The Australian has published a Newspoll survey of 1134 respondents which finds 47 per cent of respondents want the rural independents to back Labor, compared with 39 per cent for the Coalition. There is, predictably enough, “almost unanimous partisan support among voters for the party they supported” – which can only mean primary vote support for the Coalition has taken a solid hit since the election, at which they polled 43.7 per cent. Hopefully more to follow.
UPDATE: We also have another JWS/Telereach robopoll courtesy of the Fairfax broadsheets, this time of 4192 respondents, which has 37 per cent for Labor, 31 per cent for the Coalition and 26 per cent for a new election. However, on voting intention the Coalition leads 44.9 per cent to 35.4 per cent on the primary vote and 50.4-49.6 on two-party preferred, suggesting most of those in favour of a new election are Coalition supporters.
UPDATE 2: Full JWS-Telereach release here, courtesy GhostWhoVotes. I gather the poll targeted 55 seats with post-election margins of less than 6 per cent, and the vote results above extrapolate the swings on to the national results. On Coalition costings, 40 per cent of respondents professed themselves very concerned and 19 per cent somewhat concerned, with only 35 per cent showing little or no concern. People are more concerned about the Greens balance of power in the Senate (49 per cent say “bad for Australia” against 39 per cent good) than the value of the Labor-Greens alliance (opinion evenly divided). Julia Gillard only just shades Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, 43 per cent to 41 per cent, and respondents are evenly divided on which party would prove more “stable and competent”.
[In defence of poor old Arch…… There would have been a lot of branch members wanting to know wtf went wrong. ]
Well then IMHO what the branch members deserved to get was contrition from Arch for his woeful performance delivering them into the hands of the conservatives.
The real question is, who leaked the contents of the Sub-Branch meeting to the media?
confessions, its from mon/tues. The costings fiasco broke wed. So before the black hole there had been a more than 10% swing against supporting the coalition in the indie electorates
Ta Andrew.
We’ll never really know why the Oz sat on the poll for several days, when Newspoll are usually very quick with the results, but I’m sure we all have our own views why. 😉
i can see why the shift yesterday in meme was to the left wing bogeyman. The opposition has lost their biggest argument to govern: that the voters in the indies electorates want the indies to back them.
i find it so odd in Shanahan’s article that he hasnt pointed out the big shift since the last indie seat poll. Coalition has gone from 54-34 to 39-47. That’s a 15% drop, with 13% of that going to Labor. This is a BOMBSHELL poll surely?
confessions, my best guess would be they wanted to wait to see how the week panned out, and since their side appears to have lost hope, put it out today, and not make much of the massive shift to Labor
If ALP wins and Libs in oppo, who are their leadership contenders? If they go with Abbott, Robb or Hockey those 3 are conspirators in the GBBH (great big black hole). ALP should be able to hammer them for the next 10 years. Just repeat the mantra.
RNM what beautiful karma given that is what Howard did to Beazely
RNM1953 – exactly. Those three have been financially neutered.
Never again will they be able to say anything on economics without being reminded of The Hogwarts Incident.
[So why are they waiting another weekend?
Convince me why this is happening.]
1. I assume because polls haven’t been officially declared. Though there may be challenges (and, as happened in Q 1995-6, by-election/s called) and a Green & an Indie have shown their hands, Declaration marks the election’s official end. The 3 Indies who decide who governs now know the polls’ official state.
2. In previous state “hung parliament” elections, letting the declaration period play out has proved revealing, even when no by-election was in play:
* In Q 1996 (by election) & 1998, both resulting in hung parliaments with Indies, pressure/ threats seem to be counter-productive
* If the Kennett Gov were still “in with a chance” after Vic election 1999, it big-mouthed & heavied itself into Opposition during the month’s Waiting
* In this year’s Tas election, Liberals’ loudly & aggressively trumpeting their moral “right to govern” after the result did not play well
3. The Waiting can produce “deal making/breaking” information.
Federal Waiting 2010 has seen Liberals’ repeat the “moral right” claim, outbursts from Nats & Lib, public abuse of Greens-ALP deal and Wilkie’s choice, and attempts to verbal Indies into backing them, most ludicrously on Friday.
It produced what might prove to be “deal making/breaking” information which could alter the election result if the nation were forced back to the polls:
* the truth about the Coalition’s budget/ electoral platform costings, which broke their own Charter of Budget Honesty
* a blatant & inappropriate $1 billion “sucker-trap” bribe to Tas Indie Wilkie to build a hospital costing less than 70% of that, delivered without going through “due process”
4. The Waiting allowed Indies to consult widely: interviews with & written submissions from both parties, with treasury, with individual Ministers.
They’ve presented, refined and represented combined & personal “want” & “wish” lists.
They’ve uncovered the Coalition’s $7-11 billion “black hole.
* The nation learnt that at least one Indie was offered an outrageous $1 billion bribe, without indicating how it would be funded and what cuts to which projects would be made to fund it. It circumvented due process. From this one could only guess what was offered to Katter, Oakshott and Windsor.
5. Today’s Newspoll, conducted Aug 27-29 (last weekend), before this week’s “black hole”, $1billion bribe, and much of the Coalition’s “dirty tricks” campaign were revealed, already showed a swing back to the ALP.
IOW: Federal Election 2010 “Waiting”, in which the L-NP repeated the Kennett government’s & Tassie Opposition’s big-mouthing mistake, also uncovered significant problems with the Opposition’s fiscal accounting, “budget honesty” (despite the Charter) willingness to suspend “due process” to fund “sweeteners” (aka bribes) to win an Indie’s support whilst preaching “fiscal restraint”.
Hope this answers your question.
[Never again will they be able to say anything on economics without being reminded of The Hogwarts Incident.]
Let me be the first to claim it that:
A Wilkie is a pork barrelling that doesnt bring home the bacon because the pigs fly”
One of big factors that the MSM has decided to ignore is the impact that the leader’s personalities and negotiating skills will have on the decision. Wilkie was clear that Abbott was very light on detail (something he is well known for) and willing to splash around the cash, whereas Gillard tried to fit his demands against existing commitments and processes.
Given the indies have dumped on Abbott twice re his costings (refusing to release then the released costings), re his threatening MPs’ phone calls, and re their fake constituent calls to their offices, I cant wait to see the avalanche of the dumping if they back Gillard on Monday
I hope Labor weave Tone’s Great Big New Black Hole into its own narrative of economic management. The coalition can’t be allowed to get away with this, for the simple reason that it involved the deceit of voters, whether intentionally or otherwise. Shame.
[Well then IMHO what the branch members deserved to get was contrition from Arch for his woeful performance delivering them into the hands of the conservatives.]
Maybe they did, but that doesn’t make good copy – “CONTRITE BEVIS THANKS BRANCH MEMBERS FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND SUPPORT”
[Mike Carlton pitches in and reflects on Peter Andren and the Indies
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/its-dark-ive-upset-my-bagman-and-im-down-to-my-undies-20100903-14ubw.html%5D
Thanks BH, that’s a very worthwhile read!
[ALP should be able to hammer them for the next 10 years. Just repeat the mantra.]
That will only happen if Labor and its campaigns aren’t still run by a few ex-union hacks who can’t comprehend any policy issue other than Workchoices. I am no fan of Workchoices, but, because it also represented a threat to the union movement itself, as well as worker’s rights, unionists have a disproportionately high degree of importance attached to it. A focus group of union mates won’t help see past this myopia either.
Apparently Rudd Removal turned Asian voters off LAbor in Sydney.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/a-disaster-of-labors-own-making-20100903-14uff.html
My sympathy goes to our cuz across the Tasman for the 7.1 earthquake affecting Christchurch and surround.
chinda
[The real question is, who leaked the contents of the Sub-Branch meeting to the media?]
A good question. In my experience not too many branch members cultivate friendships with journalists, so that leaves Arch himself as the prime suspect.
confession i think the biggest lesson is that Labor cant afford pardon the pun to lose another campaign as they did in 2004 and 2010 on the economy. they need to spruik their record relentlessly. Quite apart from the Rudd deposing/instability factor, the Liberals “$100m a day debt” was very effective, even to the point of bunting at polling booths “today, Labor has borrowed ANOTHER $100m”. THis would not have gotten traction had Labor had the courage to utter the word DEBT and explain why it was necessary. In fact, I only heard Gillard’s “100,000 income and 7,000 credit card” analogy in the last days of the campaign.
Labor have been wimps in the fight on the economy, and the black hole is the great opportunity to lift their game in this regard. And the ironic thing is if they had won a majority, we would never have known the extent of the black hole.
I actually think the Gillard can make the minority government work and it is an exciting opportunity. It may help Labor have backbone on issues such as climate change, gambling reform, and of course parliamentary reform. Gillard has seemed up to the challenge. Abbott has been petulant and seeking another poll.
Hoping that the final 2PP goes Labor’s way. I think the “illegitmacy”, “we wuz robbed” arguments from the opposition and the MSM will be mammoth. The world’s biggest ever dummy spit
And confessions, remember it is Hockey’s black hole if he takes over.
OzPol Tragic@110 …
Nice summation – hope it’s true!
You could possibly add one more:
6. It gave time for a “mood” to be established in their own electorates. Let’s face it, these guys all want to be re-elected next time, and even the biggest margin can be eroded in a single term – so they would want to find out which way the wind was blowing in their own electorates before deciding.
If so, the latest polling should be enough to guarantee their support for Labor – they can now claim to be following the wishes of the majority of own electorates, as well as the national interest.
I can’t really see how they could decide anything else and retain their credibility.
[Labor have been wimps in the fight on the economy, and the black hole is the great opportunity to lift their game in this regard. And the ironic thing is if they had won a majority, we would never have known the extent of the black hole.]
I agree Andrew. It was as though Gilalrd and half the Labor campaign team don’t know any more about economics than Abbott does. Hmmm, I wonder?
The constant reference to Hockey’s black hole leaves me with a mental image that makes me nauseous.
Spot on Oscar. The latest Newspoll is the final confirmation they need.
You have to wonder though why the coalition, having made up ground in the polls, going into an election which they were going to fight on the economy, didnt bother to get their costings in order and submit to Treasury?
It appears that they never intended to and they were behind the leak which was just a lame excuse. Do we blame Abbott’s focus on the politics not the policy, the laziness re the economy and policy detail?
One thing is for certain, if they lose this one they STILL wouldnt have learnt any lessons from two losses
[A good question. In my experience not too many branch members cultivate friendships with journalists, so that leaves Arch himself as the prime suspect]
I don’t think you would have to be a friend of a journalist to get that story up. I could thin k of any number of reasons why a branch member would leak that.
Socrates, if Labor scrapes through this they need to accept that the campaign was a complete failure. They may want to blame the leaks, but it wasn’t only about the leaks, it was absolute failure to fight on the economy. They also need to accept that you should stick by a leader even if the polls turn, but I’m sure they wont learn that one.
Ticker Headline on Slynews, Two new polls show voters want the Undies to support Labor. What is the other one apart from Newspoll?
It must gall Arch to have lost to a Gambaro, these people can’t even run a nice restaurant..their Caxton street seafood restaurant has been an object of ridicule in chef circles for years.
William 49
[In fact, the voting intention numbers required to make the Newspoll figures stack up are really bad for the Coalition – 54-46 to Labor territory]
Yes, plugging in their “last” newspoll numbers at the top of their page
(Coal 43.4, Lab 36.2, Oth 20.4)
you get (suspend mathematical disbelief please)
Support Coalition from majors supporters = 43.4*.92+36.2*.02=40.6
Support Labor from majors supporters = 36.2*.93+43.4*.02=34.6
Uncommitted from majors supporters = 43.4*.06+36.2*.05=4.4
Then assuming the others supporters supply the rest of uncommitteds
Uncommitted from others supporters = 14-4.4 = 9.6
Thus we are left with 20.4-9.6 = 10.8 others, let’s assume they split 50-50
Support Coalition from others supporters = 10.8*.5 = 5.4
Support Labor from others supporters = 10.8*.5 =5.4
This gives us – Support Coalition Minority Government = 40.6+5.4 = 46%
This gives us – Support Labor Minority Government = 34.6+5.4 = 40%
William is right, the “voting intentions” in this latest newspoll (which surely they must have asked, like I’m sure that Ogilvy one in the SMH must have also) must be really bad to produce a 47-39 result the other way.
If they had given the “TPP” support splits it would beeen easy to calculate exactly and it would have given the game away.
Finns
it was telereach
they rang me on thursday
[Socrates, if Labor scrapes through this they need to accept that the campaign was a complete failure. They may want to blame the leaks, but it wasn’t only about the leaks, it was absolute failure to fight on the economy. They also need to accept that you should stick by a leader even if the polls turn, but I’m sure they wont learn that one.]
If the indies choose Labor then it is not a failure. They were heading for defeat big time just months out from the election. To actually be in this position now, with a good chance of still governing, after dumping a first term PM and the leaks and the “disasters” to be frank will be a great achievement.
[Ticker Headline on Slynews, Two new polls show voters want the Undies to support Labor. What is the other one apart from Newspoll?]
Look above at William’s comments.
rocket, they didnt have a 2PP on their last indie seat poll, so I dont think there is a conspiracy there. But it is likely the OO had theses results Wed, and sat on them until today. It is also likely that Shanahan has deliberately played down the “BOMSHELL” of this poll, the massive swing to Labor in who the indie voters want them to support from 34/54 to 47/39
Gary, the campaign was a failure. Labor took a 2-4% lead into the campaign and lost it. If Labor doesnt get this, I will be very disappointed
Hmmm. You’d have to say, that on the back of Great Big New Black Hole, Labor should be able to win a new election easily, on grounds of trust and more transparent governance. No wonder the Abbottariat have given up on trying to engineer a re-election.
When I get back from work (minimal fortunately) this morning I’m spreadsheeting this newspoll thing using (I think from memory) diophantine equations.
Seriously, though, why didn’t The Australian just give us those raw numbers?
excuses (feel free to add suggestions)
[“We don’t trust Treasury”
“PBers are using different assumptions”
“Hogwarts has checked it all out”
“GhostWhoVotes is the leaker”]
Added to the black hole confessions is that the opposition dont trust Treasury, even after a process that excluded the government. You cant run the country if you cant trust the treasury. Simple
Rocket, um, if may just be that the numbers have gone from 34/54 to 47/39 for Labor. Shanahan has done a great job in kind of hiding this?
[You cant run the country if you cant trust the treasury.]
that would make a nice campaign slogan
[Ticker Headline on Slynews, Two new polls show voters want the Undies to support Labor.]
That reminds me, apologies if I missed someone else commenting on this (I haven’t seen it), but I notice that for the past 2 days, Slynews have been running a ticker headline that says WTTE “Coalition says that Labor-Greens alliance is a threat to private school funding”.
I haven’t seen or heard them saying this anywhere else and have been expecting the media to run with this.
Has anyone heard them trumpeting this line and where did you hear it?
Hmm, this looks like a last minute pitch to get the redneck support.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/04/3002514.htm
chinda, havent heard that line, but God I hope its true. And that middle class welfare is finally tackled
Frank, the opposition has STILL not realised that the campaign is OVER. They have priorities the public campaign over the private campaign to win over the independents
[You cant run the country if you cant trust the treasury. Simple]
And that’s the other galling thing about the campaign media scrutiny. When Robb, Hockey and Tone were all carrying on about Treasury, leaks and how they couldn’t trust them to cost their policies, nobody bothered to ask any of them who exactly they had in mind for implementing their policies if they won government.
The media really do have to have a good hard look at themselves.
Change “can’t” to “won’t” and you’ve got something there. Otherwise it sounds as if Treasury might have the problem.
confessions, I can guarantee that the MSM will NOT learn from this. The only reason Abbott was able to get to polling day with his costings hidden, was due to their support. Imagine if in the last few days the costings fiasco had gotten the same blanket negative coverage that the leaks did in week 2. I think it could have swung the election to Labor.
Even if they chose to swallow the “leak” excuse hook line and sinker, there was certainly enough info in the public domain of holes in the NBN, education rebate and veteran’s indexation to show the dodginess of their figures.
As with the issues with Rudd, the MSM will simply blame Gillard for not selling herself better. Reform of media ownership laws is the only away to tackle this problem. Oh and sacking the ABC board
[Mr Della Bosca will be replaced by Sophie Cotsis, a former policy adviser who is now a private infrastructure industry specialist.
She will be admitted to the Legislative Council in a special joint sitting next Tuesday, along with two new Greens members and the Shooters Party candidate chosen to replace the late Roy Smith. ]
Does anybody know anything about Ms Cotsis?
Of course, Gillard also could have spent the last day on the coalition’s costings black hole(s) rather than the silly and panicked, WC is back on Monday line
Aren’t readers of The Australian meant to be smart, well-educated people? It s one thing to push an agenda but to shamelessly try to con your audience backfires eventually.