GhostWhoVotes reports that a Galaxy poll, conducted from a sample of 995 from Friday to Sunday, has the Coalition leading 56-44 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 31% for Labor, 49% for the Coalition and 12% for the Greens. Supplementary questions find 64% believing the government is worse off now than it was under Kevin Rudd, against 20% who think it better off; 59% believing the Prime Minister has failed to deliver an effective policy to reduce carbon emissions, against 59% who believe she has; and 57% saying she has failed in sharing the benefits of the mining boom, against 29% who say she has succeeded. There is also a frankly silly question as to whether the government has succeeded in stopping asylum seeker boats, to which 9% (presumably Labor partisans irritated by the question) wrongly said yes, and 80% offered the obvious response.
UPDATE: Essential Research records two-party preferred steady at 56-44, from primary votes of 33% for Labor (up one), 49% for the Coalition (steady) and 10% for the Greens (steady). Other questions cover most trusted party to handle various issues (Greens environment and climate change, Labor industrial relations, Liberal everything else); whether the economy is heading in the right or wrong direction (43-32 in favour, compared with 36-41 against in March); trust in people and organisations (Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull do better than Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, who do better than Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart; and bias in media reporting in favour or against various groups (Liberals and business seen to do better than Labor and unions).
In other news, some state, territory and local government matters of note:
• Roy Morgan has published three phone polls of state voting intention for New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland on Friday, from a small combined sample of 811. While the margins of error are about 5.5%, the results are roughly in line with other polling in showing little change on the most recent elections, with the conservative incumbents leading 52-48 in Victoria and 62-38 in both New South Wales and Queensland. Personal ratings show a strikingly poor result for Ted Baillieu, at 29% approval and 53.5% disapproval. The polls were conducted on the Tuesdays and Wednesdays of the previous two weeks.
• I have lazily neglected to cover the publication of draft boundaries for the state redistribution in South Australia, but as always Antony Green has been well and truly on the job. The proposals have been uncommonly controversial in that they have essentially ignored the legislative injunction that the commissioners must, “as far as practicable”, draw boundaries which on the basis of the previous election results would have achieved “fairness” with respect to the major parties’ shares of seats and two-party preferred votes. Given Labor’s success in winning 26 out of 47 seats at the 2010 election from 48.4% of the two-party vote, this would have demanded tremendous creativity on the part of the redistribution commissioners, and presumably some very contorted electoral boundaries designed to slash Labor members’ margins.
• Refugee advocate Linda Scott has won the “community preselection” to determine Labor’s candidate to take on Clover Moore in the Sydney lord mayoral election in September. Half of the vote was determined by a ballot open to any of the 90,000 voters in the municipality (albeit that they were required to pledge that they were not members of a rival party), with the other half determined by party members. It attracted 400 party members and 3900 non-members. Labor will now trial the procedure in five yet-to-be-decided seats for the next 2015 state election. However, Andrew Crook of Crikey has reported the party’s various state branches are backing away from the idea of conducting primaries for the federal election, which they had been encouraged to pursue by the December national conference and the Bracks-Carr-Faulkner post-election review.
• Antony Green has published his guide to the Northern Territory election on August 25.
Federal preselection news:
• WA Treasurer Christian Porter’s bombshell announcement that he will seek to enter federal politics at the next election has transformed the Liberal preselection contest for the Perth hinterland seat of Pearce, where incumbent of 19 years Judi Moylan will retire at the next election. Porter entered state parliament at a February 2008 by-election and assumed the role of Attorney-General when the Barnett government came to power seven months later, winning promotion to Treasurer in December 2010. Marcus Priest of the Australian Financial Review says Porter is “often seen as part of the right of the WA Liberals”, being “an economic dry and law and order hard-liner”, but “can be socially liberal on issues such as native title”. Prior to entering politics he had been a public prosecutor, adviser to Howard government Justice Minister and WA Senator Chris Ellison and law lecturer at the University of Western Australia. The front-runner for the preselection was previously thought to have been 24-year-old trademark lawyer Alex Butterworth, who is planning to fight on. The West Australian reports the field also includes “two locals, Bill Crabtree and Rod Henderson”. Another contender, high-profile financial adviser Nick Bruining, has conceded Porter’s entry has left him with no chance and withdrawn.
• Richard Torbay, state independent member for Northern Tablelands, has all but been confirmed as the Nationals candidate to take on Tony Windsor in New England, with Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reporting the party has guaranteed him “freedom to speak with an independent voice on local issues”. Nationals internal polling reportedly found Torbay rated more highly in the electorate than both Windor and the other mooted Nationals contender for New England, Barnaby Joyce. Labor’s NSW state secretary, Sam Dastyari, has accused Torbay of offering to join the ALP in November 2009 if it agreed to make him Premier, shortly before Nathan Rees was dumped in favour of Kristina Keneally. The claim has been vigorously denied by Torbay, who was a member of the ALP during his days as mayor of Armidale in the 1990s. This is consistent with reporting at the time from the Daily Telegraph and Barrie Cassidy on Insiders, which indicated that approaches to Torbay were at Labor’s initiative rather than his own. (UPDATE: Fairfax further reports that John Della Bosca, who was involved in the talks with Torbay, has said Dastyari’s account is inconsistent with his own recollection).
• Sarah Henderson, former state 7:30 Report presenter and unsuccessful candidate in 2010, has easily won a fiercely contested struggle for Liberal preselection in Corangamite, polling an absolute majority in the first round. Her main rival was Rod Nockles, an internet security expert and former Peter Costello staffer who also sought preselection last time. Henderson’s backers were said to include Tony Abbott and Michael Kroger, while Nockles reportedly had support from Peter Costello, Andrew Robb, Senators Arthur Sinodinos and Scott Ryan and Higgins MP Kelly O’Dwyer.
• Michael Sukkar, a 30-year-old tax laywer for the firm Ashurt, has emerged a surprise winner in the Liberal preselection for the marginal eastern Melbourne seat of Deakin. The presumed front-runner had been John Pesutto, a lawyer and Victorian government adviser said to be closely associated with Ted Baillieu. In third place was Michelle Frazer, state government media and communications adviser. (UPDATE: VexNews relates that also-ran candidates Phillip Fusco, Terry Barnes, Andrew Munroe were eliminated in that order, at which point Sukkar and former Melbourne candidate Simon Olsen were tied for third. After winning a run-off against Olsen, Sukkar crucially managed to get his nose ahead of Frazer, who unlike Sukkar would not have succeeded in getting ahead of Pesutto in the final round due to a view among Sukkar’s backers that she “wasn’t up to it”.)
• Cate Faehrmann, who filled the vacancy in the New South Wales Legislative Council when Lee Rhiannon was elected to the Senate at the 2010 election, has won preselection to lead the party’s Senate ticket at the next election.
• Jodie Stephens of the Launceston Examiner reports the Tasmanian Liberals have selected trade and investment adviser Sally Chandler and vineyard owner Sarah Courtney as the third and fourth candidates for their Senate ticket, behind incumbents Richard Colbeck and David Bushby. Others in the preselection field were “Launceston Chamber of Commerce office manager Kristen Finnigan, Hobart Alderman Sue Hickey, previous Liberal candidate Jane Howlett, former Bass MHA David Fry and former senior Liberal adviser Don Morris”.
• The Port Macquarie News reports the candidates for the Nationals preselection to take on Rob Oakeshott in Lyne are local gastroenterologist David Gillespie, who was the candidate in 2010, and Brett Sprague, a former chiropractor and current officer in the Royal Australian Artillery. The ballot will be held on July 1. UPDATE: Another Port Macquarie News report says other starters are Port Macquarie Panthers general manager Russell Cooper, former councillor and business owner Jamie Harrison, 26-year-old IT systems engineer Aaron Mendham and Paladin Panels Wauchope owner Reg Pierce).
• Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reports that the LNP candidate for the Brisbane seat of Moreton in 2010, Malcolm Cole, is likely to be given the chance for another crack at the seat. Cole’s CV includes spells as a Courier-Mail journalist and a staffer to former Senator and factional warlord Santo Santoro.
• Terry Deefholts of the Daily Examiner reports the NSW Nationals will preselect a candidate to run against Labor member Janelle Saffin in the marginal north coast seat of Page on June 30. The candidate from 2010, Clunes businessman and farmer Kevin Hogan, has confirmed he will nominate, with Clarence Valley mayor Richie Williamson and Alumy Creek farmer Fiona Leviny also named as possible starters.
• The West Australian reports Geoff Hourn, a former lieutenant-colonel in the Australian Intelligence Corps, and Darryl Moore, an engineer, have nominated for Liberal preselection to take on Stephen Smith in Perth (UPDATE: Nikki Savva of The Australian reports this was decided on Thursday night in Moore’s favour).
TLM:
They can pick whatever poll they want….Newspoll will return to the trendline as well, there is little doubt of that!
Interesting questions re mining and Climate action especially as neither has yet commenced.
Shows I would bet the first same-sex marriage/union under Commonwealth law that breaks down could lead to a constitutional challenge to the validity of the law under which the unhappy couple got hitched. The High Court does not play politics, mercifully. They will apply the law as they find it. They’re not the most radical folk!
I find the results of this poll interesting. It certainly isn’t gelling with my anecdotal poll. There has been a shift in the last three or four weeks around here. Generally positive for JG and Abbott is usually called an idiot or a dickhead.
Yes, I know it is not scientific. Not saying it is.
Well in Gillard’s defence (can’t defend her too strongly though; her two back-of-the-envelope “Solutions” were simply risible), I don’t think this is a measure on which Rudd, or any ALP leader, could ever score well.
Asylum seekers will, forever and always, remain a Coalition strong suit in the eyes of the public. Rather than drawing attention to the issue and continuing to try in vain to gain an advantage on it, the best thing Labor can do avoid being damaged by it at the ballot box is just to shut the smurf up about it! Draw voters’ attention back to other matters, which any government that knows the first thing about agenda-setting should be able to do. At the very least, don’t go out of your way to make it an election campaign issue (hello, 2010)!
William thanks for the blog. Having found it at election time it has been educational much of the time. Now it appears to be dominated by vicious infighting between four or five posters and juvenile all caps posts. When it reaches the point where you scroll past more than you read it is time to take a break.
The bottom line: Labor doing far worse under Gillard’s leadership than they did under Rudd’s leadership. 🙂
All of the cheerleading for Julia on PB doesn’t alter this, not by any means.
This is a stupid question to ask. Why not ask more generically about immigration policy? Or illegal immigration?
59
I doubt that it would have to wait for a marriage. The opponents of marriage equality would likely challenge the amendment as soon as they could.
Port Macquarie News has named 2 other candidates for National pre-selection in Lyne:
Jamie (where’s me trousers) Harrison (don’t ask) and the CEO of the Port RSL/Panthers whose name I can’t place at present. Nominations closed on Friday so there may be some others but of the 4 named you would think that Gillespie was a strong favourite
The question is why is galaxy essentially doing another leadershit based poll when the leadershit issue is dead and buried?
Well, let me give you my anecdotal poll….I have had multiple people spontaneously bring up a discussion of how pathetic Gillard is in the last few days, although Abbott is also on the nose.
Not that you’d know this if your only source of news & current affairs was Poll Bludger, where in this alternative universe, Labor is 20 points ahead and Ms Gillard is the most popular PM ever.
Distorted reality?
Why would it take a divorce to bring the law before a court?
My argument is some miscellaneous Christian lobby may find that they simply don’t have any grounds to have the legislation tested, because the court will say they lack legal standing to bring a matter before the court.
A majority of the high court will find that the common law definition of marriage is no longer applicable to Australian society in the 21st century, and therefore there is no problem with the federal parliament broadening the definition of marriage to include marriages of couples of the same sex.
Sure they will then rap it up in some more legalese, but that will be the general thrust of the majority argument. Some of them will even point out that same sex marriage is no big deal in similar democracies like Canada and some U.S. states and in a few months the U.K.
SK @68,
I would assume News Ltd would determine what it wanted Galaxy to ask.
Pretty much says it all.
Cheers.
Because it isn’t!
Two sitting weeks ending Thurs 28th June.
Hmmm, could be interesting!
Anyhow, time for bed. Good night! 🙂
You know what, I came here for a discussion and given most on here tonight aren’t capable of one, I will wait till morning when the lunatics have gone to bed.
Space Kidette: Poll Bludger is hardly representative of public opinion, it’s very skewed here in favour of Labor, or more particular, Julia Gillard.
Just because 20 other people agree with you doesn’t mean that Labor is surging ahead of the Coalition.
They can’t just go and challenge the amendment, they need to have some legal standing. They need to first prove somehow that the change impacts on them.
SK
Galaxy is commisioned for Newscorpses Tabloid papers. Issues such as Leadershit sells.
It also helps distract from dealings that some of their political correspondants happen to be involved in.
What stupid questions. None of these question require yes or no answers.
The correct responses should be 100% for all, ie that she has succeeded or failed in each category.
Stupid choices for answers, stupid poll. Nothing to see here folks, move along and wait for a poll that makes sense.
Gillard is hoping like hell that the Newspoll Next week isn’t some 58/42 outlier.
Doyley, Mick,
Thanks.
Nite.
Errr, she was talking about where she lives TLM
good evening
Tom – I’m not meaning to be argumentative – I had not thought about the constitutional issues with Commonwealth same sex “marriage” laws before tonight, much as I support the concept. But I think there may be legitimate issues as explained in my earlier post. I don’t think the Commonwealth has such powers. A relevant example is the laws relating to de facto relationships. The Commonwealth did not have power to make such laws – hence the original Family Law Act did not cover de facto relationship breakdowns. The FLA has since been extended to de facto relationships, but only on the basis of a referral of powers as agreed to by the states (and WA did not sign up to the property provisions, which in WA remain subject to state laws). I guess the states could refer powers to make laws regarding same sex unions to the Commonwealth (the Federal Constitution makes provision for this) but I hardly think this likely given that over 90% of the population now live in conservative governed states! I would love to see SA or Tas make a same sex union law – I don’t think there would be any constitutional issues if they did so. But I don’t think they could call it marriage!
Space Kidette,
Not on PB it’s not! 😉
[Scathing attack from Malcolm Fraser on Tony Abbott and Scott Morison
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/abbotts-evil-policy-work-20120617-20hzs.html%5D
Go Malcolm!!
I did notice on TV last Friday Swanny revealing his surfing prowess, and Gillard apparently knits baby clothes in her spare time, so perhaps these startling revelations will boost Labor’s polling? 😉
Assuming 58-42 would be an outlier of course!
LOL 🙂
Newspoll has been regarded as the poll closest to the final election result so in that sense yes, it is the most respected poll and the one the commentariot seems to refer to the most.
Dan Gulberry
Just because you don’t like the results doesn’t mean it’s a stupid poll. It’s actually very revealing in regards to how the public perceive the Prime Minister’s policy achievements
I don’t like the results either, but there’s no use arguing with reality
Tend is up Shows on, particularly on the PPM.
And for god sake take your medication.
Shows On: June 24 – 2nd anniversary of the “coup”.
When will we see a real, relevent poll like whether it will be Sarise or Sarah?
You know who used to cite the Preferred PM metric when Howard was a goner?
Dennis Shanahan
On SK anecdotal polling, I’m finding the same sentiment down here, namely Abbott is an idiot.
In fact I’m hearing that Abbott is an idiot alot more than I am hearing that the PM is a
And how appropriate if the Newspoll on June 24(Monday week) is 58-42. 🙂
In fact I’m hearing that Abbott is an idiot alot more than I am hearing that the PM is a *insert mysoginist epithet here*
And it should be remembered Howard was in a similar position three times.
The ALP are well in this.
This is a very cruel question to ask for Gillard. It dovetails nastily with the PPM heavily in favour of rudd over everybody else, especially gillard.
This question is telling the factional wanker bosses that it may well be quite safe and most probably heavily beneficial to 1. remove JG and or 2. install KR.
I wonder if the MSM will replay gillard’s initial statement on that day, calling Rudd Labor a good govt that had lost its way….and then turn the statement to her of the people’s verdict of her and her performance as leader of the Labor govt.
I guess the polls suggest the figure is around 55.5/44.5
S212
I can say I agree that the Gillard Government has failed to stop the boats.
I can say this is because it is beyond tha ability of any government to do so. However in this poll I can only agree or disagree on the question asked. The fact most respondents say the Government has failed to stop the boats does not prove that is a negative for all those respondents agreeing with that basic question.
Final count for nationals in Lyne is 6
Gillespie
Sprague
Harrison
Russel Cooper is the CEO of the RSL
Aaron Mendham
Reg Pierce
I have no idea who the last two are.
She might if she stands down.
Blimey, is that the time?
Night all, past my bed time.
Be kind to each other.
I’m not sure why they framed the questions that way however those three issues are key issues in people’s minds, they are key issues JG made specific commitments about during the last election campaign and I believe those issues go a long way to explaining why the PM has a serious credibility. I don’t think you should criticize the questions just because you don’t like the responses.
May I suggest that those of us who are fed up with Rudd dominating discussion, I would argue that while it gets more coverage than it deserves it doesn’t dominate, just take a quiet break and come back when things settle rather than leaving. It works for me.
Henry
Howard
1998: Luck off the back of the previous election, 2001: Tampa, 9/11, 2004: Latham
Gillard doesn’t have any of these events happening for her … and if you say Abbott is like Latham, Abbott has never been popular. People simply don’t expect much of him and he tends to live up to the soft bigotry of that expectation. On top of that, the ALP simply have zero understanding of how to play him
Neither the MRRT nor Carbon pricing have yet come into effect.
Ask the question again in three – four months and compare then.
Success or not of policy cannot be judged until implementation.
CC is a negative atm for the government on all polls.
Until tax cuts and the raising of the threshold, Business writoffs etc come into effect of course people are not feeling any difference re spreading the mining boom.
Pain Train, at the time of Rudd’s removal you approved it as being necessary and JG had done the right thing.
Why the hypocrisy now or do you really want your posts at the time put up again for your continued embarrassment?
The thing that really fascinates me is that since the knifing of Rudd there has been on a number of occassions efforts to heavily smear Rudd’s name, and the latest efforts of gillard, swan and co were hyper-smearing…..yet Rudd is as popular and desired as ever, even more so.
Why? The public are comparing the persons of Rudd and Gillard and making a value judgement. What her and her people say are obviously considered to be rubbish.
So ?