Newspoll breaks it down

The Australian has published another set of geographic and demographic breakdowns, combining two weeks of polling (the 52-48 from yesterday and last week’s 50-50) to produce samples of about 670 per state. The results thus include half the polling which contributed to Newspoll’s geographic and demographic results from last week.

The table below provides an artist’s impression of how state-level polling has tracked through the campaign week-by-week, based on an aggregage of Newspoll and Nielsen results. The results appear to suggest that the swing to Labor has faded in Victoria and that Western Australia is weaker for Labor than generally supposed, but the margins of error is high enough that this should be treated with caution. Samples for any given observation were 765 for NSW, 665 for Victoria, 585 for Queensland, 465 for WA (865 in week three, achieved by throwing in the Westpoll result) and 445 in SA, producing margins of error ranging from 4.6 in South Australia’s case to 3.6 for New South Wales.

Perhaps the greatest point of interest is an implausible Labor collapse in New South Wales in week two. Most likely what this tells us is that unfavourable samples for Labor there dragged down their overall results that week.

fed2010-statebystatepolling

As well as that, Roy Morgan has produced one of its quite useless Senate polls. This draws on 5000 face-to-face interviews conducted over the last two months, but for all its massive sample is of far less use in predicting the Senate result that an ordinary lower house poll would be. Of greater interest is Morgan’s Polligraph worm results for the treasurers’ debate. Amusingly, the pattern for Labor-supporting and Coalition-supporting participants forms a perfect mirror image. The Greens line is consistently quite close to Labor’s, but a gap emerges when Wayne Swan spruiks “Labor initiatives to assist housing affordability”.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,030 comments on “Newspoll breaks it down”

Comments Page 39 of 41
1 38 39 40 41
  1. [“Town Hall Meeting”]

    Is it just me, or when you hear this term you think of a bunch of rednecks with blue-jeans, limited brain cells, missing teeth and pitchforks? Then again, a few have said already that the meeting was biased towards Liberal voters…

  2. Sorry to write something which may be a bit on a tangent, but this discussion about Rooty Hill gives me an opportunity to make a bit of an observation about people who comment here. I love coming here because most people here are Labor people and considering that most on-line readers comments both on News Limited sites (to be expected) and Fairfax are very anti-Labor I come here. Especially if there are bad polls results for Labor! However I do think that some of us are getting a bit obsessed by every nuance and detail of what the media is saying.

    Now I agree with many people here that The Australian is pro-Coalition. But then that’s nothing new. What’s a disgrace is the ABC following the narrative. That’s galling for us that eschew commercial media.

    However there are some instances where sometimes we exaggerate a bit. For instance some commented a few pages ago that they didn’t watch the 7PM project because comedians such as Dave Hughes were anti Labor where in fact if people saw the episode with Gilliard at the end Hughes got serious and asked her and Tony Abbott to stop demonising Asylum Seekers.

    I saw snippets of Julia Gilliard and Tony Abbott on Lateline at Rooty Hill. So Gilliard didn’t get as good reception, but having hostile crowds at meeting of these kind is part and parcel of an electoral campaign. In fact it used to be the norm before campaign organisers decided that it was too much of a risk. If Gilliard refused the offer then Abbott would have stated that she ran scared of debating the good people of Western Sydney etc. which would have been much worse and lose any of the advantage that Gilliard still has that she would have been ready to debate him face to face. So Gillard faced an hostile crowd? I reckon for most of the voters it will be a colossal meh.

    Of course the media will make lots of comments about Tony doing well and Gilliard facing an hostile crowd. That will makes us that follow the media irritated. But remember that most of the people do not follow the media as close as we do here.

    In fact I think we are mirroring the Mainstream Media in our obsession about every detail about the campaign. As journalists have to provide copy and will talk about Tony winning this and Gilliard losing that we also are sucked in in this vortex of media detail, while I think that for most people it is not that interesting. Of course the leaks, now that was really bad. Let’s hope we don’t get something like that in the last days of the campaign.

  3. Drake, I am with you…as a catholic who has seen and experienced the best and unfortunately the worst of the clergy, I have no problem in my own mind of rubbishing Pell..he is not a a person that I would want my children to look up to, however my parish priest is. Two different human beings, which is what they are. Fr Alex is not some special ghost of a life that passed us by, just a human like all of us. a dedicated honorable man. My kids respect their church because it is a place to meet and greet and know, to sing, to dance, to enjoy life…not to be there because some guy dressed in a fancy dress says you will go to hell if you do not obey a German in Rome.

  4. Goshome

    [So those 100 people know every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Western Suburbs? That’s what I call a representative audience.]

    Your knowledge of demographics, statistics and social psychology being lacking is all evident in this one handy statement.

    We are talking 5 marginal seats immediately surrounding Rooty Hill. 445 831 voters.

    a 1% swing here would make a difference to either party substantially. That is 4458 voters.

    These people, all things being equal, would know approximately 700 people, many of whom would actually be mutually known, though even if 200 were uniquely known, then 40000 are represented here.

    In fact, on the basis of a classic study in 1981 (which spawned the popular “degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, on average, it took only six links to get an envelope from a random person on the East coast to a random on the west coast by mailing it to someone they knew.

    In a marginal campaign, this may have changed the campaign far more than millions of dollars on ads. You have no idea.

  5. Gusface

    I am used to the suburbs of Melbourne, which seem to make sense to me. When I heard Rooty Hill, I actually thought it was a nickname or something. Very strange!!

  6. Julia did well in the face of some hostile and irrational questions. I mean seriously, did the leso have to ask the same question 3 times!
    Overall she was good, although in hindsight she probably should have stood; she looked a bit school marmish perched up there.

    Abbott had an immediate advantage by deciding to get off the stage and stand directly in front of the audience; he looked like a cheesy nightclub entertainer. It immediately made it a more relaxed setting so yeah, strike one up for the rabbit there.

    But yeah, it was a fit up. I thought after Julias grilling that poor rabbit will be carved up if he gets a similar line of questioning. Lo and behold dorothy dixer after dorothy dixer! “Mr Abbott why is your health plan better, Mr Abbott why did labor knife Rudd, Mr Abbott what are you going to do about climate change”. The one time he expanded at length on anything he tied himself up in knots with his counter positions on his authority as pm. “No one will over rule me when I am pm, hang on let me think about that….I mean consensus!”
    I was outraged but then realised a: it was only sky and b: there will be as much discussion about the fix.

  7. I remember a global survey on ‘happiness’ about 18 months ago which found that residents of western Sydney were among the least satisfied, least contented people anywhere in the English speaking world. It was attributed to the fact that they live in this undoubtedly beautiful city but they live in this godforsaken badlands zone of said city that is a world apart from the glory of the harbour and so forth.

  8. Cud

    the UK had a most devastating missile

    the polaris

    it contained one outer missile, with up to 24 separate miny missiles

    the fibs seem to be ensuring that labor has a fully stocked bombshell

    oh and it aint SA,NSW,VIC,QLD,NT,ACT or TAS (just for you my say)

    WA is ready to implode

  9. people tend to have short memories, especially out west.

    perhaps, the non-unionised workforce should have been left to fend themselves, so they could feel firsthand the the full effect of workchoices. perhaps, then, they could learn to appreciate what they take so often for granted.

  10. Gusface

    It must be getting late for me because I am having trouble understanding your post.

    I think you are suggesting that Labor have got something to hit the Fibs with in WA.

    On that note. Nite all. Maybe tomorrow all will be answered.

  11. Sorry to pop everyone’s bubble but there is another leak to come and it will make the launch hell.

    My only saving grace is that people that would kill me for saying that comment don’t read this and don’t know who I am behind this alias. The Labor party has got to get its house in order when it is in opposition again and listen to the unaligned who got you up in 2007.

    With that, I am off to bed. cya.

  12. [My only saving grace is that people that would kill me for saying that comment don’t read this and don’t know who I am behind this alias.]

    Oh my f-in God! Run for the hills!! Boat people! Gays! Julia is a woo-man! Run! Run!!!!!

    D-head.

  13. Mick Wilkinson @ 1921

    [Sorry to pop everyone’s bubble but there is another leak to come]

    Julia supported same sex unions in cabinet?

  14. alias @1915,

    i also refer to the western sydney suburbs as ‘the badlands’; it’s ‘the worselands’ at night time, especially when you have to travel through it at night-time, which is when most of them come out

  15. Cud

    the UK had a most devastating missile

    the polaris

    it contained one outer missile, with up to 24 separate miny missiles

    the fibs seem to be ensuring that labor has a fully stocked bombshell

    oh and it aint SA,NSW,VIC,QLD,NT,ACT or TAS (just for you my say)

    WA is ready to implode]

    Gus – is there any particular issue that leads you to say that?
    [

  16. [With that, I am off to bed. cya.]

    No you’re not Mick. You’re glued to the screen in the vain hope that someone believes you actually know something and might respond.

    I really am off to bed – your delusions tire me.

  17. [I remember a global survey on ‘happiness’ about 18 months ago which found that residents of western Sydney were among the least satisfied, least contented people anywhere in the English speaking world. It was attributed to the fact that they live in this undoubtedly beautiful city but they live in this godforsaken badlands zone of said city that is a world apart from the glory of the harbour and so forth.]
    I can agree with that alias. I am fortunate to live in a beautiful part of sydney, on the river, near the city. If you can afford to live in Sydney it is stunning. But i work out west near rooty hill and seriously it is almost a different country.
    There is an anger there, a resentment almost of those city types in their fancy cars in their fancy homes doing it easy while they battle away in the backwoods. It’s extraordinary, its almost like they blame the rest of the world for them living way out west. Sydney for most of them is this exotic place they go to once or twice a year for a weekend away.
    Julia walked into a trap and did well to walk away with her dignity intact.

  18. Gusface

    I am going to guess something to do with the NBN. Sorry, I am thick. Off to bed. Hope I can sleep. I will be stewing all night over what exactly you are on about.

  19. Like Grog said, plenty of people tuned in to see Julia on Q&A. Tonight one third of the Rooty Hill crowd left after Julia finished – not much interest to see Tony IMHO.

    People are tuning in to see Julia & I reckon the majority like what they see – she communicates heaps better than Rudd, Beazley or Crean – she makes things understandable to the lay person.

    I tried to follow Tony answers tonight – but he was so muddled at times, so boring and there was no hint an alternative PM ready to take the wheel. As a TV presentation (when Tony was on) – it was a non event.

  20. Mike and the other Liberals here – Let us be clear on this, we have a clear choice between a leader that helped to lead this country from the brink of a massive economic downturn and an opposition leader who actually voted against a large amount of it as a political stunt and now wants us to overlook that and award him.

    Now before you Liberals come in here and start yelling “o Mexi is a Laborite”. Let me tell you I know what a recession is like, I know what financial pressures are and their have been times when I have held the ALP in comtempt especally after the Kirner/Cain years but as I have often said the ALP deserves to win this election

    The Liberal are going nowhere as shown by the lazy short sighted internet policy and as I said the otherday you only need to watch the American Business channels to hear leading financiers lamenting a lack of a real stimulas package.

    Of course we had one and the results have been shown with Rio and the CBA recording massive profit jumps.

    Vote 1 Jules & the ALP.

  21. That’s fascinating Henry. I don’t know Sydney well but I have occasion to stay with relatives in western Sydney from time to time, and I am always struck by how many people out there are frantically trying to live the Sydney dream, working two jobs or whatever, rushing madly around, and yet they’re doing so in a thoroughly squalid environment.

  22. On Engadget (tech blog) in the US:

    Fiber optics get political in Australia as opposition party vows to scale down national broadband plan

    [When Australia goes to the polls on August 21st, citizens will vote for more than men and the traditional issues they represent — the ballots cast will directly impact the country’s national broadband plan. Where Australia’s ruling Labor party had pledged A$43 billion for an up-to-100Mbps fiber optic network fed directly to 99 percent of homes (and agreed to pay A$11 billion to Telstra) over the next seven to eight years, the opposing Liberal-National coalition says if elected, it will scrap that notion in favor of a cheaper A$6.3 billion plan. That money would create a fiber-optic backbone by 2017 but actually connects homes with hybrid fiber-coaxial connections, DSL and about A$2 billion worth of wireless, with a minimum promised speed of 12Mbps. The coalition says these services would cover 97 percent of Australians, with satellite coverage for the final 3 percent, and that those networks receiving funds from the project and connecting to the backbone would have to compete based on pricing (set by the country’s Competition and Consumer Commission) and pledge open access. Having never lived in Australia ourselves, we don’t know what’s best, but we’re pretty sure we wouldn’t be satisfied with the 12Mbps end of the Liberal-National stick.]

  23. Some funny comments here tonight! Like, “That Rooty Hill event was about as balanced as Joe Hockey’s diet!”

    Two things that continue to bug me are Tony Abbott’s talk about the BER and who got rid of Kevin Rudd. Here’s his take on the latter on June 26 at a meeting of the federal council of the Liberal Party:
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/i-got-rid-of-rudd-abbott-boasts-20100626-zatm.html

    In fact, he boasted how John Howard phoned to congratulate him: “He said you have done the greatest thing an opposition leader can – you have secured the collapse of a prime minister.”

  24. Forget the east

    If labor puls even two extra in the west

    that is four, yes four extra seats the fibs must gain

    if we pull 4 seats then the fibs need eight

    WA needs the infrastructure dollar- the fed fibs aint going to provide it,labor said it will

    QED

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 39 of 41
1 38 39 40 41