ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor

The second big-sample ReachTEL automated phone poll in consecutive weeks confirms last week’s result on voting intention, but also finds majority support for the deficit tax.

The Fairfax papers have run another of ReachTEL’s large-sample automated phone polls of federal voting intention, such as it has been conducting on a semi-regular basis for the Seven Network, most recently just a week ago. This one was conducted on Thursday night from a sample of 3241, and as with last week’s poll it has the Labor lead at 54-46, from primary votes of 39.8% for Labor (up 0.2%), 37.8% for the Coalition (down 1.1%), 10.5% for the Greens (down 0.7%), 7.0% for Palmer United (up 1.0%, and adding to their recent upward trend). Other questions find majority support for a deficit levy when the question specifies it being “between 1 and 2 per cent” and “imposed on high income earners to help reduce debt”, which was favoured by 53.7% and opposed by 32.4%. However, 42% said it has made them less likely to vote for the Coalition against 22.8% for more likely. Raising the pension age to 70 is also unpopular, being supported by 21.2% and opposed by 68.1%.

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.

606 comments on “ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. So 53.7% are actually in favour of the deficit tax being imposed on high income earners as opposed to 32.4% which are not in favour?

    Yes, I think that may be an accurate statistic. Of course Abbott will be marked down for blatantly and hypocritically braking an election.

  2. The other person with Henderson (sorry, didn’t catch his name) said that the boats might have “stopped” but Manus Is is a disaster, problems with Indonesia were increasing and what if they start to send boats back to us. Anne H merely replied “They’ve got an election coming on and they need us.” Answer “We need them more.”

  3. Good Morning

    Fran

    I would have put it something like this.

    Unfettered Capitalism gives rise to the conditions where Nazism can be an acceptable ideology

  4. I think this is a pretty reliable poll.

    If the Greens poll in the 10s or less you can count on its accuracy, any higher and they should bin it and go (another poll) again 🙂

  5. guytaur

    Perhaps you can give us some historical examples of where unfettered capitalism gave rise to something approaching Nazism?

  6. The interesting thing about the poll is the consolidation of PUP vote. We now seem to have a Party where the more moderate voters can park their disapproval rather than with the more extreme Greens.

    We are all familiar with the phenomeno of Greens returning 80% of their preferences to Labor. It will be interesting to see how the on going preference split for PUP develops.

    If PUP can control/direct their preferences they will become quite a political influence.

  7. Dan Gulberry

    I have observed Allanah in the parliament, she is very personable. I like her style. You are fortunate to have her representing your area

  8. Galaxy guy on 24 is saying the obvious. Voters do not accept Labor left a mess and so are not accepting austerity measures due to a budget emergency

  9. GG

    7% directed either to Labor or Libs could certainly make or break and election. PUP voters seems to be low information voters who could be swayed to a reasonable extent.

    Clive as kingmaker isn’t a great outcome for a democracy.

  10. [Because he is not a prime minister, he is a dilettante.]

    I prefer the word “anarchist”. Abbott is a classic muckmenter who enjoys stirring things up first, and if it can be swung towards his own benefit, then all the better.

    It’s the type of thing you see in high school debates. The best high school debaters are the smartarses who reckon they can argue any topic, pro or con. They receive higher marks than the others because they’re so clever at it.

    Abbott also likes to be the centre of attention. So he gets himself into trouble deliberately, just to demonstrate his skills at getting out of it.

    “It’s better to seek forgiveness than ask permission.”

    In a nation full of weathervanes, who change their opinions according to the latest poll, or Reality TV news broadcast, Abbott is the perfect Prime Minister. e changes his own opinions as readily as the mugs who vote for him.

    When I say “opinion” I don’t believe that what Abbott says is genuine. But it’s sort-of plausible.

    After all this, I’m not too sure that his latest convolutions of logic re. his new taxes are going to be accepted. He likes to say whatever needs to be said to get through the day; to survive until tomorrow.

    Unfortunately, this time the CoA was too late in the day for him to be able to get his story straight. With a fixed date for the Budget, the problem was that Abbott’s usual style became cramped due to the limited time available to try out his lines.

    So in the end they just tried the “Trust Us” line. It was like when I tell my grandkids, when they ask me how I know something to be true. I tell them, when all else fails, “Because it’s KNOWN.” Not very logical, but it shuts them up, for while.

    “Trust me” is the same kind of conversation terminator.

    It’s just a pity that Cormann was the bloke wheeled out to utter it.

  11. [Galaxy guy on 24 is saying the obvious. Voters do not accept Labor left a mess and so are not accepting austerity measures due to a budget emergency]

    Well, at least we have the “Before” database.

    Now for the “After”.

  12. Dio

    I’ve been told by someone who knows these things that Palmer voters actually have above average levels of education and are a lot more aware of political events than the average voter.

  13. BB

    Very jarring to hear Cormann come out and say in his accent wtte “Trust us. We know what we are doing”.

    Anyone that heard that statement, would instinctively think the opposite. Now with the added imagery of him puffing away on a cigar. All i can say. PR disaster

  14. Zoomster

    Over the time I’ve been posting here I have become keener to avoid offending those who prefer short posts to longer ones, so I am going to resist the impulse to fisk your post. I will simply stipulate that I reject your army of strawmen and move on. I will add that while most here were unsympathetic to my view about the Nazis and German capitalism, none of them, to my recollection, suggested German capitalism had been overthrown in favour of some other form of class rule. You may point, if you wish, to someone asserting this and we can then examine whether they are serious or not.

    It might be shorter, assuming you want to discuss this, to try to ascertain what you disagree with me about on this matter. So let’s try some basic questions:

    A) Was German capitalism overthrown when the Nazi government took power in 1933. (i.e. There was a social revolution, property passed to non-capitalist classes and the new regime ruled on behalf of these classes?
    B) Did German capitalism remain but cede political power to some other class or coalition of classes from 1933?

    If neither of these adequately characterises your view of sociopolitical arrangements in Germany after 1933 please give one that does.

  15. [66
    Greensborough Growler

    The interesting thing about the poll is the consolidation of PUP vote. We now seem to have a Party where the more moderate voters can park their disapproval]

    The term “moderate” says a lot more about GG than it does about these voters. They are not moderate. They are socially-conservative workers; likely to be less well-educated, older, physically located in outer-metro seats, and who feel threatened by economic and institutional change. They are rattled post-One Nation contrarians. Just as they were sucked in by Pauline Hanson, they’re being sucked in by Clive.

  16. Diogs,

    Clive’s an economic Liberal and social conservative. A large proportion of his electorate are pensioners with a huge sense of entitlement. He’s a populist and seems to be on both sides of most arguments with his dissembling out of left field comments and charm.

    He’s apprently a difficult personality. But, people seem to like his “stick it up ’em” shtick,

    He seems set to become the concubine of Australian politics. Lot’s of influence but no real responsibility.

    Whether he’s good for our democracy is irrelevant. He is what he is.

  17. In today’s fairfax papers. No doubt the usual Ruddophiles will respond with zeal

    [It was the moment when the Rudd government lost its way. In this extract from his new book Power Failure, Philip Chubb tells the inside story of how Labor imploded over climate change policy. After the disaster of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, Kevin Rudd suddenly shifted his focus to hospital reform – but his failure to deal with the fall-out for his signature climate policy was to prove fatal to his leadership]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/insight/the-day-the-rudd-government-lost-its-way-on-climate-change-20140509-zr7fm.html#ixzz31GixgXGk

  18. Psyclaw quoted me …

    [“how many folk were violently offended by my apparent assertion that bloodlust was part and parcel with capitalism”]

    Then added:

    [Your assertion was not “apparent”. It was explicit.]

    Twitter is a medium in which nuance can be lost. Not all and not most capitalist societies carry out genocide or wars of aggression. It would be more accurate to say that such impulses it lie dormant within capitalism much as it’s true that most volcanoes lie dormant and pose no immediate threat to people around them most of the time. Continuing the metaphor, farming on volcanic soil can be highly productive, though I daresay most would prefer that the volcanoes around them remain dormant.

    In Germany 1933, not just the necessary, but the sufficient condition for an eruption of murderous hatred were satisfied. An eruption followed sweeping over most of Europe. One doesn’t need to show that this is what the capitalist class in Germany had expressly in mind in 1933. Their desire to refute the perceived challenge from the left caused them to set in train processes over which they had only limited control but which caused mountains of misery.

    As to whether I like jabbing the hornet’s nest, truly, I don’t, though when periodically, my advocacy does unintentionally jab them, I do find the buzzing of the said hornets a kind of affirmation that what I said was entirely called for. Not one of them raised a worthwhile objection to my original claim, and as noted, without exception, those on twitter being abusive self described in terms that ought to shame any civilised person.

  19. I like the arrogance of Hartcher in declaring that Health will never be the same again simply because the brain-fart-obsessed, thought-bubblers we have in power today say so.

    Universal health care is part of the furniture in Australia. Many have tried and failed to get rid of it.

    Abbott and Hockey would be the LEAST likely candidates in this renewed conservative drive.

    Even the doctors have settled into Medicare. No-one wants it gone except the millionaire company directors to whom paying full tilt at the doctor’s as is inconsequential as a $500 fine for street brawling.

    There’s no need for all this trouble. The Australian people became convinced that it was Gillard who wrecked the equilibrium. Abbott, in response (to the panic he, himself generated) promised no excuse and no surprises. We are in store for precisely the opposite of that.

    Eternal Struggle, continual revolution and permanent stress are a piss-poor ways to go about winning the hearts and minds of a population who just want to be relaxed and comfortable.

    People were sick of politics under Gillard. Abbott made sure of that.

    The punters want calm. They want direction. They won’t get it under Abbott, as long as his Captain’s Picks and brain-farts are the source of ideas by which we are governed.

    He shat in Labor’s nest, now he’s shitting in his own. He’s a bull in his own china shop. That’s nowhere near the standard of calmness he promised.

  20. Increase in the fuel excise and the GP tax will hit the low income workers and pensions the most. These two items will reduce the disposable income of the less “wealthy” groups more so than the more wealthy affluent in our society.

    Less disposable income = less spending, less profit, less company tax, less govt revenue, less jobs

  21. zoomster 33,

    I like.

    Frans elongated defence of her statement is, as you say, an attempt to covertly water down the explicit terms of the statement without backing down from the statement. i would add it is also designed to confuse or bore the reader and she laces it with scorn on those who are unable to agree with her logic.

    I assume “Admittedly, the language is florid” is the closest we will get to an admission of being wrong.

    If you want to link capitalism to barbarism, look to the British China ‘free trade deal’ of 1839. Or the Washington Consensus. But Fran’s statement does not assist in the efforts of many here to convince people and our politicians to adequately regulate capitalism or find a suitable alternative.

  22. briefly,

    I always write from my own point of view. You should try it sometime.

    The PUP voters are the voters that Labor needs to impress/influence if they are to consolidate their current comfortable lead in the polls and maybe win the next election.

    It wasn’t the defection of Lefties that cost Labor the last election. So you can demean your fellow Australians as much as you like for their personalisation of politics and attitudes. However, their votes count exactly the same.

  23. I think Palmer provides an opportunity for many voters to vote for him who are not happy with both the major parties and who are SANE enough not to vote for the Greens.

    And the Fat One knows how to cut through.

  24. I think it’s fair to say that the Abbott Government got in on false pretences. Many of the punters voted to cut electricity prices; to take money off people they don’t like, for example public servants, dole recipients, ‘elites’ (the cultural and acedemic kind, not those with money), people the likes of Andrew Bolt might call ‘professional ethnics’, ‘tree huggers’, ‘union thugs’ and other ‘bludgers’; and to stop the boats. They didn’t vote for radical free market reforms or indeed for anything that would adversely affect them personally.

    So I think that there is a meme that Labor and the Greens can exploit here – something along the lines of ‘You can’t trust the LNP’, ‘whose interests do they really serve?’ Get people asking – where do your intersts lie? Who represents your interests?

    And this can be extended – isn’t it in your interests (or your childrens’ and grandchildrens’) that climate change be addressed? Do the big miners really care about you? And in a society that gives a rough deal to some, what guarantee is there that you will always get a fair go? These punters may never be asylum seekers but they or theirs may one day be chronically ill, disabled or unemployed.

  25. http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=27a6366f073b6e99b3ff9187f&id=b2fe25738d&e=85863a8518
    I wasn’t sure whether to just put a link with an intro, or a link plus some excerpts I thought particularly relevant or …
    So I went with the link and the whole thing.

    [“The Australian Catholic Bishops have been involved in many ways with asylum seekers. Some of us have detention centres close to home, and we have worked hard to ensure that asylum seekers receive proper pastoral care and human assistance. We renew that commitment here.

    The Bishops have also intervened with Government in an attempt to make policy more respectful of human dignity and basic human rights, which today are being seriously violated.

    We now make this urgent plea for a respect for the rights of asylum seekers, not only in Government circles but in the Australian community more broadly. Federal decision-makers in both major parties have made their decisions and implemented their policies because they think they have the support of the majority of Australians. Therefore, we want to speak to the entire Australian community.

    The current policy has about it a cruelty that does no honour to our nation. How can this be when Australians are so generous in so many situations where human beings are in strife? Think of the way the Vietnamese boat people were welcomed in the 1970s and 80s. The question becomes more pointed when we think of the politicians who are making and implementing the decisions. They are not cruel people. Yet they have made decisions and are implementing policies which are cruel. How can this be so?

    Island dwellers like Australians often have an acute sense of the “other” or the “outsider” – and that is how asylum seekers are being portrayed. They are the dangerous “other” or “outsider” to be feared and resisted because they are supposedly violating our borders.

    Do racist attitudes underlie the current policy? Would the policy be the same if the asylum seekers were fair-skinned Westerners rather than dark-skinned people, most of whom are of “other” religious and cultural backgrounds? Is the current policy perhaps bringing to the surface not only a xenophobia in us but also a latent racism? The White Australia policy was thought to be dead and buried, but perhaps it has mutated and is still alive.

    There may also be the selfishness of the rich. Not everyone in Australia is rich, but we are a rich nation by any reckoning. The asylum seekers are often portrayed as economic refugees coming to plunder our wealth. But the fact is that most of them are not being “pulled” to Australia by a desire for wealth but are being “pushed” from their homeland and other lands where there is no life worth living. No-one wants them.

    The policy can win acceptance only if the asylum seekers are kept faceless and nameless. It depends upon a process of de-humanisation. Such a policy would be widely rejected if the faces and names were known. Bishops have seen the faces; we know the names; we have heard the stories. That is why we say now, Enough of this institutionalised cruelty.

    We join with the Catholic Bishops of Papua New Guinea who have voiced their strong opposition to the use of Manus Island for detention. They have urged Australia “to find a more humane solution to people seeking asylum”. We do not accept the need for off-shore processing. But even if it continues, it surely does not require such harshness.

    The Government and Opposition want to stop the boats and thwart the people-smugglers. But does this require such cruelty? Could not the same goals be achieved by policies, which were less harsh, even humane – policies which respected not only our international obligations but also basic human rights? Can we not achieve a balance between the needs of people in desperate trouble and the electoral pressures faced by politicians? We believe we can; indeed we must.

    The Australian Catholic Bishops call on parliamentarians of all parties to turn away from these policies, which shame Australia and to take the path of a realistic compassion that deals with both human need and electoral pressure. We call on the nation as a whole to say no to the dark forces, which make these policies possible. The time has come to examine our conscience and then to act differently.”]

  26. Fran
    [try to ascertain what you disagree with me about on this matter]

    That explicitly saying unfettered capitalism is the cause of the massacres of WW2 is so facile it crosses the border into the absurd. That it disregards important causes of the war AND of bloodlust behaviour that makes it not just a simplistic ‘florid’ statement but a dangerously distracting one.

  27. [Andrew
    Posted Saturday, May 10, 2014 at 10:20 am | PERMALINK
    Whilst 54/32 on deficit tax, 42/23 LESS likely to vote Abbott because of it. Broken promise important]

    This is the crux of the matter. Abbott spent so long in opposition publicly slamming absolutely everything that Labor did, regardless of whether it was beneficial or not.

    He way overreached himself before the election making all sorts of outlandish ‘promises’ about no surprises, no new taxes etc when it was obvious that he could still win the election by saying very little.

    So now anything that Abbott and Hockey do, whether it may be beneficial or not, is regarded by the population as a broken promise and people feel they have been completely duped.

    Hence the Reachtel finding that a majority support a higher tax on ‘the rich’ but at the same time slam Abbott for a broken promise.

    Unfortunately Abbott has made a rational discussion on the virtues of any proposal almost impossible because of his behaviour.

  28. spur212@73

    I’ve been told by someone who knows these things that Palmer voters actually have above average levels of education and are a lot more aware of political events than the average voter.

    It will be interesting to see that put to the test – based on what he does compared to what he says – and he says a lot.

    abbott has shown that voters will support a magic pudding solution – maybe they will do so again? So quickly?

    My read on palmer atm, is he is full of it and full of himself. God help us if he is the future where gina and a few more like that decide they want real power as well as lots of money.

    That said happy to be proven wRONg on Clive if he frustrates abbott on things like Medicare, Education and other measure of fairness etc – but I still think it will be all about Clive.

    Once we see PUP in action that is the time to assess those who voted for him?

  29. So which policies will Abbott be able to repeal when the balance of power moves away from the Greens to Palmer in the new Senate?

    I think the carbon price will go and the mining tax will be used by the PUP as a bargaining tool.

  30. victoria

    Thanks for the link. I dare not comment because I can’t stand the reactions to any attempt to portray the truth.

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