Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition

The new government has its first poll, sort of. Also featured: an overview of in-doubt seats from the real election, of which I count four (two House, two Senate).

The new government’s first opinion poll is testament either to a striking weakness in its honeymoon effect, the fact that it’s only partly a post-election poll, or the observed tendency towards constancy in results from the pollster in question. That pollster is Essential Research, and its poll is its routine fortnightly average of federal voting intention conducted online from samples of about 1000 respondents each week. The latest result was thus half-conducted over the period of the election itself, such that one might dispute its provenance as a post-election poll (which you can pile on top of general doubts about the value of any polling conducted immediately after a change of government). For what it’s worth, the poll has the Coalition on 44% of the primary vote (45.7% at the election on current figures), Labor on 36% (33.5%) and the Greens on 9% (8.4%). The published 53-47 two-party preferred (the current election result being 53.4-46.6) is weaker for Labor than the primary vote shifts suggest it should be, which may be because they are still using preference allocations from the 2010 election.

Further questions, which unlike voting intention were derived from this week’s sample only, have 38% rating the election of micro-parties to the Senate as “good for democracy” against 25% for bad, although I’d like to see more specific questions in relation to this topic. Forty-four per cent believe the lack of a Coalition Senate majority will make for better government against 30% for worse. Respondents were asked about various aspects they might expect to get better or worse under the new government, including the surprising finding that cost of living and interest rates are expected to be worse. A finding on the state of the economy is an instructive insight into the influence of partisan considerations on such polling. Overall, 40% describe the state of the economy as good and 25% as poor, compared with 36% and 30% when the question was last asked in mid-July. Tellingly, the good rating among Coalition voters is up 14 points to 32% while poor is down ten points to 35%, while Labor voters are down nine points on good to 50% and up four points on poor to 18%.

As to proper election results, this site continues to follow close counts in dedicated posts as linked to on the sidebar. As far as I’m concerned, there are four seats which are still in serious doubt – two in the House, and two in the Senate. The 1550 votes in Indi are too few to reverse Sophie Mirabella’s 405-vote deficit against Cathy McGowan, while the 849-vote lead of Labor’s Julie Owens in Parramatta is enough to withstand anything the outstanding 3258 votes might conceivably throw at it. That leaves:

Fairfax. Continuing an ongoing trend, Clive Palmer’s lead shrank yesterday from 502 to 362. This resulted from a heavy flow of postals against him (758-465) being greater than an advantage on absents (722-569 in his favour on yesterday’s batch), both of which reflect the earlier trend of postal and absent counting. The number of outstanding absents and postals has diminished to around 1000 each, which leaves the ball in the court of about 2500 outstanding pre-polls, which have so far gone nearly 57-43 against Palmer. If all existing trends continue over the remainder of the count, Palmer will land a few dozen votes short. He will then perhaps take the matter to the Court of Disputed Returns, his current Federal Court injunction to have counting stopped presumably being doomed to failure. Palmer has been invoking an anomaly in the count, much remarked upon on this site, in which the Coolum Beach pre-poll voting centre result had a more-than-plausible number of votes for LNP candidate Ted O’Brien and a mismatch with the number of votes recorded for House and Senate. However, much as Palmer might wish to invoke a ballot box-stuffing operation at once brilliantly efficient in execution and bone-headedly stupid in conception, the AEC’s explanation that the Coolum Beach and Nambour PPVC results had been entered the wrong way around is likely to stand up in court. It is a duly troubling prospect that Palmer’s Senate representatives may emerge as important players in the looming round of electoral reform.

McEwen. After late counting initially flowed heavily against him, Labor member Rob Mitchell has rallied with a strong performance on absents and late-arriving postals. He now leads by 192 votes, which will widen if the tide continues to flow his way. However, it remains to be seen what as many as 5000 pre-polls hold in store. The first batch favoured Mitchell 497-458, but the remainder might come from less favourable areas.

Western Australian Senate. The most excellent Senate modelling of PB regular Truth Seeker illustrates the delicate balance of the count here, and the stars that need to remain aligned if Wayne Dropulich of the Australian Sports Party is indeed to find his way to the Senate off 0.2% of the vote. Key to the outcome is Dropulich remaining ahead of the Rise Up Australia party after distribution of preferences from Australian Voice, after which his snowball builds all the way to a quota. This might yet be undone by a gentle trend towards RUA on late counting, together with the unknown quantity of below-the-line votes. Should Dropulich fall short, not only will his own seat instead go to Zhenya Wong of the Palmer United Party, but the complexion of the race for the final seat between Scott Ludlam of the Greens and Labor’s Louise Pratt will change. This is because the comfortable win presently projected for Ludlam is achieved off Palmer preferences, which won’t be available to him if the votes are used to elect Wong. Truth Seeker’s projection is that Pratt will “almost certainly” defeat Ludlam on a scenario in which Wong is elected.

Tasmanian Senate. The issue here can be neatly observed on the ABC results calculator, the crucible of the outcome being the second last count (Count 24). Here the calculator, which treats all votes as below-the-line, has the Liberal Democrats leading Palmer United Party candidate Jacqui Lambie by 29,705 votes to 28,608. Since Palmer preferences favour the Liberals over the Liberal Democrats, their candidate’s exclusion then delivers victory to the third Liberal, Sally Chandler. However, if that gap of 1097 should close, the Liberal Democrats will be excluded instead, and most of the votes then distributed will flow to Lambie and secure election for another PUP Senator. The size of the gap might make that appear unlikely, but Tasmania has an unusually high rate of below-the-line voting, and one might surmise that it will favour the greatly more visible PUP over the Liberal Democrats. UPDATE: Looks like I wasn’t taking the Sex Party challenge with due seriousness – they win the last seat that might otherwise go to Liberal or the Palmer United Party if they stay ahead of Labor at Count 21, as they get Palmer preferences ahead of the Liberals. The current count has them doing this by the grand total of 14,275 to 14,274.

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.

1,075 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition”

Comments Page 18 of 22
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  2. fess

    [Since I was right abut him not seeking psot-election leadership, and many here were wRONg – I rather fancy my chances over yours on this one too.]

    Who wrote this dross? I know it wasn’t you. MTBW?

    As if Rudd, who’d led Labor to a significant defeat, would put his hand up for the leadership anytime soon.

    Only a complete dcikhead wouldn’t think that Rudd was sitting back and laughing over the two nominees for the Labor leadership.

    That old sook Albo, who shed tears about supporting Rudd. And that twat Shorten who was given a Solomon’s choice and chose the baby rather than cut it in half.

    I hope MTBW is feeling really happy now about crucifying Gillard.

  5. Yes, and Ill be right too Guytaur.

    The reason is this: through the prism in which Gillard and her backers are faultless, Rudd must be an insane driven whiteanter who’ll stop at nothing (why would ANYONE SANE object to the perfectly reasonable actions of 2010 given the polling, well ok maybe not the polling, but given THE VIBE)

    But it wasnt like that. Rudd was hurt and deeply cut, continued to be supported by may in caucus and in the public, and he had his vindication against the specific forces that took him down, when they had to invite him back to save their bacon, after making an appalling hash of the politics.

    Rudd thinks he did the party a big favour when he did that. I agree with him.

    He had to be painted as mad and destructive, by those with a guilty conscience and good reason to fear his ongoing popularity. its actually the oldest trick in the book and Im amazed more people havent seen through it.

    In sum: no. he’s had his vindication, and will be on his way now.

    So, we have the competing theories to be tested over the next 12 months. These are best imagined as cat pix:

    INSANE WHITEANTER CANNOT BE STOPPD 4EVA! HIDE YOUR NEW LEADERZ! (CUE J BISHOP BITCH CLAWZ)

    v

    SARDINE OF VINDICATION BEST SERVED COLD, MMM, WAS DELICIOUS, KTHANKSBYE. YOU CN KEEP EXTRA SEATZ I SAVED, AND PARTY REFORMZ 4 EVIL FACTION CATS WHO LIE WITH DOGS, GET FLEAS. GOT2ZIP.

  7. confession u are also wasting time writing as well

    my scroll list includes all libs and people that post about the past.

    it so boring and has been,

    I found it quite fascinating that labor woman decended on the guardian web site to tell the liberal
    woman that they should of known who they where voting for
    I am quite enjoyng the boot being on the other foot

    foot in mouth will be regular thing, I believe.

  8. [confessions I don’t know if you realise how bossy u are]

    Oh please. Given your rudeness, intemperance and ongoing intolerance for anyone with opinions you disagree with, you are hardly in a position to accuse others of being bossy.

  9. TONY Abbott says he is in “no rush” to bring back Parliament and it is not likely to sit until late October or early November

    House scheduled on calendar to sit first week in October

  10. [And i should add the pay rise for the low paid community sector workers.]

    As I understand it the low paid community sector workers are still getting every cent promised to them… just not funneled through the union heavies coffers first.

  12. lefty e:

    As I said earlier, I do hope you’re right about Rudd. Unfortunately he has a rather obvious track record over the last 3 years of deliberately undermining his party and its leadership for no reason other than his own revenge.

  13. Remember #BattleRort ‏@LubedUpNoob 9h
    Abbott govt already disfunctional with MP’s threatening 2 cross the floor over PPL and speaking out over ministry and lack of women. #auspol

    Retweeted by raghwa sharma
    Expand

  14. So, Clive to win by 3 votes. That will do me.

    guytaur
    [Rudd cannot come back as too many members would vote against him in a ballot. ]

    Denied by his own rules! That would be great to see if he continues to be a troublemaker, which I expect and which the likes of bemused and Paine will defend for as long as it lasts.

  15. My Say

    You keep a list, this will be good just how many Liberal there here.

    DavidWH
    Glen
    GP
    EJS
    Sean
    Mick77
    Joe Blow
    Mod Lib
    Nampsey (I might be wrong on this one)

    Have a missed anyone, please tell me you haven put Zoomster or Psephos on your list.

    sneaking away quietly…………….;)

  18. A consortium of more than 130 child-care providers has warned Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott that child-care prices will rise and the quality of services suffer unless more government funding is made available to boost the wages of child-care workers.

    A letter to the two leaders – signed by peak bodies, major child-care chains and small child-care centres – says the low wages are impeding the sector.

    Some qualified educators are being paid the same wage as fast-food workers and, as a result, about 180 workers are leaving the sector each week.
    ———————-
    The Coalition intends to abandon $1.5 billion of union-linked wage increases for up to 350,000 workers in aged and child care, challenging one of the union movement’s strongholds.

    A spokesman for Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott confirmed the funding for higher wages committed by the Gillard Labor government would be redirected

  20. Sean Tisme

    Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 9:03 pm | Permalink

    And i should add the pay rise for the low paid community sector workers.

    As I understand it the low paid community sector workers are still getting every cent promised to them… just not funneled through the union heavies coffers first.
    ———————————————

    Considering no workers wages are “funnelled” through any Union this is just malicious clap trap and the worst lie perpetrated by this small minded imbecile who banged his head on the bottom of the shallow end of the gene pool

  21. I never said they where said they live in the past

    but with respect I don’t relate to you
    ——————————————-
    so best u don’t post to me and I want post to u

  23. Am genuinely surprised Abbott is persisting with his 3 star general idea. Along with boat buy-back it did seem like a policy brain snap at the time.

  25. MTBW

    Just saw your posts from earlier as I was having dinner, thanks for those & good luck to Mr Albanese. Off now to deal with the kids, good luck with this lot here.

  29. we are all different Mexican

    yawn,
    thanks outside left

    how is your grandson

    our George is doing better now, only one leaking valve

    and is into everything,his mum has gone back to study

    and is upping her qualifications to working with children with disability, so she does placements and lectures and online so that s where I come to the picture staying with George
    the lord works in mysterious ways she was mean to do this work as three autistic children that have never spoke,, spoke to our daughter , very proud of her

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

    Mexican I stopped writing lists when the children grew up

  35. “I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.” Tony AbbottFour Corners15/03/2010

    “While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it’s inevitable and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework.” Tony Abbott Herald-Sun August 06, 2010

  38. Leahy ‏@AshleyLeahy 1h
    Proportional voting on the TPP results. ALP 70 seats and LNP 80 seats. Obviously that is not practical but interesting #auspol #ausvotes

    Expand Reply

  39. ‏@MeddlesomPriest 2h
    PM Abbott walks into parliamentary gym and turns up @SkyNewsAust to listen to Albo launch his campaign – “gotto listen to him” he explains.

  40. The $1.5 Billion which was heading into a union-labor wage agreement will instead be heading back into the portfolios to be used on a best bang for buck method for aged and child care.
    ——————————————————–

    but that’s not wages for workers.

  42. You may or may not know!
    [The modest flat, in a red brick AFP building close to Parliament, will include a kitchenette and security from AFP officers and their junior colleagues.

    Importantly for Mr Abbott, the $120 a night student quarters include a gym.

    Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said as prime minister, Julia Gillard had stayed at the same training college.]

    – See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbott-to-stay-in-no-frills-police-student-quarters-while-in-canberra/story-fn59niix-1226719376373#sthash.CnH6J8xC.dpuf

  43. Talks of the conservatives being in power for one, two or three terms by the conservative hacks who come here – both the reasoned kind and those with pathologies are as big a lot of fools as those who were predicting the same thing for Rudd just 6 years ago.

    Such comments from our resident bile-filled conservative hack are no surprise, that that sensible one comes out with the same dribble it is a bit of a worry.

    Rupert and his empire will tire of the conservatives at some point and/or he will die and so will his support with it.

    The belief that somehow conservatives will have a charmed life in the next 2 and a bit years beggars any kind of sense.

    The reality, there is a good possibility, if things turn really sour, that the conservatives could lose in one term. They could, of course, win the election which is now, less than three years away.

    Any predictions beyond this is just crass stupidity and should be called.

  44. confessions

    Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 9:20 pm | Permalink

    Soloman Lew says the former Labor govt is to blame for retailers suffering.
    http://www.watoday.com.au/business/retail/solomon-lew-blames-inept-labor-for-retail-downfall-20130917-2twa0.html

    Let’s see how they go in the coming years.
    ————————————————–

    sweeping non specific statements.

    We’ll see how they go with their 1.5% levy (tax) increase, rising dollar, falling share market and increasing interest rates.

  45. Just to back up Sean’s comments about how much better off the aged will be under privately run care facilities, there is this charming story of a Melbourne aged care home closing, with 50 aged residents now missing over $4 million in bond money.
    [Families of dozens of residents at an aged care centre in Melbourne’s south east have been told there is little hope of recovering $4 million in bonds paid to the facility.

    The previous owners of Mentone Gardens collected bonds from some families, some as large as $400,000.]
    Great work, Vic Libs. Minister David Davis had this comforting reply.
    [“We understand there has been a weakness in the law which is why we have taken the step of putting these new arrangements in place.

    “So that will help people into the future, but I understand this is very difficult for people who had arrangements entered into prior to the changes.]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-17/residents-at-melbourne-respite-facility-lose-4m-in-bonds/4964032

    Sean, this story must make you proud.

  47. Socrates

    Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 9:30 pm | Permalink

    Just to back up Sean’s comments about how much better off the aged will be under privately run care facilities, there is this charming story of a Melbourne aged care home closing, with 50 aged residents now missing over $4 million in bond money.

    Families of dozens of residents at an aged care centre in Melbourne’s south east have been told there is little hope of recovering $4 million in bonds paid to the facility.

    The previous owners of Mentone Gardens collected bonds from some families, some as large as $400,000.
    ————————————————–

    And Abbott’s priority is to chase down so-called Union “heavies while his big business contributors do this to our aged….

  49. I wouldn’t call Aged Care providers big business.

    Unless they were owned and operated by a business that could actually be classed as big.

  50. I note that with 84% counted, the Liberals are now short of a full quota in the ACT Senate race. That one is going down to the wire too! Obviously the flow of preferences will be critical from the minor parties. But as counting has progressed, the Liberals have fallen from just above a full quota to 98.5% of a quota. With 10% of votes remaining to be counted, more nervous times ahead for Mr Ned.

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