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.
[Madonna King giving Tony an easy ride on Radio right now]
Wow how unusual. 😆
[This election is looking more and more like the Bush v Gore election of 2000. The one where Bush ran as the ‘compassionate conservative’ and Gore got scared so he moved away from his firm environmnetal beliefs.
And it was finally decided in Florida (ie Brisvegas).]
Blue Green I made the same comparison yesterday. I don’t think it is being that unfair to the Republicans, though Bush may be smarter than Abbott 🙂
Labor needs to learn from that and respond accordingly. The Libs get a lot of their ideas from the Republicans, it saves them thinking up their own. How will they cut debt if they aren’t going to tax miners or business generally? Tax workers more? Cut health? Both? The reverse scare campaign needs to be run, because it is plausible.
I don’t think you are being unfair. The Bush debacle is a case study in how to completely f___ up a country in 8 years.
[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]
Yes it is and Labor should be able to make them pay big time. This could be the second big fumble for them this week.
Tony is doing really well.
“surely the women of Australia deserve a genreous PPL scheme. Dont you think so Madonna?”
Madonna King speechless
Looks like Boothby and Sturt are gone for all money on these figures out of SA.
WA looks like no discernible change. It will come down to the on the ground campaign and I’m tipping the cashed up Liberals to finish strong in that regard. If they pull off a +2 gain that would be enough to partly offset losses in Victoria and SA.
[Madonna King giving Tony an easy ride on Radio right now.]
Naturally, she’s a Liberal and her spouse is editor of the Courier Mail i.e. he reports up the chain to Murdoch.
dogif,
[babunin, did you read my post … I am saying only 8 of 15 seats need to change hand, I am not saying all 15 seats change hands on a uniform swing]
yes I did. your comments refer to “uniform swing” as the determinant of which seats are in play. There has been ample evidence that “uniform swing” is a meaningless concept in this election.
Apologies to Ryan for mixing him up with another person that likes to lie about the government waste without any studies to back that claim up.
[Generic Person
Posted Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 1:35 am | Permalink
LOL
Coles CEO and Gerry Harvey both dismissed claims by Gillard that the PPL scheme by Abbott would push up prices for groceries and other consumer goods]
[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.]
Gillard should state the obvious. Mining will fund the Coalition because they don’t want Australian’s to share in the profits made from their resources.
The tobacco industry will fund the Liberal campaign because they don’t care about your health. They want to encourage more people to smoke.
Considering the Coalition had an anti-smoking stance, they come off highly hypocritical.
As for the NBN. The media is a protected species. Any hint of attack, regardless of how justified will just garnish more hostility.
[Tobacco industry was so bad, why haven’t it been banned by the ALP?
Quit simply Tobacco, Alcopop and Mining tax rises were …. oh! shit we stuffed the budget, now where do we get more money policy from the highest taxing government in Australian history]
so you have stood in an operating theatre and seen a smokers lung i suppose
you have attended many funerals of those who smoked.
My beloved father lost a leg his arteries where so clogged up he had an aneurysm in his aorta ( the doc will explain it better than I ) it was decided that he have the operation to remove the clot but what the surgeon did not count on was most of his arteries where blocked by what i would call gunk and the seized up stopping blood supply to the main arteries the pain that man went through and it still bring me tears. I could hear him screaming as he came out of anesthetic his leg had to be removed and then all his body shut down, he took 4 months to die first it was his bowl then his his kidneys and do i need to go on.
The surgeon said of course if he had not been a smoker MAY be this out come may have been different no one knows but why take the risk
[Looks like Boothby and Sturt are gone for all money on these figures out of SA.
WA looks like no discernible change. ]
I have been saying this for some time.
ALso at least two seats to the ALP in Vic on demographic change, JG home-town-girl and Victorians just hate Abbott. Could be more seats.
Cuppa
ahh I see, so the Liberals increase tobacco tax too …. that is where the “support” of the tobacco industry is …. I do not think I am the forked tongue one. The point I am making is that you are making as if Liberals supports the tobacco industry… but as you said they do not
The thing is, if you really care about the people dying … you should be saying both Liberal and Labor are wrong… they should be banning tobacco outright … but I suspect all you are doing is trying to make a pointless, political point, when they are both as bad as each other
If you really think the ALP care about people dying, you are wrong … if they do … they would try to ban it… what they really want is people to keep smoking, so they can increase taxes and balance the budget …. as taxes had historically been shown to have little effect on people smoking … just affordability
The tobacco industry … like the mining industry, is upset at the government over their lack of consultation …. if they were given the heads up…. they might have printed less packaging for example …. they have never compained about any of the previous increase, but they are filthy over this one, because of a lack of communication
Time to ramp up ALP ads.
Perhaps a “three stogges of coalition economic policy” ad
Stooge 1 ” barnaby” with some soveregn default claim followed by a ‘buzzer’ with wrong Australia has the lowest government debt of any major advanced economy.
Stooge 2 (Curly?) Joe with ” an interest rates will always be lower” grab followed by a buzzer ” wrong interest rates are 2.5% lower now than when labor was voted in and during this term reached their lowest rate since 1963.
Stooge 3 – Abbott – Ecomomics is crap
Tag : Australia is a strong growing economy with low inflation, low government debt and low umemployment. Dont risk this man in control – Cut to Tony file footage and creepy laugh.
Dogma,
Thank you for the apology. No matter how contrived.
[58 Kevin Rennie
Posted Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 8:44 am | Permalink
Went to the Isaacs campaign launch in Chelsea last night. Greg Combet gave a very powerful speech when introducing local member Mark Dreyfus. Spoke virtually without notes. Hopefully he will be senior minister in 3 weeks time.
Labor should try to get Combet a higher profile in the media campaigning, especially on the economy.]
I now have the new email address of campaign headquarter but i dont think william would allow me to put in on here
MR RENNIE EMAIL THEM WITH YOUR SUGGESTION the other thing i found useful was to ring the Lalor office of Julias staff and they pass on to her our comments tweet ect
I truly beleive that it was all of the people who tweeted her and rang etc and said
Julia we want you just like the
Q T Julia. that she took over her own campaign,. So go to it tell her you think Mr Combet shoud be used more.
[Looks like Boothby and Sturt are gone for all money on these figures out of SA.]
Please say it’s so. It would almost be worth losing the election to see Pyne cop it. I did say almost.
Ryan
[Looks like Boothby and Sturt are gone for all money on these figures out of SA. ]
Thanks, that is one of the most constructuve things I have seen you write here 🙂 Sturt could soon be Pyne-free, and smelling cleaner.
Pensioner to Tony
“for crying out loud, why are you giving five-years worth of my pension to someone to have a baby”
Great question.
Dovif,
The ALP doesn’t do negotiations with the tobacco industry.
The Coalition is funded by them.
The choice is stark.
Dovif
Incrasing tobacco taxes raises revenue but doesn’t stop people smoking because they are adicts. Changing the advertising and packaging does remove one of the psychological hooks that get people smoking in the first place. That is why tobacco companies oppose it; they know it works.
If the Libs are so anti-smoking, how come former Liberal premier Nick Greiner became an executive of British American Tobacco after leaving politics?
As much as I’d be delighted if the labor vote ended up as 56-44 in SA, it ain’t going to happen. 53-47 would be absolutely amazing. According to the AEC, the highest ever labor 2PP vote in SA was 54.2 in 1961 and 1969. Last time it was 52.4%.
Tony brushes aside question about “whether JG can create decent policies for families given she doesnt have one”
“Brothers at my Catholic college had pretty good idea about family values, even though they didnt have their own families”
[Madonna King giving Tony an easy ride on Radio right now.
Naturally, she’s a Liberal and her spouse is editor of the Courier Mail i.e. he reports up the chain to Murdoch.]
It’s THEIR abc.
Socrates,
You are dead wrong.
Raising taxation has a direct effect on the numbers of smokers.
In studies, a 10% rise in price results in a 3-5% decrease in smoking.
The effect is probably higher, as the rate of uptake would also be affected.
[Looks like Boothby and Sturt are gone for all money on these figures out of SA.
Please say it’s so. It would almost be worth losing the election to see Pyne cop it. I did say almost.]
I really hope you’re right about Sturt, though I must say, the ALP don’t seem to be hitting it anywhere near as hard in my suburb as they did in the last election.
In 2007 we seemes to receive something in the mail nearly every day from both parties for what seemed like weeks. This time, we’ve hardly received anything from the ALP, but Pyne has still maintained the same level.
We even had a phone call from Pyne’s office last night which has never happened before.
This interview is a winner for Tony. Sounds safe, assured, in touch with people etc etc.
{Labor also has the “sophomore surge” in its favour]
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a “sophomore surge”?
Will Gillard pull out the robocalls?
[The tobacco industry … like the mining industry, is upset at the government over their lack of consultation …. if they were given the heads up…. they might have printed less packaging for example …. ]
dovif
You do say the most stupid things
I’m sticking with my original theory – Boothby will fall but not Sturt. The Cornes effect last time means there are more votes for the taking in Boothby. Pyne as much is he is a pain in the ar*e is a good campaigner and should hang on.
First term members tend to increase their vote at the next election.
If they don’t actually get more votes, they tend to have less of a swing against them than longer term members.
My 129 was in answer to Darn’s question about the sophomore surge.
[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.]
Since the original Mercury report, has there been any more on this?
Socrate
Changing the advertising have little to do with decreasing tobacco use …. the banning of advertising and sponsorship of sporting event in the 80s and 90s had almost no impact on the consumption of tobacco.
The addiction is the driver for people buying tobacco… having no packaging will not stop people from going to the shops and saying the want another pack.
I have read studies that says financial stress are one of the main drivers for tobacco consumption. ie if someone is worry about whether they can put food on the table … they are more likely to go and buy a pack of smokes … because the nicotine helps them get over the worries…. and make it less likely for them to afford food on the table
If the goal is to reduce tobacco use … history have shown that taxes and banning of advertising have little to do with limited tobacco use.
No way in the world there is a 5% + swing to the Libs in NSW. It just wont happen.
Darn@125, here is the American interpretation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophomore_surge
Apologies to my students for whom I would fillet for citing wikipedia 🙂
To quote William from:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/03/17/educated-guesswork-2/
“Sophomore surge” refers to the advantage known to accrue to candidates who were first elected at the previous election, and are thus enjoying the advantages of incumbency for the first time. The effect is particularly pronounced where the member unseated a candidate of the opposing party at the previous election, as the incumbency advantage moves from one party to the other.
Dovif,
You’re talking out your arse again.
History has shown that taxation has a major effect on tobacco consumption.
FFS, you really do live in an alternate world.
Bigbob
Surely that depends on the starting price level? As real incomes rise the tax penalty needs to be continually raised or the effect woudl decline, I would expect.
I shouldn’t have said “doesn’t affect”, but “not that much effect”. I had read elsewhere that demand for tobacco was highly inelastic: as price rose, demand dropped by a lesser amount. Hence revenue (including tax revenue) rose with price/taxes.
Anyway, I am not arguing against Labor’s policy. By all means reduce the advertising/packaging AND tax smoking more, if it works.
[Time to ramp up ALP ads.
Perhaps a “three stogges of coalition economic policy” ad
Stooge 1 ” barnaby” with some soveregn default claim followed by a ‘buzzer’ with wrong Australia has the lowest government debt of any major advanced economy.
Stooge 2 (Curly?) Joe with ” an interest rates will always be lower” grab followed by a buzzer ” wrong interest rates are 2.5% lower now than when labor was voted in and during this term reached their lowest rate since 1963.
Stooge 3 – Abbott – Ecomomics is crap
Tag : Australia is a strong growing economy with low inflation, low government debt and low umemployment. Dont risk this man in control – Cut to Tony file footage and creepy laugh.]
gough1, I think you should take over the Labor advertising campagn
You’re a crank, dovif, who supports a morally-bankrupt Party that is a blight on the health of this country. As the horrible deaths from cancer of the lung and other organs mount up in the years ahead, do remember that you unwaveringly support the party that takes donations from the tobacco industry in return for opposing measures to curb consumption of this deadly product. Good on you, dovif! You do your loved ones and neighbours proud, “mate”.
Centrebet improved again for ALP. Now $1.52 ALP, $2.50 LNP.
[If the goal is to reduce tobacco use … history have shown that taxes and banning of advertising have little to do with limited tobacco use.]
dovif
Good to see your lack of knowledge extends beyond the economy.
Tom Hawkins
I am used to people here saying I say stupid things. Labor supporter tends to call people who do not support their view of the world … stupid
For example all though the mining tax. I was called stupid 5-6 times. But the ALP eventually backed down on every point that I talked about
When I said that when you reduced a tax from 40% to 30%, the tax take have to fall from $12 b to at least $9 b, and Swann was fudging the figure… I was called stupid too … and was subsequently proven correct
Labor people do like to call others stupid
Socrates @ 136,
Indeed it does have to get more punitive over time. Hence the last increase in Australia was a doozy – and probably cost the government a lot of support, at least temporarily.
What was it last time Benji?
dovif
[Changing the advertising have little to do with decreasing tobacco use ]
That I strongly disagree with. Pure rubbish. Countries where tobaco advertising was banned have seen drops in smoking rates. The tobacco industry has countered by expanding into new markets like former eastern Europe, China and places like Indonesia. So overall cigarette sales have increased but tobacco use has dropped where advertising is banned.
I’d challenge you to cite any evidence of peer reviewed studies showing countries banning tobacco advertising and then smoking rates increasing or evne staying level. I don’t believe it.
Bigbob, sorry again I should have said “not much effect” rather than “no effect” for tax hikes.
[Labor people do like to call others stupid]
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. Not mentioning any names of course, dovif…
Bigbob
You do not know much about addiction. l have read about people spending their food money on coke
I have known people who gambled their kids education fees on horses, addictions can do strange things to people
Economist refers to Drugs as inelastic demands … ie cost is not the key driver for demand … addiction is
The ultimate answer to Dovif’s statement about advertising and plain packaging not reducing smoking lies in the response of the tobacco companies.
They fought advertising bans and are now fighting plain packaging because they know it will hurt them.