UPDATE (9/7): The latest weekly Essential Research poll has the two-party vote steady at 56-44, from primary votes of 31% for Labor (down a point for the second week in a row), 49% for the Coalition (steady) and 11% for the Greens (up one). There are further questions in asylum seekers, of which the most illuminating is the findings that 60% believe the government is too soft, the carbon tax (31% say they have noticed an increase in costs, 54% say they haven’t) and the European economic crisis.
UPDATE 2: Roy Morgan has published poll results from its last two weekends of regular face-to-face surveying. This has both parties down on the previous fortnight, Labor by 3% to 29.5% and the Coalition 2.5% to 45.5%, with the Greens up 4.5% to 14.5%, their best result since February and equal best result ever. The Coalition’s two-party lead is down from 54.5-45.5 to 54-46 on previous election preferences, but up from 56.5-43.5 to 57.5-42.5 on respondent-allocated preferences.
Before we proceed, two automated polls from ReachTEL which were published earlier in the week:
• A poll of 646 voters in Dobell points to a crushing victory for the Liberals, regardless of whether Craig Thomson remains as Labor candidate (which would not appear likely, as the party is proceeding with the preselection process while Thomson’s membership is suspended). Without Thomson, the primary votes after exclusion of the undecided are Liberal 61%, Labor 30% and Greens 6%. With Thomson, the results are 64%, 21% and 13%. The former set of figures suggests a two-party split of about 64-36 and a swing against Labor of around 20%, which seems a bit much. Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports Labor sources have “confirmed the party hoped to finalise its candidate by the end of the year, which would make it impossible for Mr Thomson to clear the legal issues surrounding him in time to resume his party membership and nominate”.
• A 1051-sample poll of state voting intention in Queensland had the primary vote at 56.5% for the LNP, 21.8% for Labor, 9.4% for the Greens and 7.4% for Katter’s Australian Party. This compares with election results of 49.6%, 26.7%, 7.5% and 11.5%.
Now then.
Created when South Australia was first divided into electorates in 1903, Hindmarsh was traditionally a safe Labor seat covering Adelaide’s working class north-western suburbs. The creation of Port Adelaide as a separate electorate in 1949 made it somewhat less secure, pushing it southwards into more conservative Henley Beach, but only in 1966 was long-term Labor member Clyde Cameron seriously threatened. The watershed moment in its progress from safe Labor to marginal came in 1993, when the abolition of Hawker drew the election further south into Liberal-voting Glenelg. It currently extends along the coast from Glenelg South north to Semaphore Park, from which it extends inland to mostly Labor-voting suburbs south of Grange Road, from Kidman Park to Torrensville south to Morphettville and Ascot Park. The redistribution to take effect at the next election has effected two minor gains, both to Labor’s slight advantage: 3300 voters at Seaton in the north from Port Adelaide, and 1500 voters at Edwardstown in the south from Boothby. Labor’s notional margin is now 6.1%, compared with 5.7% at the election.
The Liberals’ first win in the seat followed the aforementioned redistribution at the 1993 election, at which a cut in the notional margin to 1.2% coincided with the retirement of sitting Labor’s John Scott, who had been the member since 1980. The Liberal candidate was Christine Gallus, who had become the first Liberal ever to win Hawker in 1990. She duly followed by becoming the first Liberal to win Hindmarsh, defeating future state government minister John Rau with a 2.8% swing. Party hard-heads rated Gallus’s vote-pulling power very highly, and they were duly dismayed when she decided to retire at the 2004 election. The Liberals were also damaged by a redistribution that added a northern coastal spur through Grange to Labor-voting Semaphore, which cut the margin from 1.9% to 1.1%.
It was thus widely expected that the seat would fall to Labor candidate Steve Georganas, a former taxi driver backed by the “soft Left” faction in a deal that saw the Right’s Kate Ellis take Adelaide. So it proved, but Georganas was given a run for his money by Liberal candidate Simon Birmingham, who limited the swing to 1.2% and came within 108 votes of victory (and went on to become a Senator in 2007). Georganas’s margins were increased by 5.0% and 0.7% at the elections of 2007 and 2010, which represented modest growth by the standards of other South Australians, such that the margin is now substantially lower than in three seats (Makin, Kingston and Wakefield) which Labor had been unable to win in 2004. This partly represented the party’s lack of mortgage-paying areas, and their attendant electoral volatility.
Nonetheless, Mark Kenny of The Advertiser reported in May that Liberal internal polling showed Hindmarsh to be the party’s most likely gain in South Australia. Their candidate is Matthew Williams, national business development manager with law firm Piper Alderman.
PB
You need to accept that the Greens Paty and the Labor Party compete. I sense that what drives Labor supporters absolutely spare is that when in Government, politics and policy, is the art of the possible. For Labor this has meant copping endless holier-than-thou policy criticism from Greens Party flacks and hacks. In your terms, ‘…Greens quietly cater to their left wing…’ is not happening. At all. On this blog we have Greens supporters pissing all over Labor supporters. It is routine.
The idea that Labor supporters just grit their teeth and ignore all this Greens palaver is… is… is… inhumane. Oh, no… wait.
[The Liberal voters will not “return” to Labor while Julia Gillard is still leader.]
I fear you may be right feeney.
Turnbull = “Politics is a team sport”
LOL 🙂
[Mick Collins
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012 at 10:20 pm | Permalink
Shows
Yes she is still the illegitimate PM.
Not only totally disrespecful of the Westminster System, and electorate, but also totally ignorant.]
Yes and it’s a joke as its my standard reply when shows asks if Julia is still the PM.
No CT or boats tomorrow,abbott at odds with turnbull is the go and maybe a newspoll putdown.
[Jake
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012 at 10:24 pm | Permalink
The Liberal voters will not “return” to Labor while Julia Gillard is still leader.
Labor voters will not “return” to labor while Julia Gillard is still leader.
[Turnbull stirs up the leadership issue by saying he would vote for gay marriage!]
But he is too gutless to vote for the bills being put to parliament late this year?
That’s typical Turnbull isn’t it? His entire political career was based around pricing carbon but he couldn’t even vote for that when it became law.
So I take it that QandA’s audience is lapping Malcolm up ?
Should Tony be worried ?
Mr Turnbull is a banker who may have had bad relations with an ex-girfriend’s cat. He wants power. End of story.
[Mick Collins
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012 at 10:27 pm | Permalink
So I take it that QandA’s audience is lapping Malcolm up ?
Should Tony be worried ?]
Any Lib MP watching this should take notice.
Any ALP MP watching this should be quaking in their boots!
Plan A (Abbott) would be a disaster for the ALP
Plan B (Turnbull) would wipe you guys out for a generation, + probably Senate too!!!!
To be fair, Rudd, Gillard and Swan all had a chance to go to a DD on an ETS but were, in the same frame, too “gutless”.
Labor or Libs have to make tough choices and govern the country every now and then. The greens get to snip from the sides lines full time.
In a nutshell, yes.
Briefly:
Most PBers here wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.
They’re a fairly anti-intellectual bunch for ALP types. Strange really.
PS. Piano sonatas aren’t necessarily ‘charming’ dear. Methinks you’ve been ‘over delighted’ by the Classic FM crowd.
Turnbull is hated by the faceless liberal men – he knows it, Abbott knows it. I think he is having fun and biding his time. Notice how he hasn’t mentioned his great leader once?
[3301…..Boerwar]
You are quite right B. I am as green as the next voter, but I have completely had it with the squalidly self-serving conceits of the anti-Labor Green/Pink saboteurs. They will do the country no good at all and have to be challenged at every opportunity.
Mod Lib – for once you are dead right.
But, the Libs won’t go for Turnbull even if it means the obliteration of Labor.
The puppeteers can do more in 6 years of Abbott than in 12 of Turnbull.
never take anything for granted in politics Mod Lib
ML
Forget Mr Turnbull. He actually thinks that CO2 weighs something and that AGW is the greatest moral challenge of our time. The Coalition’s AGW dissenters, who are in the majority in the Party rooms, would chop Mr Turnbull into small pieces.
Like him or not, Turnbull stole the show tonight.
Next week Fiztgibbon, Hunt, SH-Y.
Why have the greens over the years grown so?
BK
Something else not to look forward to. Curmudgeonity is my fate.
So good to see you expressing your hubris with such enthusiasm.
I remember a time not that far back when those of us on the leftish side of the were expressing similar sentiments.
Remember, he who the doGs want to sh#tcan they first make proud and/or a twat.
Good night all.
[Most PBers here wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.
They’re a fairly anti-intellectual bunch for ALP types. Strange really.]
CORRECTION: I’m an intellectual.
Especially on Speed Dating Fridays.
[Boerwar
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012 at 10:31 pm | Permalink
ML
Forget Mr Turnbull. He actually thinks that CO2 weighs something and that AGW is the greatest moral challenge of our time. The Coalition’s AGW dissenters, who are in the majority in the Party rooms, would chop Mr Turnbull into small pieces.
3320
BK
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012 at 10:31 pm | Permalink
Like him or not, Turnbull stole the show tonight.
Next week Fiztgibbon, Hunt, SH-Y.]
There is nothing like greed for long-term power to convince party roomers to vote for you!
They did it before (when the Lib vote was in the gutter), why not when it could head to the stratosphere!!!!!
C’mon guys, take one for the team and support Turnbull.
to much butter on their taters??
Thanks Show On, but I said ALP types.
That lets you off the hook.
56-44 2PP
Primaries LNP 48, ALP 31, GRN 11
In terms of being able to stand up and deliver a coherent speech Turnbull is by far the best the Coalition has and is as good as anyone in the government. He is so wasted in his current portfolio.
Virginia Trioli is hopeless at hosting this show.
But I guess things could be worse, the host could be Emma Alberici.
[I remember a time not that far back when those of us on the leftish side of the were expressing similar sentiments.]
Yes but the Liberal party is not full of tactical dolts and nincompoops like the ALP.
[CORRECTION: I’m an intellectual.]
Gets himself into Hansard and…just so vain.
Thanks James. The balance has been restored.
[Thanks Show On, but I said ALP types.
That lets you off the hook.]
Do you seriously think I vote for the Greens?
Yep, your outstanding mastery of polemics has convinced me.
I’ll now go out and vote for Mr Abbott.
Have to pay that Mod Lib.
Gillard
Satisfied 27, dissatisfied 61
Abbott
Satisfied 32, dissatisfied 57
PPM
Abbott 39, Gillard 36
Are you talking to yourself Mr Sammut?
Above is tomorrows newspoll
James J:
Are you GWV?
Is that an echo?
[James J
Posted Monday, July 9, 2012 at 10:37 pm | Permalink
Gillard
Satisfied 27, dissatisfied 61
Abbott
Satisfied 32, dissatisfied 57
PPM
Abbott 39, Gillard 36]
Thanks James!
Centre:
Where you at?
Jake is an anti-intellectual philistine.
New thread.
[3316
rosemour
Briefly:
Most PBers here wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.
They’re a fairly anti-intellectual bunch for ALP types. Strange really.
PS. Piano sonatas aren’t necessarily ‘charming’ dear. Methinks you’ve been ‘over delighted’ by the Classic FM crowd.]
Well, I had to ask. There is more to Monday nights than political indignation. As for charm, perhaps I am too easily seduced…..but really, many of the ideas are splendid. The performers are all young too – giving what they have to give. There is focus, beauty, learning, energy and out-loud passion. I admire this so much.
[Yes but the Liberal party is not full of tactical dolts and nincompoops like the ALP.]
Your party failed to form govt in 2010 because of tactical dolts and nincompoops.
Gawd Abbott’s satisfaction slightly increased 🙁
Note that Gillard has said on a number of occasions that it’s not about ‘her’, it’s about the nations future.
That’s why she is going to step down from the leadership because she can’t even convince people she’s a better option than Monkey.
Come back Kevin. We need you. Seriously. It’s Time.
In this delicate game of chess called the Australian Politic, could be some moves that are about to be played ?