The Sunday News Limited tabloids have a Galaxy poll of federal voting intention, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 1391 – quite a bit bigger than Galaxy polls have traditionally been in the past – which shows Labor leading 52-48 on two-party preferred, compared with 50-50 at the last such poll a month ago. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down four points to 39%, Labor is steady on 37%, the Greens are up one to 11% and Palmer United is up two to 6%. The poll also finds 65% opposed to the paid parental leave scheme proceeding “in the current budgetary environment”, compared with 23% in support. Seventy-two per cent say they would rate the proposed deficit levy a broken promise, after being prompted that “Tony Abbott announced before the election that there would be no new taxes”, compared with 21% who thought otherwise.
UPDATE: Possum, who reads more carefully than some of us, observes that the higher sample size is due to a change in methodology, with the live interviewing (which I believe in Galaxy’s case includes a subset of mobile phone polling) supplemented by an online panel.
UPDATE 2 (ReachTEL): The monthly ReachTEL poll for the Seven Network has Labor’s lead up from 52-48 to 54-46, from primary votes of 40% for Labor and 39% for the Coalition. More to follow.
UPDATE 3: Full ReachTEL results here, showing primary votes of 38.9% for the Coalition (down 1.1% on a poll conducted in fortnight ago), 39.6% for Labor (up 2.2%), 11.2% for the Greens (down 0.3%) and 6.0% for Palmer United (up 0.4%). Also featured are leadership ratings on a five-point scale, in which Tony Abbott has a very good or good rating from 26.5% (down 4.3%) and poor or very poor from 56.8% (up 5.0%), while Bill Shorten’s respective numbers are 20.8% (up 1.8%) and 42.2% (down 0.4%). A 1% deficit levy has a net unfavourable if applied at $80,000 per annum (34.2% to 40.7%), becoming strongly favourable at $180,000 (59.3% to 23.4%), but 60.2% believe such a levy would break an election promise against 23.5% who think otherwise. Co-payments for doctor visits have 33.5% support and 56.5% opposition, with 59.0% thinking it a broken promise against 28.4% not; and 47.2% would support reducing the size of the public service to bring the budget to surplus versus 34.3% opposed.
UPDATE 4 (Morgan): Morgan now offers its fortnightly result as well, part of a glut of polling as everyone returns to the party following consecutive long weekends (Newspoll to follow this evening). It adds to the general picture of a blowout in having Labor’s lead at 55-45 (up from 52-48) on respondent-allocated preferences and 53.5-46.5 (up from 52-48) on previous election preferences, the primary votes being 37% for Labor (up three), 37.5% for the Coalition (down one), 12% for the Greens (down one) and 5.5% for Palmer United (up half).
“@greencate: .@albericie “Are you concerned there might be perception of conflict of interest due to govt privatising infrastructure projects? #lateline”
“@smurray38: Tomorrow’s #NewsPoll has a 10-point fall in Coalition primary support among voters aged over 65; six-point fall for 50 to 64 years.”
I love this. it takes them the whole article – first reporting that abbott is still ahead on PPM and that labor’s primary vote is flat before – through gritted teeth – it gives the 53-47 result. it mentions an increase in the greens vote without admitting the 14% which kills their ‘greens are gawn’ narrative.
sheppard just fumbled his answer on being a LNP donor through dodgy funds. so impartial.
I think it’s all part of the plan that young people be loaded up with debt at the start of their careers. People with debts make compliant workers. Ditto arranging the economy so that housing is just barely affordable if a couple mortgage the equivalent of one wage for all or most of their working lives. Then sell the home if one or both need aged care.
guytaur
Talking points down pat….
Emma not capable of taking Sarah Ferguson approach & cut him off at the knees per Mathius Cormann…. He drivelled when under pressure.
Friend at ABC news volunteered that Emma is the bluntest pencil in the box …. by far.
[FTR – I don’t buy ALP primary at 34% …]
Yeah didn’t expect a 21% vote in WA senate either! Its highly plausible.
[victoria
Posted Monday, May 5, 2014 at 11:02 pm | PERMALINK
Newspoll has Labor primary at 34%
Reachtel at 40%
Galaxy at 37%
Morgan at 37%]
Vic
Based on those figures, plus 38% from Essential, it looks like this Newspoll could actually be an outlier. Now there’s a thought to chill the heart of every coalition supporter.
Darn
Indeed.
Ah, having dealt with the blithering of Shepherd I can go to bed with the words of Tim Buckley that coal is farked whispering sweet nothings in my ear.
Night all.
People hear that the retirement age is being lifted to 70 but those 50 today don’t realise they will be 85 when that happens if they are still alive.
[ Now there’s a thought to chill the heart of every coalition supporter. ]
Good. And it will only get worse over the next week. Couldnt happen to a nicer lot.
davidwh
No. Those 50 today will be 71, when this comes into effect in 2035
@1860
Doesn’t make any difference davidwh.
Bit like saying Fraudband will be delayed for an extra 4 years, but you will be 4 years older then.
Goodnight.
[The federal budget will lift the retirement age to 70 by 2035, Treasurer Joe Hockey has announced, but he might not get the change through the Senate.
Mr Hockey said he expected Labor to support the change but opposition families spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said it was a broken promise and Labor would not be supporting it.
“The Prime Minister has no mandate to make changes to pensions in this year’s budget – regardless of when these measures commence,’’ she said.]
http://www.afr.com/p/national/politics/retirement_age_will_rise_to_by_wt1siYgydx8uUrNAE0Yu6N
Night all
guytaur @ 1852: What to make of that? Over 65s won’t be affected by an increase in the pensionable age. Maybe they worry about means testing, but that probably won’t touch them. My guess is that the young people who will be affected by the age change still feel hale and hearty, and don’t really know what it is going to feel like to have to still work when you are starting to wear out; whereas those who have got to that age know.
New thread.
[ but those 50 today don’t realise they will be 85 when that happens if they are still alive. ]
So what. Nobody should bother to have an opinion if its not going to affect them personally??
People 50 or so have no faith that the Govt wont change it again so that it does and no faith that they wont raise the age at which people can access their own money that’s in Super.
Also, they can relate to the issue personally as they are often already looking at retirement planning. they assess it and think:
“Fwark that for a joke. This lot on their Parliamentary scheme that gives them a pension from the moment they lose their seats expect someone else to keep working until 70?”
Of course its obvious why. Doesn’t everybody have access to $85000 dollar publicly funded cheques for 5 months “work” in writing down right wing un-researched brain-farts and calling it an authoritative Audit Report??
Lib supporters certainly seem to.
davidwh@1823
Sorry David but that is, for lack of a better word, nonsense. So ALP is to blame that we had a lazy opposition for the last 6 years? So ALP is to blame L/NP though they can wing it and spend 100% of their energy on destroying the government and in turn confidence of the people in the economy, instead of allocating some of the time they had in opposition to think what could be done for the country if and when they get into power?
People had a clear choice:
1. believe the L/NP nonsense of governing chaos, budget crises, destruction of the towns by price on carbon, ‘need for surplus’ and the best was that Tony, that amazing Abbott chap, is their best friend.
2. Continue with the government that has failed to sort their own issues, but have done better job at running the country than most other countries have done in the last 6 years, given the underlying circumstances. Hell, even if the circumstances were better, the way Aus economy performed was an excellent result.
But yeah, blame the ALP for everything, things they deserve to be blamed on (their own stupidity wrt to their own party politics) and things they don’t deserve to be blamed on (L/NP being as lazy and vicious as they are).
There is only one entity at fault here, and it is Australian public for believing nonsense that was thrown at them.
Cost of concessions to superannuationis now running at over $32 billion p.a, i.e. About $2000 for each taxpayer. More than third of that goes to the top 5% of earners, who would never have qualified for the age pension.
So there’s an easy $10 billion or so that can be returned to the budget bottom line in the next 3 years without impacting the elderly or students other than those who are well and truly capable of looking after themselves. That could easily be wound back over 10 years or so by a further $10 billion, which would wind the cost of concessions back towards the amount saved by means testing the pension.
Slav Labor is certainly to blame for making it easy for a poor opposition with a suspect leader getting elected in September 2013. Labor is certainly to blame for making it easier for Abbott to remain LOTO after August 2010. Labor is certainly to blame for allowing themselves to indulge in internal warfare for three years while polling was showing that poor opposition with the poor leader was going to be elected.
Unless you can convince me the Abbott government got elected on merit. Don’t see it personally and the result seems to back me up.
Of course its obvious why. Doesn’t everybody have access to $85000 dollar publicly funded cheques for 5 months “work” in writing down right wing un-researched brain-farts and calling it an authoritative Audit Report??
We could have saved $2.5 million if the Government had employed a couple of unpaid interns (I am sure some Young Liberals would have eagerly volunteered) to research the IPA website and interview a few Corporate CEOs. Or maybe simply asked the attendees at one if these $22,000 lunches what they wanted and taken dictation.
On the question of election funding …
I see caps on spending during election campaigns as being the key tool here. It doesn’t matter how much people donate if you can stop them spending beyond a certain limit.
It’s pointed out of course that the major parties can do an end run around spending limits by allowing ‘super pacs’ to advertise on their behalf. One response to that might be to require all agencies or organisations running ostensibly political advertising to disclose fully all of their funding sources in near real time to the AEC, and for these disclosures to be posted on the web. Penalties would attach to inaccurate disclosures, with serious fines and disqualification imposed on officers of such organisations.
Where the organisation could be shown to be effectively a related organisation to a
political party the spending would be accounted as part of that party’s spending cap. Tests would include but not be limited to common donors, common officers, shared resources and so forth.
Abbott was elected by:
1. those who saw their interests closely aligned with those of big business. This included not just the wealthy and senior executives but those who aspired to be
2. traditional conservatives who are attracted to the social conservatism expressed by Abbott and other Coalition figures
3. Many who seemed to think they were voting for a group of technocrats who would be more competent than the then Government – they bought the meme of ‘government in chaos’, ‘let’s put adults in charge’ pushed by the Opposition, ably supported by the media and, yes, Labor and the then Government.
4. Racist bogans who bought into the moral panic over boats. Only a couple of percentage points at the margins but all Australian elections are close. In 2013 just under 7 in 15 voters did not want a change.
5. many others who accepted that we needed to tighten up, fix the budget and so forth, but thought that the changes would only affect public servants, unions, dole recipients, politically correct academics and other bludgers, but not nice respectable people like themselves.
There is a fair bit of overlaps between the groups, especially 4/5 and 3/5.
So maybe there’s a lot of buyers’ remorse about.
Anyway, it is now near the witching hour, so good night all.
Yoo Hoo ban the Bomb!
Blimey!
I haven’t been here for a while and couldn’t think that my presence back here would suddenly shut down the blog!
BTW, good day to Crikey and every one that I know from way back when!
Looks like my presence has shut down the blog, so good night everybody!
guytaur@1793
The “budget crisis” is that Hockey has to try and come up with one that adds up, and his calculator only goes up to eleventy.
Oops! Wrong thread! How come this thread is still open?