ReachTEL: ABC, republicanism, Cosgrove v Bryce

ReachTEL gives both sides of the argument something to go on in relation to ABC bias, and finds evidence of conservatism on matters vice-regal and republican.

The Fairfax papers today offer three attitudinal findings from a ReachTEL automated phone poll, which was conducted on Thursday evening from a sample of 2146 respondents:

• After Tony Abbott’s efforts to place the matter on the agenda earlier this week, a question on ABC bias finds 59.6% of respondents saying there is none. However, conservative critics of the public broadcaster can at least point to the fact that many more think it biased to Labor (32.2%) than the Coalition (8.2%). While the result at both ends may have been influenced by Abbott’s activism, it nonetheless offers an interesting supplement to the yearly ABC-commissioned Newspoll surveys, which consistently find overwhelming majorities considering its reporting to be “balanced and even-handed” without probing into respondents’ partisanship. The Sydney Morning Herald’s graphic features breakdowns by age and gender.

• Support for republicanism appears to be at a low ebb, with 39.4% in favour and 41.6% opposed. Tellingly, the 18-34 cohort joins 65-plus in recording a net negative rating (though by a considerably smaller margin), with those in between recording majorities in favour. Age and gender breakdowns here.

• There’s also a question on who is preferred out of the incumbent Governor-General and her designated successor, with 57.1% favouring Peter Cosgrove versus 42.9% for Quentin Bryce. I do wonder though about a method which requires a definite answer from all respondents to such a question, given the number that wouldn’t have an opinion.

UPDATE: And now a further finding from the poll that 52.5% agree that Labor should distance itself from the union movement”, compared with 25.6% who disagree.

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.

1,716 comments on “ReachTEL: ABC, republicanism, Cosgrove v Bryce”

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  5. Everything

    The ABC had a note.

    [ABC Channel 2 News 0.511**

    **Denotes that the outlet’s estimate is significantly different from 0.47, at the 5 per cent significance level.]

  6. Yes but when you have 20 independent analyses at the 5% significance level (i.e. 1 in 20) it is hardly surprising that one result “happens” to fall at the 5% level is it? The point is that the overall analysis of the study, done by an ALP government Minister was that the Australian media was essentially balanced…..as far as such things CAN be analysed which I acknowledge is difficult as all of this is subjective by definition.

  8. [poroti
    Posted Sunday, February 2, 2014 at 10:12 am | PERMALINK
    Everything

    2GB and the Telegraph being rated as essentially balanced ? Yeah right.]

    Well, go and tell the ALP Minister Andrew Leigh that you think he is wrong. He did the study, not me. FWIW, I was quite impressed at both how he did it and how balanced he was when writing the summary. He didn’t fall into the trap of over-egging the individual “chance” results one way or the other, but looked at the overall picture.

  9. [The key to this apparent contradiction lies in votes – or more precisely seats in the federal parliament. The SPC Ardmona facility is nestled in the very safe Liberal seat of Murray, which Sharman Stone holds with a whopping two party preferred vote of 70.87 per cent. This healthy margin gives Stone some latitude to be a rebel at times, but it also means the Coalition can treat Murray’s voters with impunity without risking a backlash that bites. In fact the Abbott government could probably slay every first male child in the electorate and still retain the seat.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-31/matthewson-spc/5229740

  10. The email from ABC management to staff is not evidence that the original asylum seeker stories were embellished by the ABC reporter. The original stories were reported accurately and not fabricated or added to. It doesn’t matter though, the email is now “evidence” that the ABC made it up.

    If you want to see journalist embellishment just go to the Oz. Shanahan was on the radio yesterday saying “our man Peter Alford interviewed all the asylum seekers who complained about mistreatment and proved their claims are all false.”

    Alford “proved” the claims were wrong by writing, “the person who made the most serious claims to the ABC was not on board the boat where the alleged abuse took place.”
    Of course he wasn’t ; he was the translator, a spokesman for the Somalis. The fact he was not on the boat is not relevant.

    Alford “proved”the claims were false by writing that the burn injuries came after fighting between AS and Navy and the use of pepper spray. The distinction seems to be between the claim that the AS “were forced to hold onto hot pipe” and the agreed fact they were forced back by the use of pepper spray into the engine area where they were burned.

    I can see a distinction there but essentially two sides seem to be describing the same event. The differences can be partly explained by going through a translator, and how we interpreted it. If someone sprayed me and I was temporarily blinded and stumbled onto a hot engine pipe, I would say I was forced to hold onto it too.

    But Alford in the Oz has sorted it all out for me so I don’t have to think about it too much and Dennis tells me there’s proof. That is the real journalistic skill of embellishment.

  12. I see Mod Lib complaining about last 6 years of Labor but not last 4 months of Coalition Party non-sickle rubbish(?)…

    Yup sounds about right…

    Oh, and Abbott is no Howard (coming from someone who grow up during Howard Era).

  13. One of the beauties of PB is that I don’t have to waste a minute of my Sunday watching Tories talk crap on insiders. Log on here and the program is reduced to a series of one liners.
    Thanks guys.

  15. BK

    I was fairly confident insiders would be shyte. BCassidy’s positive critique of Abbott the other day was all i needed to hear

  16. Insiders

    No polls.
    No Great Barrier Reef
    No Shark Cull.

    The Reef and Cull getting international coverage.

    Getting to point it will be useless to follow politics.

  18. [If Insiders continues as it was today the volunteers for the service you praised will considerably thin out.]

    I had to watch the first ep of the year to see if it had improved any.

    It hasn’t, and so I won’t be watching again.

  19. [Log on here and the program is reduced to a series of one liners.]

    So long as it is a very short series … great idea … dreadful show.

  21. Ross

    [One of the beauties of PB is that I don’t have to waste a minute of my Sunday watching Tories talk crap on insiders. Log on here and the program is reduced to a series of one liners.
    Thanks guys.]

    There is always someone who will take one for the team.

  23. Listening to the BBC world service yesterday they had a whole segment devoted to the Barrier Reef dumping followed by quite an interesting discussion with some guy from NZ (missed his name) about protests there over mining sensitive environmental areas that eventually reversed government approval. He didn’t seem to think the same is as likely here though for reasons that escape me, something to do with our opinion that most of Oz is just useless desert so digging it up doesn’t really matter.

    When the kids finish school I’m moving to NZ.

  24. zoomster@9

    bemused

    your idea of the role of an MP and mine are exactly the same – certainly you haven’t been able to show that an MP’s role is anything more than ‘helping people solve problems’ — which was my contention.

    But that’s OK, because I know you find it hard to face up to it when you’ve been shown to be wrong.

    Yes, I do see your inner struggle when you are wrong.

    We said quite different things, but as usual you pull out one of your tactics such as attempting to blur the differences as you have done on this occasion. I referred you back to your original statement last night.

  25. Vic

    I often glance at what Bolt writes, partly just to see what the far right are thinking and for the lolz.

    He’s still whining about how bad the reaction has been to his “I am indigenous”article. Even The Oz editor bucketed him.

  26. Dio

    I dont need fo read Bolt fo know what he is line of thinking is. You only have to remember his odious conduct with the Norway murderer. Bolt was blaming muslims, when it was a right wing blonde tory

  29. [Redfern’s median house price has surpassed $1 million for first time.
    ]

    Bloody hell.

    Vic

    I well remember that. It was actually a wight wing blonde Tory with a crush on Howie and Windschuttle. He reached Peak Idiot then and is reminded if it frequently.

  30. Heather Ewart on twitter

    [Abetz says govt support for Cadbury different to spc ardmona situ. Not a view being swallowed in shepparton #insiders #auspol]

  31. Insiders could not discuss the GBR spoil dumping because that is a lefty consideration and anyway it’s not directly on to coral reef, just “near” it.

    Same with shark cull. Discussing it would reveal their lack of knowledge of shark habits and the scientific approach. “Science?” definitely a lefty thang.

  32. victoria

    Picked up from Abetz involved explanation of Cadbury and tourism that wtte “in the old days people flocked to see the manufacture of chocs and Tassie tourism would benefit if this was revived”.

    Back to the future again.

  36. Guytaur

    [No the miscalculation was the proponents of the model ignoring the people.]

    The model did not ignore the people. The head of state had to be supported by two thirds of the federal parliament which is, as I recall, elected by the people.

    [The polls were clear a majority of people wanted a directly elected president. It was the politicians wanting to be safe and “minimalist that miscalculated.]

    The significant problem with a directly elected head of state is that it would require a much more substantial constitutional change. If that had been the proposed model, your allies the monarchists would have been able to mount a very effective scare campaign. Its popular appeal may well have evaporated.

    [People truly were saying if little change why bother. Its not broke so don’t fix it etc.]

    If these people were republicans then they were also idiots because they voted for the continuation of the monarchy.

    Direct election supporters argued that the momentum for a republic was irresistible. Republicans could safely vote no in 1999 because another referendum would soon follow in which they could vote yes.

    How is that working out?

  37. Just listening to Eric Abetz being interviewed on the Insiders replay. He is not even pretending to answer the questions, just banging on about the talking points of the day, the carbon tax or anything else. Eric reckons reinstating tours of the Cadbury factory saved Chocolate making in Tasmania. He’s repeating the lie about the ‘carbon tax’ added $400 to the price of an Australian car.

    When a politician refuses to answer a question we are entitled to put the most negative or embarrassing construction upon the non-answer – the politician knows the answer won’t make their side look good.

  40. Dio

    It is not only Redfern that is over a million it is spreading everywhere from the Shire to all of the inner city the Eastern Suburbs and out to places like Bexley.

    A lot of investments by Chinese businessmen involved – setting up their kids to be close to Universities.

  41. The millions for Cadbury was for tourism.

    The millions of tonnes dumped on the Great Barrier Reef will destroy tourism.

    Give with one hand before election, destroy with other hand after the election

  42. Diogenes for super lols the comments section over at Pies is well worth the occasional visit. It is the go to place to find how the marxists, socialists and communists are “destroying this once great country” .

  43. Insiders is cheap, tacky and tabloid.

    Mystic Meg would provide more reliable political forecasting.

    Further, if Turnbull actually wants to find “efficiencies”, Insiders could be dispensed with, achieving significant savings.

    I would not bother with this “newstainment” program, it insults your intelligence.

  44. victoria

    🙂
    Things are in a bit of a holding pattern until we get the results of the latest scans, but OH has done his first attempt at a walk down the ward, with oxygen tank trundling behind. I think we’re being groomed to look forwards to when he might come home, but also being made aware that things may never be any better than they are now. “Managing the condition” rather than a cure.

  45. Dio

    There was an old decayed deceased estate put to auction yesterday in Redfern by the Public Trustee and it went for over a million.

    Apart from the front of the terrace which has to be retained by law the two guys will have to build everything else.

  46. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/theatre/premier-campbell-newman-joke-removed-from-satirical-play-20140131-31spp.html

    poroti@34

    Why does this worry me so? Are we back to the days of censorship of the arts? Don Dunstan fought hard to get rid of it – and succeeded eventually.

    I remember the opening night of ‘Hair’ and Donny walking up the theatre stairs in front of us with head in the air telling Adelaide conservatives to ‘cop this, young Harry’.

    Are the Chaser and Micaullef going to be likewise censored because of whinging thin skinned LNPers? Makes Gillard, and even Rudd, look more courageous than ever.

  47. When all the supplier etc industries are taken into account, up to 50,000 jobs lost with Ford, Holden and Toyota pulling up stumps, another 3,000+ with SPC closing.

    Keeping these companies operating in Aust would have cost $700-800 million.

    Compare that the the $1.8 billion in FBT rorts (that is fleecing the taxpayer) that Abbott supports and condones.

  48. lizzie

    All the best to you and your husband I have been there and done that.

    After four years of illness my husband passed away six years ago.

    He was a self employed signwriter and the oil from paints got into his lungs.

    Thankfully oil is no longer present in paint.

    Chin up and keep going!

  50. lizzie It’s a start. The ‘for better or worse’ part of marriage has hit many of us as we’re aging … but it’s all worth it.

    Hope things keep heading upwards for you both.

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