Morgan: 50-50 (and the return of BludgerTrack)

Morgan finds Labor drawing level with the Coalition, although Bill Shorten shouldn’t go measuring the drapes at The Lodge quite yet. The return of your favourite poll aggregate finds no change on the election result.

Morgan published its fortnightly poll yesterday, which for whatever reason was limited to face-to-face and SMS polling, excluding its usual online component. This caused the sample size to come in at 2077, about 1000 short of the usual. The preponderance of face-to-face polling in the result might help explain the poll’s unusually weak showing for the Coalition, who are down two points on the primary vote to 41.5%. Labor and the Greens are each up half a point, to 35% and 10.5%, with the Palmer United Party up a point to 5.5%. The only meaningful two-party figure provided by Morgan is respondent-allocated, which at 50-50 is much as it would have been with a preference distribution based on the recent election.

An aberrant poll result marks an auspicious occasion for BludgerTrack to return to the sidebar, fresh from its almost-accurate projection of state seat totals at the federal election. Bias and accuracy measures have been freshly recalibrated, and a preference allocation model implemented which accounts for the Palmer United Party’s share of the “others” vote. There are currently only 14 polling data points in the mix (and only five with specific numbers for the Palmer United Party), including eight from Essential, four from Morgan and one each from Newspoll and ReachTEL. This is to say there is a paucity of live interview phone polling, which was again the best performing method at the election. At present the trend seems to be one of stability in the first month and Labor decline in the second, but the disturbance to the stability comes down entirely the Newspoll result.

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.

2,094 comments on “Morgan: 50-50 (and the return of BludgerTrack)”

Comments Page 2 of 42
1 2 3 42
  1. Latham in http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/how_unions_captured_labor_industry_0UrBzO9ju1etTIJ39fRyhM

    [After the 2004 election, I moved Carr out of industry into three non-economic shadow ministries: indigenous affairs, public administration and the arts. He immediately made his displeasure known in background briefings to journalists. As other Labor leaders subsequently discovered, getting between Carr and industry policy is like taking a T-bone off a Rottweiler.

    Under Beazley’s leadership in 2006, Carr was a key numbers man for Kevin Rudd, moving his sub-factional voting bloc behind the ambitious Queenslander. Once Rudd became leader, Carr returned to his coveted industry portfolio. In December 2007, he became the new government’s industry minister.

    After Julia Gillard became prime minister in 2010, her relationship with Carr deteriorated. She was not as enthusiastic as Rudd had been in picking winners and throwing money at the big Victorian’s pet projects. As one would expect from a sub-factional warlord snubbed in this way, Carr set about organising a leadership coup, working for Rudd’s resurrection.

    When in February 2012 Gillard saw off Rudd’s challenge in a caucus ballot, she relieved Carr of his responsibilities for manufacturing, moving him into human services. Carr responded by redoubling his destabilisation campaign. Finally, in July this year, when Rudd returned to the leadership, Carr regained the industry job.

    For the third time following an ALP leadership ballot, he became the party’s spokesman on manufacturing – Lazarus with a triple bypass. During the recent election campaign, whenever Rudd appeared in automotive factories or on shipbuilding docks advocating “Australian economic nationalism”, he had Carr – himself looking like a Soviet shipbuilder – by his side. They were the co-authors of Labor’s damaging flirtation with protectionism.

    And the point of this chronology? It’s a telling case study in the things that have gone wrong with the ALP. Instead of acting as a force for leadership stability, Carr used his sub-factional numbers for a selfish purpose: trading caucus votes to secure the industry portfolio. Even worse, he used industry policy as a way of furthering his sub-factional interests.]

  2. “@702sydney: Sarah Chadwick from Bureau of Meterology says a new heatwave alert system will be trialled early next year to predict above avg. weather”

    Yeah No climate change.

  3. Peter Martin on Hockey’s tax review:

    [The Coalition seems to think it’s not worthwhile taxing the earnings of accounts of millionaires and also seems to think that it can’t afford to assist people on very low incomes, that’s what we learn from this exercise.]

  4. Morgan’s continual method chopping-and-changing is irritating. I’ve treated this latest one as a new species of Morgan and excluded it from my aggregate until I see how it goes; if Morgan does three polls with this combination (SMS + F2F) I’ll back-include it. (Including it or not makes a difference of 1.2 points.)

    AEC are very slow in getting the national 2PP and preference flow stuff sorted (yes I realise WA and Fairfax were bigger priorities but it’s been two months since the election now!) Hopefully these luxuries are not too far away.

  5. lizzie:

    I have a very low opinion of KCarr. Like Joel Fitzgibbon he appears to have an entitlement mentality and sees himself as more capable than he is.

  6. [Victims of the Blue Mountains’ worst bushfires in a decade are being let down by the Government, Labor claims today in a major attack on Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

    Acting Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek today said lack of Government action was hindering recovery and clean-up operations. These are the areas the Government had nominated as priorities.

    Ms Plibersek said Prime Minister Abbott had refused to provide the same recovery strategy used to help victims of Victoria’s horror bushfires of 2009 and the Queensland cyclones.]

    Public money to victims of bush fires and cyclones is wrong and perpetuates the entitlement mentality according to the libs.

    but!

    public money for libs to attend weddings and footy matches is good.

    [ Barnaby claimed travel for his wife and child because he didn’t see them that often. Is that arrogance or what? ]

    And they found public money for farmers

    [WA farmers have declared war on Canberra after Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce gave millions of dollars from the State’s debt crisis package to Queensland, NSW and Victoria.]

  7. “@ABCNews24: Nick Kaldas says the de facto leader of the entire Brothers For Life group is among those arrested.”

    NSW making progress without Queensland style laws.

  8. Andrew Elder:

    [On 30 January this year – this year – then-PM Julia Gillard gave a speech at the National Press Club. True, it won’t ring down the ages but it was chock-full of policy and political goodness. At the time, Laurie Oakes and his pals at the SMH reported on only two aspects of it: the fact that Gillard announced an election date, and that she wore glasses. Later that, year, at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Annabel Crabb called this process “bringing the intelligence” (i.e. there is no intelligence in a laboriously crafted speech across the gamut of government policy, but top-of-the-head blather about polls is apparently where the intelligence is).

    The press gallery now have the gall to complain that the government isn’t what they hoped. Far from providing the infinite jest of pie-eating and bicycle-riding, this government has cut off the supply of information. For weeks they told us how shrewd this was, revelling in being treated like absolute mugs and patsies; now they’re getting bored. ]
    http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/swine-without-pearls.html

  9. And they found public money for farmers

    WA farmers have declared war on Canberra after Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce gave millions of dollars from the State’s debt crisis package to Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
    =============================
    This money was provided to and available for state governments to distribute by the former Labor Govt.

    In WA its been laying around waiting for Colon to start distributing it since early this year

  10. fess,

    William identifiedd the anonymous blogger as the Truth Seeker website in his spiel on the final decision of the AEC.

    “Two number-crunchers out in web-land have made the effort to identify which votes have gone missing by comparing booth results from the first and second counts, and they have reached the same conclusion: but for the missing votes, the result at the decisive point in the count would have been very close to a tie. One is Ben Raue at the Tally Room, while the other is an anonymous commenter on a pseudonymous blog – that of Truth Seeker, whose statistical work on the Senate count process has won great acclaim. Despite the obscurity of the latter source, he or she is clearly well on top of the situation.

    It is clear that what has gone missing is bundles of votes for particular parties, the numbers of which can be determined with considerable precision despite the minor adjustments to the vote totals which legitimately resulted from the recount process. I will now deal with the four booths in turn, using the numbers determined by Anonymous”.

    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2013/11/02/courting-trouble/

  11. [Acting Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek today said]

    Wheres Bill??

    The union movement calls him Showbag Bill, but it’s more like No-Show Bill. Haven’t heard from him in weeks.

  12. After yelping and ranting how the price increase on cigarettes was an attack on the poor the Abbott Govt has adopted yet another Labor policy and will proceed with the increase.

    Have they got any policies of their own they have acted on?

  13. “@TheKouk: Correction: Govt is borrowing so much, I missed $1 billion in my tally: New gross government borrowing since 9 Sept is now $20.4 billion”

  14. ST

    “Looks like the Coalition leads by about 3 Fiorentes”

    You’ll be able to buy it in a tin of PAL in a year or so, and a few day’s later you’ll step in it.

  15. Sean,

    I spoke with Shorten during the Labor Leadership tussle. He lamented he’d only seen his kids twice in 50 days. So obviously, with the election and various Party matters resolved, he’s taking some well earned recreation leave.

    No doubt, many on the LIb side will have been doing the same thing over recent weeks. It’s as good a time as any given the transition to the new Government.

    Of course, Shorten did visit Afghanistan with Abbott last week. But, you choose not to remember such things.

    I’d expect Bill to be well in charge come next week when we have Paliament. The Libs have been doing more than enough damage to their credibility in recent weeks without Labor. I’m sure there will be plenty of Liberal tears on the menu.

  16. Before I go out

    Remember what I said about baby sean earlier today,pretty accurate too but forgot about the swearing another sign. Also see he is bringing in his small business background Ha Ha

  17. [I’d expect Bill to be well in charge come next week when we have Paliament. The Libs have been doing more than enough damage to their credibility in recent weeks without Labor. I’m sure there will be plenty of Liberal tears on the menu.]

    Can I assume you were one of the people telling us what a great job Gillard was doing as well?

    If the last 3 weeks are any indicator Bill Shorten is going to be a terrible opposition leader.

  18. GG

    There is so much rich pickings for Labor to hit the fibs with. Although, I daresay that Abbott and his cronies will continue with their current modus operandi.

  19. ST runs a small(very small) business selling Tupperware from his Mum’s lounge room and is happy with the tax increase on small business.

  20. Sean,

    You seem to have a problem with strong economic growth, low inflation, growing employment, minor debt and a low tax take.

    No doubt Abbott and Hockey will fix those problems in comng weeks and months with their stumbling bumbling style that only your ilk could love.

  21. [It is clear that what has gone missing is bundles of votes for particular parties, the numbers of which can be determined with considerable precision despite the minor adjustments to the vote totals which legitimately resulted from the recount process. I will now deal with the four booths in turn, using the numbers determined by Anonymous”.]

    So, the missing votes weren’t all in the same bundle, or from the same booth?

    Looks like someone has been picking cherries.

  22. Three word slogan for Abbott’s government to date…

    The Abbott government so far – like Howard his mentor = mean and tricky.

    Add to which something of his own making, secretive.

    “So what do you think of this 70 day old government?”

    “Mean, tricky and secretive.” Or, “Secretive, mean and tricky”?

    Doesn’t seem to matter what order the words go in, they all apply.

  23. That former Labor Govt has a lot to answer for;

    5th highest per capita GDP in world behind Luxembourg, Qatar, Norway & Switzerland

    Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk 12m
    Does @joehockey blame previous govt for extending the period since recession to 23 years, even though the world fell into recession? #abc730

    @JoeHockey blames previous govt for budget; does he blame it for AAA rating, low inflation & interest rates, growth, real wages #abc730
    ===========================================

    ST has a problem with Australia being a leading nation.

    But I have all confidence that Abbott and his motley crew will change that

  24. 70 days??

    And the only people Abbott has taken money from are 3.7 million low paid workers while giving millions to the wealthy mates of his and Ruperts

  25. Wow,

    NSW Labor opposed laws that give cop killers life imprisonment.

    With all their mates going to prison on fraud charges it’s no surprise Labor want to be soft on murderers as well.

  26. ST:

    [ The union movement calls him Showbag Bill, but it’s more like No-Show Bill. Haven’t heard from him in weeks.]

    You’re skating on very thin ice with this one. Abbott has all but disappeared since he became PM. I half expect to see his face on a milk carton.

  27. kakuru

    Labor should only proceed on rorts if their own patch is clean. It would be disastrous if Labor hammered the coalition only to find that they have some of their own rorts to answer to

  28. The Greens and Sports party have been the beneficiaries of the cherry picking of the ballots. Although it could be argued that the intention was to ensure that the Pup candidate lost out……

  29. Sean Tisme

    Posted Thursday, November 7, 2013 at 10:43 am | Permalink

    Wow,

    NSW Labor opposed laws that give cop killers life imprisonment.
    =========================

    Link? Evidence?

  30. Someone offered me some bread, and seeing the packet was named “Abbott’s” I asked if this was the one that was “DLP-free because I’m intolerant”.

    The person, who was too young to know the reference, looked bemused and began looking at the ingredients but the rest of us giggled.

Comments Page 2 of 42
1 2 3 42

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *