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

A new phone poll corroborates Newspoll. Or does it?

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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”

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  3. Amazing I had thought we had come to the end of this.

    @danielhurstbne: Newman govt aims to save $4.4 million a year with another round of cuts to QLD Health grants http://t.co/jJlzgojo #qldpol

    Visit Qld, better take your own hospital.

  7. Good Morning Bludgers! Interesting piece from Andrew Elder. Thanks for the link.

    Abbott’s uni history might have been able to be argued away as uni misdeameanours except for one fact – it is further fuel to the fire that people already thought of him as a bully and misogynist.

    It simply provided evidence people could hang their hat on for the feelings many already had about the man.

  9. zoidlord

    [ROFL Is this the policy of the Coalition now that their plan has been fully exposed ? ]
    Brilliant. Go to Malcolm’s page and above “Launch of the Coalition Nationwide Broadband Survey” there is someone laying flowers at a cenotaph. We must assume it is for the Coalition’s broadband policy ?

  11. victoria,

    It is going to be interesting watching the MSM deal with it. The media seem to be the only ones who don’t understand that Tony is box office poison.

  12. There’s Julia Gillard at the UN, making a speech and handling press questions with her usual aplomb and at home there’s Tony, trying not to gnaw the carpet or punch holes in the wall in a fit of jealousy.

    Poor Tony, he had to try to draw attention to himself by arranging a Rotary Club award and no-one even noticed. He was reduced to tweeting happy snaps and even then no-one cared. I’d feel sorry for him if I wasn’t having so much fun watching his pathetic attempts at attention seeking fail. I wonder what he has planned for the rest of the day? Are there any vision impared people out there who would like Tony to help them onto a surf board? Anyone? Or any little old ladies who would like help crossing a road? Tony would love to hear from you.

  16. Today there will be no joke to beat Oscar’s gold medal effort. However a close second is the Coalition’s slogan for their broadband plan.A veritable sneak of weasely words.

    [Better Broadband-Sooner,cheaper and more affordably.]

  18. On the AFR’s front page today.

    http://www.afr.com/p/national/china_targets_dairy_industry_NHncXIXLg4pJ5zC4BO0s0L

    [China targets dairy industry
    PUBLISHED: 9 HOURS 30 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 1 HOUR 19 MINUTES AGO
    ANGUS GRIGG Shanghai AND JAMES MASSOLA
    China’s giant sovereign wealth fund is looking to make its first significant investment in the Australian dairy industry, as it tries to lock up food ­supplies for its growing middle class.

    In a potential test case for foreign investment laws, China Investment Corp, which is estimated to have $US190 billion to invest outside its home market, sent four executives to Tasmania this month.]

    http://www.afr.com/p/national/whoops_combet_slams_door_on_car_vqMca3XmYCZGXSCgSDUDBI

    [Whoops! Combet slams door on car handout secrets
    PUBLISHED: 9 HOURS 54 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 5 HOURS 18 MINUTES AGO

    AARON PATRICK AND PETER ROBERTS
    Industry Minister Greg Combet suspended legal action last night to stop The Australian Financial Review publishing explosive government documents revealing the car industry’s lobbying campaign for subsidies and the government’s assessment of the industry’s chances of survival.]

  19. SK

    I managed to listen to some of Sunday Agenda yesterday with PVO, Paul Kelly, John Hewson, Geoff Gallop and Andrew Bartlett. John Hewson was full of praise for Abbott stating he has been the best opposition leader ever, and the Australian economy is a basket case. Had to switch off. It was beyond ridiculous.

  20. I’ve integrated the two comment scripts.
    CCCP gives you a clearer preview box and some nice help.
    UDMJ gives you a clearer preview box; puts it at the bottom; and re-orders the comments top to bottom.

    I’m thinking of making UDMJ a clone of CCCP (but with the bottom posting feature.) That way I don’t have to think too hard about order of execution etc.

    Even easier would be to just roll UDMJ into CCCP. Does anyone actually like top posting?

    To use the Crikey Clear Comment Preview script, install in order:
    Firefox
    Greasemonkey
    cccp
    or:
    Google Chrome
    Tampermonkey (Optional)
    cccp
    Also try Upside Down Miss Jane for those who prefer bottom posting:UDMJ

  22. [But Mr Turnbull says a Coalition government could deliver its own broadband rollout in less time which rolls out fibre to local nodes rather than directly to premises.

    “NBN Co’s… target is 10 years, [but] there are many people in the industry very close to the NBN who believe it is more likely to take 20 years,” he said.]
    If there was bipartisan agreement the NBN would be rollede out much faster. The Coalition only want to give us a second rate NBN

  23. The claim that Australia’s economy is a basket case is just farcical. I can’t understand how they can say it and keep a straight face.

  24. What will kill Abbott is the advice everyone is giving him. Should he go to the Left, should he got to the right. Should he maintain his aggression, should he show a softer side. Should he outline more policies, or should he keep his powder dry.

  25. victoria – John Hewson used to rant against Abbott so for him to be so praiseworthy now means the Libs are worried.

    I watched yesterday and thought Hewson looked a bit desperate.

    I missed the story re Abbott and Louise Adler. Can someone give me the gist please

  26. http://prestoninstitute.com/2012/09/23/bergchampion/

    [Chris Berg – Champion of the Outer Suburban Hero
    Posted on September 23, 2012

    We know that Andrew Bolt is the ugly side of Australia’s commentariat, dog whistling, slavering at the riots from last week and the rest. But he also has also positioned himself as a commentator who speaks for the little man, the battler, the poor bloke pecked to death by the “media elites”. Of which Bolt, of course, is not one. It is just a pose, a positioning, a falsehood made to allow for the untrammelled advance of corporate interests. One of his more strident defenders is Chris Berg, who has a regular presence in many forums. He is very different to Bolt in many ways – especially in terms of his attitude to migrants. He is, however, similar in terms of being a user of artifice, the self positioned champion of the oppressed consumer.

    Berg is often thought of as one of the “nice” members of the IPA, one of the few who isn’t after Liberal Party preselection. He is, however, a defender of the neoliberal system that provides cheap milk, no matter the cost to farmers. He now also likes the outer suburban resident. The “bogan”, in modern parlance. As ever, his words are in italics.]

  27. I hope to see alot more of Swan tackles economic doom peddlers.

    That article implied that Crikey has a section comparable FactChecker.org or PolitiFact.com. I can’t find it. Would someone be so kind as to throw me a link please.

  29. BG:

    [What will kill Abbott is the advice everyone is giving him. Should he go to the Left, should he got to the right. Should he maintain his aggression, should he show a softer side. Should he outline more policies, or should he keep his powder dry.]

    His track record shows he can do all these things at the same time. The question is — will the mass media notice?

  30. It’s time for comedians to have some real fun with Tony Abbott.

    Today’s joke – TA tells his mate Hadley that the PM should be in Indonesia talking to SBY. Somebody forgot to tell Abbott that SBY is in New York with the PM where they can talk intimately if they want to.

    Surely Annabel Crabb could have fun with that instead of propping the bloke up because he is charming to her.

  31. SK

    Hewson said something about the cost of living being twice as high as it should be.
    There are high costs in our economy. The fibs only focus on wage costs, but neglect to factor high rental costs for housing and commercial space. As well as high costs of purchasing a home or commercial space.

  37. [Canberra Insider ‏@CanberraInsider

    Victorian Liberals worrying about what any Q and A viewer has known for ages. Sophie Mirabella is on the nose and Indi might be a worry. ]

    Zoomster – have you seen this? I’m a bit late browsing stuff today and have only just seen it.

  38. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  39. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  40. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  41. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  42. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  43. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  44. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  45. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  46. victoria

    Yes foot in mouth describes it well. I would have thought his office would know that Indonesia’s FM and President were in New York

  49. http://afr.com/p/national/gillard_should_be_in_jakarta_abbott_Z7UkIiXiNBuMkfOWaYNFRO

    [Gillard should be in Jakarta: Abbott
    PUBLISHED: 2 HOURS 5 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 0 HOUR 0 MINUTES AGO

    JAMES MASSOLA ONLINE POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has criticised Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s trip to the UN General Assembly in New York, arguing she should be in Jakarta “right now” to talk to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono about border protection – although Mr Yudhoyono is also in New York.]
    free article

  50. At least he’s trying…

    It’s probably worth taking Grand Mal’s NBN survey…might be the only way to get a message through to some of the luddites in the Liberal Party that Australia needs an NBN if we’re serious about being a part of the 21st century some time in the next 88 years…

    http://t.co/LTZ61RyR

    And before you can say the NBN is too expensive, have you worked out how much will it cost NOT to build it?

    There’s such a thing as being penny-wise and pound-foolish. And the Coalition front bench is pretty full of such people.

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