Today’s Australian brings state and demographic breakdowns from the combined results of the Newspoll surveys of August 9-11 and August 16-18, which respectively came in at 52-48 and 54-46 in favour of the Coalition. The overall sample is 2826 respondents, with sample sizes for each state ranging from 458 to 659. The narrowness of the range suggests the super-sized sample in this week’s poll was used to boost the numbers from the smaller states, by way of reducing the margins of error on today’s state breakdowns, the largest of which is 4.6%. The salient points:
• New South Wales looks to have done the damage in Labor’s weak ratings of late, the published two-party preferred coming in at 57-43. As you can see from the sidebar, this is a fair bit worse for Labor than the published and unpublished state-level numbers from other pollsters which have been used to determine the current BludgerTrack results.
• Victoria on the hand swings heavily the other way, a 54-46 lead for Labor suggesting only a swing to the Coalition of a little over 1%. This includes a 17% result for the Greens which most would consider a bit hard to credit, given the 12.7% result from 2010 and the general trend of the party’s fortunes.
• The numbers show Labor looking alive in all-important Queensland, a 53-47 lead to the Liberal National Party implying a swing to Labor of around 2%.
• The Western Australian results on the other hand paint a very different picture from one that has long seemed overly favourable to Labor in BludgerTrack. The two-party result is 59-41, implying a swing to the Coalition of around 2.5% off an already very high base. It should be noted though that it’s around here that the margins of error start to push north of 4%.
• A 54-46 lead to the Coalition in South Australia is in line with talk that Labor should be concerned about Hindmarsh and perhaps one or two other seats in the state, suggesting as it does a swing of about 7%.
• Personal ratings don’t show a huge amount of interstate variation for Kevin Rudd, with Victoria being effectively even with his home state for his best net approval rating. His approval rating is higher among men (39%) than women (35%).
• Tony Abbott on the other hand rates considerably lower in Victoria (a net approval of minus 20%) than in New South Wales and Queensland (minus 5%).
I’ll be running all that through the BludgerTrack updatermator later today. You can view the full tables on voting intention here. You can also view aggregated state breakdowns for Essential Research here if you’re a Crikey subscriber, as you should be.
UPDATE: The Guardian has a Lonergan poll of Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith which is raising a few eyebrows by showing his Liberal National Party opponent Bill Glasson leading 52-48, from primary votes of 38% for Rudd (down six on 2010), 47% for Glasson (up 11% on the LNP vote in 2013) and 11% for the Greens (down four). However, it’s well worth pointing out that Lonergan’s own blog reprints an article from Adrian Beaumont at The Conversation which suggests we “trust the national polls much more than the marginal seat polls because the national polls have a good track record at predicting elections, while the robopolls are fairly new”.
Was there any attempt to try and poll on the winning of the debate by interest (amongst those there I mean).
Bit late to stop tobacco funding.
Helen
Lara Tingle retweeted Brisbane Times article so she may do column.
Abbott says Kevin Rudd might want to refund the travel
sponsorship he got recently from a company with links to the tobacco industry. He says Labor might want to hand back donations from the Health Services Union, given all the nasty business with the MP Craig Thomson.
Q: Will you privatise Medibank Private?
Yes we will, at the appropriate time. Abbott says there will be “modest savings” from the health bureaucracy to pay for commitments today, but funding will not be reduced overall.
Q: PBS – what are your changes?
Abbott says there will be powers restored to the health minister to approve certain drugs.
Q: Tobacco?
I think we’ve done this one to death. I’ve said no more donations.
Q: Does that include state branches?
link above 198
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o that’s great someone like Dutton would know what should and should not be on the PBS
move it from qualififed
people
all the lobby groups imagine that.
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so abbott could repmove the pill the over night pill
medication to help with IVF
all question need to be answered
g
thanks
Darn
‘ Diogenes
Posted Thursday, August 22, 2013 at 11:17 am | Permalink
I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that Abbott is more enjoyable to be around than Rudd, especially away from the cameras.
The more important question is which one would you prefer to be running the country. Surely that is what we should be focussing on in an election campaign.’
It is important to have someone with honesty, integrity and respect for others running the country. That would be neither Rudd nor Abbott.
@guytaur/199
Abbott did this last election.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2850600.htm
TONY ABBOTT: She’s going to start lying again.
JULIA GILLARD: I’m going to give you $100 tomorrow…
TONY ABBOTT: She’s going to start lying again.
JULIA GILLARD: …and I turned up tomorrow and gave you 50 bucks, what would you say? I reckon you’d say where’s the other 50? That’s exactly what happened with the health system except it wasn’t 50 bucks. It was a billion dollars.
TONY ABBOTT: Stop it Julia please. There were enough lies from your guys in the Parliament yesterday.
Is it illegal to try and damage our democracy by ab/using the legal system to try and bring an MP?
Excellent AMWU video on manufacturing in Australia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O3HXHf5EKvY
Oh no. How bad can it get for Essendon? Alan Jones is defending them now. He says the AFL is just trying to “nail someone”. He actually said that it’s “Lindy Chamberlain revisited.”
http://www.2gb.com/audioplayer/11606#.UhVxcpIwrJE
“@bradthegunn: #AskBolt why hasn’t Broughs involvement in trying to bring down the sitting Gov been reported by #newscorpes #fairfax and #ABCNews”
So who DID pay James Ashby’s legal bills?
@ 194 Bemused, thank you for that FB link. I’ve shared it and hope everyone does the same!
I think we should be on the lookout for :monkey: to get a question on Brough / Palmer when he takes questions (LoL!) after some appearance today.
Will be interesting if it turns into another shuddering brain-lock moment?? 🙂
triton
It’s become a vicarious fight between the AFL (Labor, Fairfax) and Essendon (Libs, News).
Heard on radio this morning
1. The cuts in staffing of VicRoads have resulted in 100 skilled, experienced engineers losing their jobs. These are the ones who would be the most useful in judging/designing the Napthine road link. (Socrates warned of this).
2. A workman was killed and one injured on a building site in Melbourne this morning. It is often the unions who are the ones to insist on safe work practices and when they are not allowed on site more injuries and deaths occur. Libs want to bring back restrictions on union presence.
Dio, listening further Jones suggests a conspiracy involving the AFL, ASADA, the ACC and – wait for it – the Labor party (ie to justify the “blackest day in sport” press conference).
[So who DID pay James Ashby’s legal bills?]
An interesting question given Palmers revelations today. We now know that a senior LNP personality WAS trying to organise payment, so its reasonable to assume that when the Palmer option fell through that person would have sought to make other arrangements.
What links get exposed from here on in depends on how Brough and Abbott get questioned on this. I suspect they will try and shut it down by claiming Palmer is lying. That’s a high risk strategy as the press seem to like Palmers theatrics.
Certainly a bit of colour for the campaign, and the Fibs will be hoping it stays slightly brown and not blood red.
I’d hope that for today at least the ALP doesn’t run on this. Let the press hyena pack follow the spoor awhile. 🙂
C T@212
I got onto it from my son’s facebook page.
Something has happened to the lad, he was previously apolitical or disengaged. 😀
You might like this one too.
[Meanwhile in Make-up artistgate Lily Fontana had second thoughts about her post.]
..anywhere else a worker bagging out a VIP’s arse would be grass…must be a REAL ARTIST then…or a stooge
I couldn’t open Latika’s link. What was likely to “blow up” for Labor?
Seupreme Court writ lodged by Hird:
http://images.theage.com.au/file/2013/08/22/4682451/HIrd%2520v%2520AFL.pdf
lizzie
The make up “gate”
Absolutely astonishing not not surprising that the leftards are tip toeing around Messiah Kev’s bout rudenes last night. OMFG if it has been Abbott, the leftards would be demanding blood citing “if you can’t talk to the common people you can’t lead the country”. But now, crickets and tumble weeds . Such pathetic hypocrites. What I think burns the ALP drones is the fact that no matter how many selfies Kevin takes, how much he paints himself as a common man and how much the left tries to demonise Abbott as a mysogynist and sexist they always seem to fall on their combined faces.
Rudd would have been under enough pressure to crack rocks before the debate and the make-up artist, no less, obviously expected him to do a song-and-dance routine. Surely her job was to put on the make-up as quickly as possible and piss off.
morpheus
Who is funding Ashby and Brough?
guytaur
Thanks. Surely just a storm in a powder pot?
@218 Thanks Bemused. That’s a good one too!
lizzie
Yep. Tobacco funding and Ashby are going to have more legs as a story so far. Therefore expect more MSM to do Essendon
lizzie
[Thanks. Surely just a storm in a powder pot?]
Hell no. Front page news on online Mordor papers and I think it was Bushfire Bill who earlier mentioned that Ray Hadley was going off on the issue.
Could the make-up artist have been a News Corp plant? The venue was in a club owned by News Corp in a competition owned by News Corp and organised by a broadcaster of which News Corp is a major shareholder.
@morpheus/223
What Rudeness?
If Kevin was speaking, and Abbott told him to shut up because he didn’t want to listen.
And you are right, you are defending Abbott to the extreme.
I wouldn’t.
In his recent presser on health, Abbott (and Dutton) constantly reiterated a promise that the basic caregivers (doctors, nurses etc) would retain their jobs. But the Libs will still “cut waste”.
Same model as Libs in VicRoads (as an example) remove all policy makers, experienced thinkers, and bring in more forms for nurses to fill in, supposedly to make them accountable. This is the model I’ve seen over and over again in business, health, etc etc etc.
Thanks, guytaur. Laura Tingle is usually worth reading – unlike most journalists these days.
You’d think they’d be embarrassed at their endless pursuit of the trivial while they blatantly ignore the big issues.
The Victorian result in the state by state breakdown is incredibly curious. Labor are sitting at the same % all year and until this survey period, the coalition and Greens had been consistent all year – then out of the blue you have a +5 for the Greens and a -4 for the Libs. Just seems like a most unlikely bounce.
[leftards]
I love it when people use this term, it demonstrates their complete lack of imagination. The term “rightard” has a semblance of wit, being a pun on the words “right” and “retard”. On the other hand, co-opting the word and just changing right for left is, well, retarded.
On the gripping hand, it would probably be best not to use either.
Guytaur
Don’t know, you tell me.
While you are at it can you let me know why Messiah Kevin is such an asshole and why the leftards are such massive hypocrites when the shoe is on the other foot ? Think carefully..
The theme that Abbott was developing to day was (probably fed to him by Peta) – Rudd won’t shut up, he talks and talks and make promises, but his promises never arrive. It was already on morning talkback this morning, examples school computers and NBN.
I think Labor should move to quell this bloody fast.
[It is important to have someone with honesty, integrity and respect for others running the country. That would be neither Rudd nor Abbott.]
Well they’re the only ones on offer Boerwar so the people have to make a choice don’t they?
@morpheus/236
Except they are not hypocrites,
Abbott did this in 2010 election with Julia Gillard, telling her to shut up.
So why don’t you shut up.
@latikambourke: Is Tony Abbott kissing a nun? http://t.co/CERMdWvnJw
Yeah Latika really knows how to pursue the substantive debate
[Let the press hyena pack follow the spoor awhile.]
Not too long or it may just disappear
I am guessing she was contracted by Sky
[SkyNews We are aware of comments posted by a freelance make-up artist. The individual is not a staff member & we don’t agree with them.]
Oh wow. How we has the leftards going off on tangents on conspiracy theories about the makeup artists. Maybe the air hostess was also a plant. Maybe the person who heard Messiah Kevin a “childless atheist communist” was a plant. Maybe the multiple people who know Messiah Kevin is a psychopath and don’t want to be in his cabinet are also plants. Such pathetic hypocrites the left.
Only 17 more sleeps until fundamental injustice day mk2!
Nunkiss
Wish I hadn’t looked at that. Haven’t eaten yet
So are the msm going to ask Brough who funded Ashby?
@morpheus/243
Your stupidity is not amusing.
[That claim runs counter to another argument they run that housing construction is cheaper because it is all done by self-employed sub-contractor tradesmen who are of course not unionised.]
There is a difference between ‘hosue’ construction and ‘housing’ construction. Houses tend to be built by sub-contractors etc. Multi-unit housing – apartments, larger developments – are built by the big commercial builders and those sites are heavily unionised.
The Supreme Court Writ is Hird’s first opportunity to publicly manage and hence acknowledge or disavow the details that he has often said he wanted to make public. There is very little detail except that pertaining to what are claimed to be abuses of due process.
Essendon or its supporters have been claiming that the AFL has leaked confidential information derived from the investigation to the media. Given the ASADA Act, this is essentially a criminal charge.
Hird’s Supreme Court writ accuses the AFL of providing copies of, or information from, the ASADA Interim Report to ‘uknown’ members of the media.
That does not, at first blush, seem to be very robust ‘evidence’ for what is essentially a criminal charge. If Hird doesn’t know who the journalists are, how does he know they got illegal information and how does he know that the information they have used comes from the AFL?
“@FunHoleNo_5: I’m sorry ABC, but I’m certain if #Palmer was busy DESTROYING #Rudd in front of us you’d run it LIVE @Imagine4756 @FlatEarthGang @ABCNews24”