Morgan phone poll: 50.5-49.5 to Coalition; Seat of the week: Bonner

A new phone poll corroborates Newspoll. Or does it?

NOTE: Apologies for the difficulties we are experiencing with comments while the new design is being implemented. They are being attended to. Please note that the site is experiencing broader problems in some browsers. If the background to the site is grey, try viewing it in another browser.

Roy Morgan has published a poll which, so far as the headline figure goes, is extremely interesting in that it a) is consistent with the Newspoll result, and b) was conducted by phone, and thus cannot be anticipated to suffer the pro-Labor bias typical of Morgan’s face-to-face polling. However, the headline figure to which I refer is from respondent-allocated preferences, which for so long have been flowing to Labor in confoundingly weak proportions in Morgan’s face-to-face polls. In this poll however they have flowed to Labor inordinately strongly. If using the measure which allocates preferences according to how they flowed at the previous election, which I and all other pollsters recommended, the Coalition has a somewhat more comfortable lead of 52.5-47.5. The primary vote results are striking in being high for both major parties: 39.5% for Labor and 47% for the Coalition, against 8% for the Greens and a very low 5.5% for others.

The poll was evidently conducted from Monday to Thursday (despite some confusion in Morgan’s heading) from a sample of 668, with a margin of error of about 3.8%. Other questions were also posed by this poll, so stay tuned for more detail.

NOTE: As you may have noticed, Crikey has a new look and its implementation is characteristically being accompanied by teething problems – most seriously the failure of comments thread pagination, which has caused the previous 5000-plus comments thread to not work terribly well. Presumably this one should be okay though, for at least as long as it remains fairly short.

UPDATE: Further findings from the Morgan poll are that Julia Gillard recorded a fairly solid approval rating of 40%, with disapproval of 51%, which represents changes of 3% and 6% since Morgan last posed the question in January. Tony Abbott meanwhile is respectively down four to 32% and up four to 60%. On the question of better prime minister, Gillard has remained steady on 45% while Abbott has dropped four points to 37%. Abbott has also lost further ground to Malcolm Turnbull on the question of best leader for the Liberal Party, the former down three to 19% and the latter up five to 42%. That leaves Abbott nearly level with Joe Hockey, who is down one to 18%. Julia Gillard continues to trail Kevin Rudd as preferred Labor leader, with Gillard up three to 22% and Rudd up one to 34%.

And not forgetting …

Seat of the week: Bonner

To commemorate Labor’s improved position in the polls, Seat of the Week takes its first excursion to the Coalition side of the electoral pendulum.

The Brisbane electorate of Bonner extends south-westwards from the bayside Wynnum-Manly area to Mount Gravatt. It was created at the 2004 election, and has remarkably been left unchanged by the two redistributions conducted since. The seat is also remarkable for having changed hands with each election, starting with the Liberals’ success in overhauling a 1.9% notional margin in 2004. The defeated Labor candidate was Con Sciacca, a Keating government minister who held Bowman from 1987 to 1996 and again from 1998 to 2004. Sciacca took the safer option when the transfer of Wynnum-Manly to the new seat left Bowman with a notional Liberal margin of 3.1%, but he was unable to withstand an adverse swing of 2.4%. Labor appeared to be especially hampered by the loss of Kevin Rudd’s personal vote in those areas of the electorate which had previously been in Griffith.

The inaugural member for Bonner thus became Ross Vasta, a staffer to Senator Brett Mason, former restaurant owner, and the son of noted Brisbane barrister and Bjelke-Petersen era Supreme Court justice Angelo Vasta. Vasta’s main source of publicity in his one term in parliament was his involvement in the scandal surrounding misuse of electoral printing allowances, for which he was cleared by the Director of Public Prosecutions shortly before the 2007 election. He was always going to have his work cut out defending the Coalition’s most marginal Queensland seat at the 2007 election, and duly fell victim to a 5.2% swing which compared favourably with a statewide swing of 7.5%.

Bonner was then held for a term by Kerry Rea, previously a Brisbane councillor representing a ward that included the area around Mount Gravatt. Vasta meanwhile returned to his old job with Brett Mason and unsuccessfully contested the Wynnum-Manly ward for the Liberals at the 2008 Brisbane council election. The newly constituted Liberal National Party then gave him the chance to recover his old seat, which did not seem a likely proposition in the political climate of the time. While that had certainly changed by the time of the 2010 election, Vasta’s victory on the back of an emphatic 7.4% swing was a serious disappointment for Labor, making Bonner the “safest” of its nine notionally held Queensland seats to fall to the LNP.

Labor’s preselected candidate for the next election is Laura Fraser Hardy, an associate with Hall Payne Lawyers.

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.

1,563 comments on “Morgan phone poll: 50.5-49.5 to Coalition; Seat of the week: Bonner”

Comments Page 23 of 32
1 … 22 23 24 … 32

  1. Andrew

    If they were genuine refugees they would be living in safety in Nauru, wouldn’t they?

    If they were not genuine refugees, they have been dudded.

    That they are back in the deadly, dangerous Sri Lanka already speaks volumes, IMHO.

  3. victoria @ 1086
    Thanks for that link to Emmo’s presser. It has a great explanation of the economic concept of ‘rent’, particularly as applied to resources.

    I recommend it as worth reading by everyone.

  4. C@tmomma

    F,B,F&Co developed a business plan along those lines during the time of the Malaysian solution. Our Australian-Indonesian One Way People Transport Business has done very well. The costs for shifting an extra couple of thousand for nothing so as to swamp the Australian system are minimal compared to the profits. We think of them as loss leaders.

  5. It was reported that one of the Sri Lankan asylum seekers took a deal offered to him by the government that involved them buying him a motorbike when he got back home so he could start a Courier business. Much cheaper and better deal than him staying on Nauru for 5 odd years don’t you think?

  8. Andrew

    [victoria, it appears that the announcement of the Malaysia deal did slow the boats. I think thats why the coalition so vehemently oppose it; they are worried it might work. If they thought it was a dud, why not let the government implement it and then they could beat the government over the head with it.

    They are worried it will work]

    Agreed. The coalition are nothing but opportunistic thugs. They did not care about the drownings. Only interested in scoring political points.

  9. C@tmomma
    If true, that guy just bought himself the most expensive motorcycle in Sri Lanka.

    That said, the amount of lies about asylum seekers currently circulating by way of social media is extraordinary.

  11. Just watching highlights of the Hawthorn/ Adelaide game. Even though the Hawks won, it still gave me butterflys in my stomach. What a game!

  12. [lizzie
    Doctor Who fans will be familiar with that face.]

    I have always thought that Abbott is not a human, but is in fact a Sontarian.

  13. Boerwar,
    If true, that guy just bought himself the most expensive motorcycle in Sri Lanka.

    Short wait for an expensivish new motorbike, or a long wait on Nauru to maybe eventually come to Australia. I know which one I’d take, especially if I was actually an Indian from Tamil Nadu. 😉

    And the deal was mentioned on Insiders this morning by Malcolm Farr.

  16. One improvement noticed with the blog changes – ‘Preview’ now displays the emoticons whereas previously it did not and you had to press another button ‘check’ to see them. 😀

    Not all bad folks.

  17. [just started watching a taped Insiders, have it paused on the intro item on Bernardi – there is a few second close up of Abbott from the left side, below.

    Looking at the neat scar next to his left ear, and the two scars on his neck below the ear.

    Looks like he has has cosmetic surgery. Along with the Botox for his forehead, Grecian 2000 for his hair colour, and Ashley Martins for his now diminishing bald spot.]
    What he DOES need is some serious work on his policies.
    One of the very, very few Shakespearian quotes that remains from my Yr 10 English cones from “The Merchant of Venice” – “So may the outward shows be least themselves.”

  18. One of the other advantages of the old format is that you could at least recall which page your post appeared on. Accordingly, if at 7.00am I’d posted on page 22 of the topic and then at 1.00 or so while at work I’d wanted to see who if anyyone had responded, I could go to page 22 and pick up the conversation from there.

    Now like everyone else, I would, by definition post on page 1. My post might well be on page 5 or 6 by 1.00.

    I also wonder if the ostensible string argument for each post in the “permalink” is the same as the uniqueID for each post would be in content management format. Part of each URL is the page number. Oddly as I type these lines I note that part of the URL showing is “page-22”. That might mean that this was so and that pagination would not disturb the value of string arguments in links written to specific posts. I hope so but from a navigation POV it is a little counter-intuitive.

    If they are stuck on “ORDER BY: LATEST” they should probably

    a) order comments within pages by earliest
    b) place the text input box at the bottom
    c) Put page navigation at the bottom as well as the top

  20. On the order of comments. It is a common form with websites. Used at New York Times, Huffington Post, Washington Post, The Guardian, SMH News websites to name a few.

  23. guytaur
    I think you will find that many sites, including some of those you listed, allow the user to choose between oldest and newest first modes of comments, and that the default is sometimes newest first.

  25. guytaur

    There is remarkably dodgy science for sale. Some scientists (?) got hold of a bunch of geriatric rats, (no control group), sample size of around 10, fed them GMOs and they GOT CANCER!!!

    Naturally a whole bunch of GMO NGOs are frothing about this stuff. They reckon that the millions of people who have been eating GMOs for decades had better stop it and starve right now, for their own good.

    They also want to stop the dengue and malaria GMO trials. They must reckon that dengue and malaria are good for third world people. I suppose if they are already dying of starvation a quick exit by way of dengue might be the preferred way to go.

  26. bw

    I am pleased when the truth comes out no matter which extremist side is making the argument.

    The truth with GMO is there are some dangers associated with it that need to be guarded against. Of course the same is true of organics. Cases of food poisoning have occurred in the States for example with some organics.
    As always the truth is messy and not black and white like extremists pretend it is.

  27. lizzie:

    I’m sorry, but it seems to me that a lot of the problems you’re having are user-related.

    BUt in any case continuing to whinge about the facelift is counter-productive given:

    1. William has already acknowledged your concerns, and has committed to lobbying for the return of the comment box to the bottom as it was before; and

    2. It is a weekend when there is unlikely to be full quota of tech staff on deck.

  28. [From those who are saying that this is a wonderful new format, I would ask that they explain in what way it is ‘easier’ to use. Perhaps if you are glued to the screen and refresh, it is convenient that new comments are close to the top but as bemused has said if you go away and come back it takes five minutes to find where you were when you left off.]

    Have to agree with this from NormanK.

    You need to scroll to the top of the page to go to a previous page (page links at top and bottom were a great feature of the old format).

    And also with someone else (FB I think) who said that she often remembers posts by their page number. Now that the page numbers are in a state of permanent flux, it makes life pretty hard.

    The new format lives in a perpetual present. One of the great things about the old format was that there was a sense of order and thread history, even if only over a few days.

    Reverse the order of posts. Last post, last. Page numbers beginning with “1”.

    Any chance of this William?

  30. @Nicronon: A Catholic Archbishop says gay marriage would harm society ‘beyond repair.’ Countless child abuse: no biggie. Gay marriage: END OF SOCIETY.

    Boy they keep coming out of the woodwork

  32. confessions

    I just watched the Emerson interview on Sky. Did you notice Paul Kelly and his sheepish grin whilst Emmo was saying his piece. Great effort by Emerson.

  34. [@Nicronon: A Catholic Archbishop says gay marriage would harm society ‘beyond repair.’ Countless child abuse: no biggie. Gay marriage: END OF SOCIETY.]
    They also say that the truth will set you free, but I doubt that applies to someone in charge of an organisation that systematically hides paedophiles from prosecution and encourages their victims not to report it to police. Blessed are the defence lawyers.

  36. The comments are now suffering from the same problem as Huffington post, you finish one page, go to the next and you have to reread several from the first page to find the one’s you have not read.

    You suffer once or twice and then you no longer bother.

    The big advantage of first to last is the first pages are stable unless william decides to take a big stick to them. Now nothing is stable. What you get on a page depends on what is being posted at the time as the boundaries move.

  40. confessions
    [I’m sorry, but it seems to me that a lot of the problems you’re having are user-related.]
    I was not asking for your help.
    [BUt in any case continuing to whinge about the facelift is counter-productive given:]
    I was merely replying to others, and trying to give credit where it’s due. You may have noticed there have been many comments and some do not realise that William is already attending to them.

  43. lizzie:

    We are all in the same boat in having to adapt to the changes. Perhaps some of us are better at coping with change than others, who knows.

    At the end of the day the font and colours are superior to the old version. William has already committed to following through on some of the layout problems. It might take a further couple of days to be sorted, which I don’t think is a big ask for us to accept.

  45. Ian,

    My physical day starts with rolled oats, chia seed, fresh fruit and coffee. My real day starts with BK, Ozpoll, c@tmomma, BB, Victoria, Space Kiddette, Bemused, Mod Lib and all others.

    Hear hear, Ian. We have community … so let’s really get up Corgi St Bernardi’s nose and call for a glorious technicolour rainbow polyandrous/gamous marriage of all Bludgers and lurkers 🙂

  46. I cant take John Hewson seriously. Had to switch off Agenda. He reckons Abbott could be a PM like Hawke?? FFS this man has lost all credibility

  47. a glorious technicolour rainbow polyandrous/gamous marriage of all Bludgers and lurkers

    Oops, and any cats, dogs, rats, lizards, cetaceans and avians (and other species including flora) too …

  48. Bemused, NormanK’s views comments are measured, reasonable and appreciated. Yours are those of a childish and stupid wanker whom nearly everybody who comes here would like to see back of.

Comments Page 23 of 32
1 … 22 23 24 … 32

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *