Galaxy: 50-50

Contrary to talk of stalled momentum for Kevin Rudd after a relatively weak Newspoll, a new Galaxy poll has Labor’s primary vote with a four in front and a dead heat on two-party preferred.

GhostWhoVotes reports that a Galaxy poll in tomorrow’s News Limited tabloids has two-party preferred at 50-50, from primary votes of 40% for Labor and 44% for the Coalition. This compares with a 51-49 lead for the Coalition at the last such poll four weeks ago, with Labor up two on the primary vote and the Coalition steady. More to follow.

UPDATE: James J fills the blanks: “Greens Primary for this poll is 9. Who do you think will be better, Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party or Tony Abbott and the Coalition, in handling the issue of asylum seekers? Rudd Labor 40, Abbott Coalition 38. Who do you think will be better, Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party or Tony Abbott and the Coalition, in tackling climate change? Rudd Labor 45, Abbott Coalition 31 Which of the two party leaders do you believe has the best vision for the future? Rudd 46, Abbott 36. July 23-25. 1015 sample.

We also have the Launceston Examiner reporting ReachTEL polls of 600 respondents in each of Bass, Braddon and Lyons show the Liberals continuing to lead in all three, although details provided in the article are sketchy.

UPDATE 2: Kevin Bonham has kindly passed on results of the ReachTEL poll of Bass, Braddon and Lyons. The polls were conducted on Thursday from respective sample sizes are 626, 659 and 617, for margins of error of around 4%. The results unusually feature personal ratings for both the Labor incumbents and Liberal candidates, which show a) implausibly high recognition ratings for all concerned (only 1.5% of Braddon respondents had never heard of their Liberal candidate, former state MP Brett Whiteley), b) surprisingly weak results for the incumbents, and c) remarkable uniformity from electorate to the next.

Bass (Labor 6.7%): Geoff Lyons (Labor) 34.7%, Andrew Nikolic (Liberal) 48.9%, Greens 9.4%. Two party preferred: 54.0%-46.0% to Liberal. Preferred PM: Rudd 50.6%, Abbott 49.4%. Geoff Lyons: 25.6%-39.8%-30.3% (favourable-neutral-unfavourable). Andrew Nikolic: 43.3%-24.0%-24.6%.

Braddon (Labor 7.5%): Sid Sidebottom (Labor) 34.6%, Brett Whiteley (Liberal) 51.3%, Greens 7.4%. Two party preferred: 56.8%-43.2% to Liberal. Preferred PM: Rudd 51.2%, Abbott 48.8%. Sid Sidebottom: 27.4%-37.8%-33.1%. Brett Whiteley: 42.7%-30.5%-25.3%.

Lyons (Labor 12.3%): Dick Adams (Labor) 32.3%, Eric Hutchison (Liberal) 46.8%, Greens 10.2%. Two party preferred: 54.4%-45.6% to Liberal. Rudd 50.7%, Abbott 49.3%. Dick Adams: 26.8%-34.3%-35.7%. Eric Hutchison: 36.8%-29.3%-18.2%.

UPDATE 3: More numbers from last night’s Galaxy poll. Kevin Rudd’s lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister is unchanged at 51-34, but Malcolm Turnbull holds a 46-38 lead over Rudd.

UPDATE 4: Essential Research has the Coalition down a point for the second week in a row to 44%, Labor steady on 39% and the Greens up two to 9%. After shifting a point in Labor’s favour on the basis of little change in the published primary votes last week, two-party preferred remains at 51-49 despite more substantial change this week, suggesting the result has moved from the cusp of 52-48 to the cusp of 50-50. The poll finds 61% approval for the government’s new asylum seekers policy against 28% disapproval and concurs with Galaxy in having the two parties almost equal as best party to handle the issue, with Labor on 25% (up eight on mid-June), the Coalition on 26% (down 12) and the Greens on 6% (down one). The issue is rated the most important election issue by 7%, one of the most by 28%, quite important by 35%, not very important by 16% and not at all important by 8%. Malcolm Turnbull is rated best person to lead the Liberal Party by 37% against 17% for Tony Abbott and 10% for Joe Hockey, and there are further questions on workplace productivity.

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.

2,216 thoughts on “Galaxy: 50-50”

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  2. Henry@2075

    So it seems NSW people can distinguish between state and federal issues but not our tasmanian cousins it seems.

    This looks like some level of distinguishing between state and federal issues to me:

    Lyons Federal Libs 46.8-32.3 but state 58.3-22.2
    Bass Federal 48.9-34.7 but state 55.2-22.3
    Braddon Federal 51.3-34.6 but state 56.9-21.8

    Labor doing 10.1, 12.4 and 12.8 points better on primary vote at federal level, Libs 11.5, 6.3 and 5.6 points worse.

    That’s about a 10% 2PP swing from the federal to the state results. And that kind of difference has happened in Tasmania often.

    The state government is a big drag on Labor’s federal polling but it’s not the whole story. Some of the swing back is because the margins last time were artificially large.

    Also, if you look at the BludgerTrack aggregate on the sidebar, Tassie still has the highest ALP 2PP of any state. Perhaps not once you take these figures into account.

    Labor’s real problem is geography. Northern and rural Tasmania specifically is the problem, not the urban south – except Wilkie has one of the southern states. It can in theory win the 2PP in Tasmania while only retaining one of five seats.

  3. PeeBee
    Not according to the experts. The driving factor is escape from country of origin, not the safe final destination. Once people are refugees, and are assigned a new safe home, there is no impetus for further flight, and no rights to do so.

  6. lixzzie@2086 – thanks for that link, I was beginning to think Hockey’s ridiculous notion of ignoring Treasury was going to sink without trace. As I recall it hardly got an airing on Insiders.

  11. guytaur@2078

    Henry

    Tasmanians voted Labor State when Howard was PM so yes I would say they can.

    Remember all Tasmanian polling is small samples and done by News Limited.

    They are all Mercury or Examiner commissioned but these new samples of over 600 per seat aren’t chickenfeed.

  13. The pull factors are important but from the interviews that have been shown the aim appears to be we want to come to Australia.

  14. 20070726adf8099240_406
    (L-R): Mrs Janette Howard, Prime Minister John Howard and Corporal Allison Lynch stop for a chat at the heliport during the Prime Minister’s visit to Dili in Timor-Leste.

    (Date taken: 26 July 2007)
    Low-Res | Hi-Res

    tp://www.defence.gov.au/opex/global/opastute/images/gallery/20070730/index.htm

    =======================================================

    SO WHAT ARE THE abc saying, some one who can do small links may like to tweet the abc

  16. 2043
    Carey Moore

    In NT, Solomon is definitely gettable and worth a shot but don’t spend too much time on it. Darwin is a low yield place, politically.

    The sitting member, Griggs (CLP), is basically a bland and forgettable seat-warmer. Running a good candidate and campaign could bring that seat into play for Labor.

    Don’t know much about Labor’s candidate, Luke Gosling, but he has a solid military and community service background, both of which will help his chances. (A lot of that work has been in East Timor too, which will also help, given the strong local connections to that country.)

    http://www.alp.org.au/luke_gosling

  17. adrian

    Posted Monday, July 29, 2013 at 1:55 pm | Permalink

    “Only the impotent are pure.”

    One of the great man’s greatest quotes.
    ——————————————————-

    The IPA want Abbott to emulate Gough. They couldn’t find a Liberal PM worth emulating

  18. zoidlord

    From your link:

    ‘Budget numbers reveal our national level of indebtedness will skyrocket by $61 billion over five years, which is an economic ticking time-bomb, says the Green Party.’

    An economic ticking time-bomb?

    As opposed to the non-economic, non-ticking time-bombs?

    Are we missing some sort of Green arcana here?

  19. “except Wilkie has one of the southern states.”

    That should read “southern seats” of course. We haven’t made him Premier or Emperor for Life just yet.

  20. 2051
    sprocket_

    “I don’t think the coalition has genuinely wanted the boats to stop whilst ever it was in opposition. It was political manna from heaven to have the boat arrivals continue.”

    John Menadue.

    http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=629

    There it is. The core of the Coalition’s boat policy.

  21. Jackol

    Fulsome praise is not something you would want to receive.

    This is arguable though not compelling. The term “fulsome” has undergone a number of connotative changes over its life in English, including of course, the connotation your raise against BW’s usage.

    Personally, I’d never use “fulsome” other than in its derogatory sense, and even though I wince when others use it to mean “unstinting” or “uncritical” or “abundant” I do accept that this usage is now well-established.

    In language, ultimately, what the crowd thinks a word or phrase means, is what it means, at least for the crowd. Only in cases where a popular usage introduces harmful intellectual ambiguity or trades on social exclusion or unwarranted taboos, do I regard it as important to object.

  22. To complete the loop, Labor should offer TPVs and threaten to “tow the boats back – when it is safe to do so”.

    It would be worth it just to see Abbott and Morrison go troppo.

  23. http://newmatilda.com/2013/07/29/how-we-justify-our-cruelty

    What we are doing to asylum seekers is simply vindictive, and like so many pitiless policies, it says more about our own unsettled identities than the needs of asylum seekers.

    People who are at risk of drowning need our help. People who perceive that risk as lesser than the fate they are fleeing really need our help. Until we acknowledge that we can never fully feel at home here and find ways to resolve the paradox at the heart of our national identity, we will go on blaming, demonising, even punishing vulnerable, traumatised people who turn to us for asylum. The PNG deal is as great a wrong as this nation has perpetrated and will only add to our unsettled feelings.

  27. I think its chicken feed

    72 th voters or there abouts
    in lyons
    and 600 phoned
    on the ground in dicks seat I am yet to meet a liberal}
    have quite afew contacts in southern beaches and Derwent valley,
    southern end of his seat.
    was speaking to a fiend up north today and she told me

    she hung up could nt be bothered with a recording

    and she votes labor,

    they rang me last year I hung up to

    I couldn’t hear what the computer voice was saying,
    I am hard of hearing so how many other old people are hard of hearing, when there is a person you can say

    excuse me would you repeat that please

    and by the time I thought about pressing a phone key they where on to the next question,, so yelled at computer

    if you cannot be a real persom I am not interested hope they heard lol

    and I wonder did they do 62 numbers re lyons,

    I bet they didnt

  28. West Papuan activist Ronny Kareni on the bigger picture of refugees and domination in the Pacific:
    http://newmatilda.com/2013/07/29/australia-deceives-pacific-again

    The truth is kept secret from the people. As the great Bob Marley said, “you can fool the people sometimes, but you can not fool all the people all the time”. Despite Australia’s politicians continuing to deceive Australians about the threat of “illegal boat people” thousands are coming out on the streets to protest, challenging this new policy’s legality as well as its humanity.

    In PNG the challenge is mounting against the government’s complicity with Indonesian and Australian colonial powers.

  29. Peg

    I think the statement “The PNG deal is as great a wrong as this nations has perpetuated and will only add to our unsettled feelings” is, as former PMJG said, some “hyper-bowl”.

    More unsettling is the thought of Abbott as PM.

  30. In the Land of no visas if you arrive by boat, TPVs are irrelevant. There will be no visas at all, temporary or not.

    As for turning back the boats Rudd might as well go the whole hog and beat Abbott with a new policy to ‘sink all boats where it is safe to do so.’

  31. Budget numbers reveal our national level of indebtedness will skyrocket by $61 billion over five years, which is an economic ticking time-bomb, says the Green Party

    If my party really did say that, then I regret it. {sighs deeply}

    (And the sigh is not merely over resort to a hackneyed phrase, bad as that is …)

  32. Will we get government help to set up a netflix account?

    I’ve heard that it can be done with an Aussie credit card, but just use a made up US address with a valid US Zip code, ie 90210 or whatever.

    Also said to work with US HBO accounts which can then be streamed etc.

  33. KB

    “except Wilkie has one of the southern states.”

    That should read “southern seats” of course. We haven’t made him Premier or Emperor for Life just yet.”

    Indeed. Besides that position has already been self-filled.

  35. JV, ‘Not according to the experts. The driving factor is escape from country of origin, not the safe final destination. Once people are refugees, and are assigned a new safe home, there is no impetus for further flight, and no rights to do so.’

    I agree for people who are persecuted, their initial motivation is to flee. But I cannot agree that ‘a new safe home’ is their motivation to stay put. Something like 4,000 Iranians arrived in Jakarta in the first six months of this year and were granted visas on arrival. On the face of it, they were in a safe country with a tolerance (in the most cases) their religious beliefs. Yet Indonesia remains a stop over as they head on to Australia. As Bang Bang said, ‘if you want to stop the boats you have to take the sugar off the table’.

  37. Has the Fiji foreign affairs guy let the cat out of the bag about another 2 resettlement countries? Solomons and Vanuatu.

  39. Tricot

    More unsettling {than FOAD policy} is the thought of Abbott as PM.

    No, it just isn’t. Abbott is going to use the same policy and its informing paradigm to brutalise asylum claimants. It’s the same.

    It is not better to have good people do bad things than to have bad people do bad things, even allowing that the ALP, purely for the sake of argument, are indeed “good people”.

    People who do bad things when they have analternative, define themselves as bad, whatever they were before. Good people are bound to resist bad things. That’s what makes them good people.

  41. Administrator John Morgan says a preliminary review of the operation suggests a downturn in sales has impacted on the company’s ability to operate as a going concern.

    I’m sure that Abbott will find a way to blame boats, FBT or carbon price irrespective of what the Administrator has said

  42. Kinkajou

    Ronny Kareni ethnically cleansing Abraham Lincolns ” fool some of the peeps”

    Either that or he channelled Lincoln while metabolising some high quality THC.

  44. BW (and Fran) –

    Has that changed in the past forty years or has it ever been thus?

    Perhaps the other way around!

    Ok, doing a bit of online research, the answer is that it actually may have swung back to the simple meaning in the last 50 years! However, it’s still a basically ambiguous word that needs to be used with care, and most dictionary definitions still have the negative definitions as the most prominent.

    The English online etymology dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=fulsome says:

    Middle English compound of ful “full” (see full (adj.)) + -som (see -some). Sense evolved from “abundant, full” (mid-13c.) to “plump, well-fed” (mid-14c.) to “overgrown, overfed” (1640s) and thus, of language, “offensive to taste or good manners” (1660s). Since the 1960s, however, it commonly has been used in its original, favorable sense, especially in fulsome praise.

    and this little essay clarifies and confuses the issues:

    http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/fullfulsomeword.htm

    The meaning of ‘simple abundance’ lasted from the first appearance of the word (c. 1250) till Elizabethan times (last OED citation is 1583). In the meantime, the word picked up and lost other meanings: ‘fat, overgrown’ (1340-1768); ‘overfed’ (1642-18003); ‘gross and satiating’ (1410-1770); ‘wearisome from excess of repetition’ (1531-1709); ‘offensive to the taste of smell’ (1583-1725); ‘morally foul, obscene’ (1604-1726); and finally, ‘gross or excessive, offensive to good taste like flattery’ (1663 to the present).

    What a spectacular career! What a wonderful word! It should please all our many purists that after 700 years of wayward use, and compulsive fiddling, fulsome is finally returning to its original and etymologically correct meaning, that is, if our purists knew anything about language history or etymology.

    So, maybe I was wrong to pick you up on your usage if it is commonly used in a manner harking back to its origins…

    I just know it’s too ambiguous for me to risk using most of the time for fear of causing offense!

  46. J & F

    I was just using it the way I learned it in the 1960’s as yet another of the tens of thousands of english-as-a-second language words I had to learn in order to annoy Adrian and Bemused properly.

    It is a wonderful language, IMHO.

  48. Psephos:

    So, that’s it for a 31 August election, it seems. A lot of commentators will be eating their words, including several here.

    I’m still standing by my original prediction – not of the actual election date, but the circumstances. Rudd will play the Lib’s bleating about the election date for as long as he can. There are also some things left to fix – Tasmania comes to mind after seeing the Reachtel output.

    There is also the question of Turnbull replacing Abbott – they definitely don’t need this happening, so the election WILL be announced before the next scheduled sitting. It depends whether Rudd can hold his nerve – my guess is he can, and the longer he does the more unhinged Abbott becomes. So I’m sticking with an announcement and prorogue some time in the week beginning 12/8.

    Not many sleeps now.

  50. Hey, don’t tell me the Compassion Cops are back for another go at playing the Compassion Card. They are out of luck. Just about everyone on Bludger is busy playing the Faux Bastardry Card.

    The Compassion Card is played by all the Compassionate People who want to stop anyone from drowning by flying them here in whatever numbers suits everybody else.

    The Faux Bastardry Card is played by all the Fa

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