Morgan: 57-43 to Coalition

The headline figure might not look anything to write home about, but the latest Morgan face-to-face poll offers Labor a relatively encouraging result: their primary vote is up 3.5 per cent on the previous fortnight to 35.5 per cent, their best result since May. The Coalition is down 1.5 per cent to 46.5 per cent and the Greens one to 10 per cent. To any Labor supporters who might feel like reaching for the champagne bottle, it has to be said that due caution is required for any poll which is half conducted over a long weekend that included grand finals for both major football codes.

Using the industry standard measure of allocating minor party preferences as per the result of the previous election, the Coalition lead is down from 55.5-54.5 to 53.5-46.5, which is only Labor’s best result since late July and early August (when consecutive polls had their primary vote at 34.5 per cent). The bad headline figure for Labor is a result of the highly idiosyncratic results Morgan is getting on respondent-allocated preferences. This poll has nearly 60 per cent of minor party and independent voters directing preferences to the Coalition, a result without any precedent since at least the mid-1990s. The other pollster that publishes respondent-allocated figures, Nielsen, has also shown Labor’s preference share declining since the 2010 election, but not to anything like the same degree.

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.

3,285 comments on “Morgan: 57-43 to Coalition”

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  7. madcyril
    [A Newspoll taken early last month found 57 per cent of voters preferred Kevin Rudd as Labor leader over Julia Gillard, at 24 per cent.]
    This sort of comment from the Oz, without splitting it into Lib/Lab, really annoys me, because they’re using the figures to justify their narrative.
    PB has discussed it before.

  8. The increase in the Morgan Poll Labor primary vote must be outside the MOE.

    I imagine that if the Labor primary had fallen 3% we would have seen wall-to-wall Ms Gillard is dead, buried and cremated figures.

    Since the shoe is on the other foot, I await with keen anticipation the MSM reporting extensively that the Coalion primary vote has dropped and that the Labor primary polling figure increased significantly.

    Waiting, waiting, waiting…

  10. lizzie,

    It’s also a perfect example of the never occurring leadership spill.

    If Rudd says something, it’s on. If Rudd says nothing it’s on.

  12. @GG/60,

    I think it will always be ‘on’ unless Rudd resigns from the Labor party.

    Perhaps he should go Independent if that happens?

  14. Boerwar,

    While the movement in this poll is outside MOE, William is right to urge caution as he has done in the thread narrative. School holidays and footy finals might be skewing the result.

    Labor people can take some heart. However, I’m waiting for the next poll to confirm any trend before becoming too excited.

  15. [i am happy for Abbott to stay as LOTO. It appears that his own side are tiring of him]

    Agreed many times over Vic!!!

    I suspect that things will start to look more strained for Abbott after the CP bills get through next week, and then the strain will ratchet up when they pass the senate in Nov. And, all leading up to the “traditional” killing season for party leaders over Xmas / New Year. 🙂

    With CP and MRRT through he will have failed in the tasks that he set himself. Failed to justify the whole reason he was made LOTO in the first place. If we get bad weather over the northern cyclone season, he may not even get much joy from Boats, Boats, Boats.

    Regardless of the polling, I’m hoping that the Libs hang onto him in the hope that Wilkies Pokies bill fails just before the Budget in 2012. I think that will be a vain hope, but if they do then they will probably hang onto him longer so that none of the rest of them have to do the Budget Reply speech.

    After that, i’d say the meme will become when they replace him rather than if, and the talk will all be about getting a new leader in place and established before the 2013 election. Please, Please, Please, let it be Julie Bishop!!!!!

    I think we are entering a period where Abbott has to hope that the economy goes very bad. He’ll be spitting teeth if the RBA does an interest rate cut on Melbourne Cup Day.

    🙂

  16. [Latika Bourke
    @latikambourke
    Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd says Richo is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary to bag the Labor Party.]

  17. William,

    A question. Might even be a psephological one. Why would a public holiday (in some states) favour the ALP and not the Liberals? Why would it favour one side at all? Couldn’t it merely be the possibility that the ALP is starting to claw back some support? I can report from the golf course that some ex voters are definitely back in the fold and that Tony Abbott is treated as a joke by just about everyone. He has absolutely no respect. I can also report that while we seem to have not reached peak Abbott, we have reached base Gillard. The fact that life time Liberal voters are telling me they have never seen personal abuse like it in fifty years tells me that the media has overplayed their hand. Public holiday or no.

    As always, time will tell.

  18. zoid,

    I reckon the “leadership challenge” is a zeitergist operating outside the political reality.

    A lot of journalist wishen and hopin, fuelled by self interested Liberal commentary and vested interest money and desire is producing a heady brew. But, it’s small beer in the great brewery of life.

  19. [If you’re chasing dogs up a hill now you’ll be around for a long time yet.]

    I have to be honest and say the dog runs and I lag behind but I intend to drag myself to the next election no matter what.

  20. “victoria I think we can take the Abbott carping as seriously as the Gillard carping”

    Can you please point to where Gillard has been “carping”? One instance will suffice. Thanks all the same, but I don’t need to be directed to Abbott’s carping. It’s 24×365 sort of thing.

  23. Big O we were referring to the carping others are doing regarding leadership challenges.

    Gillard doesn’t carp, she drones.

  24. davidwh,

    You Liberal shills are in to substance abuse big time.

    Whenever Labor and Gillard demonstrate substance, you Libs just abuse.

  25. [

    You must have missed the meme. It appears Abbott’s days are numbered

    With such polling numbers how?]

    Because the polling numbers aren’t ABBOTT’S doing but the media’s.

  27. [Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd says Richo is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary to bag the Labor Party.]

    Kev is right – Richo has done the job for the OO this week. The leadership rumble had died down a bit with the Tax and Jobs Forums but all the positives are now gone because the media will play the leadership game all weekend.

    Kev gave them a bit of ammo tho with mentioning the factional bosses. Pity about that.

  28. Big O we were referring to the carping others are doing regarding leadership challenges.

    Fair enough

    Gillard doesn’t carp, she drones.
    Fair enough again. She isn’t the easiest to listen to. But I think you will agree that she says what needs to be said without endless umming and ahring. Or without someone’s hand up her back, putting words into her mouth, a la Uhlmann, Jones, Bolts Hadley and the rest of the Liberal Glee Club (too many to mention here).

  30. DWH
    [Gillard doesn’t carp, she drones.]

    If you listened VERY carefully you would undestand what’s going on!.
    and would be less critical.

  31. I don’t think 57-43 is that great, but suppose, it could be worse. Perhaps now isn’t the right time for a Carbon Tax, anything with the word tax attached to it often results in not-so-promising results. I don’t have a problem with the tax, but maybe right now it isn’t the best time to have it. Then again, I am not sure when is the best time to introduce a tax at all for that matter.

  32. Roy I am happy to agree that Gillard is an improvement over Rudd. She actually is decisive and does things rather than just brag about doing things.

  33. After assisting Cuppa in dealing with Mod Lib’s silliness about the NBN last night I came across this today: The NBN’s tough regional imperative

    It seems lots of regional areas that were not going to get NBN Fibre are now clamouring to get it instead of the wireless solution! Eat your heart out MT & ML.

    The govt needs to be careful here. This would represent a change in the scope of the NBN project and should, in my opinion, be a separately funded initiative to avoid accusations of an NBN cost blow out.

    And all those rural areas who are so eager to get the NBN need to have it made abundantly clear to them that there is only one way they will get it and that isn’t with a Fib govt.

    One of the problems that governments face in looking at how to provide broadband infrastructure to unserved or underserved areas is the massive costs linked to such infrastructure.

    The need to include ICT/broadband in the solutions to challenges arising from climate change, energy, education, healthcare and care for the elderly is paramount.

    And, when looking at this, it becomes clear that state-of-the-art broadband networks are therefore needed in both regional and metropolitan areas.

    For example, in e-health and tele-education alone enormous savings can be made in regional and remote areas – the cost of delivering these services in their current format can be astronomical. It often involves the use of aircraft to fly in doctors, nursers, teachers and a range of specialists; or flying out patients and students – not to mention the significant level of unmet demand simply because access to services is so cumbersome and costly that most do not even try to access them.

    The internet of things (IoT) or M2M applications are also of great importance to regional communities, especially those on large properties where cattle, fences and water supplies need to be constantly monitored. The same applies to regional public infrastructure, where the maintenance costs are again very high because of the high cost of monitoring and inspection. All of this requires robust, reliable, secure, high-capacity and ubiquitous infrastructure. A second-class broadband solution for regional users would simply not be acceptable.

    In many situations high-quality video services for education, or for the monitoring of patients or the elderly, are essential, but at the same time expensive, as there will not be a high enough usage to warrant commercial infrastructure.

    zoomster, if you are around, time to start lobbying on behalf of your area.

  35. Bit of a Newsflash here.

    As is my wont, I have found yet ANOTHER stray dog. A little female Jack Russel Wire-Haired.

    We rang the mobile number on the collar. A sleepy lady answered. Did she own the aforementioned dog? Why yes, she did. Can we bring the dog back? No, sorry, you can’t: I’m in London.

    What about the other numbers on the collar. No, they’re the home number. My husband’s at work. There’s no-one home.

    Well then, can you ring your husband and ask him to come home early and get the dog?

    No, he’s in meetings all day. Very busy man.

    So, we look after it right, until 8pm?

    Would you mind?

    Guess not.

    I’ll ring him and get him to contact you {my phone number supplied}.

    I ask her: What’s your address?

    {Here she gave an address… for obvious reasons I can’t divulge it, but on the main road, Beecroft Rd.}

    So we now have (again) a third dog. Bob and Cozzie have tried to be friendly (in the bum-sniffing ways male dogs are friendly to females), but she’s a feisty female and has put them in their place.

    Bob’s freaking out, trembling, that we’re definitely going to give him away this time, for sure, and get a better dog. He is pleading with me (by putting his paws on my knees as I sit down with the “new” dog), to reconsider. Cozzie is losing interest by the second as she snarls at him.

    Now here’s the “News Flash” bit. I did a drive-by London Lady’s address and, as far as I can recall, it is John Singleton’s house.

    Well, he used to live in that house a few years ago, and I haven’t heard he’s sold it.

    So, my question to Bludgers is: when Singo (if it is indeed Singo who still owns the house) comes around to collect the pooch, what do I say to him?

    A photograph of me with a ripped bodice for the neatest, best entry.

  36. 1934pc so are you saying that me suggesting Gillard drones is abuse? Given what gets said here about politicians what I said is almost complimentary in comparison.

  37. Just on the respondent allocated preferences conducted by Morgan:

    The Greens’ preferences flowed to the ALP in the last 3 elections at 80.8%, 79.7% and 78.8%, from primary votes of 7.2%, 7.8% and 11.8% respectively.

    So you can see the flow to the ALP has been consistently around 79-80%. But even if that were decrease to 75%, with the above primary votes in this Morgan Poll it would mean the ALP would attract zero preferences from the Others group to result in a TPP of 43%.

    Or if it dropped to 70% it would mean they would get about 6% of the preferences from the Others group to get as low as 43% for the TPP.

    Which is why it is always best (and used by the industry) to use the last election’s results as your guide for calculating the two party preferred vote.

    In answer to SK’s question re the behaviour of the parties, I haven’t been watching very closely so I have no opinion to offer.

  39. [Keep that up, and NOTHING will ever be done about IT!.]

    I just saying (in my opinion) due to her low popularity, a tax on carbon may not be necessary right now. I understand that this tax is supposedly going towards helping businesses fund alternative energy, but are the general public well aware of that?

  41. This article by Annie O’Rourke might go a long to helping us understand Labor’s communication problem.

    [Sadly, e-communications is one of the areas letting down the Government the most.

    How do I know? Because during the first term of the Rudd government, having seen the extraordinary potential of e-communications in the United States, I was given the job of creating the prime minister’s e-communications unit. It was about bringing the highest office in our democracy into the 21st century. The problem was that Canberra in general became a centre of technological resistance – a bit like one of those Lancashire towns in the 1830s that brought us the Luddites who opposed steam power in industry.

    The resistance wasn’t so much from the politicians, although back in 2008 it was. (Many laughed at me for encouraging Kevin to do what they called “tweeties”.) But they all now understand the power of Twitter and e-communications – even if they don’t understand the massive and long-term infrastructure benefits of broadband just yet.

    The resistance came – and in the overwhelming majority of cases, still comes – from Australian Government departments. If you don’t believe me, have a look at their websites, most of which are absolute graveyards.

    It took more than nine months to change the Howard PM website into the fully functioning website that PM Rudd wanted.

    Why did it take nine months? Because setting it up involved hand-to-hand combat with the man then at the very top of the Australian Public Service Terry Moran.]
    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3343256.html

  42. Like I said before, most people are complaining because it’s a tax, whilst others who are aware of the purpose of the tax are arguing Australia isn’t even that polluted to begin with and that it doesn’t work.

  46. [I just saying (in my opinion) due to her low popularity, a tax on carbon may not be necessary right now. I understand that this tax is supposedly going towards helping businesses fund alternative energy, but are the general public well aware of that?]
    Well they will be when it has been in for 12 months.

  47. If it is Singo, tell him Newtown blew it in the 81 GF. Then tell him he’s an arsehole – asking him about the South Maroubra Dolphins many years ago – he’ll know what it’s about. Then tell him he’s an arsehole again and hit him for the dog food bill.

  49. [but are the general public well aware of that?]

    Probably not, if they read the booklet sent to them, the polls would be better than they are, people are political SLACKERS when it comes to the detail in legislation.

  50. I want to see the polls become narrower, or better yet, Labor leader, just to see the looks on all the faces of the Lib hacks who are boasting about their inevitable landslide victory.

    Yes, spite motivates me.

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