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”

Comments Page 3 of 13
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  1. The Fibs will very likely regret the image of Shreck and Box-Head smoking those fat Cubans whilst telling us that we are all too entitled.
    Unbelievably stupid thing to do, you would have thought that the Fibs were more disciplined then that.

  3. I realise that it’s rheotric, but this may indeed be a one-term wonder of a Government.
    They seem hell-bent on ensuring that it turns out that way.

  5. BK@102

    Yesiree Bo
    The 20 year old Chivas Regal was just out of sight.

    Indeed.

    The first thought that came to my mind when I saw that image was of fat-cat hypocrites.

  6. Re Fredex@93: So I went with the link and the whole thing. Well and truly worth posting both.

    Interesting to note the change in Australia’s attitudes since the 70’s and 80’s. When the Vietnamese boat people started arriving in the mid to late 70’s, there was some disquiet and dark mutterings. I remember my boss at the time saying, to my shock, that the Navy should sink the boats. That from an educated and otherwise reasonable man. He was not alone. Had the Government of the day wished to make capital from that disquiet, there was fertile ground to do so. And ‘White Austrlia’ had only finally been put to rest several years before.

    But to their credit, neither the Fraser Government nor its then Opposition attempt to exploit the issue for political gain. The Fraser Government went about actually addressing the problem, gaining a bipartisan approach and talking to our neighbours to come up with a regional solution.

    Unfortunately, since the Tampa and probably before that time, the ‘dark forces’ have been allowed free run, often cynically stoked by Coalition politicians and their cheer squads. Labor has vacilliated between saying ‘me too’ and simply wishing the problem would go away.

  7. Victoria 84
    Re posting link to smh article on Rudds melt down

    http://m.smh.com.au/insight/the-day-the-rudd-government-lost-its-way-on-climate-change-20140509-zr7fm.html

    At the fear of string up the Greens on PB…

    If they hadn’t been so typically bloody minded with their All or Nothing approach on Carbon Tax back before the Copenhagen summit in 2009 , the Libs would still be in opposition with Turnbull their leader

    I am a left Labor supporter & think the Greens have no concept of “Realpolitik”

  12. LOL

    Fran is having a good day fishing on PB.

    You can’t post what Fran really thinks about capitalism. The net would automatically create its own magical censorship to protect any form of energy to digest.

  15. As for the US, Australia and Canada, they are ranked among the worst of all: comprehensively failing to limit their massive contribution to a global problem.

    [Our erroneous belief that we are more concerned about manmade climate change than the people of other nations informs the sentiment, often voiced by the press and politicians, that there’s no point in acting if the rest of the world won’t play its part. For example, last year the chancellor, George Osborne, remarked:

    I don’t want us to be the only people out there in front of the rest of the world. I certainly think we shouldn’t be further ahead of our partners in Europe.

    But we’re not “the only people out there in front of the rest of the world.” In fact we’re not in front at all. As this map produced by Oxford University’s Smith School suggests, we are some way behind not only some other rich nations but also a number of countries much poorer than ours.

    As for the US, Australia and Canada, they are ranked among the worst of all: comprehensively failing to limit their massive contribution to a global problem. We justify our foot-dragging with a mistaken premise. Our refusal to stop pumping so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is pure selfishness.

    Both the map and the bar chart overlap to some degree with the fascinating results of the Greendex survey of consumer attitudes.

    For years we’ve been told that people cannot afford to care about the natural world until they become rich; that only economic growth can save the biosphere, that civilisation marches towards enlightenment about our impacts on the living planet. The results suggest the opposite.

    As you can see from the following graph, the people consulted in poorer countries feel, on average, much guiltier about their impacts on the natural world than people in rich countries, even though those impacts tend to be smaller. Of the nations surveyed, the people of Germany, the US, Australia and Britain feel the least consumer guilt; the people of India, China, Mexico and Brazil the most.]

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/may/09/why-we-couldnt-care-less-about-the-natural-world

  16. guytaur

    Posted Saturday, May 10, 2014 at 10:55 am | Permalink

    AA

    Compulsory voting makes Tea Party Style politics a lot harder in Australia than the US.

    And that’s why the right wing hate our voting system

  17. guytaur

    [@SydneyCentral: Elderly #MillersPoint public housing evictees doing it tough amid reports of hospitalisations and suicide http://t.co/ksqz3BuVOX%5D

    That is so sad these people have lived there for a very long time and have their own community.

    The Government could surely allow them to live out the rest of their lives there and then take back their houses.

    Guess that wouldn’t please the brawler Packer!

  18. sceptic @ 107

    Well said.

    The Greens basically destroyed two Labor PMs with the one issue.

    And have a look at the climate…we’ve had plenty of rain and very cold days this autumn.

    Oh yeah, the trend is swinging back 😯

  19. Centre,

    The Goodwood in Adelaide looks a terrific race. I like Essay Raider. But, there are a lot of good chances.

  20. Trouble for Morrison – PNG is not following his script on asylum seekers:

    [Papua New Guinea’s immigration minister says he will choose which refugees resettle in the country, an apparent contradiction of the Australian Government’s assertion that all genuine refugees detained on Manus Island will be resettled within PNG.

    An unknown number of asylum seekers have received positive initial assessments, the first step towards refugee status.

    But PNG immigration minister Rimbink Pato says he will take advice from an expert panel and may choose refugees based on their professional skills.

    “The national government will determine who will or will not be settled in Papua New Guinea as refugees,” he said.

    This contradicts Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s comments on Friday, when he said “everyone who’s found to be a refugee at Manus Island, they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea”.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-10/png-immigration-minister-to-choose-which-refugees-to-resettle/5444036

  21. We have a few here who fancy themselves as punters – who might be interested in the following –

    [Just How Rigged Is The Casino: An Average Week On The Las Vegas Strip

    There is no debate that nothing beats Las Vegas where in the long (and not so long) run the house always wins.

    But how much does it win, and what games provide the house with the biggest profit?

    The following two charts answer these pertinent questions

    …for those who want to stay away from the most rigged games, your best bet is the $100 slot machines, where the casinos take “only” 3.6% of your money.

    …For the sports-betting fans, betting on baseball gives slightly better odds than basketball and football. One is much less likely to lose money betting on those sports than on racing.

    …..For the tables fans, bingo is the game-o as here the house only takes in 8.8% of the wagers there, followed by blackjack (11.1%). Most punishing by far is 3-card poker, where gamblers lose an average of 32.5% of their money.

    …the most lucrative Vegas Casino game by far is Baccarat (thank you habitual Chinese gamblers), where the casino revenue is the biggest amounting to nearly $30 million on average per week. ]

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-09/just-how-rigged-casino-average-week-las-vegas-strip

  22. Van Onselen is feeling a bit depressed today:

    [Abbott’s broken record could be a one-hit wonder

    Unless the Abbott government lifts its game, it deserves to go down in the annals of history as a oncer.

    Whether we are talking about broken promises, botched salesmanship of legislative changes or poorly designed policy goals, Tony Abbott’s government isn’t traveling well.

    Throw in the personal unpopularity of the leader himself, and it is a toxic mix, perhaps only saved in two years time, when facing the people, by Labor’s inability (or unwillingness) to recognise the very good reasons why voters cast it aside just over six months ago.]

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/abbotts-broken-record-could-be-a-onehit-wonder/story-e6frg6n6-1226912195000#

  23. GG

    I haven’t really had time to follow racing other than those 3 big meetings here in Sydney last month.

    Essay Raider? I will check out how it goes.

    I’ve got plenty on another Raider when they play the Warrior is a little later 😐

  24. I suspect Fran Barlow’s argument is going over most people’s heads. She would do better to explain the position Germany found itself in after the Axis powers had gutted the nation in the wash-up of WWI.

    At one point, the French simply helped themselves to Germany’s coal, leaving practically none for industry, cooking and heating. That is only one example of many.

    I am not defending what followed and I am certainly not defending the Nazis. But there are reasons why Hitler was able to launch his party and get away with what he did. And, remember, he was very nearly stopped early in the game, when he sat in gaol for some time, writing Mein Kampf.

  25. Fran opines…

    [“Not all and not most capitalist societies carry out genocide or wars of aggression.”]

    Likewise, not all genocides or wars of aggression are carried out by capitalist societies.

    Your original formulation contains the implicit assertion that Nazi war-mongering was caused by capitalism. This proposition is unfounded.

    It is arguable that WW2 arose in spite of rather than because of capitalism. That is, the origins of WW2 can be found in the weakness of capitalism in the 1920’s and 30’s, weaknesses that gave rise to one crisis after another. Eventually this set up the conditions in which the Nazis were able to seize executive power, abolish the bourgeois parliament and embark on a lunatic, militarist, nationalist and romantic program of racial glorification/annihilation – a program that would inevitably lead to their own destruction.

    Certainly, this reading conditioned the minds of the winners, who set out to reform capitalism in the 1940’s. Perhaps if these reforms had been instituted in the 1920’s WW2 may not have eventuated.

  26. Centre

    [And have a look at the climate…we’ve had plenty of rain and very cold days this autumn.

    Oh yeah, the trend is swinging back ]

    I have to assume you are trying to make a joke, otherwise I might be tempted to judge you an ignorant fool.

  27. [89
    Greensborough Growler

    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.]

    Well, suffice to say this is my own point of view and I am ill-equipped to re-cycle the opinions of others.

    I agree about PUP voters. Labor needs to appeal to them as well. I also feel for them. They have been duped in the past and will be duped again. I think the would be the first to agree they “conservative” in a non-pejorative sense. They feel threatened by change and are susceptible to offers of protection from change.

  28. Interestingly, PUP preferences put Cathy McGowan over the line in Indi.

    So disaffected Liberals don’t seem to have voted for her directly, but went to PUP first.

  29. Dave

    Unless the games of chance played in casinos are manipulated, casinos not rigged!

    The worst are the poker machines where you must lose unless you come across a faulty machine that is paying and the best is blackjack where card counters do exist and can turn an advantage of a minute fraction of 1% in their favour.

  30. pCentre,

    The Goodwood in Adelaide looks a terrific race. I like Essay Raider. But, there are a lot of good chances.[
    Stop your sinning G.G.!

    And remember to use contraception.

  32. lizzie

    Get over it!

    Humans will evolve into beings with two big eyes, a great big head and a little nose, mouth and ears before climate change kicks in 😈

  33. Steve777
    Thanks for the response.
    I was beginning to wonder if I had dropped it into a bottomless well.
    I expected such a strong statement about a major issue from one of the most politically powerful organizations in Australia, if not the world, to excite a bit more interest here than it appears to have elicited.

  34. [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?]

    Neither of which has anything to do with your original statement.

    You’re trying to change the argument to something it isn’t, rather than admit your original comment doesn’t hold up.

    ‘Unfettered capitalism’ isn’t the same as supporting capitalism over other systems – if it was, then we’re experiencing ‘unfettered capitalism’ at the moment.

    ‘Unfettered capitalism’ doesn’t mean ‘some capitalists support this type of government’ either.

    It also doesn’t mean ‘capitalists did well under this system’.

    I don’t know which word you’re having trouble with – ‘unfettered’ or ‘capitalism’ – but the phrase you used doesn’t mean what you say it means.

  38. ‘Humans will evolve into beings with two big eyes, a great big head and a little nose, mouth and ears before climate change kicks in ‘

    Please ring my insurance company and let them know. They seem to think it is happening now, paying out because of the increase claims due to unseasonal weather and changing me higher premiums.

  39. Steve

    [abor has vacilliated between saying ‘me too’ and simply wishing the problem would go away.]

    I think that’s unfair. Labor put several solutions forward, which with bi partisan support might have worked, including a number of models for a regional solution.

    Gillard attempted from Day One of her Prime Ministership to reach agreements with regional partners.

    You can argue she was ineffective in doing this – and I would argue because her efforts were undermined by the Greens and the Liberals – but you can’t accuse her of just hoping the problem would go away.

    In the end, it became apparent that the Libs and Greens wouldn’t support any real solution — and even then, Labor attempted to find one by setting up the expert panel and following their recommendations.

  41. Apparently, scientifically, global warming WILL happen.

    Eventually the sun will weaken and expand. When it does so the earth will be engulfed by the sun. But before then the planet will cool as the sun loses its strength.

    So ultimately we are going to have global boiling after we have global freezing. Humans will all be living on space stations by then I’d say.

    Cool 🙂

  43. Showsy,

    Not much sinning in watching horses run around in a circle. Perhaps you meant “winning”

    ‘Contraception”? Is that some type of exotic bet type in your parts.

  44. [ Centre

    Posted Saturday, May 10, 2014 at 12:05 pm | Permalink

    Apparently, scientifically, global warming WILL happen.

    Eventually the sun will weaken and expand. When it does so the earth will be engulfed by the sun. But before then the planet will cool as the sun loses its strength.

    So ultimately we are going to have global boiling after we have global freezing. Humans will all be living on space stations by then I’d say.
    ]

    ————————————————–

    I think George Carlin has a more realistic take on it :

    “We’re so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody’s going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven’t learned how to care for one another. We’re gonna save the fuckin’ planet? . . . And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked!

    Compared with the people, the planet is doin’ great. It’s been here over four billion years . . . The planet isn’t goin’ anywhere, folks. We are! We’re goin’ away. Pack your shit, we’re goin’ away. And we won’t leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we’ll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.”

  45. [Showsy,

    Not much sinning in watching horses run around in a circle. Perhaps you meant “winning”

    ‘Contraception”? Is that some type of exotic bet type in your parts.]
    Might as well face it you’re addicted to gambling G.G.

  46. Fascists do not round up and execute capitalists, they do that to the enemies of the capitalist classes – trade unionists, intelligentsia, etc. Italy, Spain, Germany and later Chile and Argentina are good examples. Often fascism is used when democracy no longer serves the needs of those with wealth and power – e.g., left-wing governments have been elected, people no longer listen to the media.

  49. I think George Carlin has no idea of what people mean when they are trying to ‘save the planet’. The planet will always be here (at least for the next 4billion years. What they mean is they are trying to save the habitability of the planet.

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