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. [“PETER Reith has urged Tony Abbott to abandon his generous paid parental leave scheme after last week’s $12 billion blowout in the budget deficit, as Nationals MPs warned they would cross the floor to vote against the policy if the Coalition won power.”
    Abbott is being pushed to drop PPL.]
    So if Abbott wins he will be in a minority government after all with the Nats vetoing everything they don’t like!

  2. @silmaj/1349

    So in other words, your making statements that having nothing to back it up with.

    And then claim the experts will sort it out (which Hockey is debating who is)!

  3. [1349
    silmaj

    The co tax cut will deliver extra rev thru extra investment.]

    Why would this be so? If you want to increase investment (a good idea) then it makes more sense to allow tax credits for investment. Reducing taxes will increase the disposable incomes of dividend recipients. But whether this will or will not result in higher investment is basically unknowable. It may actually result in lower demand in the economy. This is because taxes are usually directed to public consumption or investment, while extra private income might be applied to consumption or to savings or be spent overseas.

  4. Now we see the coalitions cunning plan. They reduce the company tax by 1.5%, This has the effect of INCREASING revenue, then they add a 1.5% levy on top, INCREASING revenue again! How can they lose!

  5. To me it makes sense that these outcomes of budget positve revenue is possible. The ASX 200 is worth 1.4 trillion. A small increase in that alone will improve Govt revenues and everybodies super fund. Ive seen on occasions that govt tax increase have reduced the amount of tax collected thru share depreciation alone. Business is on hold currently. If it unleashes Govt Rev will increase.

  6. [1351
    ShowsOn

    “PETER Reith has urged Tony Abbott to abandon his generous paid parental leave scheme after last week’s $12 billion blowout in the budget deficit, as Nationals MPs warned they would cross the floor to vote against the policy if the Coalition won power.”
    Abbott is being pushed to drop PPL.

    So if Abbott wins he will be in a minority government after all with the Nats vetoing everything they don’t like!]

    They will beat the DLP out of him one way or another, SO.

  7. @silmaj/1356

    Both parties want to do Company Tax cuts, the problem is how much, who has the most policy cuts/most spending.

    Right now, Coalition Party has an expansive PPL package.

    It’s really an extension of Baby Bonus.

  8. The PPl is a policy that is in theory a good idea. It is true that the current budget is stuffed however that doesnt mean that the policy is evil. All large businesses that can afford there own ppl will probably use the Govt and there that cost will cvome down to them,this will also result in more profit/Rev to Govt.

  9. The amount per person will of course vary but the amount of damage to the overall budget is really what should be debated.I cant say what that is but at this point in time I doubt that any politician will either know or tell the truth from both sides.

  10. @silmaj/1361

    True, but it’s pretty easy to work out the maths, pay X weeks.

    @Kevin/1362

    Interesting Labor growing in Tasmania, surely not?

  11. I have a “not-a-poll” on the sidebar of how many House of Reps seats visitors think Labor will win in Tasmania. The votes are all over the place, though three and two are leading.

    It’s gone backwards a bit for Labor in the last couple of weeks but a lot of that has to do with Labor insiders visiting my site a lot and voting early.

  12. If it was as simple as pay x weeks then yes any jo blo could work it out but its not. I think that is the current govts prob they dont do their homework b4 a new policy on tax,policy and the rev that they expect to receive never comes in.

  13. So in two years time Tony may cut company tax, at a cost of $5 billion.

    I bet he will pay for it by some magic Julie Bishop arithmetic where cutting tax increases the revenue.

  14. Top story in Qld.

    [THE mistress of a Queensland MP who was caught with his penis in a wine glass says she “enjoyed the people’s money” when they went on official trips together.

    Ethics committee chairman and Liberal National Party MP Peter Dowling was outed by The Courier-Mail yesterday for having an extramarital affair and texting his mistress pornographic photos, including one of his penis in a glass of red wine.]

    What election. We have an erection. 😆

  15. http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/what-new-zealand-herald-is-telling-its.html kiwis know but will Aussies pick it up in time?

    Off topic have been to fringe events today with in laws here in Edinburgh for the Festival first one great musical based on Sesame street show called The Avenue, went for 2 hours very clever confronted homosexuality, racism etc head on, I loved it the place was packed and a standing ovation at end. The second very different a lone actor speaking for an hour as Richard Burton the actor,also very very good

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