Galaxy: 52-48 to Labor

A new Galaxy poll reflects last week’s polling in finding the Coalition vote up in the wake of the MH17 disaster, but not by much.

GhostWhoVotes relates that a Galaxy poll, presumably to be published in the News Limited tabloids tomorrow, has Labor’s lead at 52-48, down from 53-47 at the last such poll. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 39%, Labor down one to 37%, the Greens up one to 11% and Palmer United down one to 7%.

Other questions posed by the pollsters elicited results that would be highly disappointing to the government under the circumstances. Bill Shorten leads Tony Abbott not only on “best at managing the economy”, by 43% to 36%, but also by 41% to 39% on “trust to stand up for Australia’s overseas interests”. Shorten also maintains a 41-35 lead as preferred prime minister.

UPDATE: Daily Telegraph graphic here, giving highest prominence to a question on “who has shown the most leadership after the MH17 disaster” out of Tony Abbott (48%), Barack Obama (17%) and David Cameron (7%), notwithstanding the doubts one might harbour about respondents’ capacity to provide a meaningful answer to such a question. Of more use is a question on whether the Prime Minister should ban Vladimir Putin from attending the G20 summit in Brisbane, which finds 45% in favour and 36% opposed, and a slightly stronger lean in favour among Coalition supporters.

UPDATE 2 (Roy Morgan): This week’s Roy Morgan multi-mode poll, combining the results of face-to-face and SMS surveying from 3296 respondents over the past two weekends, has the Coalition up four points to 38%, but Labor also up half a point to 39%. Palmer United is down from 7.5% to 5%, with the Greens also down a point to 10.5%. Labor is down two points on both respondent-allocated and previous election two-party preferred, its respective leads now at 54.5-45.5 and 54-46.

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.

602 comments on “Galaxy: 52-48 to Labor”

Comments Page 6 of 13
1 … 5 6 7 … 13

  1. [I also remember bread deliveries and ice deliveries by haorse and cart. My granddad used to follow them to pck up dung for the veggie garden.]

    BK My brother and I used to run behind the milk cart and bread cart with a shovel and bucket – in Glenelg. Natch that we had to beat the other kids to get it 🙂

    meher baba

    That put some perspective into the whole thing. Media has been way over the top in praise for Abbott and spruiking better polling for him. As you so rightly point out, he’s not the focal point.

  2. MTBW

    [and damning for those on here who ridicule Rudd.]

    How so? No one I know of has ever denied that Rudd was popular.

  3. Poroti – You’re right. Tone should call the latest mission to the Ukraine “Operation Barbarossa”. That’ll make puty put crap his duds. And think how well that will go down with Tone’s hard-core supporters who have been waiting all their lives to reverse a great historic wrong.

  4. Isn’t another possible consequence of ‘work for the dole’ that people being forced to do that work at subsistence wages will actually mean that the relevant organisation will no longer have the need to employ as many people?

    I.e. isn’t this an effective way of actually increasing unemployment by decreasing demand for employees?

  6. Patrick Bateman

    There’s been a whole series of tweets on this, I think from the UK, where people have actually been sacked from their jobs only to come back to the same positions as part of ‘work for the dole’.

  7. Patrick Bateman

    [Isn’t another possible consequence of ‘work for the dole’ that people being forced to do that work at subsistence wages will actually mean that the relevant organisation will no longer have the need to employ as many people?]

    Great point!

  8. Is the big take-away from the latest post-MH17 poll that people really have stopped listening to Abbott and his crew. Hostility to them is baked in.
    Surely, at the next election, this mob are going to rip out the first page of the John Howard Playbook and seek a mandate for a 15% GST in an attempt to distract the electorate and try to galvanise some support. Then, if they lose, theyll be able to claim some sort of moral high ground (I kid you not).
    The danger with that, though, is that it could alienate the electorate even more and turn a debacle into a hecatomb.

  10. @Patrick/254

    It’s so the goverment can claim it has fixed the unemployment by creating a myth that there are part time jobs (which is something like 25-30 hours a week).

    And of course, as per usual, private companies benefits from this mirage.

  12. In America they have, in many areas, a prison-slave labour economy. People lose their jobs, they go to prison, they work as slaves and undercut workers outside, who lose their jobs, who go to prison, who …. etc etc

  15. I like the way the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is referring to the campaign against the $7 co-payment as a ‘Healthcare Emergency’

    Two can play it that way, LNP.

  19. Patrick Bateman

    That and put downward pressure on wages at the bottom end of the pay scale as they compete on “cost” .

  20. BBP

    I don’t understand why Labor destroyed the dictaphone. I can see them erasing it but why destroy it.

    Andrews looks like a tool now after denying Labor did anything with the tape. I don’t know if he was lied to or was lying himself but either way its a bad look.

  21. zoomster,

    I think Ms Bishops efforts in working with the Dutch, Malaysians and others have been commendable.

    We should separate the blatant domestic Abbott polishing from the competent work of our FA representatives overseas.

  22. [Greenpeace said Hunt has “laid out the red carpet for a coal company with a shocking track record to dig up the outback, dump on the Great Barrier Reef and fuel climate change.”

    Adani has been fined in India for violating environmental conditions relating to a port development in Gujarat. An Indian government review found Adani’s failure to monitor groundwater for pollution was a “clear violation” of conditions. The company was also criticised for its destruction of mangroves.

    Felicity Wishart, a campaigner at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the mine’s approval was “bad news for the Great Barrier Reef”.

    She told Guardian Australia: “This is another step in the plan for increased shipping on the reef, expanded coal ports and more potential damage.]

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/28/largest-coal-mine-in-australia-federal-government-gives-carmichael-go-ahead?CMP=soc_568

  23. dio

    Tape? Is it a retro dictaphone. To erase data might mean attacking with a magnet if digital which would destroy it.

  24. meher baba

    Thanks for that.

    I too fail to see what was special about the way this government or its leader have reacted. At best it has been unremarkable. The voters might give him a point or so in sheer relief that he did not stuff it completely (thus far, at any rate), and for the sake of national solidarity, but I doubt it will be of much longer term comfort to him and the government.

    The government and Abbott himself only look ‘good’ in comparison to how bad they have been on everything else since the election.

    They are still crap.

  25. Diog

    Andrews was careful in his language – and ‘The Age’ was specific in its questions.

    The repeated meme of ‘The Age’ was that someone who would be in the Premier’s office should Andrews win had been privvy to the tapes.

    That’s still untrue.

    What Andrews denied was that he or any of his staff had had anything to do with the dictaphone.

    And that’s still true.

  27. …I need to give a bit of backgroud, I think.

    Since the days of the ‘faceless men’, the Victorian branch has been very careful to separate the functions of the Parliamentary Labor party (MPs and staffers) and the branch office.

    Neither can demand that the other do something, for example (you might remember that Bracks was allowed, as a particular favour, to nominate two or three candidates for preselection).

    Thus it’s perfectly reasonable that Andrews would be totally unaware of a particular activity carried out by Head Office (and vice versa).

    (There are obvious crossovers, mainly to do with campaigning).

  29. The Associated Press ‏@AP 4m
    BREAKING: UN Security Council calls for ‘immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire’ in Gaza

  32. [Who is this ABC factcheck spiv attempting to polish the Govts record on lies ?]

    Isn’t Virginia Trioli’s husband in charge of ABC Factcheck (behind the scenes). She was glowing this am when talking about it.

    I didn’t see anything about the ABC’s drop in funding tho.

  33. Awww they’re being cruel

    @Graeme_Bowman: 800,000 job seekers /146,000 jobs available = 5.48 people for each job available. @JoeHockey maths are involved somewhere in this ???

  34. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-julie-bishop-should-be-our-next-coalition-pm-20140728-zxmn5.html

    The Libs know the current polling is not sustainable for much longer. I don’t think they can afford to do a Gillard and wear it for (more-or-less) a whole term, then pull a switch at the last minute.

    If they switch — and it is difficult to see them not doing so, if polls stay this bad, — it will need to be well before the next budget. They will need some time to substantially reset course, and settle the troops and voters. Assuming they can. More of the same, just with a different face and slogans, is unlikely to cut it.

  38. I know a very senior public servant who was secretary of departments, etc etc and he always says that being Foreign Affairs Minister is the easiest gig in Canberra. No real departmental responsibilities, no KPIs, just a talking head. So the idea that Julie Bishop is now equipped to be PM is laughable. And wait till people start screaming “asbestos”.

  39. Rex

    Why do you think your many “Shorten shoulda done this, or Shorten shoulda done that” sentiments have not been reflected in polls.

    Must be rogue polls saying Shorten preferred to Abbott as PM and as best OS rep.

  40. BK

    Your “You’re only as old as you feel” left out two key words after the second “as”.

    The first missing word is “the”. You can follow that with a noun of your pleasing.

    🙂

  41. That question in the Galaxy poll “who has shown the most leadership after the MH17 disaster” looks like an attempt at push-polling, to generate favorable headlines for the Government in the Murdoch papers. I can recall a seeing Barrack Obama on the ABC in which he seemed to say the right things, although I don’t remember what. I don’t recall seeing David Cameron at all in relation to this tragedy, although 10 UK citizens lost their lives. I’m not saying it wasn’t reported, but amidst everthing else it didn’t sink through.

    I would suggest that the numerous voters who get all the news from Murdoch tabloids, commercial TV news and shoutback radio would have no idea how Tony Abbott performed compared to Barrack Obama, David Cameron or the King of Swaziland in relation to this matter.

  43. guytaur I hope Labor picks up on the red tape involved in millions of applications to be processed each month. The cost probably makes the whole exercise pointless.

    Heard Andrew Leigh saying this morning that a report Abbott got in 2003 showed that the jobless rate actually increased when a similar scheme was introduced by Howard Govt.

  44. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN

    Yep. The department and assorted diplomats would have giant files full of protocols and procedure for every occasion. All ready to go to fill in the words for the FM. Paint by numbers for the FM.

  45. “@olliemilman: Commonwealth arguing case is now not urgent, no need for full court hearing on Tuesday week #hc157”

  47. The Age might have misreported it but it said it was a tape.

    [Mr Andrews said that the dictaphone was destroyed and the tape cut with scissors.]

  48. psyclaw

    Not sure of your point.

    Across all polling, neither Abbott or Shorten are regarded that highly by respondents.

  50. Z

    Andrews said “opposition staff”. I think it’s a bit iffy to argue that the state Labor secretary isn’t that.

    [‘’Any allegation that opposition staff were in any way involved in the theft or dissemination of this material is wrong and defamatory,’’ he said through a spokesman.]

Comments Page 6 of 13
1 … 5 6 7 … 13

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *