Highlights of day one

Two new polls, one new poll aggregation, and some ads.

A quick replay of yesterday’s polling:

• Essential Research has two-party preferred steady at 51-49 to the Coalition, from primary votes of 38% for the Labor (down one), 43% for the Coalition (down one) and 9% for the Greens (steady). The survey finds only 44% saying they will definitely not change their mind, with 30% deeming it unlikely and 21% “quite possible”. Respondents were also asked to nominate the leader they most trusted on a range of issues, with Tony Abbott holding modest leads on economic management, controlling interests rates and national security and asylum seeker issues, and Kevin Rudd with double-digit leads on education, health, environment and industrial relations. Kevin Rudd was thought too harsh on asylum seekers by 20%, too soft by 24% and about right by 40%, compared with 21%, 20% and 31% for Tony Abbott.

• Morgan has Labor down half a point on the primary vote to 38%, the Coalition up 1.5% to 43%, and the Greens up one to 9.5%. With preferences distributed as per the result at the 2010 election, the Coalition has opened up a 50.5-49.5 lead, reversing the result from last week. On the respondent-allocated preferences measure Morgan uses for its headline figure, the result if 50-50 after Labor led 52-48 in the last poll.

• BludgerTrack, which was formerly updated weekly but will now be brought up to date whenever substantial new data arrives, records no change on two-party preferred from the addition of the two new polls, although the Greens are up on the primary vote at the expense of Labor. However, there’s a fair bit of movement on the state seat projections, with Labor up one in Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania and down one in Queensland for a net gain of two seats. That leaves two state-level projections at which one might well look askance: a finding of no gains for Labor in Queensland, against three gains for them in Western Australia. Whereas poll results in the weeks after the Rudd takeover had Labor outperforming the national result in Queensland as often as not, I now have five data points over the past fortnight all of which have them below. And while three gains in Western Australia certainly seems hard to credit (for one thing, the model is not adequately accounting for Labor losing the Alannah MacTiernan dividend from 2010 in Canning, which at present is rated a probable Labor gain), all five data points from the past fortnight show Labor improving on the 2010 result – a pretty solid result given how noisy small-sample state-level data tends to be.

• As far as I can tell, Labor and Liberal each had one television ad in business yesterday, and they read from much the same tactical script: both are positive, showcase the leader, and appear tailored to launching the parties’ rather nebulous campaign slogans. Kevin Rudd speaks to us of “a new way”, Opposition Leader style, while the actual Opposition Leader makes like Luke Skywalker and offers us “new hope”. The latter effort is a fairly obvious exercise in image softening, but what most stands out for me, having grown accustomed over the years to “face of Australia” advertising being served with a thick layer of political correctness on top (Qantas being an acknowledged leader in the field), is that all but a very small handful of the 50 or so faces in the ad are white.

UPDATE: ReachTEL has published the results of an automated phone poll of 702 respondents in Kevin Rudd’s electorate of Griffith, and it points to a 4% swing to the Liberal National Party paring his margin back to 4.5%. The primary votes from the poll are 45.6% for Kevin Rudd, 41.0% for LNP candidate Bill Glasson and 8.0% for the Greens.

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.

1,369 comments on “Highlights of day one”

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  1. Interest rates lower under Labor!

    A crushing 6.5% under the liberal, now 2.5!

    Do you want higher interest rates? Vote Abbott. Hockey supports higher interests rates, sez they’re good for the economy

    Yes: the ALP should use these. The LNP deserve it, since they invented this sort if crappy pseudo- economics.

  2. For those worried about tabloid front pages:

    [But how much influence is a six-week torrent of offal sluicing through the open sewers of News Limited’s election coverage really going to have? Nobody under the age of 30 has ever read a newspaper and presumably most of the zombie horde drawn to the columns of the Piers Boltbrechtson Hivemind would only ever have voted for Rudd by accident or as a result of some calamitous dosage error in their medication.

    It’s sort of depressing sitting here in the mainstream media, thinking that this might be the last election in which anyone gives a toss what the mainstream media does, and even then it’d be a small and vanishing fraction of the voting age population. But getting upset because a super rich conservative businessman has sooled his pack of attack-munters onto the political party which is only slightly less likely to preference the interests of super rich conservative businessmen over, say, everyone else doesn’t have much of a future.

    The ALP was always a good chance to lose this election, because a lot of people had good reason to vote against them. Murdoch’s sentient drones shooting Hellfire missiles into the whole mess might not even make a damn bit of difference. He tried the same thing with both Clinton and Obama in the US and failed both times.

    There is one possible real world outcome from the hilarious comedy stylings of every journalist taking the Murdoch coin at the moment, however. It’s the further contraction of the newspaper reading audience as even more punters abandon the format in disgust.

    Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/blogs/blunt-instrument/lord-rupert-unleashed-hounds-does-it-really-matter-20130806-2raod.html#ixzz2b8Xm7TWJ ]

  3. MB

    ‘puff adder’ is a little ‘something.’

    I think BK referred to Sophie as ‘Biff’ recently. I didn’t follow closely on that, but I assume ‘Death of A Salesman.’

    If so, quite apt.

  5. OPT:

    Yes, there is all that. But I think there is now a consensus, or close to a consensus that the impact of AGW is going to have varying effects in different jurisdictions, even in different parts of different countries.

    The drying trend in WA’s SW in particular has been occurring for decades now, and every year the winter rainfall seems to decline on previous years.

  6. Newspoll shows parties neck and neck. She went on to interview Adam Bandt, who said int al ‘not the feedback in my seat’
    =============================================================

    crickey so do you think he has seen internal polling
    not just for the greens.

    and I saw your post thank you

    how is your friend,, loved the table cloths have book marked

  10. tried to catch you crickey but the place is so slow

    I used to think it was my computer but every one mentions it now

    so take my own advice and copy posts at this time of morning so I can just paste

  11. Newspoll shows parties neck and neck. She went on to interview Adam Bandt, who said int al ‘not the feedback in my seat’
    =============================================================

    What did he mean? Not sure I get the implication here

  12. It was mentioned on AM this morning that Rudd is keen to parachute his former economics adviser Andrew “Boy” Charlton into Dobell.

  14. [It was mentioned on AM this morning that Rudd is keen to parachute his former economics adviser Andrew “Boy” Charlton into Dobell.]

    That can’t be right. We were assured captain’s picks were only a feature of the Gillard leadership….

  15. My Say….Goodo. Hope you got the shop link.

    BK. That’s a pity. Good analogy missed.

    Lefty E. I have no idea what she (Trioli) was talking about.
    Wondered if anyone else heard it.

  17. My Say.

    The patient is remarkably on his feet and pretty mobile with aid of walker. Amazing, really. Though I did say I wonder what may change once Endone is withdrawn.

  20. Hello all.

    Damn scared of 7 September results.

    I do not understand why Australia has become such an irrational right-wing country. And this ignorance nonsense is celebrated by so many.

    I am In cloudy but beautiful Scotland. Such a relief to be in a high deficit (Tory) country unobsessed with deficits, creative ways to serve haggis, media mostly local and very few baseball caps!!!

    Not sure how to vote here in the highlands.

  22. [But Hockey showed that he has no credible way of responding to the question of why lower interest rates were a magnificent achievement in 2004 under Howard, but are a disaster now. Sabra Lane lined him up and landed damaging hit after damaging hit. But it was too easy for her: Like shooting at phone boxes.]

    For so long the media have been proclaiming a bonanza for home owners every time interest rates are lowered. People (especially those in “western sydney”) have been conditioned to consider low interest rates = good; high interest rates = bad.

    No amount of huffing and puffing by Hockey will convince home owners that a fall in interest rates is suddenly a bad thing. People in the “mortgage belts of western sydney” are understandably concerned about their own financial situation above that of the economy generally. Remember that the Opposition and Murdoch keep reminding us that “people are doing it tough”, so mortgagees have a basis for believing the Government is doing something to help their financial situation.

  23. ‘not the feedback in my seat’
    =============================================================well do u think brandt

    has seen internall polling, re labor and greens

  24. Not sure how to vote here in the highlands.
    =========================================================
    GO ONE LINE TO THE AUST, ELECTORAL OFFICE

    IS THERE AN EMBASSY IN SAY EDINBURGH OR GLASGOW ECT COULD POST OUT TO YOU

    BUT BE QUICK

  27. Economists are rating a 90% chance of interest rates being cut by .25% today.

    Whilst. I believe there will be a cut, I am now worried because these economists never get it right!

  30. More mid-level private school stuff.

    Matt Abraham, 891, sniggering about Kate Ellis and Amanda Rishworth’s signs sliding down the poles etc. Women both, I note.

    Matt claiming he doesn’t know what a ‘gotcha’ is. ‘I never do them.’ Sir, it wasn’t me.

    Guess who he was talking to. ‘The first class, straight down the line, journalist, Chris Uhlmann’.

  33. Interesting poll on Rudd’s seat of Griffith released today on the ABC, covering over 700 people, showing Rudd with a 2PP result of 54.5/45.5. Green vote in particular has collapsed to 8%.

  34. Interesting poll on Rudd’s seat of Griffith released today on the ABC, covering over 700 people, showing Rudd with a 2PP result of 54.5/45.5. Green vote in particular has collapsed to 8%.

  36. [Interesting poll on Rudd’s seat of Griffith released today on the ABC, covering over 700 people, showing Rudd with a 2PP result of 54.5/45.5. Green vote in particular has collapsed to 8%]

    That’s 4% down on 2010 2PP, doesn’t seem very likely.

  38. [ABCQueensland

    Dr John Harrison from UQ @thedoctorsaid says the previous conservative government opted for middle class welfare rather than infrastructure.]

  39. lefty e@51


    Interest rates lower under Labor!

    A crushing 6.5% under the liberal, now 2.5!

    Do you want higher interest rates? Vote Abbott. Hockey supports higher interests rates, sez they’re good for the economy

    Yes: the ALP should use these. The LNP deserve it, since they invented this sort if crappy pseudo- economics.

    Good article from the Kouk setting out why interest rates should be lowered again –

    [ Global interest rates are at the lowest levels in more than a century. Most industrialised countries have set interest rates at level at zero, or as practically possible near zero, based on the parlous positions of their economic conditions. Australia is part of the global economy and the downdraft from a softer industrialised world together with very low global inflation is being felt here in Australia.

    …there are many reasons why interest rates in Australia are at record lows and over the past few years, the importance of each issue has waxed and waned according to fresh information. It is not all that helpful to focus on any one issue – rather to do what the Reserve Bank does each month and look at a broad range of indicators which at the moment suggest lower interest rates are indeed needed. ]

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/8/6/economy/why-rates-should-hit-record-low

  41. Lizzie

    [If we are heading into an economic slowdown, I wish I had confidence that there was more acknowledgement of the extra effect of global warming (floods, storms, etc) on the future economy.]

    The major effect of Global Warming & Cooling periods has been a shift of species, flora & fauna (inc Homo Sapiens) as they follow changing weather towards the poles (if warming) or Equator (if its Cooling). IOW, If warming continues, resource-rich Siberian-Russia, Alaska & Canada are in for a massive Bonanza; Patagonia, southern areas of Oz-NZ & SA as Food-bowls. If there’s a switch to cooling, esp very swift cooling, we’ll have a repeat of disastrous push factors as populations head towards the Equator.

    Currently, there’s intensive research into both patterns; esp warming at the end of the Last Ice Age & very sudden Bronze Age cooling (well covered in Neil Oliver’s History of Ancient Britain). At present, because they are “newer” & left more evidence, cooling periods are better researched & presented.

    If you look behind what is being fed to people re AGW, to the “hard” sciences & new technology behind it, you realise we should have factored species adaptation/ acclimatisation into calculations two decades ago.

    We’ve long had evidence of what happens during periods of Global cooling:

    (1) mid-M2 BC (well studied, very sharp Bronze Age Cooling) and Aryan Invasions (North Eurasian peoples) which would penetrate from (at least) Italy to the Sanskrit civilisations in West Indonesia, replacing Minoan (with Mycenean) Semitic MEast (with Persian); dominating the Indus Valley, India etc; bringing with them a homogenous language-culture which merged with/ replaced existing ones.

    (2) c250AD cooling which set off more invasions into southern Europe by Aryan groups (Goths, Visigoths, Vandals) which (with racially different, central-European Huns) not only toppled the Western Roman Empire, but set off further invasions by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings & Asian Mongols.

    Very importantly, we don’t know what triggered that very swift Bronze Age cooling; though it’s almost certainly the event remembered as the End of Eden, a myth in more N-hemisphere religions than Semitic peoples’.

  42. Actually Bill Glaasson is a MUCH stronger candidate that the Lib who ran against Rudd last time.

    If Rudd had retired he would almost certainly have won the seat.

  43. Morning PB.

    What’s really sad about the whole Ramjan/Abbott affair is the number of men out there who hate intellectual left wing women & wish Abbott had done more than punch the wall.

  45. c

    ‘The article doesn’t mention AGW at all.’

    That is because they don’t want to catastrophically global warming alarm them.

  47. Rudd was 62.3% 2PP in Griffith in 2007 and 58.5% last time. I hope that poll result isn’t indicative of other QLD seats.

  49. OPT

    I feel fairly sure that many of the Nordic/Germanic myths record a significant Climatic” event. The story of Ragnarok seems pretty much to reflect a tectonic shift involving earth shaking (the world snake), fire and dragons(volcanoes) the sea rising (tsunamis) and the sun being eaten (by a wolf) an summerless period when dust blocked the sun for one or several years, followed by a renewal when growth was good.

    So it is probable that some significant population movements were triggered by these events.

    I think they have recorded the Lake Toba (super volcano explosion) but I am not sure whether there is any recorded for certain in the Northern hemisphere.

  50. An interesting result, but Griffith wouldn’t even be in my top 20 seats to poll. Rudd is going to win it. I wonder why they picked it.

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