The latest fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research has the Coalition down a point on the primary vote to 38%, but is in all other respects unchanged on last week with Labor on 40%, the Greens on 9%, Palmer United on 6% and two-party preferred at 53-47 in favour of Labor. Other questions:
• Thirty-seven per cent of respondents said they trusted financial planners to provide independent and appropriate advice versus 49% with little or no trust, and 73% a royal commission into banks and financial planning with only 11% opposed.
• On coal seam gas mining, 22% want a complete ban, 32% want restrictions on farm land, and only 12% think current regulation sufficient.
• The existing renewable energy target is supported by 36% of respondents, with 29% thinking it too low and only 13% too high.
• Fifty-two per cent approve of Australia having closer defence links with Japan, versus 18% who disapprove. Five per cent rate relations with Japan more important than China versus 15% for vice-versa, while 62% rate them as equally important.
A quick run through the other polling of the past few days:
• Newspoll in The Australian had Labor leading 54-46, down from 55-45 a fortnight ago, from primary votes of 36% for the Coalition (up one), 37% for Labor (steady) and 11% for the Greens (down two).
• Roy Morgan’s fortnightly result had the Coalition down one to 34%, Labor up two to 38.5%, the Greens down half a point to 11.5%, and Palmer United up half a point to 7.5%. Labor’s lead is up from 54.5-45.5 to 56-44 using preference flows from the previous election, but the Coalition gains slightly on respondent-allocated two-party preferred, with Labor’s lead down from 57.5-42.5 to 56.5-43.5.
• The National Tertiary Education Union published UMR Research robo-polling of 23 marginal electorates showing Labor set to clean up in the lot, including Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt. Kevin Bonham has his doubts.
This puzzles me, does that mean that much of the PUP preferences are going to Labor? Respondent allocated?
Bemused Comrade
From a few hours back ….. your question about the scratches.
The prosecution had 3 or 4 forensic experts who testified that the abrasions were from fingernail scratches.
William / PB
I asked this question last night but didn’t receive a response.
Has any regular polling been undertaken on performance of ministers and their opposition couterparts and/or an entire cabinet front bench?
What about local councils? Has there been any polling done around local council election time. Personally I can’t see the usefulness of such ‘drill down’ polls however for an LGA the size of Brisbane CC it might be worth it…
Kevin, somewhere in your article you have “but it turns +8 is Nikolic’s net satisfaction rating”. Should that be “turns out”?
Jimmy
Hi
Dunno for sure but the 4 percentages mentioned sum to 93% so others/undecideds must be 7%.
So of the Greens, PUPs, and Others (22% in total) Labor got 13% and the conservos got 9%.
Another two technical questions on polling
1. How does robot-polling work? How are the numbers determined that are called?
2. Are mobile phone users ever polled? I have had a mobile for years and never received a call from a pollster. Given the rate of mobile ownership in Australia (one of the highest) and land line usage is declining you would assume this would be considered. By way of comparison the library service where I work I would guesstimate 95% of our patrons have provided us with mobile numbers.
Jimmy
Did I accurately glean from something you wrote yesterday that you are around the Hunter?
psyclaw@2
I have no doubt that is true. So it is established that someone, most likely his wife, scratched him around the time she disappeared.
That is consistent with any of the following:
1. She defended herself as he strangled her.
2. Fired up by Zoloft, and in a psychotic state, she was in a rage and scratched him before leaving.
3. They had a bit of a domestic in which he got scratched.
4. He had been scratched by a girlfriend/mistress, she spotted the scratches and stormed out.
5. Other possible scenarios.
As many accused/suspects do, he tried to downplay the scratches with a porky which ended up with him looking even worse.
Hey psyclaw, thanks for that. Labor is not doing badly out of the usually conservative others then. And yeah you’re correct, I’m in Newcastle 🙂
Pyne revealing too much about LNP thinking:
Ok, firstly, here in full open display is the LNP’s bizarre notion that they won the last election because of resentment of the carbon tax, and their firm conviction that repeal of the carbon tax is an infinite source of good will from the electorate. Totally delusional. At absolute best repeal of the carbon price might be a very mild positive for the coalition; it’s certainly not “election winning”, but I’m happy for them to keep fooling themselves on this matter.
Secondly, “if the Australian public find out that if they vote Labor, the carbon tax will come back” … of course if (1) above is true then the LNP will see it as their solemn duty to inform the Australian public – whether or not it is true (and I certainly hope it is true, and the ALP have basically committed to carbon pricing without nailing down their policy for the next election … which is sensible 2 years out). And what is this “if the Australian public find out”? You think there is some secret here? The ALP will be accused by the LNP of having plans to restore the carbon price regardless of what their actual policy is, so the ALP may as well own it … no secrets, no surprises – unlike this LNP government elected on a web of lies and deceit.
Thirdly, “the [ALP] members in the marginal seats who think they are coasting for victory at the next election” – lmao. Pyne admitting here that there are a lot of LNP ‘marginal’ seat holders who are quaking in their boots right now. Bravo, Pyne, well played!
Steven Grant Haby
Polling companies (or many of them) who robopoll buy a list of phone numbers from a company that specialises in supplying a demographically balanced list, the inclusion of mobile numbers costs more.
Bemused
Yep all possible. . Your 1 is what the jury thinks happened. And Baden Clay offered none of 2 to 4 as a defence.
He said he cut himself shaving because he was in a hurry to get his kids to school after he woke and found the wife was missing.
Jackol, what you say is especially true when you consider that the Australian public has rediscovered it’s love for carbon pricing, if the latest poll are to be believed. But then we’re a wishy-washy lot.
Jackol
Pyne had just launched the Tory campaign for 2016.
They are so bereft of ideas axe the tax is all they can vote up with.
… Come up with …
Bloody ipad .
Hey William, the bludgertrack thing down the side of the page is showing only four seats for Tasmania?
On the subject of the bludgertrack, I’m just marveling at the massive swing to Labor in WA, 8 Lib seats to 7 Lab, with a bare Lab majority TPP. Abbott really is poison! If Mesma does do an knifing, I wonder if she’d get a home state bounce?
rossmcg@12
Yes and once he told that story he was stuck with it.
It is so stupidly implausible it could almost be true… if it wasn’t for the sheer impossibility of doing that while shaving.
Steven, Essential Research had approval ratings for government ministers a few weeks ago. The best you can get in terms of opposition members is when they do a poll on preferred Labor leader, recent results of which have had Shorten only slightly ahead of Albanese and Plibersek. ReachTEL did a more or less accurate poll before the last election for Brisbane lord mayor, and I seem to recall Gary Morgan doing polling for the last Melbourne City Council election, in which he had a personal interest.
ON the Baden-Clay facial scratches “evidence” …
My parents live in Kenmore, the suburb which adjoins Brookfield in Brisbane. A day or two after Ms Baden-Clay was announced as missing and her husband was identified as a suspect, my mother was driving near Westfield Indooroopilly (suburb that adjoins Kenmore). There was an accident at an intersection where a car had driven at speed directly into a light pole. It is an intersection where there is really very little danger of one driving off the road and hitting that pole “accidentally”.
The driver of the car was, apparently, Mr Baden-Clay, and he was treated for minor facial injuries.
Word on the street was that he was attempting to cause a major injury to his face to hide / compliment the existing scratches.
DR
JD – 4 between LNP and ALP, +1 for Wilkie who is presumably predicted as a retain at this stage.
And WA is throwing up some very odd polling numbers in the limited polling we get from there – the LNP may be weak, but the ALP is polling abysmally there with large Greens and others numbers. How that actually shakes out in seats is hard to say with any certainty I imagine, but picking up lots of seats in WA is not something the ALP should rely on.
[Hey William, the bludgertrack thing down the side of the page is showing only four seats for Tasmania?]
It only shows totals for Labor and Coalition seats, and it is presumed Denison will stay with Wilkie.
[On the subject of the bludgertrack, I’m just marveling at the massive swing to Labor in WA, 8 Lib seats to 7 Lab, with a bare Lab majority TPP.]
Learn more at the detailed quarterly breakdowns I published recently, which I haven’t done enough to promote. There will henceforth be a permanent link to my latest quarterly update in the spiel under “BludgerTrack 2016” on the sidebar.
rossmcg
Very telling re the LNP’s current position that Pyne said “..if the members opposite think they can cruise to victory in 2016..” . Now why would they think that ? 😀
Jackol, thanks for that. I completely forgot about Wilkie. You’re right about WA, Labor should not rely on WA, but has it ever? WA results have always been incidental.
Jackol
ALP members in marginal seats have history on their side, every Fed Govt since Whitlam, aiming for a second term has lost votes at the next election.
Fraser lost net 7 seats in 1977
Hawke lost net 9 seats in 1984 (albeit a larger HoR)
Howard lost net 33 seats in 1998 (ignoring the 4 indies)
Rudd/Gillard lost net 18 seats in 2010.
As usual Pyne is talking crap.
Thanks William
I don’t see any reason that 2PP in WA would have become seriously less reliable as an indicator of likely seat outcomes, except to the extent that the lower primary votes for major parties mean there’s more chance of an independent coming through. I can’t see the Greens winning federal lower house seats in WA.
Jackol@20
The Federal ALP should not tolerate the under-performance of the WA Branch and should do something about it.
Steven Grant Haby @ 6
Robo-call phone numbers would be coming from the same source as the standard telephone methodology polling done by the likes of Newspoll and Nielsen, which would be the commercially available electronic white pages. The technology is an automated voice recording asking the questions, and respondents ‘answer’ with their phone keypad.
Mobile phone numbers are also commercially available, so most of the polling companies that use a telephone methodology would have a proportion, usually between 20% and 30%, of their numbers coming from mobiles.
The alternate to commercially available valid phone numbers would be what is known as Random Digit Dialling (RDD) where the last 4 digits of a pre-existing and ‘valid exchange’ landline phone number, or the last 6 digits of a mobile number, are stripped off and randomly regenerated, then run through what is known as an autodialler to be ‘pinged’ in rapid sequence to see if it returns a signal for a connected number, then the autodialler would issue that now verified as valid number to the interviewer to be contacted.
I don’t think Shorten should be seen in the company of the most hated man on the planet. Appeasement never works.
I watched the rest of The Drum.
Ann Henderson saying Thorpie should give the money he got for his interview to charity. Trading on fame or such clap trap!
All very astonishing.
JimmyDoyle@23
A seat in WA has exactly the same value as a seat anywhere else. The ALP should go after them and not accept the status quo as immutable as some West Australians seem to do.
A couple of things that could trouble Abbott showing up here.
1) A strong majority (74%) think the 20% renewable target is either right or too low (even a 60% of LNP voters are on board). So although Abbott may have successfully demonized the carbon tax the overall desire for a progressive energy policy is very high and Abbott is going in the opposite direction.
2) Not only does it appear the LNP will fail to wind back the FoFA changes but there is across the political spectrum support for a Royal Commission into the Financial Planning industry. Again, the Government is spending political capital pushing in the other direction.
William Bowe@26
I am greatly relieved. 😀
Here’s a link to the story.
http://tinyurl.com/myrlgh2
The post he hit is at the entry to the BCC Bus Terminal – a very difficult “mistake” to make.
DR
Bemused @ 30
Fair enough. But with limited campaign resources, WA is not the most strategically beneficial state to go after for Labor.
This then
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/missing-mum-allison-baden-clays-husband-gerard-in-hospital-after-in-car-crash/story-e6freoof-1226336841867?nk=d23ac6eb2ce602cabb459ce83bb33043
DR
William / PB
Thanks everyone for your responses to my questions. Much appreciated.
JimmyDoyle@34
So you think other states have unlimited campaign resources??? I wish!
Time for them to stop making excuses and start working out strategies to win. (Free hint: endorsing candidates like Joe Bullock does not help)
The Senate may be fun.
[Business of the Senate notice of motion
1 – Senators Dastyari and Whish-Wilson – Disallowance of the Corporations Amendment (Streamlining Future of Financial Advice) Regulation 2014 ]
Commenced 4:11 pm
Debate in progress
Labor, and the whole progressive side of politics, have nothing to lose and everything to gain by sticking to the science, and consistently promoting the principle and benefits of a market based carbon price mechanism, especially if the rest of the world is going in that direction, which it clearly is.
The Libs, OTOH, have painted themselves right into an isolated corner on this one. They will have to completely repudiate and reverse their current insane hyperbolic cynical sham of a policy. This ‘carbon tax’ repeal is increasingly likely to turn out one of the most pyrrhic and transient of victories.
I wish the Coalition the worst of possible luck with that. They deserve every bit of it.
[(Free hint: endorsing candidates like Joe Bullock does not help)]
The main question to me seems to be how is it that two Union Secretaries can determine the best ALP candidate between them.
How can union members intentions be decided by two officials?
It is stupid and undemocratic which, of course, means it will stay.
Just Me@39
I agree.
But there are additional arguments that flow from that.
Throw it back at voters:
“OK, you want carbon abatement, how can it be done with out costing anything? That’s right, it can’t.”
“OK, so we need to fund climate change action, so do you want cuts to services such as health and education to fund it? Or is it better to introduce revenue measures, such as ETS,that work with other carbon abatement measures?”
“Where is the money planned to come from for ‘Direct Action’? Schools? Hospitals? Grants to the states? Increased taxes elsewhere?”
Fully expose the LNPs “Magic Pudding” thinking.
As a result of the Qld ALP rule change to allow members to select Senate positions Joe Ludwig has written to branches making himself available to be a speaker at branch meetings.
Something nobody can recall him doing since 1999.
Yeah, Just Me.
I think the voters are already disgusted and when the earth doesn’t move for them on repeal of the carbon tax, they will be even more so.
swamprat@40
I could not agree more.
And that is not confined to WA by any means.
But I do not agree it will stay. The winds of change are blowing.
ruawake@42
It’s a miracle I say!
Sen. Ludwig comes to life in the branches!
I know a lot of stupidos were totally sucked in over the carbon thing, but these stupidos were all in favour of climate action a mere few years ago.
So they could be persuaded. Especially when the El Niño revs up this coming summer.
[The main question to me seems to be how is it that two Union Secretaries can determine the best ALP candidate between them.
]
I don’t know about other states but in WA no effort at all is made to select the best candidate.
[Sen. Ludwig comes to life in the branches!]
Maybe other members in other States may like to follow the Qld example? It stops the logs eventually.
Bemused – not so much excuses as an acknowledgement of reality. Federal ALP is (I believe) a bit cleaner of corporate donations than some state parties so less cash to splash in electorate campaigns. Much more bang for your buck investing in NSW and Qld. I totally agree that Labor has been schockingly bad in WA and needs a clean out as well as rule change. Going on what Ruawake was saying about Joe Ludwig, here in NSW, Deb O’Neill, despite her noxious stance on gay marriage, has been very active in the Hunter since the rule change about senate preselection idea was floated.
WeWantPaul
If an El Niño hits I look forward to National MP’s and Abbott touring the bush telling everyone “Relax people, it’s just weather, nothing to worry about.”