The latest fortnightly Newspoll is an especially bad one for Labor, coming in at 58-42 for the Coalition from primary votes of 30% for Labor and 49% for the Coalition. Julia Gillard is down three on approval to 28% and up three on disapproval to 62%, while Tony Abbott is steady on 37% and down one to 53%. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister has widened from 40-39 to 43-35.
Also:
• JWS Research has conducted automated phone polls in the Melbourne seats of Isaacs, Chisholm and Melbourne Ports, each with a sample of around 500 respondents and a margin of error of slightly below 4.5%. These point to a huge swing in Isaacs, a small swing in Melbourne Ports, and no swing in Chisholm, with an improbably large gap separating the first from the last. Isaacs: Liberal 45%, Labor 35%, Greens 8%, 55-45 to Liberal (15.4% swing to Liberal). Melbourne Ports: Labor 49%, Liberal 41%, Greens 6%, 55.2-44.8 to Labor (2.7% swing to Liberal). Chisholm: Labor 51%, Liberal 42%, Greens 3%, 55.6-44.4 to Labor (0.2% swing to Liberal).
• Essential Research has Labor regaining the primary vote point they lost last week, now at 35%, with the Coalition and the Greens steady on 48% and 8% and two-party preferred steady at 55-45. Other findings suggest support for higher renewable energy targets (11% think the current 20% target by 2020 too high, 33% about right, and 40% not high enough), wind farms (76% support, 11% oppose), compulsory vaccination (87% support, 7% oppose), the right of childcare centres to refuse children who have not been vaccinated (78% support, 11% oppose), and a ban on advertising of sports betting (78% support, 12% oppose), and opposition to privatisation of the ABC and SBS (15% support, 57% oppose). Fifty-two per cent think it important that Australia have a car manufacturing industry against 35% not important; 61% favoured a proposition that “with government support, Australia can have a successful manufacturing industry” against 22% for “there is no future for manufacturing in Australia and government support would be a waste of money”.
• Morgan has Labor down two points on the primary vote to 31.5%, with the Coalition and the Greens steady on 45.5% and 9.5%. The move against Labor is softened by preferences on the respondent-allocated two-party preferred measure, on which the Coalition lead shifts from 54.5-45.5 to 55-45. On previous election preferences, the change is from 54.5-45.5 to 55.5-44.5.
@TP/2448
I think you’ll find the public is sick of both of them.
[I think you’ll find the public is sick of both of them.]
“the public” doesn’t give a cracker. There will be six weeks or so of electioneering when they just might.
OC
[Did he suddenly realise that he had forgotten to feed the cat and got off at the next station?]
As it goes, no …
I think Fitzgibbon should walk pass all Scott Morrison`s press conferences!
I think both Zoidlord and Puff are mostly correct. People are sick of politicians generally and aren’t listening. I disagree with Puff that people will suddenly start listening six weeks out from the election. People will react to key events but I suspect they are past reacting to political spin.
No doubt much of the coming campaign will focus on arguments that voters will in some sense be worse off under the opposition than under the current government. This will fail miserably, because it takes insufficient account of people’s sense of what makes them better off.
As a rational voter, I know that my vote by itself has a miniscule chance of swinging the election. So I vote expressively, in a way that makes me feel good for having done so. From this perspective, it makes perfect sense to vote against a party leader you don’t like, even if you conclude that objectively you will be better off under his or her policies. At the 2011 NSW election, I got tremendous pleasure from voting against the American puppet and the crooks who put her in power. Whether I would personally be better or worse off under the current government didn’t even enter into my calculations: there are limits to the extent to which you can be bought off.
And this is what will happen in September. All the taxpayer funded letters sent by MPs in marginal seats listing bids in the ebay auction that passes for politics in this country will have zero effect. Rightly or wrongly, many people have decided that they can’t stand Ms Gillard (in the same way that they reach a similar conclusion about many public figures they’ve never even met), and will vote accordingly.
I suspect that the announcement of the election date in February was a spectacular own goal, not because of the loss of the postulated “surprise” factor regarding the date, but because a lot of voters seem to have taken it as a cue to make their minds up then about for whom they would vote, decided to turf the ALP, and switched off.
Post 2455 Re public feelings
__________
I think your right…the public is sick of the political; class and loathes most politicians
They tend to blame everything on the Govt of the day…but a poll showed that 38% had no interest at all in th elections
That’s why the bill to change public funding was a disaster
One could sense that on talk-back radio…an endless stream of anger…that is why Gillard had such a great fall
Nothing will improve the position in the next 14 weeks…this is the Black Hole l.ooming up
Bye Bye Julia and friends
Re undecideds or whatever.
My Modlib, not the one here, intends for the first time ever to cast her vote not for Liberals.
Will not say who she intends. It will not be Labor.
She is aggrieved at the PPL Abbott policy. I fuelled her fire, telling her about Abbott’s confessor and allegiance.
She is Anglican, and somewhat anti (Roman) Catholic.
Adding that Pell was invited to and attended the IPA anniversary, in company with Murdoch, Rinehardt and the kneeling Abbott.
Not pleased to hear that.
Just remember it was the Fitzgibbons of this world that were aiming for polls we have now. You’ve achieved your goal Joel. You must be very happy. Your hard work has paid off.
deblonay @ 2457
It will be interesting to see if the parties learn anything from the public funding debacle. The notion that parties need a constant stream of income from the taxpayers put me in mind of dying industries with their hands out for protection and subsidies, or or brain dead people on life support. My personal view is that public funding has had an awful effect on Australian politics: it has enabled the parties to morph into narrow patronage networks, controlled from above through a nomenklatura system, relieved of any need to build a membership base or connect with the voters. Compare the sclerotic way in which the ALP operates now with the liveliness of Obama’s approach in the USA, where they found that the personal involvement of campaign workers was the key to success.
I would rather like to see the parties go bankrupt, since that might give them the sort of shakeup they so need.
Newman Attacking Gonski:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/newshome/17483006/pm-being-spiteful-on-school-funds-newman/
Claiming that PM is using dirty politics.
And yet Newman does this?
I don’t see him doing anything for the state.
Wow just saw a Labor senate unhinging on ABC News…. he was screaming “ORDER ORDER!!!” and smashing the desk with his hands.
Deblonay you can’t really blame people. We pay 150 federal MP’s to represent us and then you have people like Cameron and Fitzgibbon going on national media and confirming most of the 150 are mere wind-up toy soldiers sent out each day with the daily spin sheet to parrot what the spin doctors want us to here. They aren’t representing us. They are slaves to the political machines.
Why wouldn’t we be cynical and fed up?
DavidWH
[OPT Fitzgibbon was the big story of the morning after he dumped on his leader from a great height. Morrison was a mere by-line.]
You trying to outdo the Canberra press gallery’s very negative reaction to Gillard’s Misogyny speech, David? They were still snarking about her as the video went viral internationally.
Newspaper sales are pathetic & getting worse; ABC news & CA viewers are waaay fewer than those who get their news via IT- twitter, facebook, youtube, reddit & other social media, email, texts etc. GensZ&Y in particular get their news & information almost exclusively from IT-based social communication & media, and from texts & word-of-mouth. Reality for most of those I know is If it’s not on twitter/ facebook/ youtube/ other social media, it doesn’t exist!
Fitzgibbon’s youtube exposure sure didn’t make much of a show on social media, or in overseas online newspapers other than The G-Oz, nor garner 11 different Google entries & however many other social media responses in less that 24 hours.
The “secret” of Obama’s 2012 success wasn’t newspaper or MSM:TV “cheer-leading”. It was a brilliantly organised social media & direct-contact via IT device & personal contact campaign. Despite the majority of OpPolling predictions, he not only beat Mitt Romney, he did it by nearly 4 million votes!
Finally tired, so off to bed. Good night, all.
Kevin Rudd… by sheer coincidence went through the media pack front doors today instead of the private carpark entrance.
Then he had the cheek to say “Everyone should just pull their heads in”
Kevvie is the ultimate troll 🙂
On that earlier topic, I shake my head in disbelief that the awarding of multi millions of dollars to campaign funding would be accepted. Of course, it would be slated home to Labor.
It is so stupid. Such a measure needed a lengthy run up. Definitely including heavy restriction on private funding.
As it did not, little wonder that Abbott went for it.
No cost for him, as it turns out.
Rod Cameron former Labor pollster sees an “epic political disaster looming for Gillard…with a loss of perhaps 40 seats
http://www.theage.com.au/national/exlabor-pollster-tips-epic-disaster-20130605-2nqlb.html
@davidwh/2463
Exactly, that’s what I’ve been saying these past few months, we been paying for 150 idiots.
@deb/2467
So another “former” having a ago, because he doesn’t have the nuts to give it all?
BTW WHAT HAS HAPPENED to GREENSBOROUGH GROWLER????
_____________________________
Hasn’t seen sighted for some time
Always there he was… with a cheery forecast that it would all come good…next week,next poll,next month ,even next year…but now just silence… as the waves break over the Titanic’s bow
Oh GG where are you ??
btw, Rod Cameron: this is the guy who said in 2012 Labor will win election:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3449175.htm
ROD CAMERON: The informed part of the electorate has no idea what he really stands for. The uninformed part of the electorate just doesn’t trust him. And he does have a problem with women. Many women find him creepy, they find him full of passive aggressiveness. They can’t quite work the guy out. And they’re still struggling after all this time.
ROD CAMERON: And it’s not just the Labor Party with their extraordinary antics of late. The Liberal Party seems to be in a great mess at the moment too. They cannot get their act together. And is it any wonder that ordinary voters just shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, please, can we move on?”
Thomas. Paine.
Posted Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at 11:25 pm | PERMALINK
No the ALP need to get away from the Rudd/Gillard era
It either needs to become the Gillard Government or a totally new face
Nope, I suspect a wrong needs to be repaired or public perception will continue punishment beyond the election.
With Gillard, Labor is a sick creature that needs to be put down and thereafter an object of scorn. However a Rudd return, even with a loss, will be seen as Labor trying to redeem itself.
——–
yes and again. you have been a reliable oracle for a very long time, and one day this mediocre community (many already have jumped ship) will give jernseys to those deserved
oc
this ia my argument
Thomas. Paine.
Posted Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at 11:25 pm | PERMALINK
No the ALP need to get away from the Rudd/Gillard era
It either needs to become the Gillard Government or a totally new face
Nope, I suspect a wrong needs to be repaired or public perception will continue punishment beyond the election.
With Gillard, Labor is a sick creature that needs to be put down and thereafter an object of scorn. However a Rudd return, even with a loss, will be seen as Labor trying to redeem itself.
2432
mexicanbeemer
[the ALP need to get away from the Rudd/Gillard era
It either needs to become the Gillard Government or a totally new face]
2440
mexicanbeemer
[Basically its all or nothing
Go hard or go home]
That’s my view.
Rod Cameron has always been a good strong Labor person however I guess he will join other loyal Labor identities who have had the gall to question the current Labor situation and be demonized.
PS:
TP
[BTW Chinese TV has been saying that Swan’s budget was a political one and that it is destructive to the Australian economy.]
No wonder, you failed to reference that comment to any google etc listing so we could check it out. I’ve spent c20 mins trying every key-word search I could think of to check out your claim.
Guess how many times any reference to “Chinese TV opinion” and “Chinese Opinion/ reaction to/ comments on” Australia’s/ Australian/Federal Treasurer (with and without Mr Swan’s name) etc – BTW, I even requested translation into Mandarin/ Han Chinese (Cantonese uses the same characters) – appeared on all of the search engines I tried added together?
ZERO!
Many a true word is spoken in jest – Guardian writer Ben Pobjie urges Labor to accept reality and have some fun between now and September 14.
[So please, Labor, loosen up a bit. Make these last few months a big party. Make fun of clichéd responses. Come to Question Time wearing false noses. Get drunk on Lateline. Have a hundred pizzas delivered to Christopher Pyne’s house. I think once you allow yourself to enjoy politics, you’ll be amazed at the scope it offers for good clean fun. Especially with the advantages of incumbency: freed from the strictures of electoral hope, Gillard has the unique opportunity to pass a law requiring every taxpayer to own a duck. She has the chance to not only legalise gay marriage, but make it compulsory.
Look, Labor is depressed. So am I. On September 14, the whole country is going straight to the bottom of the ocean, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. But we can surely have a laugh while we’re waiting to sink. I beseech you, ALP, put down the violins, and go have some fun. Because every day your backbenchers show up to parliament wearing pants is just another day spent denying reality.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/05/labor-defeat-australia-titanic-fun
Tragically, political tragics will probably ignore his advice..
@davdiwh/2475
The problem as said before, we are paying for 150 idiots.
Yet if you want to turn-tail, then give up all your privileges.
On the matter of public funding, I seem to recall that Labor committed to a lesser amount of campaign and interregnum use of public monies.
Which was in response to the huge expenditure in government which occurred under Howard.
The Howard era saw every household beseiged with massive amounts of taxpayer funded literature on every single subject they wished to expound upon.
Including the ridiculous fridge magnets.
Hartcher
Labor has been in a losing position for all 29 of the 29 Nielsen polls in the life of this Parliament.
“That has never happened before” in the 40-year history of the series, Stirton says.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/100-days-of-grey-20130605-2nqs0.html#ixzz2VLw1fLHU
@Silky38/2480
Has always critised Labor and Supporter of Rudd.
Deblonay 2470
..as the waves break over the Titanic’s bow Oh GG where are you?
Clive will build it just in time, for Australia’s economy, under Libs, to be sunk for the next twenty years.
[No wonder, you failed to reference that comment to any google etc listing so we could check it out. ]
Huh?
Im watching it on Chinese HK TV. Get a subscription to TVB satellite TV and you can watch it. It ain’t an article on google.
So the results of the Nielsen Polls haven’t been 29-0 in the life of this parliament then? Hartcher made it up?
@Silky38/2484
Not saying he didn’t make it up, but I’m saying his commentary is biased.
Also, why is he using Nielsen and not say Newspoll?
[So the results of the Nielsen Polls haven’t been 29-0 in the life of this parliament then? Hartcher made it up?]
Polls are photo finish images taken before the finish.
In this case you’re talking about photo finishes snapped before even the final turn.
We have had three years of election speculation, a continual campaign, an economy damaged with negativism by the Coalition, a dumbing down of Australia, a nastification of its people.
Was it worth it for just some polls?
While you wingnuts have been parroting polls, this government has been designing legislation, consulting with stakeholders, getting things done.
Abbott has done nothing at all except win polls.
No legislation introduced, no important votes on the floor won by him, no work except stunts day after relentless day.
Taking government off an incumbent doesn’t need this amount of effort. It was only done because of the faint hope of an early handover, which has not happened.
We could have had at least two years of constructive work from the Coalition, instead of three years of numbing hell.
The last year is usally plenty of time for campaigning, but not for Abbott. In pursuit of his mad dream of No Confidence motions, popular uprisings, Rudd takeovers and all the rest, especially his absolute inner compulsion to be aggressive and pugnacious he has wrecked what was left of the body politic.
A schoolboy dressed up in a suit, taking advice from his confessor, Pell.
He has never won a fight unassisted. Never stood up for himself. Even now he surrounds himself with billionaires, urgers, spruikers and phoney religious nutbags.
He has cause so much trouble and misery and all for some poll results?
Do you realize how utterly empty that record of so-called achievement really is?
“He won some polls.”
It’s just amazing that after all the argey-bargey and all the fighting and emotion of the past three years all political journalists seem to want to write about is the inevitability of a Gillard defeat.
Go look for yourselves. It’s been the only topic of any of the regular op-ed writers now for weeks.
One topic.
You’d be forgiven for thinking they are obsessed with it.
And you’d be right.
They are obsessed with it because they’ve misunderstood and miscalcuated Gillard so many, many times inthe past three years.
They
‘re terrified of being wrong again.
It’s all they talk about, even while their newspapers and television stations are sliding down the Spend of history.
It’s a disgusting, self-indulgent waste of everyones time and shareholders’ precious money.
One of the greatest corporate scandals of the past century: how an entire industry wrote its own epitaph and celebrated it.
Gotterdammerung had nothing on these idiots.
BB
The Stuff Australia parties cannot be bothered to even respond.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/newspoll-upfront-exclusion-rates-since.html
Newspoll Upfront Exclusion Rates Since 2002
…being my analysis of the whole question of whether the high rate of “uncommitted” voters creates a serious chance that the Government can save the day.
Short answer is: it doesn’t. Narrowing of the margin is a credible possibility but is by no means inevitable.
Bushfire Bill@2487
And stuffing things up, talking about itself and explicitly abandoning its marginals as part of a strategy based on conceding the election and trying to reduce seat losses.
You forgot to mention those bits.
[btw, Rod Cameron: this is the guy who said in 2012 Labor will win election:]
No, he didn’t.
[Newspoll Upfront Exclusion Rates Since 2002]
Very interesting Kevin B. Thanks.
@Kevin/2490
Thanks for that.
I was going through the last election stuff from 2010 on Crikey, and found the last three weeks or so the polling really tightened up.
@William/2492
Explain?
Rod Cameron did not say in 2012 that Labor would win the election (or at the very least, not in the link or the quotes you provided).
@William/2496
True, but in context he did say they were in the mess.
Zoidlord
It did and i image it will do the same this time that is why i think the result will be about 10 maybe even as close as 4 points.
@mexicanbeemer/2498
I might not be overly confident in your assessment but yes you might be correct.
Last few weeks will be important for either party.
[And stuffing things up, talking about itself and explicitly abandoning its marginals as part of a strategy based on conceding the election and trying to reduce seat losses.]
You cite “stuffing things up” as if there was no interference run by the Opposition and their media backers. It’s been one of the most concerted efforts on the part of the media to regain a shattered relevance that I’ve ever seen.
You just can’t use phrases like that without mention the context in which mistakes happened.
Mistakes, by the way, which can be divided into the following categories:
(a) Mistakes that weren’t mistakes at all.
They just got the media offside, or we simply declared to be mistakes by the media. The party funding issues is a recent one. Also asbestos, for which there is a completely understood and tested procedure for dealing with its handling, yet the media pretended there wasn’t. The BER is another: a 97% satisfaction and Value For Money (VFM) rate, yet it was still declared, by the media, to be a “Catastrophe”.
(b) Forced errors: like the opposition’s refusal to countenance anything to do with the Malaysia solution. The inability to run the parliament smoothly with points of order being made every thirty seconds and chronic filibustering. Yet, ultimately, when the damage had been done, most bills were quietly passed without the slightest mention. For example, 99% of the budget.
(c) Unforced Errors: Slipper comes to mind… except that the government got something in return… survival, free of Wilkie.
This is the problem with seeing politics as being only about elections. It’s much more than that.
True, the government may lose the election, but they have done much good work in the meantime. Some of it has been promised to be repealed, but you and I both know this is a lot harder than it sounds when its just a soundbite on the TV or a shock jock radio interview.
Most of the government’s policies are actually popular.
Talking about itself: excuse me, but the people who white-anted the government, leaked confidential cabinet information and spoke anonymously and venemously to the media were traitors, not honourable menbers of the government. Their behaviour was a disgrace, and would be a disgrace in any party.
And, pathetically, when given their chance they either lost miserably or wimped out. The media was completely wrong about them and their chances. These people are barely human, much less members of the government.
Judged by performance, achievement against the odds, longevity in office, this has been a successful government, and that’s what irks the media, because they have written it off so many times.
Perhaps they’ll be right eventually – stoped clock and all that – but they hardly qualify as thew geniuses they make themselves out to be. In fact, quite the opposite.
What do you call an “expert” who is 95% wrong most of the time? I call them idiots.
Take your numbers and wallow in them Kevin. The logical extension of your train of thought is that we needn’t have elections, because savants like yourself can tell the results of them months and years beforehand.
Some of us like to think that an election is winnable, and is certainly worth fighting for and that nothing is pre-ordained, especially in a field of study where the so-called experts have been so wrong, so bloody often.
Can’t be bothered proof reading this so please forgive typos. I’m off to bed.