Can’t see full online results anywhere at this stage, but GhostWhoVotes and The Australian relate the publication of the latest quarterly Newspoll figures providing breakdowns by state, gender and metro/regional from the past three months’ polling. The state figures are always the most interesting from my perspective, and it’s only Newspoll and Nielsen which offer this level of detail. Nielsen publishes full breakdowns for its monthly polls, but these are from much lower samples than the quarterly Newspoll. To even the playing field, the following discussion uses quarterly averages of Nielsen’s results.
The resulting samples are substantial for the biggest states – over 2000, in the case of Newspoll for New South Wales – but correspondingly smaller for Western Australia and especially South Australia. It is presumably no coincidence that for the two biggest states the two pollsters are currently in agreement, with swings of 8 per cent in New South Wales and 6 to 7 per cent in Victoria (although as the charts below show, it was a different story in the previous quarter). It is also agreed the swing in Western Australia is around 4 per cent. With Queensland however, a gap emerges: Newspoll says 6 per cent, Nielsen says 10 per cent. There is a still bigger gap in the case of South Australia, but this can be put down to small samples and the latest obviously anomalous result from Nielsen.
To establish whether there has been any consistency in these distinctions over time, the charts below show the Labor swings recorded in each quarter since the election. Despite poll-level peculiarities, both broadly suggest that Labor enjoyed a post-election dead cat bounce in the resource states. In the case of Western Australia, this gave Labor a buffer which is still evident in the relatively slight current swing. On the Nielsen chart however, the most recent result sees the lines for New South Wales and Victoria cutting across Queensland’s – remembering that the prevous quarter’s results for these states were very different from Newspoll’s, the only serious interruption to a broadly similar picture for these two states since the election.
Conveniently, Galaxy has also conducted one poll of 800 respondents in each quarter in Queensland, and these accord perfectly with the Newspoll and Nielsen results from this state. In each period, Labor is slightly higher in Newspoll and slightly lower in Nielsen with Galaxy in between, and there’s not much in it in any case. In the current quarter, Galaxy’s 63-37 two-party preferred splits the middle of the previously noted four-point gap between Newspoll and Nielsen. The only other state-level results I’m aware of are two Western Australian polls of 400 respondents conducted by Patterson Market Research. One of these was as long ago as October last year, which accorded with Newspoll and Nielsen of that time in showing a Labor recovery. However, an unpublished poll from two months ago was solidly worse for Labor than either, pointing to a swing of about 7 per cent.
What the polls would appear to indicate then is a big enough swing in New South Wales to account for Greenway, Robertson, Lindsay, Banks, Reid, Page, Eden-Monaro, Parramatta, Dobell, Kingsford Smith, Werriwa, Barton, Richmond and McMahon, and a slightly smaller swing in Victoria that would take out Corangamite, La Trobe, Deakin and possibly Chisholm (UPDATE: I originally included McEwen, but as noted in comments, the redistribution has made this safer for Labor). Since Galaxy splits the middle in Queensland, it seems best to apply its 8 per cent swing there – which, as was noted at the time the poll was published, would leave only Kevin Rudd standing in Griffith. Gone would be Moreton, Petrie, Lilley, Capricornia, Blair, Rankin and Oxley. In Western Australia, Labor currently holds Brand on 3.3 per cent, Fremantle on 5.7 per cent and Perth on 5.9 per cent: the Newspoll and Nielsen poll swings would put the first in danger while sparing the second and third.
Results from South Australia are small-sample and inconsistent, except that they have broadly been at the higher end of the national spectrum – perhaps around 8 per cent. However, this is coming off the high base of last year’s election, which gave Labor very handy buffers in a swathe of traditionally marginal seats. The lowest Labor margins are 5.7 per cent in Hindmarsh (where Labor has weakened relatively over the last two elections), 7.7 per cent in Adelaide, 12.0 per cent in Wakefield, 12.2 per cent in Makin and 13.9 per cent in Kingston. The last three seats, remarkably, were all in Liberal hands as recently as 2007.
Owing to insufficient sample size, neither Newspoll nor Nielsen provides state-level breakdowns for Tasmania. We did however have an EMRS poll from Bass a month ago which pointed to a 9 per cent Liberal swing, but this was from a small sample of 300 and there were questions raised about its methodology. A swing of that size would nonetheless be enough to take out Bass (6.7 per cent) and its neighbour Braddon (7.5 per cent). The territories of course are pretty much excluded from the polling picture altogether, although Warren Snowdon’s hold on Lingiari in the Northern Territory would have to be open to question given its margin of 3.7 per cent.
None of this should be read as a prediction: first term governments notwithstanding, its a rare government that doesn’t plumb mid-term polling depths far removed from the result eventually produced by the election. This is especially so in the modern environment, when weakening party loyalties have produced an ever-swelling contingent of swinging voters. Even so, the drumbeat consistency of dire results for Labor since April is hard to ignore, and it has no precedent for any government which lived to tell the tale. Labor’s leads during the early part of Mark Latham’s shooting star trajectory were never higher than 55-45; only once in early 2001 did Kim Beazley get as high as 57-43, and was usually solidly lower; and the relevant Newspolls for the great Houdini act of modern federal politics, Paul Keating’s win in 1993, look fairly benign compared with Gillard’s recent numbers. The Fightback! polls which toppled Hawke at the end of 1991 were in the order of 56-44 and 57-43, and Keating wrestled them back to the low fifties by March. Only from November 1991 to February 1992, after John Hewson remodelled his GST to exclude food and clothing, did the Coalition reach such peaks again.
Another lesson from history is that when the electorate ejects Labor from office, it tends to do with a force which the conservative parties are spared. With few exceptions (a handful of those in New South Wales plus Brand, Lingiari and arguably Oxley, which Pauline Hanson won in 1996 as a disendorsed Liberal), the seats listed as Labor losses on the current results have all been lost to them before.
Mr Abbott and his team have spent a year trashing trust in government on every possible opportunity. It is ruthless. It is relentless. Lies and distortions of the truth are the norm. They have been aided and abetted by industry groups and vested interests who have spent tens of millions perpetuating their own sets of lies and distortions. They have debased the coin of public discourse. They have trashed the policy debate.
All involve the theme of not being able to trust government to do a good job.
They shrug off the collateral damage. Talk the economy down and consumer confidence and business goes down the tube? Tough titty?
The latest notable effort was the way in which Mr Hockey was willing to compromise Australia’s relationships with important foreign players in the world’s economies, to wit, previous winners of the Best Treasurer Award.
I wonder, when they eventually become the Government, whether they will rue the damage they have wrought to brand government?
[Triton, I believe that Convention also dictates that there be a proper reason for dissolving Parliament.]
“Wilkie is being a fickle knob and I am not sure how much longer this House will be stable. Dissolve the House and let the voters put a clear majority government in place”
I think the only rule regarding House dissolutions is all attempts to form a stable government have to have been exhausted first before it’s granted (at least when in close proximity to the previous election) – thus to prevent a PM who is defeated at an election from going to the GG and saying “I don’t like these results, call another election”
[When Labor gets into power they seem to take on the cloak of Lib thinking, in order to stay there.]
Really? So Gillard and Labor are acting like the Libs?
[All involve the theme of not being able to trust government to do a good job. ]
This strongly reminds me of right-wing rhetoric in America for at least the last thirty years. Afterall, Reagan is the one who used the crappy ‘government *is* the problem’ line.
Yes, autocrat, but the reason can be just about anything. We’ve all seen how easy it is for a PM to call an early election in the past. Some of the reasons have been pitiful and everyone, including the GG surely, has known that it’s just been an excuse and the real reason has been the political interest of the government. An election soon would be very early, but that wouldn’t be enough for the GG to knock it back. In a democracy it’s hard to justify refusing advice to allow the people to vote for a government.
Currently there are several possible variations of alignments in the existing parliament.
The GG would be interested in exploring all the reasonable possibilities before dissolving parliament.
One of the possibilities that the GG would explore, should Ms Gillard throw in the towel on behalf of Labor, would be whether Mr Abbott could muster sufficient votes to survive a confidence motion.
[Just for starters there’s the mobile phone crowd who don’t get polled.]
An irregularity which has been compensated for. This doesn’t seem to affect polling, I am sorry to say.
Boerwar
[It is not at all surprising that Labor fans are closer to the Liberals than to the Greens. The Greens contain mostly ex Laborite lefties.
That mostly leaves a rump right majority in Labor.]
Yes, that’s the way it has been going since the current right-wing union group got control.
It also ties in with the poll trend since then, in April 2010, when they dumped everything progressive, including carbon. The strategy of these AWU/SDA geniuses appears to be to drive off anyone progressive and fight the Libs for the residual right ‘rump’. Hence the unprecedented drop in the primary vote.
The factional bosses’ answer to those arguing for radical reform in the party to try to get rid of that right-wing union dominance taking the party to oblivion? Get stuffed.
Mr Wilkie is not being a ‘fickle knob’. Ridiculous.
He has made an agreement and he has stuck to that agreement through thick and thin. Lesser mortals might have abandoned the Government ship months ago.
He is also expecting Ms Gillard to stick to her side of the agreement. What is wrong with that?
If you really want fickle, try tracking Mr Abbott’s multiple policies from day to day.
I too am shocked and appalled at Kevin Rudd’s failure to use Gillard’s name.
It leaves the question open as to which PM he was declaring his support for.
Thank heavens we have eagle eyed journos to spot these major issues for us; we’d miss these subtle nuances otherwise.
Hmmmm
The Government has just announced the most significant defence personnel reform of this term.
Somehow Mr Rudd ‘accidentally’ manages to steal the oxygen from the announcement.
Cute.
[It also ties in with the poll trend since then, in April 2010, when they dumped everything progressive, including carbon.]
Am I living in a different universe? The polls went markedly down once “carbon” was taken up again. How does one explain that?
[The Government has just announced the most significant defence personnel reform of this term.]
What happened?
[Am I living in a different universe? The polls went markedly down once “carbon” was taken up again. How does one explain that?]
Rudd myth. We were living in a progressive Utopia until evil Gillard and Arbib destroyed it all. 😉
[What happened?]
Gender discrimination is ending. Women will now be allowed to serve in the same capacity as men in the armed forces.
Should clarify that is gender discrimination on this issue, not gender discrimination in general – still a long way to go there! 😆
rishane
[The Government has just announced the most significant defence personnel reform of this term.
What happened?]
Having the chance of geting your head blown off in the front line is now an equal opportunity affair.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/women-win-right-to-fight-on-frontline-20110927-1kum8.html
Also on the GG, I’m reading John Kerr’s autobio and part of his believing that he made the right decision dismissing Whitlam was that Fraser won the election and the next one by landslides, but whether a GG would take polls into account I don’t know.
As a side note, Kerr says that there were only 127 seats in the Reps in 1975 and it actually fell to 124 seats in 1977. I don’t know how that happened, or how it shot up to 150 since then. It seems to have been 150 for a long time now, despite a growing population.
[I too am shocked and appalled at Kevin Rudd’s failure to use Gillard’s name.
It leaves the question open as to which PM he was declaring his support for.
Thank heavens we have eagle eyed journos to spot these major issues for us; we’d miss these subtle nuances otherwise.]
If Turnbull had done the same, nobody would’ve thought twice.
If Hockey had referred to himself as Opposition Leader, it was just a silly misspeak, let it go.
If some backbencher said “I support Morrison… I mean Abbott” well, we’ve all done that before. Canberra can be stressful at times.
However, any slightest bit of nuance in one’s statement of support for Gillard is construed as an imminent challenge. And, of course, if no such nuance can be found, it’s obvious it’s rehearsed and a challenge is imminent.
Not a “Gillard cheerleader” either. I just don’t like when analysis is just a fancy word for wishing.
Wow, that’s pretty neat.
[Once women were allowed to serve in all areas, Australia would fully meet its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Mr Smith said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/women-win-right-to-fight-on-frontline-20110927-1kum8.html#ixzz1Z7BTksQn
]
[Boerwar
Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 9:37 am | Permalink
Ms Savva in today’s ‘The Australian’ has a wonderful suggestion for the Labor Party: Mr Rudd as leader. The plan would be that he would go straight to an election, win it, and get popular support for a carbon price. Get it?
Can you troll in print or does it have to be online?]
She’s pretty slow off the mark. Rummel was trying it on here yesterday. Maybe Menzies House is using him as a test pilot.
Carey Moore
[An irregularity which has been compensated for.]
How!
108 Mytwobobsworth
[I see Doug McClelland has come out against the legislation would have nothing to do with St George Leagues Club being in his electorate would it?]
Is that Rubber Dougie, or should that be Robert?
[How!]
They collect demographic info at compare their sample with it. If they have found 18-25s have been under-represented, they skew the end result to make their numbers more prominent, vice-versa with over-represented samples.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, of course and I am no expert on it, William would probably be able to tell you. However, the election eve polling of most companies tends to be pretty close to the actual result, so I daresay polling methodology isn’t that flawed.
The flaw in mid-term polling is interpretation and the fact that it can’t fully answer how much of it is actual intent and how much is just venting of frustration. (Especially when a government are behind)
GD
rummel and Ms Savva are mere running dogs for Ms Savva’s colleague, Mr Colless, who was on this very topic a few days ago.
It must warm the cockles of Mr Rudd’s heart that he has such wonderful cheerleaders.
GD@220
[ She’s pretty slow off the mark. Rummel was trying it on here yesterday. Maybe Menzies House is using him as a test pilot. ]
Naah! It couldn’t be … could it …?
Has anyone seen Rummel and Nikki Savva in the same room at the same time?
Headline in today’s Australian:
[ Prime Minister Julia Gillard has ‘competence problem’: Tony Abbott ]
Headline we’d most like to see:
[ Opposition Leader Tony Abbot has ‘impotence problem’: Julia Gillard ]
After news re Australian women serving in the front line there is this amazing headline. It seems the British have only just received the memo regarding their post imperial status.
[British army will never again be among military superpowers, report claims]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/27/british-army-never-again-superpower
[Carey Moore
Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 12:04 pm | Permalink
Should clarify that is gender discrimination on this issue, not gender discrimination in general – still a long way to go there!]
Yes. I have observed some of it myself just this week.
A friend of the family lost his wife from cancer a few years ago. He quit work and became her carer for the eighteen months she survived. At the same time he also took over the caring of his own aged mother (who has alzheimer’s disease) and his wife’s mother, both of whom were in their eighties and lived with them. His wife’s mother is now in a nursing home, but he still cares for his own mother, whose illness is now very advanced.
A week or two ago, he showed me a reference in the booklet put out by his local council each month to a government service specifically for carers. We read through it and it would have been very helpful for a lot of the issues he is daily confronted with. Only problem is, the service is for women carers only and as far as he has been able to establish, there is no similar service for men.
It seems that gender discrimination is not all in the one direction.
Using Landlines only to poll you might just as well just get people to give their opinion on the Alan Jones orogramme. They are both as credible.
Assuming mobile users are mostly younger and progressive then there is a huge oro green and labor primary vote not being counted.
What then happens is the children visit parents and grand parents for holidays.
Then attitudes amongst the older landline users changes as we have seen with polls on asylum seekers and now we have a majority support for on shore processing.
The same is true of most of these issues. Mobile Smart phone users access the net regularly either (using Steve Jobs terms) on their truck or fast mobile device.
I think that the polls are like unemployment stats. Lagging indicators.
[After news re Australian women serving in the front line there is this amazing headline. It seems the British have only just received the memo regarding their post imperial status. ]
The memo was sent in 1956 from Suez. Darn inefficient postal system! 😉
jv
[The factional bosses’ answer to those arguing for radical reform in the party to try to get rid of that right-wing union dominance taking the party to oblivion? Get stuffed.]
If you focus on the Labor Party things are very bad. But if you focus on the centre left, then things are much, much better. If you focus on the reforms that this centre-left Government is putting into place, then things are even better.
So, while Laboristas have a right to feel chagrin at what is going on, those who are more interested in policy outcomes, must be feeling rather chipper.
As I have noted several times before, if this Government survives two years, it will go down as one of the great reforming governments in Australian history. I believe the two years is more likely than not.
It would take years for any Coalition government to pull all the reforms apart so that the spivs can get back in for free sport with the Woodies and the Punters.
rishane
[The memo was sent in 1956 from Suez. Darn inefficient postal system!]
Of course that was in the days of snail mail http://tiny.cc/6fb4c 🙂
[The Government has just announced the most significant defence personnel reform of this term.
Somehow Mr Rudd ‘accidentally’ manages to steal the oxygen from the announcement.]
It wouldn’t be the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.
poroti
Not sure what a super power is, exactly. The difficulty with the discussion is how you integrate thinking about conventional and nuclear fighting power.
Britain is one of the few countries in the world capable of wiping out the top couple of dozen cities in any country in the world any time it wants to.
It just can’t wipe out the rest of the world as well.
[As a side note, Kerr says that there were only 127 seats in the Reps in 1975 and it actually fell to 124 seats in 1977. I don’t know how that happened, or how it shot up to 150 since then. It seems to have been 150 for a long time now, despite a growing population.]
Triton, the size of the House was increased to 127 in 1974 when the Territories gained the right to have senators.. At the time, it was thought at the time that this number could be allowed by the ‘nexus’ that the House be twice the size of the Senate. At the time there were 10 senators per state. There was a High Court case or at least advice that the nexus only applied to the original states so the House had to be reduced in size. In 1984, the Hawke government increased Senate numbers to 12 per state which is why we get the 150 now. Territories and the extra Tasmanians being above the 144 (72 x 2).
[SpaceKidette Space Kidette
@KRuddMP Love you dearly, but it’s time you started working openly, positively & cooperatively with JG for a better Oz or LNP Oz it will be!
]
darn @ 162
Your post caused me to go back and read BBs @ 18 and there is much you both say that I agree with.
So what is it with Julia? That is the problem for her and the ALP.
Most of the time she performs very well, like in QT and her pressers.
I can’t say I know for sure, but my feeling is that she has made some mistakes such as the ‘Real Julia’, the over use of ‘moving forward’ in the policy speech, citizens assembly etc. that have opened her up as an easy target for ridicule. I really do wonder at the quality of her staff who would either advise or go along with such things. I also think she suffered badly by comparison with Anna Bligh during the Queensland floods.
Beyond that, I can’t really identify anything.
However, perceptions are everything, and if she can’t shake this off then Labor is in serious trouble and leadership change is a real prospect.
[I also think she suffered badly by comparison with Anna Bligh during the Queensland floods. ]
Question is though, was that really her fault or because of a media too lazy to just report the flood for what it was? Or to praise Bligh without denigrating Gillard?
Victoria
[I am only concerned that the relentless campaign is going to cause the govt to make some serious missteps.]
Having lived through Hawke-Keating et al restructuring (studying/ teaching/ attending seminars on it); furious storms of verbal abuse from unions, academics & the ALP Left (as well as bellowing doom-sayers from the many industries being compulsorily restructured), I know what this government is “copping” is no more vehement or abusive or pervasive (probably less so). The differences are
(1) during the 80s attacks, the PM was the very popular Bob Hawke, and the wrath was directed mainly at Keating, Dawkins, Button and other ministers involved in reconstruction
(2) in the current government, conservative wrath is focused like a laser on one person – Julia Gillard, Oz’s first female PM.
The further right one goes in Oz politics (even today) the more anger is focused on ‘Women’s Lib’, career women’s ‘attack on families’, ‘taking men’s jobs’, being promoted into management (therefore above men, demeaning them) and fueled by RW “Christian” attitudes to women, marriage, women’s control of fertility, women’s rights in Family Court, post-divorce family support, ‘Wicked women living in sin’ and so on.
As little as 40 years ago, most Australians shared that world-view, threatened only by The Pill and Leftie feminists. Yet a single decade’s (69-79), equal-pay & rights-at-work; Gorton’s, Whitlam’s & Fraser’s censorship & anti-discrimination reforms shattered it. Most Aussies adapted, esp as generational changes brought changed attitudes; some did not, and still have not. In Maslow’s terms, their needs drivers are mainly safety & social, with some ego especially where traditional roles, careers and financial control are concerned. These needs create ShockJock’s audiences.
In this context (& how Gillard won government from a RW Christian traditionalist) the Gov’s policy agenda is less threatening than her being a woman in the nation’s most powerful person, unmarried, childless atheist, living in sin in The Lodge, meeting the Queen & her family and the world’s most powerful leaders – upsetting the moralistic & role paradigms fundamental to right-wing social & religious attitudes to morality and the rightful place of women.
Luckily, Gillard’s government is chockers with powerful women, men married to/ living with powerful women, couples in non-traditional relationships, and supportive of equality of opportunity.
Rupert really does live in Mordor. I listened to this “classic LNL” from 1994 discussing the internet or ‘Information Super Highway” as it was being called. Rupert wanted the internet to be a closed shop a “500 channel cable tv world”. Funny to hear WSJ pooh poohed the internet 🙂
Interview from 14:15 min, Murdoch wish for internet 27:00 min
http://tiny.cc/x35aa
Going back near the start of the thread, from Ozymandias:
[A confusing article in The Age, reporting a Social Cohesion survey by Monash University. In the body of the text, there’s this:
But it is the toxic debate on asylum seekers that appears to have most cruelled what faith Australians have in good government – a measure that has plummeted almost 20 per cent in the past three years.
-but the accompanying table shows that the number of people who rated Asylum Seekers (for or against is not specified) as their primary concern rose from 6.4% to 6.6%. How is that a rise of “almost 20 per cent in the past three years”? I make the increase a tiny bit over 3 percent. Or am I missing something?]
Yes – it’s “faith in good government” that has dropped (not risen) by almost 20 per cent. What isn’t clear is why the reporter is so sure this is to do with asylum seekers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/us/politics/senate-to-vote-on-spending-bill-with-support-uncertain.html?hp
[Senate Reaches Deal to Avert Government Shutdown
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: September 26, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Senate reached a bipartisan spending agreement on Monday to avert a government shutdown, sidestepping a bitter impasse over disaster financing after federal authorities said they could most likely squeak through the rest of this week with the $114 million they had on hand.]
On ABC advertorials, Fran Kelly had George Colombaris on a few weeks ago, promoting Masterchef kiddies and his new cookbook. As if George isn’t overexposed already!
adelaidegirl:
I’ve never heard of George Colombaris!
[
I’ve never heard of George Colombaris!
]
Neither have I
Hence the need to promote him, I suppose :p
Boerwar
[If you focus on the Labor Party things are very bad. But if you focus on the centre left, then things are much, much better. If you focus on the reforms that this centre-left Government is putting into place, then things are even better.]
I’m not sure what you mean by the ‘centre-left’, but yes, there is consolation in the progressive policy on carbon due to the minority government. THe situation is 10,000% better than it would have been with either big party having an outrght majority. I’m reasonably confident the government will last its term, and that the Libs willl not be able to unscramble the carbon plan. So that’s a positive in terms of policy.
But the leadership of the party is so bad on that and eveything else that they have very little chance of winning the next election, and there is not going to be any change to the leadership while the current structure of the party remains, and the right isn’t going to allow any threat to their dominance. So the future beyond 2013 is bleak indeed.
Is the Nielsen poll showing a swing towards Federal Labor in the two states that have recently elected Coalition governments?
I’ve just finished watching a made for TV film based on the 2008 Wall Street crisis, a synopsis of which is contained in the link under.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Big_to_Fail
It was compelling viewing.