. Does Rudd want a senior cabinet post, or years on the opposition’s benches
Very good piece by Ad Astra on NBN and what it would mean for Australia over at The Political Sword.
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/
Is Gillard releasing an aged care policy?
Might be a good idea, because Abbott seems to have the “grey vote” parcelled up.
God, if you took the SKY/News Ltd scum … I mean journos …. it is all over.
“Julia hasn’t put forward any strong policies … the electorate wants substance and they aren’t giving any.”
Che?
The brainwashing is complete.
Andrew the comments were taken completely out of context.
Yes it was a gaffe and yes it was a stupid thing to say and yes it would be offensive for some people but a hanging offence? No I dont think so.
Did he get off easy? No he didnt but he copped a fair amount of flak for what he said and now everybody is moving on hell there is an election to be won and the sad thing is the MSM and others are latching on to anything (Gillard not calling Rudd and Tony’s gaffe yesterday).
We should be debating policy not gaffes IMHO.
Who from PB is ‘Matilda’ at mamamia. V intriguing
The only way to keep kerosene out of aged care facilities is to return the government.
Is anyone a forensic linguist?
Agreed Glen, we need policy, but the MSM isnt interested in that. I think the MSM’s response to the ‘no means no’ fits their pattern of going easy on Tone.
As I’ve said before if the people want an Abbott government, so be it (heck they gave howie four terms, the suckers), but at least make him EARN it.
TSP
I would have expected him to try to dive into the water in his speedos, wrestle the shark into submission, then haul it ashore and pose for photographs to the (hopefully female) adoring crowd.
I think the media have realised what many people, not just me, have been saying for several weeks. The whole coalition economic line – fear our huge (??) debt, everything is about to collapse because of govt policy, cut taxes and pretend you won’t cut services – is complete garbage; the opposite of the truth. Our debt is tiny (the tiniest!), the economy is now growing OK again without stimulus, there will be a moderate mining tax and it hasn’t stopped investment, and spending on health, education and infrastructure is necessary for growth.
Why didn’t the media ask Abbott more questions about all his policies full of holes and dodgy accounting? Because they were too distracted by first Labor’s leadership woes, then the Labor campaign stupidly focusing on the wrong issues. Now that that error is fixed there are still plenty of hard questions to ask Abbott; he is by no means off the hook. How he will pay for the PPL and stop it getting rorted is just the start.
sadly not much although I suspect the acid is being now being put on Phoney particularly with Speers questioning his policies and scrutiny ramping up.
Andrew
There has been a definate trend to more undecided as the election unravelled I was going on the level of firm voting intention
2004 Election
SEP 2004 55
SEP 2004 58
OCT 2004 58
OCT 2004 65
2007 election
OCT 2007 60
NOV 2007 63
NOV 2007 68
NOV 2007 72
Current
Firm Might Change
JULY 2010 54 32
AUG 2010 53 34
Agree with you there i’ll be pissed off if he just goes negative and wins.
Thankfully today he actually said what HIS policies were for once.
He wont have a hope in hell to win if he doesnt go positive at least for part of the time.
blue_green: that sounds like My Say 😀
Dee@924
Care to expand?
Have studied linguistics … if that helps.
I’d say that was ‘my say’. thats her phrasing all the way.
And the Daily Telegraph person nicely dodged the question of whether Tone is weak on the economy by pointing to the polls, rather than giving a straight answer. Of course Tone is weak on the economy, just look at how he runs a mile or stuffs up his answer whenever a question of that ilk is put to him!
Michael Wilbur-Ham (MWH)
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/04/newspoll-breakdowns-and-related-matters/comment-page-19/#comment-549400
You’re supposed to be a Green, aren’t you? A former Greens candidate, is that correct? You Want action on climate change and all that?
So please explain why you want the party populated at its uppermost levels by climate change deniers in power?
* Abbott – Denier. Believes the Earth is cooling, climate change is “absolute crap”. Made Coalition leader on an anti-emissions trading ticket.
* Minchin (who kingmade Abbott) – Denier. Climate change movement is a vast left-wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world.
* Joyce
* Abetz
* Bernardi
* Tuckey
* Andrews
etc
These are the flat-earthers you want running the country for three years? The Party with a shrine to John Howard occupying pride of place in headquarters?
Why?
You clearly want NOTHING done to address climate change, Michael Wilbur-Ham, because that is what these ratbags would do – NOTHING.
Perahelion
Most smokers want to give up anyway. Way to help is to up the Tax $$ on smokes, then heavily subsidise quit smoking products. As an ex smoker will tell you the cost of such replacement products are almost comparable to a packet of smokes.
cuppa
And I wonder how many of them think the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Oh Katter!
Big tough man ad with hands as soft as a baby’s bum with manicured nails.
If that is ‘my say’.Then she is a very effective and committed spruiker and good on her for spruiking PB.
Come on Glen, winning is what’s it all about, what is ‘negative’, it depends which side you’re on, don’t go magnaminous now, you want Tony in the Lodge (don’t you?)
Michael Wilbur-Ham (MWH),
My comments don’t add up to a tinkers cuss and have no bearing on anything or anyone.
Why they should get under your skin I haven’t a clue and couldn’t care less.
I can’t remember “one” comment of yours that “wasn’t” looking forward to a Labor loss & the Greens pulling Reps seats off Labor and Senate seats also.
If you are wishing for Labor to lose more than you did before, just reinforces that you have always been desperate for them to lose.
Why you even bother to state it is beyond my comprehension, because it certainly hasn’t been a well kept secret! 😉
Mark Kenny stated the bleedin’ obvious “Labor are running a back ended campaign”.
The Lib Campaign launch on Sunday is the start of the real Labor campaign. They will dribble out nothing policies for the rest of the week.
Any thoughts on the mystery ‘matilda’?
BK
Watched Sky Agenda. Have seen Mark Kenny before, just did not know his name.
What I gleaned from their comments today. Abbott has focused on the retirees in the marginal seats and they are worth 300,000.00 votes. These same people would have taken notice of Julia’s position on increase in pension, and will probably now vote coalition. Was that your take BK?
“my say” certainly strode into a hotbed for the well-off ladies over a Mia Freedmans blog. gawd, does it get any more middle class and aspirational?
Actually Tuckey on CC is not so much a flat-earther. He just likes magical DC powerlines instead of an ETS.
Agree with this, tax the hell out of them, I’d double the price forthwith and at the same time restrict the number of places it can be pursued, the message, the hip pocket and the inconvenience would start to take hold.
victoria
The problem is that the pensioners have short memories. My 84 year old mother is a prime example. She just doesn’t now recognise the significant step increase in pension that Labor has given her after 12 years of not very much from Howard. There is no way she will not vote for the Libs.
I think Labor might have another pension increase in store for the launch.
Cuppa
Posted Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 4:50 pm | Permalink
Michael Wilbur-Ham (MWH)
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/04/newspoll-breakdowns-and-related-matters/comment-page-19/#comment-549400
‘The more I read your comments the more I wish Labor will loose.’
“You’re supposed to be a Green, aren’t you? A former Greens candidate, is that correct? You Want action on climate change and all that?”
Cuppa , YOU do not ‘get it’
To most Greens incl bob Brown , its 25% non negotaible CC cut , or you dont believe in CC Effect has been these Greens zealots MOVED many swing voters to Liberal Party
Funny, I was thinking the same thing listening to Bronnie interviewed.
So what will the tools and toadies do if this incompetent gets propelled (with their help, naturally) into the Lodge? Turn a blind eye to his every stuff-up and verbal offense? Whitewash over the incompetence of the galutes he’s selected as his Cabinet?
God help us!
That would be a smart move, even I could vote for my hip pocket, I’m only 4 1/2 years away from pension age, but then Tony would probably have to match it, wouldn’t he?
Wouldn’t a proposed pension increase just draw people’s attention to the previous leak and be really obvious?
The budget would have to get rewritten by fairies for their to be a pension increase. More likely they would get a coupon for $400 at their local pokie palace.