Courtesy of The Australian comes the quarterly Newspoll breakdowns for July-September, providing big-sample results state-by-state and my gender and metropolitan/non-metropolitan. This suggests Labor’s recent Newspoll recovery has been driven entirely by Queensland, where the Coalition’s lead shrunk to 58-42 from 65-35 in April-June. Elsewhere, the position is stable at 56-44 in New South Wales, Labor is up a point in both Victoria and South Australia to respectively lead 52-48 and trail 52-48, and they have actually gone backwards in Western Australia to 58-42, from what was probably an overly generous 55-45 last time. In aggregate, the result shows the Coalition’s lead down to 54-46 from 56-44 in the previous quarter, with little change in the leaders’ personal ratings, the survey period having mostly preceded the recent improvement in Julia Gillard’s ratings and decline in Tony Abbott’s. The results show the standing of each essentially stable across all demographics.
UPDATE (8/10/12): Cathy Alexander at Crikey reports Essential Research has Labor gaining a further point on the primary vote to 37%, with the Coalition steady at 47%. Essential has shown Labor gaining five points on the primary vote over six weeks, to reach a level not seen since March last year. The Coalition’s two-party preferred lead is unchanged at 53-47. Essential has smartly chosen this week to repeat an exercise from a year ago concerning trust in media personalities, finding Alan Jones among the most famous but least trusted (22% trust against 67% do not trust). The others best recognised were Laurie Oakes and George Negus, with the former slightly edging out the latter on trust (72% compared with 69%). Only 17% registered support for funding cuts to the ABC, with around a third each wanting funding maintained or increased. Opinion on government regulation of the media was fairly evenly spread between wanting more, less and the same.
UPDATE (6/10/12): The table below compares quarterly state-level figures for both Newspoll and Nielsen for both the July-September and April-June quarters. In the case of Newspoll, sample sizes range from 700 for South Australia to 1700 for NSW, while Nielsen’s range from about 1300 for NSW to fewer than 400 for Western Australia and South Australia/Northern Territory. The two pollsters agree in showing Labor recovering by six or seven points in Queensland, which is corroborated by Galaxy – their polls conducted in Queensland roughly in the middle of the two polling periods had the Coalition lead shrinking from 64-36 to 57-43. Both Newspoll and Nielsen have produced steady results of around 50-50 in Victoria, but a disparity emerges in the case of NSW, where Labor shot from 40% to 46% in Nielsen while remaining steady on 44% in Newspoll. Caution should be taken in comparing the smaller states given Nielsen’s small samples.
Newspoll Nielsen Newspoll Nielsen Jul-Sep Jul-Sep Apr-Jun Apr-Jun Total 46 46 44 42 NSW 44 46 44 40 Victoria 52 49 51 50 Queensland 42 40 35 34 SA/NT 48 50 47 47 WA 42 42 45 39
UPDATE 2 (7/10/12): Not forgetting …
Seat of the week: O’Connor
Covering rural and remote areas in the south of Western Australia, O’Connor delivered the WA Nationals a House of Representatives seat at the last election for the first time since 1974, with their candidate Tony Crook unseating Liberal veteran Wilson Tuckey. Crook’s win followed a redistribution which fundamentally rearranged the state’s remote areas, abolishing the vast seat of Kalgoorlie and dividing its territory between O’Connor and the new seat of Durack. This saw O’Connor absorb a vast swathe of the state’s south-east, including Esperance and the Goldfields. Whereas the whole of the state’s “Wheatbelt” had previously been in O’Connor, a transfer of 38,000 voters in its northern half (including Merredin) to Durack was required to balance its gains elsewhere. O’Connor continued to encompass Albany, the southern Wheatbelt towns of Narrogin, Wagin and Katanning, and the South West region forestry towns of Bridgetown and Manjimup.
O’Connor was created at the 1980 election, its territory having previously been covered by Moore and Canning. It was gained for the Liberals in 1980 by parliamentary newcomer Wilson Tuckey, who owed his “Ironbar” nickname to an assault conviction over a 1967 incident involving a length of steel cable and an Aboriginal patron of his Carnarvon hotel. Tuckey’s win was assisted by a schism in the state National Party, which resulted in two separate organisations fielding rival candidates. Emnity with the Nationals was to emerge as a theme of Tuckey’s career, with the Nationals repeatedly placing him behind various minor candidates in their preference recommendations. The Nationals caused Tuckey little trouble electorally over the years, consistently finishing third behind Labor on occasions when they fielded a candidate. That nearly changed in 2007, but Tuckey’s primary vote remained strong enough that he would have comfortably prevailed even if the Nationals had managed to edge ahead of Labor and absorb their preferences.
Tuckey was 75 at the time of the 2010 election, and regarded in Canberra as an increasingly erratic presence. While the redistribution had in one sense done him a good turn by dividing the Nationals heartland between two electorates, this was largely negated by the Nationals’ successful 2008 state election strategy of appealing more broadly to regional areas. Among the areas where inroads were made for for the first time was the Goldfields, which Tuckey had never represented. It was in the Goldfields that Tuckey suffered the most damage, the Kalgoorlie-Boulder booths collectively going against him 63-37. However, he was also outpolled in Albany, and the split elsewhere was roughly even. Crook had no trouble overtaking the Labor candidate, with the Nationals vote up 19.7% to 28.9% and Labor down 9.2% to 17.1%. Tuckey easily led on the primary vote with 38.4%, down 10.4% on 2007, but an 80% share of Labor and Greens preferences saw Crook prevail at the final count with a margin of 3.6%.
Tuckey reacted to his defeat by saying he did “not intend to be gracious at all”, and proclaimed Crook to be a “nobody”. Crook had in fact been the chairman of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and was the state election candidate for Kalgoorlie in 2008. His status as a nobody was addressed soon enough by the circumstances of the election result, which placed him as a non-aligned member in a hung parliament, the WA Nationals having campaigned as an independent party that would not “report, answer and take direction from Warren Truss”. However, few were surprised when Crook, after a fortnight of prevarication, announced he would support a Coalition government on confidence and supply. He nonetheless sat on the cross-benches until May 2012, when he joined the Nationals party room while remaining absent from joint Coalition meetings.
The complexities of rural politics in Western Australia have come to the fore recently as a result of the federal government’s move to wind up the Wheat Export Authority, the culmination of a process of wheat exporting deregulation which began after the Cole Royal Commission into wheat sales to Iraq. The more protectionist eastern states Nationals, who had split from the Liberals to vote against deregulation of the industry in 2006, persuaded Tony Abbott to back an amendment to sustain the authority for a further two years, incurring the intense displeasure of agricultural interests in Western Australia. The state party organisation was very keen that its members should cross the floor over the issue, and it took the exercise of Julie Bishop’s authority to determine their support for Abbott’s position. As the Liberal members had feared, they were duly snookered when Crook announced that he would split from his party colleagues to vote down any such amendment.
There had been hope in the Liberal camp that Crook might be tarred at the next election by the brush of Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, but this has presumably been negated by the wheat export issue. Their candidate is Katanning farmer Rick Wilson, who won an April 2011 preselection vote over Cranbrook Shire president Doug Forrest and Kalgoorlie pastoralist Ross Wood.
Graeme:
If Assange is elected to the Australian Senate I’ll eat my hat.
Confessions,
[It isn’t just women who have reacted to what Jones and his ilk represent, but men like yourself, and thank heavens you’re out there!]
I expected nothing less from you, m’dear. Boerwar, and every PB male (I cannot think of any non-troll exceptions), onya!
Jenna: “Who’s interviewing who?” after a 10 second Smith diatribe.
Chris thinks the PM should pick up the phone to him because he has invited her to do so.
him = JonesA.
Daimler advertising with Chris Smith.
fiona
It’s the unconscious (?) putting down of women by Abbott and those to the right of him that maddens me the most. I’m remembering Margie’s comment about Abbott’s competitiveness, for instance, which demands that his wife must not be allowed to win, even in a canoe race.
I have know many men like that.
😆 😆 😆 2GB “We gravitate to the contrary view”
[Chris thinks the PM should pick up the phone to him because he has invited her to do so.]
Bloody arrogance.Perfect illustration of my 4157.
l
I agree with your comment about feminism. It is far too early to declare that equality has been achieved.
One of the nice things about being a manager was that I could do all sorts of practical feminist things. It is a matter of considerable pride that I did so for decades.
People then never asked me whether I was a feminist. And, as a matter of participant anthropology, I can report that it is not the sort of question that people go around asking of sixtyish, bald, grey-haired old men.
So, here I am: a feminist bloke.
Assange for parliament – JOKE!
Leeroy, I doubt very much that the two leaders would be informed of the Newspoll results beforehand.
In fact, I will go out and say they’re not.
Our fab 9th cent Constitution doesn’t just bar dual citizens (subject as someone noted to the High Court deigning to allow those who can’t fully renounce their earlier citizenship to take all reasonable steps to disavow it).
Our Constitution bars anyone from Fed Parlt who: “(i) is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power”. Political asylum brings you squarely within that.
The only defence I have of the bar on dual allegiances etc is that, when written, we were part of a global empire and the barrier was narrower. Ditto with voting rights – once Hawke piggy backed on the 1948 citizenship regime, we moved towards a contracted franchise at a time when we were otherwise moving towards a more open society.
Lizzie @ 4157,
I agree (think I posted something in the last day or two about OH’s refusal to play chess with me … his problem, not mine 😉 ). However, I think that when it comes to defeating what you so correctly describe as nastiness, we need all decent women and men to band together – which is precisely what is happening in the wider polity, the wider 5th estate, as well as here on Poll Bludger.
What we need to remember is that the enemy, like oxalis weed, has to be metaphorically knocked out every time it pokes its head out, otherwise the polity will once again be infested.
Chris tries bully. Wrong target, sunshine.
Boerwar
I wasn’t really including the good PB men in my generalisations. It was all of THOSE out THERE. Sorry.
Let’s move on and forget about what you just said. Nice one, Chris!
This little black duck
[Chris tries bully. Wrong target, sunshine.]
You aren’t wrong there. GO JENNA !
Jenna does: you are treading on a step that isn’t there.
l
No worries.
Boerwar,
[So, here I am: a feminist bloke.]
And, as such, one of many national living treasures. Just like C@tmomma, TLBD, Lizzie, Gecko … and I had better stop now for fear of offending by omission.
Centre
I remember reading that Newspoll informed the leaders of the results the afternoon before they come out.
Dunno if it’s true and can’t remember who said it.
fiona
True.
fiona
And don’t you hate it when an influential (sic) woman such as Julie Bishop comes out on the wrong side.
Chris has learnt from his namesake in the HoR.
The polls are conducted by Fairfax (Nielsen) and News Ltd (Newspoll).
They don’t hold any formal capacity to notify the party leaders of their results beforehand.
No, members of all parties find out about the polls like everone else.
Paul Murray asking what specific Abbott arguments or positions make him anti-women.
Has the News ltd cabal really come to this?
Take a look at the thinly veiled language of Abbott’s opposition front bench, the behaviour of Hockey and Pyne in chasing the PM down a PH corridor cat calling after her, the sexist language of Pyne when referring to the PM as ‘slagging and bagging’, etc etc and on and on it goes.
Has it really come to this for the opposition that they need to deploy their media shills to tell us that Abbott isn’t what he manifestly and clearly is?
Boerwar@4135
Onya Boerwar. We should not be drawing sexist distinctions in this matter.
Mr Jones may have issues with women, and with men for all I know, but his statements are against humanity, not against some artificial distinction between men and women.
We should be working together against this sort of nastiness, not pulling in separate directions.
Last I heard, the petitions that were so spectacularly successful were not set on male/female lines, and nor should they. I signed, and so did many other men and women.
Chris is doing talk-over really well!
[Troy Bramston @TroyBramston
I’ll be reporting the latest #Newspoll tonight on @SkyNewsAust at 11pm with full details in Tuesday’s @australian – it’s a cracker!]
Anyone remember the result the last time that was said?
50/50, wasn’t it? 😉
Jenna, wtte, “You are an arrogant dickhead, Chris.”
Diogs, I doubt it!
Still, I could be wrong, but that is highly unlikely 😀
http://www.afr.com/p/national/broadband_key_election_issue_for_3MHUCCSh1yl7okN1w8RvaN
[Broadband key election issue for Coalition
PUBLISHED: 0 hour 3 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 0 hour 2 MINUTES AGO
John McDuling
Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull will identify broadband access as a key issue for the Coalition at the next election, a sign the Coalition has learned from the 2007 and 2010 elections when the national broadband network was one of Labor’s popular policies.
At an industry conference in Melbourne on Tuesday, Mr Turnbull will acknowledge that many Australians support the concept of the NBN. But with few actually connected, he will question whether that support will endure, particularly if the rollout of the high-speed fibre optic network fails to meet its targets, as he predicts. ]
More in the free article, AFR got the advanced word on Mal’s latest pitch.
Centre
[No, members of all parties find out about the polls like everone else.]
I remember Newspoll saying that when they inform the party (COS or whatever) of the latest poll 2PP, that the response is always to ask what the primary vote was.
Graeme
Looks pretty conclusive. No Senator Assange.
Don
We’ve resolved it. I conflated two ideas and mucked up. Boerwar and I are pals again.
Defo Act re corporations suing:
[9 Certain corporations do not have cause of action for defamation
(1) A corporation has no cause of action for defamation in relation to the publication of defamatory matter about the corporation unless it was an excluded corporation at the time of the publication.
(2) A corporation is an excluded corporation if:
(a) the objects for which it is formed do not include obtaining financial gain for its members or corporators, or
(b) it employs fewer than 10 persons and is not related to another corporation,
and the corporation is not a public body.]
Is it just me, or does anyone else detect a growing air of desperation amongst the Coalition and their tire pumpers ?
Yep – just checked back.
Bramston tweeted something almost identical on the evening of September 16, just before the 50/50 was released.
Fascinating! 😀
Who is this ‘Chris’ that eastern staters keep mentioneing?
Can’t be Uhlmann cause 730 finished hours ago over there.
from *that* daily tele journo…
[Jonathan Marshall @jmarshalljourno
Popcorn ready? #mediawatch
9:07 PM – 8 Oct 12]
I leave you bludgers for five minutes and you’ve picked apart Ashby’s BS claim, fact-checked it (take note journo’s) and discussed textually transmitted diseases!
If Assange is going to sue, since he does not live here and is impecunious (I assume), the Court may require him to cough up money(security) in advance.
Maybe Assange can go this bail money donors and suggest double or nothing?
Chris Smith, on 2GB interviewing Jenna Price. lizzie pointed to the mp3.
Mr Carr, ‘There is not an apetite or a budget’ for involvement in Syria.
That is, the West is broke.
Confessions. Assange would’ve polled okay and done pref deals. But he wasn’t pipe dreaming about winning then being disqualified later for being unable to take a seat. Candidature raises profile – a bit more embarrassment to the government and system he feels let down by and mistrusts. Plus the ‘US seeks to extradite Australian candidate’ potentially added to international headlines. And the cherry of the public funding which a high profile Senate candidate would
‘earn’ to assist his legal debts and financially strangled org.
Ducky:
Thanks.
Danny Lewis – sounds promising, although I hope he’s not evening it up by saying the same when its a reversal for the ALP, itstead of just when its good for the ALP like he usually does. Same as PvO occasionally taunts twitter when its bad for the coalition, not only when its good. You really can’t trust these Oz types…
My name is Julian and this is my friend Sandy.
Anyone remember the dreadful Round the Horne?
shellbell
It is the people around Mr Assange who seem to become impecunious. He was talking about hiring lawyers for his defamation.
shellbell
I gather Wikileaks isn’t “not for profit” and has more than 10 employees so I can’t see it being the litigant, unless it doesn’t count as a corporation.
[Troy Bramston @TroyBramston
I’ll be reporting the latest #Newspoll tonight on @SkyNewsAust at 11pm with full details in Tuesday’s @australian – it’s a cracker!]
My guess is 53+, one way or the other