Morgan face-to-face: 54-46 to Coalition

The all-too-brief New Year polling respite has come to an end with the first Morgan face-to-face poll of the year, covering a sample of 934 from the regular weekend survey. It records only minor shifts on the last poll of last year, which combined the results of the weekends of December 10/11 and 17/18: Labor up half a point to 37 per cent, the Coalition up two to 45 per cent and the Greens down 2.5 per cent to 10.5 per cent. Where Labor achieved parity on the previous-election preference method in the last poll, this time the Coalition leads 51.5-48.5. When respondents were asked how they would direct their preferences, the Coalition’s lead was 54-46, up from 53.5-46.5. As always with Morgan over the past year, this result is strangely favourable to the Coalition. One should further query the utility of any poll conducted at this time of year – my intuition is that the absence of holiday-makers from their homes would bias such a poll towards Labor, although I don’t have any actual data to back that up.

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.

2,160 comments on “Morgan face-to-face: 54-46 to Coalition”

Comments Page 42 of 44
1 … 41 42 43 44

  4. I will try and keep an ear out, Vic. Bruce Guthrie will do the interview. From the pro mo he/producers seem to have made up their mind. Wilkie “dudded”…blah, blah, blah.

  5. It was quite a busy 36 years, Poroti, between 1606 (Janzoon & the Duyfken) and 1642 (Tasman) when it comes to Dutch boat people running into Australia!

    Only NSW & Vic missed visits, or, at least, sightings. Then again, it always might have been the Portuguese who were first Euro visitors.

  6. [Smaug
    Posted Monday, January 16, 2012 at 7:32 am | Permalink

    Watched the channel 7 news this morning, the News Bimbo said the “Gillard flew to Tasmania to have urgent talk with Wilkie about pokie reform” and somehow concluded that “pokie reform was all but over” even though neither party disclosed the specifics of the conversation or the outcome. ]

    It was probably pinched from the Daily Telegraph. See Leroy’s link @2012 to the newspaper headlines. News Ltd certainly get good value for their porkies with the ABC, the hate radio set, and the TV morning shows all borrowing from them.

    But on that score, Murdoch could liven things up a bit by swapping the NT News editor for the Tele. Sydney punters that bother are probably getting a bit tired of the anti-Gillard government spiel and could do with a few yarns about strippers doing burnouts.

  7. Good Morning, Bludgers!

    It is a week of haircuts, school shoes, uniform purchasing etc, so I may be slightly non-compos mentis, so I apologise in advance!

  9. X did not say much new, Victoria. He is, however, meeting with Wilkie today to find out the latest. So far, he seems to be speaking out strongly about nothing.

    He looks to me to be just attempting to gain a bit of publicity and deal himself in.

  12. and when these things pass the house, what then do the people,e think

    may be they are now seeing the press as Hennie Pennies,

  13. Rod Hagen

    [Only NSW & Vic missed visits, or, at least, sightings. Then again, it always might have been the Portuguese who were first Euro visitors.]
    With the Portugese being up Timor way since about 1515 I am sure they would have bumped into Australia well before the Dutch.Then there are the Macassan traders who could have been plying their trade even earlier.

  16. Is there any evidence that the pokie reform won’t go through or is this just the media beating up a story on a slow news day?

  18. Gorgeous Dunny

    [swapping the NT News editor for the Tele. Sydney punters that bother are probably getting a bit tired of the anti-Gillard government spiel and could do with a few yarns about strippers doing burnouts.]
    NT News ? It’s Crocs,always with the crocs 🙂 UFO stories are another ever popular favourite with NT News. Why just today.

    [THE Territory’s top ufologist has welcomed the Inpex gas project, but has shot a warning ]
    http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/01/14/283285_ntnews.html

  22. Paul Sheehan with ants in his pants again:

    [Because Gillard is completely captive to the union movement, she has appointed a former union official, Bill Shorten, as Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and they are adding another layer of complexity to industrial relations via expanded anti-bullying regulations.

    This vague, subjective area of litigation will be a boon to industrial lawyers, whose ranks have already exploded under the Fair Work Act, and to union delegates. It will be yet another chilling factor for job-creators to consider.

    In short, expect unemployment to rise, job insecurity to rise, union power to increase and the federal bureaucracy to expand for the duration of the Labor-Greens-Windsor-Oakeshott government, while it blames everyone but itself.

    Labor may only have 29 per cent support in the polls, but that support is built on unions, especially the public-sector unions, and it is their power the federal government is committed to entrenching as its first and enduring priority.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labors-big-jobkilling-machine-20120115-1q15f.html#ixzz1jZ7EyKoN

    Key buzz phrases and words:

    —————————-

    * “Completely captive” – no-one is ever “captive”. They are always “completely captive”.

    * “Former union official, Bill Shorten” – that’s right, “former union officials” can never be balanced about anything.

    * “Layer of complexity” – yes, “just picking up the phone” would be much easier, Abbott or Hockey style. A quiet word is all that’s needed. (could this be why the Coalition has no IR policy?)

    * “Vague, subjective area” – until you are bullied, that is. Then whomever tops themselves over workplace bullying gets the front page treatment.

    * “Job creators” – they will need to be more… creative… when it comes to bullying their workforce.

    * “unemployment… job insecurity… union power… federal bureaucracy” – keep your kids inside today.

    * “the Labor-Greens-Windsor-Oakeshott government” – he forgot “-Slipper”.

    * “blames everyone but itself” – had to have the Blame Game in there somewhere.

    * “29 per cent in the polls” – nobody likes Labor, nyah-nyah, they’re illegitimate.

    —————————-

    Written as only one who has a well-paid job writing mostly what just pops into his head could write. Or maybe there’s something in the water at chez Sheehan?

    Whatever the source of his relentless, weekly wisdom concerning how everything the government does turns to shit (and worse), if Paul “Grumpy Gramps” Sheehan can see things so clearly, why can’t we?

  24. AbFab gives the Rudd leadership challenge another try, with some reservations
    [As Labor MPs trickle back to work in coming weeks, they’ll be urged to make a hard-headed assessment of their fortunes under Julia Gillard. If she can generate even a modest improvement, it will help her backers make a case that she is starting to recover and should be given more time. If not, she becomes newly vulnerable. Every poll will be seen through this prism in the months to Easter.

    If caucus concludes Gillard’s situation is irretrievable, their dilemma is unenviable. Stick with her to the bitter end, even at the risk of ”somewhere between a flogging and a thrashing”, as one loyalist MP suggests? Or make the leap back to Rudd, or forward to another leader?

    The obstacles to a Rudd return have been canvassed extensively. As one marginal seat MP sees it: ”His public support is very transient – a mile wide and an inch deep. It would vanish as soon as voters remembered his flaws. He ran a dysfunctional government. And he hasn’t changed at all.”

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/holidays-over-and-labors-leadership-showdown-nears-20120114-1q0e4.html#ixzz1jZIyH94V ]

    I still don’t follow the media obsession with forcing a showdown. Even the dullest caucus opinion polling obsessives would recognize that nothing much is going to change before mid-year.

  26. Bushfire

    with all those phone calls he’d have to make, personally steering every decision of government, Abbott would be a very time poor PM!

    More generally;

    good analysis by Stephen Koukoulas on the likely impact of carbon pricing on household expenditure http://bit.ly/wVC0qX pointing out that electricity very minor element in household finances

  27. BB,

    Anti-bullying laws are long overdue. Bravo all involved for finally tackling this issue. It is often the elephant in the office in most workplaces. You won’t hear anything but cheering from many workers.

  29. An observation. I’ve really enjoyed our holiday from most of the “serious” political opinion writers, in all of the papers and new services. We still get some news distortions, but seem to get the news never the less. A good demonstration of how unnecessary the hyperventilating, pontificating & speculating is.

  31. GD

    I am practically certain that it is NOT the media pushing the Gillard show down but rather internal ALP (and NO not Rudd). There are many players and each with something to win. My sniffing of the wind tells me the deals are done, the power brokers have met and all that remains is the timing.

    My advice – watch who comes through the middle. You then probably know who is behind the destabilisation. – Unless the person/group miscalculates but unlikely.

  32. You know it’s a beat-up when the phrase “the federal government” is used instead of “the Gillard government.

    [‘Health rorts run rampant, billions lost’

    * by: Adam Cresswell, Health editor
    * From: The Australian
    * January 16, 2012 12:00AM

    THE former head of Medicare’s watchdog body that aims to sniff out rorting and overservicing has attacked the health system and the federal government’s reforms to it, claiming billions of dollars are misused every year and bureaucrats show no interest in ending the waste.]

    Oh my God… more Labor waste.

    Or is it?

    Most readers of The Australian just want to be reinforced in their hatred of anything the Gillard government does or oversees. So I guess they wouldn’t read this news nugget, buried in the body of the text:

    [He describes the extended safety net, introduced by the Howard government to protect patients from excessive out-of-hospital costs, as “one of the most poorly thought-through pieces of health legislation”, so open-ended it “offers the minority of unscrupulous and greedy practitioners opportunities to exploit it”.]

    It’s a bit like the story the other day, in the same paper, about WA’s Colin Barnett blaming Gillard for breaking a promise concerning Native Title reimbursements… except it was a promise made by Howard to Richard Court, way back in the 1990s, let lapse when the Gallop Labor government got elected in 2001, and never pursued, ever (as Little Johnny might say).

    It seems that not only is Gillard to blame for her own mistakes, broken promises and unjustifiable largesse, but also for Howard’s.

    It must be a slow news day if a rant by Sheehan and a nothing beat-up by The Australian is the best they can muster.

    Unless you count the pokies “dead in the water” story, which, to me, seems to be a mild positive for the government… sorry… the Gillard government.

    My head hurts, sometimes.

  33. [poroti
    Posted Monday, January 16, 2012 at 9:13 am | Permalink

    Rod Hagen

    Only NSW & Vic missed visits, or, at least, sightings. Then again, it always might have been the Portuguese who were first Euro visitors.

    With the Portugese being up Timor way since about 1515 I am sure they would have bumped into Australia well before the Dutch.Then there are the Macassan traders who could have been plying their trade even earlier. ]

    At Warrnambool we’ve had a century-long obsession with the remains of a 16th century Portugese vessel, commonly referred to as The Mahogany Ship. Remains were sighted in the sand dunes near Killarney Beach at the turn of the 19th century, but then were lost again under the shifting sands. It continues to excite explorers without yet reaching a solution.

    When I lived at Dee Why in Sydney, there was some interest in the origins of its name, which claims to be taken from old initials carved on a rock. Some historians suggested that “DY” was misread for what was actually “DV”, which were the initials of De Valera, a Portugese captain of that era.

  36. poroti
    With the Portugese being up Timor way since about 1515 I am sure they would have bumped into Australia well before the Dutch.Then there are the Macassan traders who could have been plying their trade even earlier.

    Yes. Not to forget the Indians, who were already trading by sea with the Java hundreds of years before, nor the Chinese (though Gavin MacKenzie’s book is a load of twaddle).

    In fact a remarkable number of people could lay claim to being the second to “discover” Australia! 😉

  37. My opinion: Julia’s in no great danger right now, Rudd would be lucky to get double figures in any leadership vote, and Shorten would be keeping his powder dry until after the next election(if Labor lost). I think too that Rudd is happy being Foreign Minister.

    However, if in 6 months time, Labor’s primary vote is still stuck in the high 20s, then things could change very rapidly.

  43. Rod

    Just possibly the two to four waves of indigenous peoples who got to Australia 12-50,000 years ago probably can also claim to be the first.

  44. Puff, the Magic Dragon.
    Posted Monday, January 16, 2012 at 9:40 am | Permalink

    dave
    when the price drops a bit.

    Yes, Puff.

    I was very tempted with the first model but waited. They can now be bought new from the US – Amazon, for almost half the original price.

    Still there is a shortage of the Prime atm, but I got $43 off the rrp from JB HiFi.

    This will do me for gadgets for a while. 🙂

  46. SK

    My routine has been out the window since my eldest two finished secondary school. Between rostered days off for son and daughter’s uni timetable, I have no idea who is coming or going!!!

  48. victoria,

    I hear you. All I want is to be able to control my time again and not have to play taxi driver for their social activities all day!

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 42 of 44
1 … 41 42 43 44