Morgan and Essential polls

Neither Morgan nor Essential finds the government enjoying much of a honeymoon, while Morgan has Anthony Albanese well ahead of Bill Shorten as preferred Labor leader.

Morgan has published its first multi-mode poll since the election, and Essential its second online poll (the latter will henceforth publish on Tuesdays rather than Mondays). Even if you doubt the value of voting intention polling at this point of the cycle, the results are of interest with respect to the Labor leadership. If you don’t doubt the value of voting intention polling, the results are of interest in pointing to a weak Coalition honeymoon.

Starting with voting intention:

• Essential Research has the Coalition lead at 51-49 on the current two-week rolling average, combining results from 1042 respondents in this week’s survey from Thursday to Sunday and 844 from the week before. This leaves the Coalition two points down on a less than spectacular showing last time. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down a point to 43%, Labor up one to 37% and the Greens steady on 9%.

• The Morgan SMS, online and face-to-face poll of 2999 respondents, conducted from Saturday to Monday, has the Coalition on 43.5%, Labor on 34%, the Greens on 10.5% and the Palmer United Party on 4%. This compares with election results on current counting of 45.6%, 33.4%, 8.6% and 5.5%. This translates into a headline two-party figure of 50.5-49.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, but it’s a more comfortable 52.5-47.5 on preferences from the September 7 election (though I’m not sure exactly how minor party preference splits were determined given all the votes aren’t in). It is of course enormously unlikely that minor party preference allocations would have changed so dramatically over a fortnight, a further pointer to the dubiousness of respondent-allocation.

• Morgan has good news for Anthony Albanese, who is favoured over Bill Shorten 41% to 23% among all voters, 46% to 32% among Labor voters, 38% to 18% among Coalition voters and 48% to 12% among Greens voters. The gap is widest and narrowest and Albanese and Shorten’s respective home states of New South Wales and Victoria. The qualitative findings here are unusually interesting: “Electors who preferred Anthony Albanese often mentioned Shorten’s role in the demise of former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, Shorten’s strong links to the unions, and also his links to the Governor-General as well as Albanese’s better policy expertise, experience and personality.”

• Essential finds Tony Abbott with similarly modest leads as preferred prime minister over both Albanese (37-31) and Shorten (37-32).

• Essential at least has had a bounce on personal approval, in net terms at least – his approval is up only one point since his last poll as Opposition Leader on September 2 to 41%, but his disapproval is down 13% to 36% (making for a big increase in “don’t know”.

• Essential finds 45% concerned about the lack of women in cabinet against 50% not concerned, with splits of 39-57 among men, 51-42 among women, 67-29 among Labor voters and 17-80 among Coalition voters.

• Also featured in Essential are questions on trust in use of personal information by various professions and organisations, and the value or otherwise of foreign investment in farm land.

UPDATE: Morgan has kindly provided me with its qualitative responses from the Labor leadership question, and I’ve run the responses through a word cloud generator. Note that in doing so I’ve merged together a couple of words like “don’t like”, “don’t trust” and “prime minister”. You can get a considerably bigger image by clicking on the images below.

First up, the 443 responses from Anthony Albanese supporters, for whom the primary reason for backing Albanese appears to have been Bill Shorten:

And now the 229 responses from Bill Shorten supporters:

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.

3,277 comments on “Morgan and Essential polls”

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  1. It was great the way Albo urged all members to vote.

    He said that he would rather you vote for Bill Shorten than don’t vote at all.

    Good stuff.

  2. [Funnily enough, Labor have been upbeat since the election loss]

    We’ve discussed the reasons for this:

    * We are rid of Rudd
    * Defeat not as bad as feared
    * Abbott doesn’t control the Senate
    * Mirabella
    * We know Abbott will fuck up

  3. I agree that it would be very difficult for Caucus to overrule the members are impose Shorten if Albanese has won the ballot. However my understanding is that the results of the ballot will not be released. Caucus will vote, the two votes will be added together (with the Caucus vote weighted so that the two ballots each has 50% of the value of the total vote), and the aggregate vote will be announced.

  4. Vic
    [Funnily enough, Labor have been upbeat since the election loss]
    Well they’ve had a lot of practice at losing and after a while they get to like it.
    As for 2 good candidates for ALP leadership – give us a break. The only reason that ALP looks respectable in post election polls is that it has no leader, and based on the past, Labor leaders have their best ratings when they’re not actually the leader. Shorten will be an absolute disaster, completely tainted; Albanese a moderately successful loser in 2016. Labor will have to do better than those two. Maybe Kevin Rudd III?

  5. [*We know Abbott will fuck up]

    I really wouldn’t be surprised if Abbott genuinely couldn’t handle the job?

    How many PM’s have we had before that genuinely couldn’t handle the job?

    If an answer is Rudd then no way can Monkey handle it!

  6. [Depends a bit on how much you like being in opposition.]

    Rubbish. Popularity is a shifting sand of rubbish. A solid leader with conviction will win every time.

  7. Given Labor voters are roughly 60:40, what would be people’s estimate of Labor members? Would they be more or less favouring Albo than Labor voters in general?

  8. Not at all a good sign for stability in the property market…

    [ Financial comparison website RateCity says about three-quarters of home loans being offered in Australia now require a mere 5 per cent deposit or less, terms not seen since the aftermath of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

    ‘‘Many more potential borrowers are eligible for loans that may not have been approved in the past,’’ RateCity chief executive Alex Parsons said today.

    He says 73 per cent of local lenders have increased the loan to value ratio (LVR) on mortgages to 95 per cent or higher, requiring a 5 per cent deposit or less.

    The LVR is the maximum mortgage offered as a percentage of a property’s value.

    Only 68 per cent of loans offered last year had such a high LVR. It dropped as low as 49 per cent in 2010 after the GFC.]

    http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/09/high-lvr-mortgages-boom/

  9. ru

    I couldn’t even name the leader of the Secular Party. Frankly, whoever it is isn’t doing a very good job. They seem to be the only micro-party which doesn’t have a chance of a Senate seat!

  10. Diog

    4,300,000 people voted for the ALP at the election. Only 40,000 of these will vote for leader.

    Understand the difference?

    Gary Morgan is playing silly buggers and you are following him up his alimentary canal.

  11. [I couldn’t even name the leader of the Secular Party. Frankly, whoever it is isn’t doing a very good job. They seem to be the only micro-party which doesn’t have a chance of a Senate seat!]

    But you vote for them. 😆

  12. Great achievement so far for the Climate Council

    [UPDATE:
    7.2K founding members have chipped in $218K – almost halfway to our goal for the week. climatecouncil.org.au]

  13. briefly quoted Psephos:

    [I think the Labor leadership contest is helping Labor’s poll recovery. The public is seeing positive images of Labor reforming itself and choosing between two good candidates.]

    Then agreed

    I agree as well.

    In the normal usage, the defeated opposition slinks away, then starts a bit of a bunfight amongst its ranks (which was very much on the cards here) and then the government gets clear air and there’s a sense by people that they made the right choice — hence the honeymoon. It would be difficult in Abbott’s case because even more than is the case usually, people were voting out the government and putting in someone about whom they had and have grave misgivings.

    Some stalwarts, thinking from general principles, were aghast. They probably thought about how a primary race looks in the US, with people drefdging up dirty laundry on each other and thought it would be mayhem.

    But, handled correctly, it always seemed a low risk high return exercise. Few of any value were going to listen to ALP lectures on the horrors of the new regime, and with the media blockade only those that might have been manipulated into them not accepting the result would have been printed.

    About the only thing the ALP could do now is what they are doing. They are having a public rethink about the key problem — how to pick and stick with a leader. The debate has been polite and respectful. There are no faceless men to adduce and taint the candidates. Abbott is avoiding the media and the media need copy and this time the Murdochrats aren’t sure what they should say — so it has somewhat wrongfooted them.

    Now, the ALP is getting positive coverage and getting in first with “being about something”. They are very probably signing up new members in significant numbers for the first time in years. I daresay people who were steadying for a wake and lots of finger-pointing and more dreadful polls and a seat warmer as leader are now feeling as if a great burden has lifted from their shoulders and that perhaps they can recover their dignity in short order, if not the office.

    Now I’m no rightwinger or fan of Bowen, for obvious reasons, but even he sounded good on the radio the other day. He was calm, assured and on point.

    I saw Shorten — again, not someone I’m inclined to admire — but in a long speech to putative supporters he spoke with confidence about the ALP standing for things. He borrowed heavily from Gillard’s piece the other day, but it was very positive. It seems to me that most conservative non-tribal rightwingers would have liked what they heard.

    Getting beaten may well have been good for them as a party, if not the country.

    Certainly things in the normal course of events could have been far worse and for them to be getting any positive bounce at all right now must be very heartening.

    As long as Albo and Shorten play nicely, they can feed a news-starved media three weeks of happy families and “lesson learned” while Abbott hides from the microphone and Morrison tries to hide boats.

  14. [ I couldn’t even name the leader of the Secular Party. Frankly, whoever it is isn’t doing a very good job. They seem to be the only micro-party which doesn’t have a chance of a Senate seat!

    But you vote for them. 😆 ]

    It was better than the alternatives.

  15. ru

    Um, you said

    [ A solid leader with conviction will win every time.

    ]

    Given Gillard didn’t win, I drew the logical conclusion that you are saying she wasn’t a solid leader with conviction.

  16. One of the reasons the LNP have lost support is the reality of LNP government is even worse than people feared. And since their performance will only deteriorate, we should expect to see their support decay quite quickly. As soon as Labor are able to re-position themselves as a re-unified and stable force, voters will detach themselves from this useless and degenerate bunch of imposters now purporting to be a government.

    (Fran, there is the new collective noun for this government…The Imposters…I luv it)

  17. [Given Gillard didn’t win, I drew the logical conclusion that you are saying she wasn’t a solid leader with conviction.]

    Gillard won the election she stood at. If you missed it she was not PM at the last election. FAILURE. *flashing lights* FAILURE

  18. ru

    [If you missed it she was not PM at the last election. FAILURE. *flashing lights* FAILURE]

    Reality check

    Her own party tossed her out because she was going to lose by a mile.

  19. briefly@73


    One of the reasons the LNP have lost support is the reality of LNP government is even worse than people feared. And since their performance will only deteriorate, we should expect to see their support decay quite quickly. As soon as Labor are able to re-position themselves as a re-unified and stable force, voters will detach themselves from this useless and degenerate bunch of imposters now purporting to be a government.

    The following article from Rob Burgess is along similar lnes –

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/9/24/politics/abbotts-great-mistake-will-haunt-2016

  20. [I have become a founding member of The Climate Council and made a donation.
    ]

    There are innumerable similar organisations. Why pick that one?

  21. Hmmmm…

    The Australian electorate, having rid itself of the mad, is now turning against the bad.

    There is a method to the electorate asserting its control over the mad and the bad.

    ‘*We know Abbott will fuck up’

    Abbott has f***ed up already, and quite seriously: Indonesian policy makers are debating openly expediting the movement of boat-borne asylum seekers to Australia.

    This is the public face of the deterioration in Australian-Indonesian relations.

    No doubt what they are saying to each other in private would cause Australian ears to turn red.

    Abbott should get out of his foreign affairs short pants, grow up, and show some genuine statesmanship and leadership.

  22. Psephos:

    [ agree that it would be very difficult for Caucus to overrule the members are impose Shorten if Albanese has won the ballot. However my understanding is that the results of the ballot will not be released. Caucus will vote, the two votes will be added together (with the Caucus vote weighted so that the two ballots each has 50% of the value of the total vote), and the aggregate vote will be announced.]

    I can certainly see why that would be tempting, at least initially, but like all really juicy secrets, this one is going to be hard to keep secret. Someone will almost certainly leak the numbers — especially if they don’t like who won and there goes ‘happy families’. And if nobody leaks, News Ltd will make it up anyway.

    Far better in my view to take the high moral ground, speak of transparency and announce the numbers. That way you get another positive message out in front. Ideally of course, the membership and caucus agree — which would mean that the high moral ground would be cost-free. Yet even if they don’t, as long as the process is accepted, that’s still pretty good. Let’s say 55% of Caucus vote for one candidate and 60% of the members vote for the other one — that’s still a consensus isn’t it? If the Caucus know what the members want, their inclination to support the leader should impose a degree of unity.

    A way around this might be to allow Caucus before they vote to know how the members voted — for that surely is a consideration that a Caucus member ought to to be weigh.

    Then, if Caucus decides to take a different view, so be it.

  23. Diogenes

    [There are innumerable similar organisations. Why pick that one?]
    Because it is a Fcuk You to the Abbott Fraud Squad’s closing down the original commission.

  24. Boerwar

    Dont worry Abbott is off to Jakarta on the 30th September. According to the liberal luvvies, he will in no uncertain terms let the indonesians understand who is boss. Remember Mesma said that they were not seeking their permission, but their understanding. Problem solved…..

  25. Psephos
    Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2013 at 4:30 pm | PERMALINK
    I think the Labor leadership contest is helping Labor’s poll recovery. The public is seeing positive images of Labor reforming itself and choosing between two good candidates.

    If the ALP is on a poll recovery it is due to Abbotts decision to shut women out of his cabinet and his non-action on his ‘budget/debt emergency’.

    These new leadership election rules are a massive drag and distraction from the task of vigorously holding this Govt to account.

  26. briefly:

    [(Fran, there is the new collective noun for this government…The Imposters…I luv it)]

    Yes, not too bad. I’m considering The Wrecker Regime. They wrecked their way to power and now they will wreck everything that is not broken — the climate, the micro-environment, cities, the NBN, world heritage listed areas, the public’s right to know about boats, the right to consumer boycott, people’s conditions at work, the low paid …

    They are wreckers. Reckless wreckers. They are wreaking havoc. Reckless, havoc-wreaking wreckers. Try saying that three times quickly! 😉

  27. Rex

    The ALP leadership will be sorted by the 10th October. Well before Parliament sits and Bronnie gets her new wig.

    At least we will not have another rubbish review that blames everyone for everything, except the authors. 🙂

  28. [These new leadership election rules are a massive drag and distraction from the task of vigorously holding this Govt to account.]

    I absolutely disagree with that. If Caucus had just met last week and elected Shorten leader, there would have been serious disaffection throughout the labour movement, and Rudd would already be leaking against him. The only way to break the culture of cannibalism into which Labor has been descending over the past six years is to enlarge the circle of decision-making. I would have preferred to give affiliated unions a vote as well, but this arrangement is a great deal better than doing nothing. I know a lot of people who are renewing their memberships, even though they won’t get a vote this time, because they feel newly enfranchised by this reform. The new leader will have much better credentials to take the fight to Abbott. Let’s remember that Abbott won the Liberal leadership by ONE VOTE in 2009. The new Labor leader will have a much stronger mandate.

  29. http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/malcolm-turnbull-issues-new-instructions-to-nbn-co-20130924-hv1so.html

    [Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has issued new instructions to NBN Co to start testing copper-based broadband technologies, but has left long-term changes to the project until after a strategic review.

    The review will be conducted by NBN Co itself, but cannot start until cabinet appoints a new board. The existing board resigned after the new Abbott government asked it too, according to Mr Turnbull. ]

  30. Even though Psephos doesnt have much available time to talk to me, i still admire him. My granfather John William “Jack” Austin – the South Melbourne Swans footballer – was referred to as Victoria’s Chifley in a local Melbourne newspaper for joining others in Labor’s right in rejecting the left-dominated Evatt party and deciding to follow the concienciences out of the party.

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