Morgan phone poll: 52.5-47.5 to Labor in Victoria

Morgan has produced another poll on the Victorian state election, and this one’s a lot more credible than the last – a statewide phone survey conducted from a sample of 943 over the past three nights, with a margin of error of a bit over 3 per cent. Despite nervous talk emanating from the Labor camp, the poll gives them a comfortable two-party lead of 52.5-47.5, from primary votes of 39 per cent for Labor, 41.5 per cent for the Coalition and 15.5 per cent for the Greens. I gather the poll consists of the inner-city results from Tuesday topped up with a further 667 responses from elsewhere, with the former presumably weighted downwards to reflect the fact that they only account for 4.5 per cent of statewide enrolment. However, I’m not entirely sure what to make of Gary Morgan’s accompanying spiel in which he says the headline two-party figure is “slightly ‘misleading’ as it includes a very high ALP Two-party preferred vote (72.5%) cf. L-NP (27.5%) in the marginal Inner Melbourne seats of Richmond, Northcote, Brunswick and Melbourne”. It isn’t clear to me why the predictable weakness of the Liberals in this area would contribute to a “misleading” total any more than would Labor’s corresponding weakness in rural areas and wealthier parts of the city. The poll also has John Brumby leading Ted Baillieu as preferred premier 47.5 per cent to 35.5 per cent, although Baillieu has better personal ratings: Brumby is on 38 per cent approval and 43 per cent disapproval, while Baillieu’s approval and disapproval are both 40 per cent.

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.

168 comments on “Morgan phone poll: 52.5-47.5 to Labor in Victoria”

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  4. GG at: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/11/18/victorian-election-minus-nine-days/comment-page-4/#comment-687704
    [I said at the time, that self costings don’t count. However, you Greens always ignore information that doesn’t confirm your prejudices.]
    And I responded at the time with: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/10/29/nielsen-53-47-to-labor-in-victoria-2/all-comments/#comment-673377

    GG said:
    [I think the Greens need to submit their wish list to outside scrutiny]

    The PT plan for eastern metro region is publicly available for anyone to scrutinise it. The plan includes extensive explanation on how the costs were calculated and provides costing references.

    Where cost comparisons have been made from earlier studies or completed projects, the Reserve Bank of Australia – Inflation Calculator has been used to bring the costs to 2009 prices (the most recent year possible). Then to each 2009 cost, the 2010 June quarter inflation rate of 3.1% has been added.

    Page 11 and Appendix A: http://www.vic.greens.org.au/easternPTplan

    Also the Greens Party public transport policy also states in relation to funding the plan:
    [The current government’s ‘Victorian Transport Plan’ was released in 2008 and includes a project to build a North-East Freeway between Greensborough and Bulleen. The estimated cost of the project is stated as “More than $6 billion”, whilst providing only 5 kilometres of freeway.

    The Victorian Greens believe the re-allocation of $6 billion of public money from the proposed North-East Freeway, to the public transport projects outlined in this plan (and elsewhere), is the most economically, socially and environmentally responsible action to take for Victorians.]
    http://vic.greens.org.au/easternPTplan

  5. William

    There appears to be a discrepancy between Morgan fed and Morgan Vic. I assume that you can reduce Morgan fed by around 4% to get around about the reality. However, the Morgan Vic looks like it is in the ball park – at most maybe around 1% over the odds.

    If the above is correct, the question is: Why is the fed Morgan significantly more generous to Labor than the Vic Morgan?

  7. What should appear ‘ painfully obvious ‘ to both LNP and the Greens, barring a bloody miracle. Labor will be returned comfortably.

  8. Rod Hagen

    “My own fundamental view of Public Transport is that Labor will implement some useful improvements, ESPECIALLY IF if there are a couple of GREENS members in the lower house to keep them up to the mark..” !!

    I challenged that smug nonsense that was total unsubstanted , plus lack of greens skills , ands NO Treasury costing of Greens Transport Plan at all
    (and which Greens Party publicly REFUSE to submit there costings to !

    Your reply zigs and zags with wordy motherhoods saying nothing specific , but avoids both above points incl lack of an independant Tresury costing of your Greens Party

    w/o Treasury costings such “Transpot Plan” lacks th VERY credability , independance and expertise that Treasury costings does bring , and any sensible person knows Greens plan therefore is not worth any mor than a kid could write

  9. William Bowe

    “It isn’t clear to me why the predictable weakness of the Liberals in this area would contribute to a “misleading” total any more than would Labor’s corresponding weakness in rural areas and wealthier parts of the city.”

    perhaps un weight for inner seats vs state , and if weight what % did he use

    and anyways even with weight surely its taking an apple plus an orange because its done 2 nites of 667 , plus a poll of a total of just 276 in 4 seats on first nite which is hardly a represnt

  10. [What should appear ‘ painfully obvious ‘ to both LNP and the Greens, barring a bloody miracle. Labor will be returned comfortably.]
    Glad to hear it. You have convinced me that it is okay to cast a protest vote against the Brumby government without the adverse effect of bringing in a Coalition government 🙂

  12. Boerwar, the difference is that the federal poll is face-to-face and the state poll is a phone poll. There’s no reason to believe Morgan’s phone polls are different from anybody else’s, except that they tend to have smaller samples.

  13. [What should appear ‘ painfully obvious ‘ to both LNP and the Greens, barring a bloody miracle. Labor will be returned comfortably.]

    Your hubris would make Joffa proud. Have you got the gold jacket on?

    I think it will be closer than you think.

  16. Gusface most likely but so did we all think Gillard would too but it turned out closer than you think.

    An upset is a possibility but I think Brumby will get back with a couple seat majority.

    I too think the Greens will win Melb and possibly Richmond given their likely PV will be quite high and the leakage of Liberal preferences.

  17. No Glen,
    Joffa has to now got to go the Greensboro person,
    Greensboro Joffa, Ha Ha Ha
    Greensboro Joffa and his mate rono.
    Oh and delightful piece of research there from the esteemed Mr Morgan.
    Headline should have been,. “Greens shoulder the burden of reelecting unpopular right wing brumby government.”
    Liberal/ALP coalition likely to continue after 27th November,.
    Only one winner and thats Barber
    Richardson gone, to join here husband in the corporate sector
    Hows the pie and beer going joffa.

  21. “I think the helicopter view shows melb gone”

    well if get in trenchs , at grass roots Labor is fighting Greens , whilst on PB many Labor PBers seem oblivous to reality

    (despite public coments by Tanner , Brumby , Lenders , Richo , Bitar , and today Bill Shorten Assictant Teasuer of oz)

    and Melb or any Labor seat aint concede either

    and after th Vic Election where Greens Pref games has incr chanses of a Lib Govt , if anyone here naeve thinks Labor will forget such treachery or wont fight Greens in its own way they is mistaken

  23. Glen you live in a land where everything is rose colored, bit like your friend Pyne…
    you say “An upset is a possibility but I think Brumby will get back with a couple seat majority” still lack the ole ticker eh to actually be mature and make a statement. Nope just sit on the fence. You think something, you talk in possibilities, ever tried to think positive? Will your Libs win or lose? One word yes or no.

  24. How can I make a proper assessment of a State election nobody cares and the only time they do any indepth reporting of State politics is when an election is called, it’s much easier with Federals.

    Firstly David, if they were my Liberals I’d be voting for them which I am not.

    Brumby will win but not by much.

  25. [they always win when that gold jackey goes on ]

    Now, Ron, I don’t want to get you too worried, because I don’t think we are about to have another such moment, but, as a devout Bombers supporter I feel I have to remind you of a certain game on Anzac 2009, when said gold jacket was adorning a certain Joffa ‘s ample proportions, and a young bloke called Zaharakis kicked a goal on the run in the dying moments, thereby instantly turning the loudly chorusing magpie flock into nothing more than a mess of moulting and miserable black and white feathers!

  27. Glen 24
    [the only time they do any indepth reporting of State politics is when an election is called]
    It is strange isn’t it – The Age, The Herald-Sun and even The Australian all have reporters who cover Victorian State Politics, but they write (or publish?) very little between elections!

    It seems the media only get interested when there is a “dead-dog” State Govt like in Vic in 1992 or SA 1993 or NSW now, and then they literally flog a dead horse.

  28. 1 eg out of 10yrs jacket went on is an exciption in fact that proves th rule , and even then poor excepton anyway , with 3 hits in 3 min with last in last 3 secs , and even worser eg as then later did knee in front of th jackey

  29. Gusface
    Posted Friday, November 19, 2010 at 10:46 pm | Permalink

    “Ron i dont know the intricacies of Vic politics”

    I’ve prev blogged th reality , chances of a Lib govt were incr by Greens REFUSING Labors offer of 2nd prefs to Greens in both chambers for prefs in Labors 25 most marginol seats out of 88

    a 2nd offer also greens rejected
    reason was Greens tried to get Lib prefs in 4 safe Labor seats to pinch them

    That was Greens decision themselves to make and they made it BUT Greens priority is unqual publicly known now ie Greens is happy to incr chanses of a Liberal Govt , in exchange fopr Lib prefs to steel Labor seats nothing intricate there now

    However Greens Party also hav to wear th consequense both of risking electing a Lib govt by incr there chanses of winning significant , and of treachery of left values seeing State Govts ar 4 yr terms Labor Fed and vic Senior figures irrespectiv of result will not forget , no sugar coating will change that

  30. What was that Greg Barber said about holding all the cards?

    [
    Deal founders on Green arrogance.
    ]

    [

    So how did the Greens, boasting they were “sitting pretty” and waiting for Labor and the Liberals to come to them, manage to mess up the negotiations with both parties so badly?

    Labor and Liberal insiders claim arrogance and the fatal assumption by the Greens that the Liberals would never preference Labor ahead of the Greens. Others say the Greens tried to have their cake and eat it too by negotiating with the parties at the same time.

    As the negotiations ticked on for more than a month, Labor offered preferences designed to prevent the Greens from doing a deal with the Liberals. The Liberals got fed up with the crumbs on offer from the Greens and decided to give voters a clear choice. The conservatives would give nothing to a party they saw as playing both sides against the middle.

    “Bob Brown has alleged that the Liberals and Labor joined forces to squeeze out the Greens. That could be nothing further from the truth,” says a furious internal email sent from secretary of the ALP left Andrew Giles. “In fact, the Greens have been caught out trying to negotiate a preference deal with the Liberals, only to have it blow up in their face.”
    ]

    …

    [
    Observers say the Greens acted almost as if they had a birthright to the Liberal preferences and assumed the Liberals would never put Labor ahead of the Greens in the four inner-city seats.
    ]

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/victorian-election-2010/deal-founders-on-greens-arrogance/story-fn6wlyrv-1225956794095

  31. rod comment 25.

    apart from Matthew Lloyd taking out sewell and sparking us to beat the hawks to make the 8 in 2009. the zaharakis goal was our best moment in 2009 and if memory serves me correct the goal was kicked to put us in front with 11 seconds to go.

    moral of the story- anything can happen…

    however i expect labor to be returned with a single figure majority and the greens to struggle to win seats. even though the likelyhood of preference leakage is high, the greens will need to beat the alp in primary vote to win any of the 3 of the 4 inner melbourne seats and the consensus i have heard is that its unlikely

    Brunswick will still be interesting though, i reckon it will be the greens best chance with good help from Cleary

  32. For the marginal value it adds… I attempted the proper psephological thing and…

    popped this polls changes since 2006 into Antony Green’s calculators…

    All the usual caveats apply: I don’t expect a uniform swing, the calculators are a generalization and not exactly the same as a real count and I expect Antony has the latest preference recommendations consequences in the LA so on…

    LA 3 to the Greens and 3 to the Libs making
    ALP 49 LibNats 35 Greens 3 Others 1

    LC well we will see
    EM 2ALP, 2Lib 1Grn
    EV 2ALP 3LibNat
    NM 3ALP 1Lib 1Grn
    NV 2ALP 3LibNat
    SEM 3ALP 2Lib
    SM 2ALP 2Lib 1Grn
    WM 3ALP 1Lib 1Grn
    WV 2ALP 2LIb 1Grn
    Total of 19 ALP 16 Lib&Nat 5 Green

    I might have made the odd error but it seems about right. On these figures a couple of percent “leakage” in LC did not look like it would make too big a difference.

    Still the possibility that the Liberals could give the ALP both the Assembly and the Council by preferncing the ALP before the Greens in the LC and dealing themselves out of a say might be in the realms… what do people think?

  33. “It’s smear by Twitter as Labor staffers go underground”

    [LABOR is infiltrating social media sites to promote John Brumby and smear his political opponents in an underground campaign being run by staffers who work in the Premier’s taxpayer-funded private office.

    The Age has obtained internal Labor documents revealing the identity, aliases and passwords of more than a dozen Labor players in the Twitter campaign as well as extensive lists of websites and blogs being trawled and manipulated by Labor’s social media team.

    Each twitter alias has a ”purpose” labelled either ”Pro Labor”, ”Attack Dog” or ”Super Attack”, with a member of Labor’s three-person social media team responsible for mobilising them as campaign issues arise.

    The social media team is run by Labor volunteers Phil Barker, James Wilson and Seamus Coleman, who also work in the Premier’s private office.

    A work roster for the social media unit shows each of the three team members is also working for the Premier’s office during the campaign.

    The documents also include a second list of Labor ”punters” for Twitter with the warning ”not to be used until the final week” and notes Labor MPs and candidates who are active on Twitter, including the Premier, Water Minister Tim Holding and Education Minister Bronwyn Pike.

    There is also a category of tweeters called ”Obviously ALP” that target Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu and the Greens. One is Ted Staffer, a ”satire Ted staffer account”, and Anti Greens, a ”Greens attack account”.

    Another document, titled ”to do”, lists more than 100 websites under surveillance by the Labor social media unit – from AFL fan sites, to community activist sites such as Save the Victoria College of the Arts, local council home pages and specialist railway websites.

    Each entry has the date the site was accessed, the title of discussion topics, aliases for posts and the action required – ”engage or attack”.

    Observations in the document include ”posted as jezza” and ”posted anonymously”.

    A note about the website australianpoliticstv.org stated: ”Updated but not comments at all, dunno how much benefit there is with starting a convo with ourselves.”

    Another website note says: ”Worth voting in the poll, but I don’t think we’ll win anyone with comments.”

    Other websites being monitored include The Age, the Greens, Yarra Climate Action Now, Ballarat Ultimate (Frisbee), Baby and Bump, Hunt and Shoot Network on Vic Duck Hunting and Doggies Blog.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-election-2010/its-smear-by-twitter-as-labor-staffers-go-underground-20101119-1811i.html

  34. adam,

    It’s pretty clear by the tone, tenor and content of their posts, that Barking, Pegasus and Hagen are the Labor operatives on PB.

    It’s a disgrace I tell yahs.

  37. GG
    This leads to a fundamental political dilemma for Victorian voters:

    ‘Is the Lib Treasury spokesman the sum of his parts or only part of his sums?’

  38. If I was Baillieu, I would be mighty peeved. Abbott has gotten such a leg-up from the MSM, but Baillieu gets not such help, be it beat-ups pre-campaign, or campaign coverage. For example, the herald sun today has the election stuff hidden, and is even a bit balanced.

    Why is it so unfair?

  39. so Vic Labor has a media strategy that includes partisan ‘blogging!

    I always check on PB for partisan views, especially ones I thought I’d disagree with for an opinion epifany. I particularly select the most bitter and unsubstantiated or prefereably unsubstatiatable comments that build a mythology that makes me want to vote for the ALP.

    Its working great. now I want to become a zombie member of the comentariat than publishes notions from the ‘blogosphere without consideration, to shift great swathes of votes to the ALP!

  41. andrew

    the MSM give your lot a better go than:

    Bob Brown’s OK but that dangerous single issue selfish environmentalism is actually a front for stalinist, nazi, anarchist bestiality indoctrinating, amoral drug forcing on children, innumerate, see its in this selective misquote from their expired policy you are not going to substantiate, cuddly but irrelevantly naive and godless threat to the foundation and fabric of an otherwise prefectly healthy society. These crazy people are all like that and they’re going to make you like that too, so be afraid of these irrelevant educated compassioante assured ordinary nimbys.

    No wonder the green vote is growing, at least they don’t seem to be the boring kind-hearted suburban folk that they really are, if you follow the MSM.

    Back to sipping Lattes and quaffing Chardonnay for me. Piece of tempeh with my homemade THC stereotype cookie, yum. Not that theres anything wrong with that.

  43. [
    An Opposition spokesman said: “Kim Wells humiliated John Lenders on the ABC Stateline debate last Friday and decided to spare him any further indignity.”

    The Coalition has consistently refused to provide detailed costings of its promises or any savings other than cutting government advertising and curbing spending on consultants.

    The only promise Mr Baillieu will make is that the costings of its election promises, by an independent accounting firm, will be released before Friday.
    ]

    What a pathetic excuse from the Lib’s. Wells isn’t showing because he wants to spare Lenders the indignity of a thrashing? Worst excuse I’ve heard in a long time. They should have just used the old “a dog ate our Kim Wells” excuse and be done with it

    I wonder if the Libs are going to use that bunch of accountants from the West that the Fed Libs used to do their costings during the Federal election campaign.

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/kim-wells-retreats-john-brumby-goes-on-the-attack/story-e6frf7kx-1225956806992

  45. Good Gracious Me, fancy that , ALP staffers spend taxpayer funded time blogging on sites like this, wow, who would have guessed,.
    Always intrigues me that they do ridiculous things like triiny too speel things lice polisy wRONg just as if they thinc that wes canrt tell theys stafferss.. Ha Ha ha ha , ALP dirty trick, hows the pie for Brekkie Greensboro Joffa.
    I have a hunch that we could identify they operative on here with out much problem, expect comment like
    ‘Greeens prefrencing deel show polisy out the wyndow and now exposed as a LIb Green alliance.

  48. “46 Diogenes
    Posted Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 11:49 am | Permalink
    Barking
    The article says no taxpayer funded time is spent on those activities.”

    This is the problem with the ALP spin doctors they are increasingly treating voters like fools. So what you are saying is that people who just happen to spend hours doing this stuff just happen to get jobs, taxpayer jobs on merit. Wow how convienient, who would have thought. Its this type of ridiculous half truth that disgust many people about the ALP.
    We all know people who move about these types of ‘assistant, media manager, etc’ and the only reason they get these jobs is that the are ALP diehard, flunkies. Bad enough that you trot out this tripe in the media but to come on to a site like this where everyone with half an ounce of brains know exactly what is going on is a blot on your otherwise good posts,.
    I can only hope your were being iRONic, huh,.

  49. Gus,

    He also criticisises the Ronster for his dyslexia which is pretty low. It’s amusing that Ron makes more sense and is more coherent than Barking’s dreary drivel of childish abuse.

  50. “Primary support for the ALP is 39% (down 1% from October 19-27, 2010 and down 4.1% from the 2006 Victorian State Election), L-NP 41.5% (down 1%, but up 1.9% from the 2006 Election), the Greens 15.5% (up 2.5% and up 5.5% from the 2006 Election), Family First 1.5% (unchanged, but down 2.8% from the 2006 Election) and Independents/Other 2.5% (down 0.5%).”

    I am as mad as hell, but I’ll take these numbers, the ALP flunkies on here need to look again, 4.1% down on their primary, Greens up 5.5% on primaries, Fark and you lot keep crowing, if I were youse i’d be reellly havung a goood look at mi polisies.

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