Morgan has published results from a phone poll of 523 respondents conducted between Tuesday and Thursday, which have Labor on 36.5% of the primary vote, the Coalition on 44.5% and the Greens on 8.5%. Morgan’s headline two-party result is 51-49, but this comes from the dubious respondent-allocated preferences measure: the more reliable measure using preferences from the previous election has the Coalition’s lead at 52.5-47.5. This being a phone poll, it should not have the Labor bias associated with Morgan’s face-to-face polling. It also reverses the consistent trend of the face-to-face series in giving Labor the better result on respondent-allocated preferences (I have consistently had grave doubts about the face-to-face polling on this score). However, the poll shows no gap in voting intention between men and women, which perhaps illustrates the difficulties you can get with small samples. The margin of error on the poll is about 4.3%.
Morgan has also taken on the tricky job of framing questions appropriate to the knotty AWU matter. The most useful of these asks if respondents approve or disapprove of Gillard’s response, coming in at 37% and 28% respectively. A question on whether the Prime Minister should resign if “scandal allegations are true” has 43% saying she should against 27% saying she shouldn’t, but this rather overlooks the enormous range of the allegations that might be levelled (had they started a few days later they could simply have asked if respondents agreed with Christopher Pyne). Another question asks whether Gillard “was aware that the AWU ‘slush-fund’ was illegal when she resigned from Slater & Gordon in 1995”, which seems simplistic at best. Thirty-three per cent answered in the affirmative (including 10% of Labor voters and 20% of a tiny sample of Greens voters) against 26% negative, 17% couldn’t say and 24% not aware of the scandal.
There is also an entertaining plethora of questions on preferred party leaders, the chief head-to-head scorelines being Gillard 49 Abbott 36, Turnbull 59 Gillard 31, Gillard 46 Hockey 44, and Turnbull 54 Rudd 38. Not featured: Gillard versus Rudd or Abbott versus Turnbull.
Seat of the week: Perth
The electorate of Perth extends north-eastwards from the city centre to accommodate an area bounded to the south by the Swan River, extending from Mount Lawley and Maylands to Morley and Bassendean. An electorate bearing the name has existed since federation, with the entirety of the metropolitan area having been divided between it and Fremantle until the expansion of parliament in 1949. It then assumed more familiar dimensions, with Swan being drawn into the metropolitan area and Curtin created to accommodate the western suburbs.
Perth was held from its creation until 1922 by James Fowler, first as a Labor member and then as a Liberal and Nationalist following his defection in 1909. It thereafter remained in conservative hands until the Labor landslide of 1943, when it was won by Tom Burke (father of Brian). Burke held the seat until defeated in 1955 by Liberal candidate Fred Chaney Senior, whose son Fred Chaney Junior was a Fraser government minister, Senator and member for Pearce. Chaney was in turn unseated in 1969 by Joe Berinson, who became a junior minister in the Whitlam government and later a state Attorney-General. When the 1975 debacle cost Labor all its WA seats except for Fremantle, Berinson suffered a narrow defeat at the hands of Liberal candidate Ross McLean.
Redistributions in 1977 and 1990 respectively reoriented the seat westwards to the advantage of the Liberals and eastwards to the advantage of Labor. Australian hockey captain Ric Charlesworth was able to gain and hold the seat for Labor in the more difficult conditions after 1983, and Stephen Smith came to a seat with a solid Labor margin when he succeeded Charlesworth in 1993. It continued to trend in Labor’s favour thereafter, remarkably producing a slight positive swing amid the 1996 landslide, and surpassed Fremantle as Labor’s safest WA seat at the 2010 election. However, such has been the party’s progressive malaise in WA over the past decade that the margin has worn down to 5.9%.
Stephen Smith had been an adviser to Paul Keating and a state party secretary before entering parliament, emerging as a senior figure in the Right faction. He was elevated to the front bench after the 1996 defeat, and became Foreign Minister when the Rudd government came to power in 2007. He relinquished this role with displeasure when it was given to Kevin Rudd after the 2010 election, instead being assigned to defence. His desire to return to the foreign ministry was thwarted when Bob Carr was drafted after Kevin Rudd’s failed leadership challenge in February 2012. Smith also served as Trade Minister from Julia Gillard’s ascension to the prime ministership in June 2010 until the reshuffle which followed the subsequent election.
A Liberal preselection in June 2012 was won by Darryl Moore, a former mining engineer now involved in “investing in and managing the family’s commercial and industrial real estate portfolio”, ahead of Geoff Hourn, a former lieutenant-colonel in the Australian Intelligence Corps.
zoomster:
Psephos is openly Labor Right, which in NSW anyways, has been using leaked internal polling to whiteant whoever the current leader is for years now.
My beef is the hypocrisy of people like spur and bemused, who claim to be above buying into those tactics, yet when it suits them, are happy to shop around leaked internal polling when it undermines the leader they don’t approve of.
zoomster@645
Not the way I have always used them.
They are both the difference between 2 numbers in this context.
[Oh? And when did I do that?]
This morning.
Don’t make me retrieve your comments and embarrass you.
[Of 1015 people surveyed across Australia on Thursday and Friday nights, 31 per cent said she had lied and 31 per cent said she was economical with the truth.]
she=Gillard, of course
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/gillards-fightback-stalling-after-year-of-smear-galaxy-poll-reveals/story-fncynkc6-1226528115008
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Galaxy Poll Two Party Preferred: ALP 46 (-1) L/NP 54 (+1) #auspol
mmmmmm. briefly, now that you mention it, there does seem to be something(s) in his right jacket pocket
👿
confessions@651
No doubt you can point to clear examples of that?
@Mod Lib/654
You conventionally left out the important part.
Regardless, 56 per cent of voters said it would not influence their vote.
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Galaxy Poll Primary Votes: ALP 34 (-1) L/NP 48 (+1) GRN 11 (0) #auspol
confessions@653
Embarrass away if you can.
Your real problem is that we don’t join in your blind adulation of Julia and continual bagging of Rudd.
Our stance is more nuanced about both.
Btw: according to poliquant website, LNP are still below their 2PP in 2010 Election.
Don’t count labor out yet.
[No doubt you can point to clear examples of that?]
Yep.
bemused
if the way you have always used them, and the dictionary definition are different, which one do you think I should go for?
Relax Peeps, last Galaxy was 53-47 to LNP, now it’s “54-46” after the greatest, most shameful SMEAR of PM, nothing MOVED, within MOE
zoidlord@658
Zoid, the 56% could be mainly rusted-ons of either side. It doesn’t tell me anything.
Lol at 31% economical with the truth. Talk about leading questions. Imagine asking 100 people at random about it. Would 31% say without prompting “economical with the truth”??
[Our stance is more nuanced about both.]
Of course, because your ‘stance’ (for whatever that means) is not based on any objective reality.
Dare I say it’s based on the very….”faith-based politics” you sneeringly decry in others.
😆
Galaxy is rubbish
zoidlord@658
And in accordance with my usual rule, at least 4/5ths of those who claim it would won’t actually switch.
@bemused/664
Actually that’s where you are incorrect, it means it does not factor in and could be swinging voters, which is why they are on the fence.
[Btw: according to poliquant website, LNP are still below their 2PP in 2010 Election.
Don’t count labor out yet.]
Its too early to say of course, but the other thing to bear in mind is that there’s no doubt Gillard and Labor will campaign more strongly than in 2010. She’s grown into the job, and you’d think there’d have to be less leaking this time round.
Ask the same question about any politician, and you’d get the same response.
The assumption is that politicians lie.
zoomster@662
Always go with the expert opinion – in this case a dictionary or other reference.
I did consult a dictionary but there was no definition fitting this context.
If Sophie gets a 2PP of 52% and you get 48% what do you say her margin and majority are (in percentage terms)?
54= Galaxy
53= Essential
53= ACN
52.5= Morgan
51= Newspoll
52.7 TPP to the Coalition
(It is 51.6% in William’s analysis as it doesn’t have the latest Galaxy and weights Newspoll)
Why didn’t they ask….
Do you think Julie Abbott fabricated her accusations?
Do you think Tony Abbott was right to accuse the PM of unlawful conduct?
Galaxy……push polling
Galaxy has coalition primary vote at 48%. Newspoll at 43%
confessions@666
Of course you can dare to say that. You are usually wrong about most things.
The Finnigans@663
It might be disappointing for Labor that the smear has not backfired to the extent of moving the other way, so this is another poll consistent with the idea that nobody cares that much.
I consider Galaxy to skew Coalition by a point so read this as 47-53.
Her margin of victory is 2%, her majority is 4%.
or even julie bishop 🙂
Mod Lib
These good polls for the coalition will ensure that Abbott remains leader of the coalition. Why would they replace him? Abbott is going nowhere.
[Of course you can dare to say that. You are usually wrong about most things.]
I’ve been right about more things when it comes to the federal ALP than you have.
Confessions
It’s very difficult to appreciate the nuance of this situation if you blindly follow one side of the issue. For a start the principle, the internal situation within the ALP organisation and the ALP’s electoral situation are all separate issues
zoomster@678
Some very tricky wording there which I think is intended to confuse the issue.
“Margin of victory” could mean margin above 50% or margin above her opponent.
confessions@681
A true legend in your own ego.
If Sophie gets a 2PP of 52% and you get 48% what do you say her margin and majority are (in percentage terms)?
I would prefer to think of this situation as there would be equal numbers if 2 people in 100 changed their minds.
i.e. one person reading a decent newspaper in each of two railway carriages carrying 50 people in each.
An addendum to my essay on Eden Monaro. I noted somewhere the other day that the NBN is due to be rolled out in Queanbeyan from early in the new year. This will be a popular move as internet and mobile coverage are very poor in the area.
bemused
the dictionary definition is ‘how much you won by’.
That is, how much you were above the number you needed to win.
dany le roux@685
Please assist me… where does one get a ‘decent newspaper’ in Australia these days?
Michael
The NBN would indeed be a popular move, and can only assist Mike Kelly’s chances of re election
zoomster@687
It could equally mean how many more votes you got than your opponent did.
spur, in reference to leaked internal ALP polling says this:
[spur212
Posted Saturday, December 1, 2012 at 9:53 am | Permalink
I reckon the ALP can pick up everything under 2% in Queensland provided Gillard stays out of the state and Clive Palmer forms his new party. That’s 3 seats including Wyatt Roy’s (the Coalition clearly think Longman’s vulnerable given Abbott was there yesterday)
Melbourne’s also a good chance of an ALP gain.
It’s everywhere else that’s the problem.]
bemused, with all his “nuanced stance” and “I don’t trust leaked polls” replies:
[Gaining Melbourne is not a great help in tilting the balance.
I agree there are possible gains in Qld (praise be to Newman) and possibly more than you are estimating.
NSW is the problem and from Mike Carlton, in one sentence, here’s why]
When spur’s conclusions are challenged, bemused is affronted:
[bemused
Posted Saturday, December 1, 2012 at 11:01 am | Permalink
It is interesting how a few of the normal suspects jump on Spur212 because he attempts to make a rational assessment of Labor’s chances in the next election.]
That “rational assessment” of spur’s was based on reports of leaked internal ALP polling, which bemused has tsk-tsked about, and ‘oh no, not me, I NEVER rely on leaked internal poling”.
FFS, all that’s left for spur and bemused is to do the obligatory “Maaaate, we could save the furniture if we ditched the red haired cow!”
[It’s very difficult to appreciate the nuance of this situation if you blindly follow one side of the issue.]
This has been my point all along.
You are being gamed by internal polling, and for no reason other than you blindly follow one side of the issue.
Michael@686
Michael, I lived in Bega for a number of years in my youth but don’t recall there being many Kelly’s around town. I recall Parburys, Ottons, Ubriens and could probably think of a few more, but no Kellys.
[A true legend in your own ego.]
I think legend is over-reaching (how surprisement from you), but I’m very proud to say I wasn’t like you and sundry others howling at the moon when it came to the PM and the great stuff Labor in govt has achieved.
Are you sure you’re a Labor member cause you sure don’t act like one in public.
confessions
They fail to understand that any other leader would have received the same intense pressure by the coalition and the msm, because of its razor slim majority. The fact that JG withstood it all and managed to implement new policies is a minor miracle.
Margin —
[2.
an amount allowed or available beyond what is actually necessary]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/margin
so if 50% is necessary to win, and the result for one candidate is 52%, their margin is 2%.
The rule of thumb for decency is that it is not a Murdoch publication. I have read Murdoch organs on trains when they have been abandonned by their owners but I have not bought one since 1976.
Comparatively speaking all non-Murdoch newspapers are “decent” and capable of changing the minds of those chronically exposed to Murdoch Bullshit.
[The fact that JG withstood it all and managed to implement new policies is a minor miracle.]
And why most Labor voters respect her.
She’s seen off the adversity and is still there, despite predictions (even from her own side) that she wouldn’t be.
RESPECT.
confessions@691
Well if that is the best you can do, a BIG FAIL. Not one mention of an “Internal Poll”, leaked or otherwise.
We know the Qld results at the last Federal Election, we have the State Election Results and we have State figures from opinion polls. It is possible to make some deductions from those and the continuing antics of Can D’oh and the effect it is having.
Oh and you left out what I quoted from Mike Carlton: “What a horrible fall it has been from Gough Whitlam to Eddie Obeid.”
You think what is coming out about the NSW ALP is helping?
Your stupidity is boundless.
confessions@694
So where haven’t I applauded the achievements of the ALP Government?
You are simply resorting to lying now.