UPDATE (Saturday evening): GhostWhoVotes reports the Sunday News Limited tabloids have a Galaxy poll showing the Coalition leading 55-45, compared with 54-46 in Galaxy’s previous poll. Primary votes are 32% for Labor (down two), 47% for the Coalition (up one) and 11% for the Greens (up one). Under a Kevin Rudd leadership scenario, the primary votes are 38% for Labor, 43% for the Coalition and 11% for the Greens, with two-party preferred at 50-50. Nonetheless, only 34% said Gillard should make way for Rudd with 52% opposed (32-60 among Labor and 33-51 among Coalition supporters). Full results here.
Some bonus late-week polling to keep you going over the weekend:
• ReachTEL polling conducted for the Hobart Mercury points to a Labor wipeout in Tasmania and a comfortable win for Andrew Wilkie in Denison. After exclusion of the 6.8% undecided, the statewide primary votes are 48.8% for the Liberals, 28.2% for Labor and 11.3% for the Greens, suggesting a Liberal two-party lead of around 56-44 and a swing of 16% compared with the last election. The poll was conducted on Thursday night from samples of around 550 respondents per electorate for a statewide total of 2620, which probably makes it the most comprehensive Tasmanian poll ever conducted. Results by electorate (I have allocated the undecided components listed in the published primary votes in each case):
Denison: Andrew Wilkie 38.8%; Liberal 27.9%; Labor 21.3%; Greens 9.6%. The respective results at the 2010 election were 21.3%, 22.6%, 35.8% and 19.0%. Wilkie defeated Labor by 1.2% after preferences, but the published results suggest Labor would finish third behind the Liberals with their preferences securing a very easy win for Wilkie.
Franklin: Labor 38.4%; Liberal 47.1%; Greens 10.7%. The Liberals lead 51.0-49.0 after preferences, a swing of 11.8%.
Bass: Labor 25.5%; Liberal 56.9%; Greens 14.1%. The Liberals lead 61-39 after preferences, a swing of 17.7%.
Braddon: Labor 28.5%; Liberal 57.6%; Greens 7.6%. The Liberals lead 62.2-37.8 after preferences, a swing of 19.7%.
Lyons: Labor 27.5%; Liberal 54.1%; Greens 14.1%. The Liberals lead 59.0-41.0 after preferences, a swing of 22.5%.
• Another ReachTEL poll, this time targeting 1600 respondents in 11 seats in western Sydney on behalf of the Seven Network, inquired about Kevin Rudd’s popularity relative to Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. Abbott led 64-36 over Gillard and 51-48 over Rudd, with enthusiasm for Rudd appearing to have cooled a little since ReachTEL conducted the same exercise three months ago. On that occasion, 42% said the return of Rudd would make them more likely to vote Labor against 25% for less likely. This time, the results were 36% and 31%.
• Roy Morgan has published a phone poll from a small sample of 475 respondents dealing mostly with party leadership, but also including voting intention results. The poll has the Coalition leading 59-41 on two-party preferred from primary votes of 26% for Labor, 50.5% for the Coalition and 12% for the Greens, remembering that the margin of error here is 4.5%. Further evidence of a Coalition-skewed sample came with a 47-35 lead for Tony Abbott over Julia Gillard as preferred prime minister, and a 27-65 approval/disapproval split for Gillard against 41-51 for Abbott. The poll also offered detailed material on preferred Labor and Liberal leader. Kevin Rudd led for Labor with 33% support against 14% for Julia Gillard, 11% for Bill Shorten and 10% for Stephen Smith. Tony Abbott did similarly poorly for preferred Liberal leader, finishing third with 18% behind Malcolm Turnbull on 47% and Joe Hockey on 19%.
• Roy Morgan has also scoured through two years of its polling to provide the “top 10 professions more likely to vote for each party”. This shows Labor’s base remains resolutely blue-collar, with the “new class” professions dominating the Greens list. Defence force members topped the Liberal list with police in sixth place, managers and finance industry types also featuring prominently.
Seat of the week: Blaxland
The western Sydney seat of Blaxland has been held by Labor without interruption since its creation in 1949, and provided Paul Keating with a seat throughout a parliamentary career lasting from 1969 to 1996. The electorate currently extends from Bankstown in the south through Bass Hill and Regents Park to Guildford in the north. The area is marked by a strong Arabic presence, especially around Guildford, together with a large Turkish community around Auburn and concentrations of Chinese and Vietnamese at Fairfield East and Regents Park. The two strongest areas for the Liberals, Woodpark and Guildford West in the electorate’s north-western corner and Bass Hill and Georges Hall in the south, are middle-income and contain the highest proportion of English speakers. The abolition of a neighbouring electorate to the north caused the electorate to be substantially redrawn at the 2010 election, adding 24,000 of the abolished electorate’s voters around Auburn South together with 14,000 at Bankstown in the south (which had been removed from the electorate in the 2007 redistribution). Transferred out of the electorate were 20,000 voters around Cabramatta to the west and 18,000 around Greenacre to the south.
Blaxland’s greatest moment of electoral interest came with its inauguration at the 1949 election, when Jack Lang attempted to move to the new seat after winning Reid as a Labor renegade in 1946. He failed, and the seat has since been won for Labor by margins of never less than 8.8%. James Harrison held the seat for the 20 years before the arrival of Paul Keating, who was succeeded at a 1996 by-election by Michael Hatton. Hatton’s career proved rather less illustrious than his predecessor’s, and he was dumped by the party’s national executive ahead of the 2007 election. The ensuing preselection was won by the Right-backed Jason Clare, a Transburban executive and former advisor to NSW Premier Bob Carr, who prevailed over constitutional law expert George Williams and Bankstown mayor Tania Mihailuk. Clare suffered what by Sydney standards was a modest 4.4% swing at the 2010 election, reducing the margin to 12.2%, but the electorate’s five corresponding state seats swung by between 13.8% and 20.3% at the state election the following March, with Granville and East Hills falling to the Liberals and Bankstown, Auburn and Fairfield remaining with Labor.
Jason Clare won promotion to parliamentary secretary in 2009, and then to the outer ministry after the 2010 election in the defence materiel portfolio. He shifted to home affairs and justice in December 2011, further recovering defence materiel after Kevin Rudd’s failed leadership bid the following February. He was promoted to cabinet as cabinet secretary in the February 2013 reshuffle which followed the retirement announcements of Nicola Roxon and Chris Evans, again trading in defence materiel while maintaining home affairs and justice. His Liberal opponent is Anthony Khouri, a local businessman of Lebanese extraction who together with his brothers founded custom-made luxury car manufacturer Bufori. ReachTEL has twice conducted automated phone polls showing Khouri in the lead, by 54-46 in March and 52-48 in June.
[Her only crime has been that she joined the Labor Party instead of the Liberal Party.]
Ah, Centre! You can’t have forgotten the AN (ABC) broadcasting saga, have you?
1. RN had always been part of the ABC
2. Kevin Rudd decided (?got into some quid pro quo with Murdoch) to open RN to public tender; which, given Murdoch’s ambitions & wealth, meant he would buy it
3. Murdoch submitted what was assessed as the winning tender
4. As PM, Julia Gillard not only dumped the whole process, tender & all; she then legislated to ensure it remained the ABC’s domain!
NOW, all ye Bludgers! Does that, perhaps, give some insight into Murdoch’s & NewsLtd’s continued Total Warfare against PMJG, and the constant, deliberately-orchestrated antics of said former PM before Newspoll weekend, setting the scene for yet another NewsLtd Ruddstoration regurgitation?
As historians maintain: The past is always present in the present and the future. As it is in Oz politics, esp under Murdoch-RNambition-frustrating PMJG!
$2000 a day is a figure fixed by the State governments.
The supply and demand is such that in an open market some specialties would get more and some less.
I don’t see $2000 as excessive as the locums do 24/7 call. I think you would find few barristers for example who would be willing to do that.
Having said that the supply of specialists in regional areas is an ongoing problem. I have heard a health bureaucrats suggest withdrawing specialty surgery to the capital cities (i don’t think he had ever been outside Sydney)!
Blaming and saying that PMJG brought all the rude/sexist comments on herself is like blaming the victim who has been raped.
The old “its her fault, she made me do it” …….
The polls will be better this week.
The boss has gone back to the US to try and keep the mess from coming apart.
Centre..If there were an Olympic event for “Intellectual-lightweight-lifting”…YOU would be in a three-way contest for gold alongside Sean Tiche and C.Crank!
citizen,
PVO would not know if his pants were on fire.
[55
joe carli
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 10:02 am | PERMALINK
Centre..If there were an Olympic event for “Intellectual-lightweight-lifting”…YOU would be in a three-way contest for gold alongside Sean Tiche and C.Crank!]
Should we, perhaps, ease off the snide personal barbs?
“PVO would not know if his pants were on fire.”
Name any one of them that would. They are clueless, the lot of them!
[davidwh
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 9:34 am | Permalink
Apparently it’s the non-union workers working the extra hours and making up for the union lazy types.]
David
I hope that was said in jest.
Well, I’m goig to stick my neck out and say that I thought that Phil Coorey and Katharine Murphy did not make my blood boil last night, and I was not forced to turn off Lateline.
IMO they were pretty honest: wtte “We really don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s anybody’s guess, and we’ll wait and see.”
Compared with all the other stuff I’m reading, that’s as good as anything.
“I have no doubt that Kevin Rudd will win the next election, not just save the furniture by limiting a big defeat.” John Murphy
http://www.afr.com/p/national/labor_murphy_calls_on_gillard_to_qUimA6JY1W5E5BrGtmNESI
OPT
Sorry to hear about your circumstances. I hope you are not trying to fight all those battles alone. Do you have support from family and/or friends?
Darn #59 yes it was.
“I have no doubt that Kevin Rudd will win the next election, not just save the furniture by limiting a big defeat.” John Murphy
http://www.afr.com/p/national/labor_murphy_calls_on_gillard_to_qUimA6JY1W5E5BrGtmNESI
Another negative day for the party ahead
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2607353/The-real-Helen-Clark
[If I had $10 for every time someone who’s met Helen Clark has said to me, “Oh, but she’s so different in person!” I’d be a rich man now. In her years in public office it became commonplace to say that close up and personal she seemed softer, lighter, smaller even; more feminine; more inclined to laugh and joke.
And with such a lovely complexion. Stated or unstated, the corollary of these observations was that the Clark you saw on TV, in parliament, or at media conferences was bigger, harder, heavier, more mannish. People would often go on to lament that we didn’t see more of the private Clark in public.
The implication tended to be that with male leaders like, say, Muldoon, Lange and Bolger, what you got in private was generally what you got in public – and that Clark must therefore be adopting a pose.
Well, wouldn’t you? If you wanted to succeed as a woman in politics? Allowing yourself to come across as even a tiny bit “feminine”, in the usual sense of the word, is fatal to such a career.]
spur212
Good to see that wishful thinking is the plan for the Rudd camp as well.
{lizzie
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 10:10 am | Permalink
Well, I’m goig to stick my neck out and say that I thought that Phil Coorey and Katharine Murphy did not make my blood boil last night, and I was not forced to turn off Lateline.
IMO they were pretty honest: wtte “We really don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s anybody’s guess, and we’ll wait and see.”
Compared with all the other stuff I’m reading, that’s as good as anything.]
Lizzie
Totally agree. It was a good effort by Alberici too.
Lizzie I agree with you. I thought the Lateline conversation was reasonably balanced and most likely a realistic summary of things at present.
[spur212
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 10:10 am | Permalink
“I have no doubt that Kevin Rudd will win the next election, not just save the furniture by limiting a big defeat.” John Murphy
http://www.afr.com/p/national/labor_murphy_calls_on_gillard_to_qUimA6JY1W5E5BrGtmNESI%5D
It’s starting to seem to me that Rudd is surely going to return but he wants to wait until zero hour so he’s still enjoying his return honeymoon bounce. If Rudd returns with less than a month to go to the election, Abbott could be in some serious trouble. Any longer than that and there will be time for a “It’s a return to the same old lemons” etc campaign to take hold and remind the public that Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd are both simply figureheads representing the mob they are currently sharpening the axes over.
PvO is indulging in one of his favourite pastimes: Newspoll Futures.
In other words, discount the next Newspoll if it goes up, because it’ll only be a sympathy vote.
As my sister said when I read the above excerpt out to her:
But Pvo would retort, “Yes, but it’s so far away from the election.
(I know, I’m indulging in PvO Futures now)
But if it’s so far away from the election, then why – when polls are bad – do they forget to mention that bit?
It is still 80-something days from the election. And that’s a fact.
One thing will be certain. If the Newspoll DOES go up, then it’ll be a signal to the Murdoch minions that a good week of clean air and agenda setting CAN help Labor.
It also says that polls are fragile things. Up one fortnight, down the next. In other words: this far out, they’re changeable.
And they do not want us to think about that too much.
The third thing that PvO is saying is that the polls will always be bad for Gillard, barring the odd blip.
He seems to be reading a lot into them, which brings to mind reports last week that Newspoll was in the field then, as well as now.
What happened to that Newspoll?
[Perth shock jock Howard Sattler has been dumped from a Liberal Party function after he was sacked for asking Prime Minister Julia Gillard questions about her partner’s sexuality.]
[Sattler was booked to host a Liberal Party fundraiser in Mandurah next month, but the event has now been cancelled.]
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/17616620/sacked-sattler-dumped-from-libs-event/
You know you’ve gone too far when even today’s Liberal party won’t have you at their events (which as we’ve seen are vehicles for sexist expression).
I think last weekend’s Newspoll was a dream.
OC
I am not surprised at all by zoomsters story.
It is very common in SA.
We would have been better at covering it up by making her wait a year to be seen in outpatients so we could make it look like we were meeting our targets but the end result would be the same.
[davidwh
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 10:13 am | Permalink
Darn #59 yes it was.]
David
I thought so. It would have been most uncharacteristic if it wasn’t.
Nempsy
A return to Rudd takes out most of the threads Abbott is using to devastating effect against Gillard. They can no longer use the lie thread, the mandate thread, the democratic injustice thread, the tax thread or the uncertainty/lack of direction/trust thread. They’ll go with the dysfunction thread but it’s different as Rudd has political capital and trust against Abbott who no one in the community really wants anyway. Whether that’s enough to win the election with this amount of time left remains to be seen but at least if would be a contest as opposed to the sleep walking to oblivion scenario we have currently
Darn I should have added a smiley 🙂
[Bushfire Bill
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 10:18 am | Permalink
PvO is indulging in one of his favourite pastimes: Newspoll Futures.
There are likely to be booby-traps in the polls for Gillard, such as questions about Rudd. But the delicacy and tentativeness of engineering a Rudd return is such that a small rise in Labor’s primary vote, even of just two percentage points, in the coming two weeks could save the Prime Minister.
Shortly before the 2007 election Andrew Robb recalls that he and others were about to approach John Howard to step aside, because of consistently poor polling. But a small improvement right at that time stopped the approach going ahead.
Gillard hanging on because of a polling blip on the back of voter sympathy would be the worst possible outcome for Labor. It would bind the party to an unpopular leader in an environment where respect for the PM has clearly been lost.
In other words, discount the next Newspoll if it goes up, because it’ll only be a sympathy vote.]
As opposed to here on PB where if they go down for the ALP they are “fake, fantasies, a media conspiracy, Rupert Murdoch is in the country” where if they improve for a week it is a “trend”. 😉
Ozpol
Yes I’m quite aware.
Joe C
Just you don’t enter it, you’d blow everyone away 😉
These polls are making fools of themselves.It’ll bite them on the bum come Sept.Just like the USA results.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/gillard-polls-porkies-and-popularity/
Nemspy wants selective condemnation..; ” Should we, perhaps, ease off the snide personal barbs?”
Nemspy : “A fool and his Moniker are soon shafted”!
Nemspy
How insulting. We have a whole zoo full of explanations for poll numbers. Don’t equate us with simpletons who can only muster a small stable.
Labor may just about win under Rudd however I’m not sure what that achieves in the long run for Labor. How stable would Rudd#2 be? Would it just delay renewal similar to what happened in the Libs?
What we need I Think is a bloodless purge in both major parties.
david.
GFC.
Management ‘productivity’ in action.
Management sold these debt packages, and management bought these debt packages.
It is after all the Top End of town who gave us the GFC, not the productive sharp end.
OzPol Tragic
[2. Kevin Rudd decided (?got into some quid pro quo with Murdoch) to open RN to public tender; which, given Murdoch’s ambitions & wealth, meant he would buy it]
A nice touch was that they canned the Mordor bid while Rudd was overseas.
Twitter starting to ask “Where’s Tony?
IA quality reporting as usual.
Quotes Bob Ellis as their psephologist and think number of social media followers is more accurate than polls.
@Nemspy/77
I think it’s wishful on both sides in the Labor Camp and you kids should beat the common enemy out, the big bully.
rudd is in murdoch’s pocket.
Ed
[These polls are making fools of themselves.It’ll bite them on the bum come Sept.Just like the USA results.]
You mean the polls that Nate Silver used to correctly predict every single result?
izatso
What’s your gravatar picture? It looks like a Petri dish with colonies growing on it.
Hmmm…looks like the US is so over losing land wars in islamic countries. Except, that is, for the Republicans who are baying for some US blood and treasure to be pissed away in Syria.
Those reactionaries.
Now. What is Abbott’s position on Australia going to war in Syria? Any enterprising journalist asked him yet? No?
Quel surprise.
No Fibs Geek @geeksrulz 4m
Mr Abbott,the standard you walk past, is the standard you accept. – via @sacurren #auspol #menugate pic.twitter.com/nzy8M9i41n
Two points for consideration. 1. how many liberals are posting Yes for Kevin Rudd and boosting his popularity? 2 Can we believe in the ‘changed Kevin’ when he himself this week discussing Tony Abbott said ‘ a leopard can’t change its spots’- surely the same comment can apply to him?
@Dio/89
And what has the USA Gov archived? Austerity like measures, More Wars?, Lots of Corporate Tax cuts?
USA in a sticky wicket situation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/us-usa-fiscal-taxbreaks-idUSBRE94S1FS20130530
Do we really want to follow their footstep ?
ha, Dio ….. sort of smaller than that essentially.
[Diogenes
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 10:37 am | Permalink
Ed
These polls are making fools of themselves.It’ll bite them on the bum come Sept.Just like the USA results.
You mean the polls that Nate Silver used to correctly predict every single result?]
This whole “The US polls predicted a Romney win” thing bewilders me too. I know some polls had Romney in front, but (having lived in the country at the time), I can tell you that there was never years of sustained massive leads for Romney and certainly never no feeling on the ground that he was going to seriously trouble Obama. The only people who were expecting Romney to win were GOP versions of Meguire Bob.
The reason we have seen neither hide nor hair of the loopersition is because they are “in conference” having a “make-over strategy” to counter the bashing-about-the ear’ole they got and will continue to get over their attitude and promotion of sexism.
Sure, ol’ “TONES” will be tizzied up, a pink ribbon tattooed on his forehead and instructed to “talk-up” the female concerns of the LNP.
But, of course…he’ll just f*ck it up all over again!
AA, for that character ….
….. the standard you walk away from ……
[Catalyst
Posted Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 10:43 am | Permalink
Two points for consideration. 1. how many liberals are posting Yes for Kevin Rudd and boosting his popularity? 2 Can we believe in the ‘changed Kevin’ when he himself this week discussing Tony Abbott said ‘ a leopard can’t change its spots’- surely the same comment can apply to him?]
I’m actually rather bewildered that the Libs would seek Rudd’s reinstatement. If Rudd came back and absolutely cleaned house – getting rid of the likes of Swan and so forth, I would seriously consider voting Labor for the first time in my life. Right now my main interest in this election is seeing Julia Gillard receive her comeupance. Neither side has done enough to convince me to bother with a vote for them.
Cf the NSW Treasurer, imagine what the MSM would have made of Swan getting on the turps, not turning up, and fiddling the books for a freebie trip on the taxpayer?
Same same?
O’Farrell reckons the chap can have a month off and that will pay back everything he took from the taxpayers of New South Wales.
So, that’s alright, then.