Inner Melbourne Morgan phone micro-poll

Roy Morgan hasn’t let itself be put off by the flak it copped with last week’s small-sample poll results from the four inner-city Labor-versus-Greens contests, repeating the exercise with only a slightly larger sample of 327 respondents. Taken together they show Labor leading the Greens 53-47, which is seven points better for Labor than last week’s poll. All told this points to a 3 per cent swing to the Greens compared with 2006, which if uniform would just tip Labor out in Melbourne, but leave them safe in Richmond, Brunswick and Northcote. This is indeed borne out by the seat-by-seat breakdowns, which have it at 50-50 in Melbourne, 57-43 in Richmond, 52-48 in Brunswick and 52.5-47.5 in Northcote. The margin of error on the combined result is approaching 5.5 per cent.

UPDATE: Now Morgan offers a spiffy video display of “worm”-style Reactor responses to various election ads. It finds Coalition voters were far more positive about their own side’s advertising than were Labor’s, but that Labor appeared to offer both the most (attacking Liberal spending plans) and least (the famous Baillieu Knight Frank ad) effective attack ads. Labor also did pretty well among independents and Greens with a humanised John Brumby’s fireside chat on the economy. Labor’s “meerkat” and the Liberals’ “are we there yet” attack ads failed to impress Greens and independents in roughly equal measure, but the Liberals did better with their “mouldy fruit” ad. The Greens ad, once it began laying on the hard sell, found Labor voters responding barely less positively than to ads from their own side, while Coalition and independent voters headed south.

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.

403 comments on “Inner Melbourne Morgan phone micro-poll”

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  5. Previous thread:

    [ I’m what you call a hard Centre.

    Which has always been a nice euphemism for the nutty one in the chocky box.]

    GG is nothing like a box of chocolates. You always know what you’re going to get.

  6. Don’t know if losing seats to the point of retaining a slim majority can be called a ‘convincing labor victory’.

    Does look like the ducks are lining up to be shot at with labor putting the country alliance in the upper house though.

  8. LLP,

    The trend is your friend.

    Every new poll is showing a gradual improvement in Labor’s position.

    The Libs have run out of steam and the Greens are imploding since this latest poll.

  11. The larger trend I am referring to is Labor’s continual diminishing of its primary vote into the 30’s, the coalition staying flat and the Greens continually rising.

  12. [I prefer to see you as the blind idiot, kind of like the German people in ‘45 still thinking Germany will win the great wall and Hitler is the Messiah]

    The German people had no illusions about defeat in 1945: only hardcore Nazis still professed belief in victory, and even they didn’t really believe it. The confidential SD reports to Himmler show that most Germans lost their faith in Hitler after Stalingrad, although few were willing to say so.

    Nazi analogies to current politics are generally silly if not offensive.

  13. Yes, Psephos, an old German who had been in the Luftwaffe told me that the Luftwaffe people generally hated Hitler (and the feeling was mutual) – he told me of the despair through 1944 when they could all see what was going to happen, and how some of them even mentioned the unmentionable (killing the Fuhrer).

    He even went so far as to say that Hitler had deliberately understaffed the POW camps which the Luftwaffe ran, hoping to embarrass the with a major escape. “The Great Escape” from Stalag Luft III fulfilled his wish.

  15. Psephos,

    I trust you are well.

    I agree with your point and I’d normally invoke Godwins law or some such. However, it’s sometimes better to let those exposing themselves to long term ridicule to get on with the job.

  16. GG, I’m very well thanks. Also very busy which is why I’ve had to forego the pleasure of arguing with y’all recently.

    My prediction: Brumby government re-elected with small overall majority.

  20. Interesting to note that the JWS guy (from previous thread) is of the opinion that seats further up the pendulum may be in play.

    Seymour makes sense. Mexican (I think it was) took the view yesterday that if Mordialloc was swinging big, Carrum might as well. I saw Macedon mentioned months ago as not being as secure as it looks – and if Geelong and Bellarine were behaving similarly to South Barwon, then they are seats to watch as well. I also think that Yan Yean could be an outlier. Ivanhoe, if the north-south freeway link issue has gained traction, could also be in for a big swing – but would need a massive swing for the ALP to lose. The latter issue may also impact in Eltham though it has not been on anybody’s radar.

    If the SA scenario – safe seats falling, marginal seats holding – comes to pass on Saturday – the political parties may need to adjust their campaign styles in future.

  21. Just been looking at all the preference flows for the six candidates in Forest Hill (my electorate). The United Firefighters Union of Victoria is handing out a HTV advocating a vote #1 Greens with ALP last. The union is also handing out its non-candidate HTV in Richmond, Mt Waverley, Mitcham, Melbourne and Northcote.

    The HTV’s printed message is: More firefighters not less; Protect your family, Vote 1 Fire safety.

  22. Tom 19

    I think in the ALP you are kicked out if you cross the floor and vote against the party, but members and candidates are allowed to stray from the party line a bit in statements. Not in the People’s Front of Judea though!

  24. I received a “3 Reasons not to vote for the Greens” flyer from the Libs in the mail today. I’m in the seat of Kilsyth.

    The three reasons are

    They Want to Introduce a “Death tax”

    They Want to Close Victorian Power Stations

    The Want to Abolish the Private Health Insurance rebate

    It’s the first time I’ve received an anti Greens flyer from the Libs before. They aren’t mucking around!

  25. I heard the ABC radio interview with Greg Barber today. He sounded just the same as any political apparatchik. He would not mention Cheryl Wragg’s name. Even when asked by the interviewer if he would, he refused, saying, “What’s the point?”

    If you are going to claim to be better than the other parties, you had better actually be better.

  26. Rocket Rocket,

    ALP MPs who cross the floor are normally kicked out or suspended, but not always. A number of Aboriginal Labor MPs voted against their government in the NT, and nothing happened to them. Mr James, the Labor MP for Hunter, voted to keep the death penalty, and nothing happened to him either as far as I can recall.

  27. Almost every day, we have been receiving addressed mail by political candidates, the bulk being from Kirstie Marshall.

    Today we received an addressed letter from Kirstie Marshall’s partner telling us how much she cares. It was adorned with two pictures drawn by her children. Made me want to puke.

  28. The Herald Sun has been running a very strong anti-Labor line for at least the past week, the latest being the speed camera non-issue. The letters pages are also full of anti-Labor letters. I sent the following reply to one:

    J. Morrissey’s claim that Labor offers too little too late (Your Say, November 20) is all too typical of Liberal supporters, who seem to think that we have all forgotten the last 18 years.

    Labor is the party that has now put $3 billion in capital expenditure into rebuilding schools, the party which has made our primary schools the best staffed they have ever been and the party which has returned proper academic disciplines like history and geography to the curriculum.

    It is now promising to fund a wonderful initiative of camps for all year nine students, such as private schools extol in their marketing, and it gets condemned because it didn’t do it eleven years ago.

    This initiative will return another 400 of the teachers stolen from our secondary schools by the Liberals when last in office. That is 400 more than Ted Baillieu has promised.

    Labor has spent eleven years rebuilding the state, yet Liberal supporters pretend their party was not the one that dismantled community services and fail to even notice the new schools, hospitals, trains, roads, teachers, nurses, doctors and police that Labor has provided all around them.

    Yours sincerely,
    Chris Curtis

    Emailed to hsletters@heraldsun.com.au
    As Look around and see!

    My letter has not been published. Indeed, it is very rare for a letter to be published defending the government.

    I think that Labor will be returned with a small majority, but it will be almost impossible for the party to win in 2014. I hope that those in the party with power have a good long hard look at themselves and work out why a party ahead 57-43 last year is so close to the margin now.

  30. I just listened to Michael O’Brien from the Liberals being interviewed by Steve Price and Andrew Bolt about Hazlewood this morning. He agreed with them that shutting down Hazlewood was going to cost jobs and money, increase power bills etc. He slammed Labor and the Greens and said the Liberals had a fundamentally differant position on the issue.

    All going great, then he was asked by Price “what will you do with Hazlewood?”. O’Brien proceeded to say he was happy to talk to the owners about “phasing it down”! He couldn’t confirm the Liberals were not going to shut it down. Bolt and Price were not happy. Hilarious

    http://www.mtr1377.com.au/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=7291

  35. [She lost pre-selection because of various scandals, not for any views on ALP policy.]

    Besides which, defeat in a routine preselection process is a different thing from disendorsement after the event.

  36. Hard centre is more than a euphemism. It’s a delusion. It’s a description suburban scaredy-cats apply to themselves when they can’t confront their hunger for the dull mediocrity, the life-force-sapping status quo that surrounds them. It’s what political misanthropes who once styled themselves as humanitarian and broad-minded – but who now sit around in grey cardigans and dream about golf – call themselves when they can’t summon sufficient imagination or courage to tell it like it is and be proud of who they are.

  37. I’m intrigued by a technical aspect of the disendorsement of the Greens #2 in Eastern Victoria. I assume that it’s a hypothetical, with the Greens unlikely to reach more than a quota. However, it is presumably conceivable that a candidate disendorsed, but remaining on the ballot paper, would benefit from above-the-line votes.
    The only partial precedent I can think of was Pauline Hanson’s success in Oxley 1996, when she had been formally disowned by the Liberal Party, but her name and party affiliation remained on the ballot paper, doubtless to her and the Liberals’ advantage.
    There is also the practice in lower house constituencies, at least where the death of any candidate between the close of nominations and polling day cause a postponement. Does that also apply for upper house/ Senate elections?

  39. Inner Westie,

    Sounds like you’ve been in a closet too long with all that talk about golf clubs, cardigans and pussy cats. Just like yesterday, let out your inner bigot. You know you want to.

  41. [There is also the practice in lower house constituencies, at least where the death of any candidate between the close of nominations and polling day cause a postponement. Does that also apply for upper house/ Senate elections?]

    Peter Collier, the #1 candidate on the Dignity For Disability ticket in the SA state election, died after the ballot papers were printed; in that instance his votes were simply automatically passed on to the #2 candidate, Kelly Vincent. Apparently if a second candidate had died before polling day, then the election for the Legislative Council would have been postponed.

  43. Greens top Save Our Suburbs (SOS) planning survey:
    [Residents’ lobby group Save Our Suburbs has welcomed the Greens commitment to introduce more prescription, transparency and certainty into Melbourne’s planning regime, along with a greater role for councils and communities in planning decisions.

    The Greens and the Liberals were the only parties to respond to a survey conducted by Save Our Suburbs which sought a response from each of the three major parties to their Position Statement on town planning issues. Planning Minister Justin Madden failed to respond.

    SOS President Ian Wood said that the Greens response would meet the concerns of Melbourne residents that their views on planning matters were not being heard.]
    Media Release: http://www.saveoursuburbs.org.au/node/188

    SOS Residents’ Voice – Special election issue: http://www.sos.asn.au/files/images/NL28_Nov_10.pdf

  45. Peter Fuller, I’m pretty sure that if the Greens get a second quota in the usual fashion, Cheryl Wragg will be elected whether they like it or not. Legislative Council elections are not voided by the death of a candidate as Assembly elections are – the election proceeds and the count is basically conducted as if the deceased candidate wasn’t there.

  49. [Apparently if a second candidate had died before polling day, then the election for the Legislative Council would have been postponed.]

    That is the case in South Australia, but apparently not in Victoria. Although you would think it would make more sense there, seeing as it has eight small, regionalised elections rather than one big statewide one as SA does. I remember saying after the death of Paul Collier that I thought the provision in SA should be revisited.

  50. William,

    In 1999 the Liberal candidate died on the day of the election and the poll for that day was cancelled.

    It was subsequently held about a month later and Labor won which endorsed the new Government.

    I can still remember Kennett in the front bar in Frankston being given character advice during the campaign

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