Crikey reports that what is presumably the last Essential Research poll for the campaign has Labor’s lead at 51-49, down from 52-48 last week. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up two points to 44 per cent and Labor is down two to 39 per cent, with the Greens steady on 10 per cent. As always, it should be noted that Essential Research is a composite of two weeks’ combined polling: reading between the lines, the week-level results for Labor through the course of the campaign seem to have gone 55, 55, 53, 51, 51. Jason Whittaker at Crikey relates:
There’s little movement in personal approval ratings, with Julia Gillard climbing a point to 46% approval (her disapproval ratings remains steady at 40%), while Tony Abbott also jumps a point but remains behind on 41% approval (44% disapproval). Head-to-head, 46% believe Julia Gillard would make a better prime minister (up one point) ahead of Tony Abbott on 35% (up two points). Gillard’s attention on the economy in the final week of the campaign is backed by Essential. Asked which leader would better handle another financial crisis should it eventuate, 42% named the Labor leader while 35% nominated Tony Abbott and the Liberals.
Full report from Essential to follow shortly.
General:
• George Megalogenis in The Australian argues that while the mortgage belt “has less reason to be grumpy with Julia Gillard this year than it had been with John Howard in 2007”, owing to slightly lower interest rates and an even lower real debt burden than at that time, “the grey belt has a simple financial trigger to loathe Labor, and to long for a return to the Coalition’s brand of economic management, because superannuation nest eggs have been smashed over the past three years”. He also says Labor’s troubles in Queensland can in part be traced to the sharpest rises in petrol prices in the nation, “while Brisbane home owners have seen their capital gains party come to an end at a time when the rest of the nation was still booming”.
• Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that according to media buying agency MindShare, Labor spent $3.5 million on television advertising in capital cities during the second fortnight of the campaign compared with $3 million for the Coalition, after “sitting out” the second week of the campaign. A “close student of the TV ad industry” says Labor is screening four attack ads for every one positive, while the Liberal ratio is three to one.
• Steve Lewis of the Daily Telegraph reports an Auspoll survey finds Wayne Swan with a 54-46 lead over Joe Hockey as “best able to manage the budget”, 32 per cent rating the Building the Education Revolution program a success against 42 per cent who deem it a failure, and a narrow majority being comfortable with the Greens holding the balance of power.
Local:
Longman (Qld, Labor 1.7%): News Limited has obtained footage of an incident in which a Labor agitator was set upon by a campaigner for Liberal National Party candidate Wyatt Roy. As AAP reports it, Roy “can be seen just metres away on his phone during the altercation, but does not intervene”.
Dawson (Qld, Labor 2.4%): Labor candidate Mike Brunker has been involved in an altercation with 68-year-old Bowen Turf Club president Cyril Vains during a dispute about the former’s attempts to place election signs near the entrance to the racetrack. Brunker says the club president “king hit” him on the nose in an “unprovoked assault”. His account is backed by Whitsunday deputy mayor Rogin Taylor, who says Vains “seemed intent on fighting Mike”. The turf club says Vains has “scratches and a bruise from being punched in the face”.
Parkes (NSW, Nationals 13.7%): Barrie Cassidy referred to a strong independent prospect in Parkes on yesterday’s Insiders. This turns out to be John Clements, a former staffer to New England independent Tony Windsor, who has been talking up his chances. Windsor also rates Louise Burge “a good chance in Farrer”.
Lingiari (NT, Labor 11.2%): The management committee of the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party has defied its leader in the Territory parliament, Terry Mills, by refusing to disendorse Lingiari candidate Leo Abbott for neglecting to inform the party he had pleaded guilty to breaching a domestic violence order.
First?
[/immature]
what was the last essential result? at this stage all the polls all blending into one for me
[so this has been out let able to talk about it and have friends that do, funny thing to use the word talk but u all know what i mean]
my say,
You’re spot on, Comrade! 🙂
Still anyones – just the result to get people active
@Ron 1125 (last thread).
Yes, I agree – but if she simply doesn’t turn up to the Rabbott’s town hall debate, she may get an undeserved backlash from Qld voters – so instead she must give them a chance to ask her questions. Doesn’t need to be a “town hall” thingy though.
MOE stuff at the moment from all the pollers.
It seems pretty stuck at the 51-52:49-48 level.
Too close for comfort. Interesting to see if there is betting market movement.
Damn – meant @Ron 1225 (last thread).
@Parramatta,
1.28 Labor
3.80 Coalition
Centrebet.
Currently.
Another interesting result from Essential.
Nielsen 53/47
Newspoll 52/48
Essential 51/49
[Posted Monday, August 16, 2010 at 1:47 pm | Permalink
what was the last essential result? at this stage all the polls all blending into one for m]
keep in mind it is done over two weeks
i hope william explains how that pans out if it was over one week may be
Libs are getting slammed on Broadband. It’s amazing they didn’t anticipate this would be a problem.
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 1:56 pm | Permalink
Nielsen 53/47
Newspoll 52/48
Essential 51/49
12 my say
any point doing an average or not
chinda63
They were too focussed on stopping the boats!!
[i hope william explains how that pans out if it was over one week may be]
It’s 2 weeks, both at 51/49.
my say,
You’ll end up at 52:48!
Don’t write off Sefky in Cowper. If he wins and the nats get rolled in Parkes, they will be left with 6 seats – with a bit of shoving they literally could get into a phone booth
Re: comments on Annabel C.
I’ve only just woken up to the fact that she has changed her tone since she is writing for the ABC. At first she was just the funny commentator and I enjoyed her articles, but she is slowing growing towards “correct” ABC bias. I agree with previous comment early this morning (last night?) who said it taken a while for the full effect of Howard’s revision of ABC to seep through.
Also – disgusted with the efforts on ABC 24. Overall a failure (and the text person can’t spell, either).
It will be interesting to see the roundings – is it 50.X or 51.X?
lizzie.
It took this election cycle for me to really see the ABC become tory friendly.
Whoa there, William!
Shouldn’t that be “Labor campaigner was set upon by an LNP agitator”?
From what I could see the Labor guy did nothing to deserve a series of assaults culminating in a right hook from that grumpy old bastard.
victoria
Yes, admit I was a bit slow, but I’m there now.
BigBob
Math is not my strong suit. Not sure re roundings.
The other thing that has been interesting this campaign is watching the economic commentators.
They are genetically hardwired to support the Opposition, but you can just see them really struggling to say anything positive about Abbott’s performance or, for that matter, really effectively slam Labor on its economic management.
Even when they are parroting Coalition talking points, you can just tell their hearts aren’t in it.
Poor lambs 😉
Actually I think there are only 6 nats at the moment so that would go down to 4 – time to wrap it up surely
[I am in the electorate of Canning (WA). I thought they said Telechoice ( but that is a phone company) anyone else polled know who they were? I would like to know that poll result.]
Catalyst@872 last thread – I was polled and the link for the results is
http://www.telereach.com.au
Results will be available tomorrow.
[chinda63
Posted Monday, August 16, 2010 at 1:56 pm | Permalink
Libs are getting slammed on Broadband. It’s amazing they didn’t anticipate this would be a problem]
on radio or tv
when one thinks about it comes back to their laziness on policy and laziness in life, not thinking about the future just living for now and in the past, if they did not realise one and all of then about fibre well what hope have they to see anything new in our future
Isn’t Centrebet $1.26 ALP to $3.80 Coalition? Most of the Betting seem to have shortened to ALP?
I didn’t think he deserved it either, BB. That doesn’t alter the fact that he was there attempting to disrupt an LNP campaign event.
@lizzie 19
Like many people here, I hope Labor does some “strategic realignment” of the ABC when they win the election.
The ABC used to be a class act – but we’re still suffering Howard’s legacy.
The polls all confirm one thing: the Liberals were several points behind when the polls were taken over the preceding few days. Given the usual drift in favour of the Government over the closing days of any campaign and the “momentum” of the last couple of days, it seems almost impossible for the Liberals to overhaul Labor.
The boats issue has been done to death, and now reduced to the absurd by Abbott himself. The economy is working for Labor. The big policy contests – NBN, health and education, CC – are also working for Labor, as are the broader issues of leadership and “vision” for the future.
The Howard-Robb-Minchin-Abbott doctrine of doing as little as possible in relation to nearly everything of substance is about to be defeated for a second time.
[Whoa there, William!
Shouldn’t that be “Labor campaigner was set upon by an LNP agitator”?
From what I could see the Labor guy did nothing to deserve a series of assaults culminating in a right hook from that grumpy old bastard.]
Yes, BB.
All reports from the incident showed it was about the Labor people trying to set up a photo opportunity so that Wyatt Roy was it shot while someone in front was holding up an “L” plate.
The Liberal guy objected to this and came over to disrupt the shot. When they told him to bugger off, he resorted to fisticuffs.
[Nielsen 53/47
Newspoll 52/48
Essential 51/49]
And indeed Galaxy effectively saying 51-49, notwithstanding the various different kinds of rubbish that have been spoken about that poll.
[Don’t write off Sefky in Cowper. If he wins and the nats get rolled in Parkes, they will be left with 6 seats – with a bit of shoving they literally could get into a phone booth]
Wouldn’t I love to see that after the rubbish that Barnaby has been spreading around rural areasin his ‘town hall’ meetings.
Oscar @ 31
I think I really began to worry when they started broadcasting the climate sceptics’ stuff. Instead of taking a “reasoned argument, let’s look at all sides” attitude, they went into dumb “equal time” mode. I would have enjoyed a real debate, but …
Now their “equal time” in the election campaign is leading to some very strange results. (Especially when they tend to lead with “the opposition says” every day – biased comment from me…)
[last night?) who said it taken a while for the full effect of Howard’s revision of ABC to seep through.
Also – disgusted with the efforts on ABC 24. Overall a failure (and the text person can’t spell, either).]
will be lobby my senator to take a look at the abc and see how they spend their money re wages there seems to have been a big explosion on their web site of unnecessary areas re the drum and unleashed, with people who do not work for the abc they must all be payed, This must be to the detriment of could quality drama perhaps
forward estimated is the place to start.
And after the election, when we are returned who would bother reading any of that stuff any way it its still there it would be interesting to have a look to see what they write and how many people comment and see who the writers are,.
a good dose of epsom salts is needed
Cracker stuff on twitter bout Tony’s boat issue.
donnimus iFloat 2.0 – new update for the #boatphone – fails to launch. #ausvotes
rebeccak971 RT @katelhunter: Note to @TonyAbbottMHR. They are our Navy, not your bouncers. #boatphone #ausvotes
[36 lizzie
Posted Monday, August 16, 2010 at 2:08 pm | Permalink
Oscar @ 3]
Lizzie have you had a look at the polical sword who are doing some work on this subject if not go and have a look at their abc watch
o hope they do big things with it
Betfair has Labor out to $1.37 – $1.39, although the bookies’ agencies are firm at around $1.26. I’d be snapping up those Betfair odds if I wasn’t already set.
39 my say
Thanks for the tip.
my say @1228 (last thread)…
By all means you can use that. I do like accurate history 🙂
From the enlightened ones on this blog. What does this poll mean for us?
They just keep coming.
Anyone care to speculate on what impact Latham’s ‘leave the ballot blank’ intervention will have? It’s been given a wide run in the mainstream media and I worry that disillusioned Labor voters may be more likely to follow his advice than on the conservative side of politics.
preamble:
[“close student of the TV ad industry” says Labor is screening for attack ads for every one positive]
How many attack ads?
[THE Australian Medical Association has endorsed Julia Gillard’s plan to give rural and regional Australians access to online health consultations.
AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said in a statement that the $392.3 million investment would help doctors use technology to provide services to patients who would otherwise have limited or no access to them.]
I bet Tone will say but er you can do it already…
@triton
I think William he misspelt four.
[From the enlightened ones on this blog. What does this poll mean for us?
They just keep coming.]
Things are close, Labor could lose but probably won’t.
JJ Fiasson@44
I’m a little disturbed that I have already decided to do what Latham is now espousing, in the Reps anyway.
@ 46 ruawake
Yes, he did. I put it on the previous blog.