The new Ipsos poll for Fairfax has opened its account in interesting style, giving Labor a lead of 56-44 on two-party preferred. However, the primary votes aren’t quite as remarkable as that, perhaps excepting a result of 17% from the Greens – the Coalition is on 39% and Labor on 37%, which in both cases are within a point of the latest results from Galaxy, ReachTEL and Essential Research. The reason the two-party headline is so extraordinary is that it is from respondent-allocated preferences, which have had a way of leaning heavily towards Labor recently, in both federal and state polling. Ipsos’s calculated based on preference flows from the 2010 election is a much less remarkable 53-47.
Denis Napthine can also find comfort in his leads over Daniel Andrews on personal ratings. Napthine’s plus-nine net approval rating (approval 47%, disapproval 38%) compares with minus-five for Andrews (37% and 42%), and he leads 45-36 as preferred premier. The Age’s graphic has big arrows showing changes in the leaders’ personal ratings, but this is in comparison with a poll conducted three months ago by a different pollster.
Fairfax’s Peter Martin spruiks the new poll series thus:
Ipsos polls in more than 120 countries and has conducted election polls in Canada, the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland the United Kingdom, the Ukraine, Russia and Peru. It is taking over from long-term pollster Nielsen, which has withdrawn from political polling. Ipsos will be conducting national and state polls for Fairfax Media.
Ipsos’ 2008 US presidential poll was regarded as the most accurate of the 22 covering the election that brought Barack Obama to power.
Its first poll for The Age covering the Victorian election surveys 1400 voters, roughly twice the number usually surveyed in state polls, and broadly in line with the “gold standard” used for national polls.
“The margin of error for a sample of 1400 is about 2.6 per cent,” said Ipsos Australia managing director Mark Davis. “We may change the size of the state polls over time but certainly for the first one we wanted it to be a pretty robust sample.”
Ipsos also distinguishes itself from its competitors by calling mobile as well as fixed numbers.
Also out today was this effort from Essential Research, accumulating the result of its polling throughout the month of October. It shows the Labor lead at 52-48 (steady on last month) from primary votes of 38% for Labor (down one), 39% for the Coalition (steady) and 12% for the Greens (up one). Similar results from ReachTEL, Galaxy and Morgan are detailed in this earlier post.
@ damian 46
While I don’t think the Greens will get up, I’m not exactly expecting the Libs to retain the seat either.
The key will be who gets excluded first, Labor or Greens. Whoever of these two doesn’t get excluded before the other will almost certainly win the seat.
A beautiful set of numbers. Even if we go on previous election preference flows, this surely spells doom for the Napthine government? Regardless of MOE, we are seeing consistency from multiple pollsters around 53:47, which is certain defeat. It gets even worse when you factor in the almost certain loss of Frankston.
Can hardly say I’m shocked: I declared the Napthine government TOAST about 6 months ago, and nothing Ive seen since has made me question that assessment for a second.
I assume some nervous nellies are increasingly warming to my position.
Andrews will be the next Premier of Victoria. Whats interesting is the GRN vote here: with numbers like that, I think this election is the one we’ll see an inner city seat fall to the GRNs.
Someone is looking after Dennis. If the poll had been held on Monday, it would have been much worse.
That was the day the transport system plunged into chaos, with just an inch of rain. It was the worst meltdown in 20 years. Trains just didn’t arrive, trams had to stop rather than go through water, boom gates were stuck in the down position.
The roads were in literal gridlock at peak hour. Large numbers of drivers just turned around and went home. Others, stationary for 30 minutes, waited for their engines’ giblets to disgorge onto what pass here as motorways. Road rage was everywhere.
It was a real-time demonstration that the transport system has become a beached whale – what we used to associate with the Third World. But these days Bangkok is better than Melbourne.
Has anyone here been to Jeddah?
What do people think of the fact both ipsos and Morgan called mobiles while reachtel and galaxy don’t. Considering greens support is strongest among young inner city rents with no landline could this be. Skewing polls? Also the greens are running a campaign like never before. While those polls are maybe to big there is a lot of progreen sentiment around
50
There is however less Toorak than there was last time, because of the redistribution. The electoral boundary in Toorak has moved from Orrong Rd to the railway, Canterbury Rd and Grane Rd and this has moved part of Toorak from Prahran to Malvern where most of Toorak is.
Is it possible that Labor is deliberately running ‘dead’ in an effort to keep the Liberals out, even if a Green is elected?
Re Vic Creens
_________
Among the 18-24 year cohort the Greens are only 2% behime Labor…the biggest Green vote by cohort(down to 8% among the oldies)
The Greens are the party of the young…My 18 year old Grand-daughter is voting Green …for the first vote … as most of her young friends ..prefs to Labor of course
55
The ALP really does not want the Greens in the lower house so it is unlikely they would run dead to get the Greens over the line. There are probably even people in the ALP lobbying to get the ALP to preference the Liberals in Prahran, this is unlikely to be what they actually do as the Greens would be pointing out that a vote for the ALP is a vote for the Coalition.
feeney@55
It may be as simple as resource allocation. Realistically, the type of election outcome that would deliver Prahran to the greens would also deliver a comfortable lower house majority to the ALP.
59 & 60
With either scenario, it would be a bonus to deliver this seat away from the Liberals.
I suppose, once the Greens got a foothold in the Lower House, as for example with Bandt in the HOR, it would be difficult for Labor to remove them.
Oh dear…………
46
Ancedotal evidence from one part of the electorate doesn’t mean Labor have “disappeared” – it’s highly likely they’re using that office (which probably costs far less than the Greens’ office) to make calls & organise doorknocks.
All this talk about the Greens running a campaign “like never before” is bizarre – speaking to voters isn’t anything new, nor is placing an emphasis on it.
feeney@61
Certainly Prahran is going to be interesting to watch on election night.
I’ll also be interested to see how Andrews fares during the campaign. As present he is Mr Nobody with an approval rating to match. That presents an upside for him as he gets more coverage. If expectations are low then he may well surprise during the campaign.
60
I agree it may well be resource allocation.
I disagree that the only type of election outcome that is likely to elect a Green is a comfortable ALP majority in the Legislative Assembly type of result. A close election with the Greens doing well could elect the Greens in Prahran and the balance of power. A good performance by the ALP on primaries would harm Green chances in Prahran as the Greens have to overtake the ALP.
The only real question at this election is where will the Libs preferance the Greens. I suspect knowing that they will lose the elction, may lob the hand grenade of disfunction and put ALP last. that will mean that Melbourne, richmond and maybe brunswick will fall. Prahran I suspect that Clem is safe. The ALP souffle that has not risen candidate is a dud and the Green’s is a lot more affective. Need a few thousand votes away from Libs to overtake labor and be in with a chance…a bridge too far
WTR @ 64
That’s a relevant point.
Opposition Leaders tend to perform better in elections than between elections, I think.
Incumbent governments always appear on the defensive during election campaigns.
I’m involved with the QLD State campaign even at this point, and we are working our butts off.
So I empathise with Labor supporters and workers in Victoria particularly when expectations are high.
62 & 63
The Greens are doorknocking and making calls. They are doing much more of that than they have in Prahran before, in a better organised fashion, and this is thus likely to increase their vote compared to the last election because campaigning better attracts voters.
66
The Liberals are likely to preference the ALP because their base prefers that and it won them the previous state election and they know it (although the circumstances of it doing that are not present at this election).
That’s right I suspect parting gift hand grenade, minority gov,etc.
Tom the first and best@65
It certainly a possibility that Prahran could become a balance of power seat, just not likely.
With 10 seats the ALP can grab with a margin of less than Prahan it would be an outlier result if the conservatives lost Prahan but in the same environment the ALP did not win enough seats to control the lower house.
So, it may be the ALP has tagged Prahan as not being critical to the overall election plan. I guess if things tighten up and there is evidence of the Green’s ground game in Prahan creating a significant swing – well the priorities might change.
I think the Greens are very likely to gain the balance of power in the upper house and will be very content to snag any lower house seats.
[What do people think of the fact both ipsos and Morgan called mobiles while reachtel and galaxy don’t. Considering greens support is strongest among young inner city rents with no landline could this be. Skewing ]
Actually, ReachTEL and Galaxy do call mobiles.
I would imah=gine that the Coalition will do pretty much exactly the same as last time – leave their “preference” stance until the last minute.
This has two benefits for them – it makes Labor sweat a lot more about inner city seats and use up resoiurces, and it also adds to the drama of the end of the campaign.
I would be very surprised if the Coalition preference the Greens above Labor in any lower house seat. As for Labor – well their preferences are rarely distributed so it doesn’t matter really.
Prahran in on of the ALP’s targeted seats, so the idea that Labor is “running dead” is well and truly mythical. Neil Pharaoh is certainly quite active and when I Damian’s comment I checked and he had made two facebook posts on that day alone… I’m not intimately involved in the Prahran campaign, being a bit far from me, but I can tell you the candidate is active (doorknocking, talking to voters, etc, as well as camping out at railway stations, going to schools etc) and has quite good credentials and a strong campaign team.
He worked for Tanya Plibersek while she was Health Minister (she was at his campaign fundraiser) and was co-convener of Rainbow Labor as well as various private sector positions. I suspect that the “Labor candidate is absent” meme has a bit more to do with taking as gospel truth what is said at Greens meetings. If they want a contest they will need to be less complacent.
I’m tipping a very strong informal vote for Kate Ballard and David McLeod.
Tonight I was ReachTEL robo-polled for the state election. Other than the obvious questions I was asked what the biggest issue for the election is (stopping the east-west link, removing my local level crossing [which was identified by the street it’s in], and others). I was also asked (along with being positive, negative or neutral towards) if I’d heard of the Labor and Liberal candidates in my electorate. I hadn’t.
It allows you to make a selection before all the choices are given, which to me seems a fault, but I guess they don’t want respondents to get impatient. For the vote, Labor was offered first, then Liberal. For preferred premier, Napthine was offered first. But maybe they vary the order of the choices randomly.
alias,
[I’m tipping a very strong informal vote for Kate Ballard and David McLeod.]
I had to look that up to get it. Can’t believe I hadn’t heard of Party Tricks until now. I’ll see if I can get the earlier episodes.
Bugler, I don’t usually watch commercial TV, but it’s quite compelling TV, with some great acting and quite plausible if rather salacious story lines. And it’s always nice to see Melbourne locations featuring in a TV series. I would assume there would be some kind of catch up TV online for Channel 10. Well worth a look, I would say.
I honestly don’t think it matters where the Libs put the Greens on their HTV for Melbourne and Brunswick – those two will fall on Greens primary and Coalition leakage (if it’s anything like it was at the last election, where the HTV went against the Greens) alone.
If they lob the “hand grenade” and put the ALP last, then Richmond and Northcote are also going to fall to the Greens.
I’m still not convinced that the math lines up enough to get the Greens to poll better than Labor in Prahran at the relevant exclusion, which will be the only way they could win the seat.
Anyone who’s been in a political party knows its bloody hard rounding up 500 new members, even harder for a new gimmick party. That includes PUP in NSW (it’s a protest vote party, not one you’d actually join) let alone a silly start up like the one below.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/10/30/they-built-this-party-on-rocknroll/
[They built this party on rock’n’roll
Sally Whyte | Oct 30, 2014 1:08PM | EMAIL | PRINT
Gotye’s party may not get the numbers for the Victorian election, but they say this won’t be the last we hear from them.
With revheads and (briefly) jocks making a go of it in politics, who’s to say a rock band doesn’t belong in Parliament? Melbourne band The Basics are trying to just that — and though they face an uphill battle to become registered as an official party for the Victorian state elections, they say their political ambitions are not at an end.
The Basics Rock’n’Roll Party must register 500 members by Monday to be considered a party for the November 29 poll, and it seems unlikely it’s going to get the numbers. But Basics bassist and vocalist Kris Schroeder, who is the party’s lead candidate, says this is just the start for the party and “we could potentially run in the next election”.]
Be interesting to see how Napthine plays the debate game.
His biggest strength is that he has higher approval ratings. He risk that if elects to debate Andrews (particularly late in the campaign).
On the other hand, he’s behind and needs to create something.
My guess is that he will take the timid road and have a single staged managed debate early and then avoid Andrews for the rest of the campaign.
Work to Rule
I predict Napthine will minimise debate exposure. One key reason is that the Coalition’s main game plan seems to be demonise the fairly unknown Andrews. That will be less effective if the public sees more of Andrews as he’s more articulate than Napthine. The more Andrews gets to speak in longer-than-a-TV-news-soundbyte, the more his profile will improve (short of making a gaffe of course).
If the Victorian Greens replicated the door knocking they did in the 2013 Federal election, they might have a chance.
Adam Bandt just with primary votes didn’t have enough to win TPP without convincing the Liberal voters there to preference the Greens first. I can’t remember the figures, but I remembered reading that they managed to convince enough voters to ignore the HTV cards to tip Bandt into keeping that seat.
77 & 78
Here is the link. The first episode expires in 6 days, it says.
http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/party-tricks/episodes
They actually seem to have got to use parts of Parliament House in Spring St, although I think they probably have a studio set for the offices they use most.
It is unlikely that the ALP would choose an MP from a seat as marginal as Richmond for leader, particularly where the Liberal party can significantly influence the margin, (Although the redistribution has cut Daniel Andrews margin to 2.4% after he had been in the job almost 3 years).
Mount Waverley is a similarly overly marginal seat for leader.
It does seem to be ignoring the Greens. I have seen one Green election poster in the series. The Legislative Council has also been ignored so far.
Their fictional version of PT versus roads politics is interesting. I recommend reading the texts during the start of the program on this subject.
I dont think personaly approval counts for much at the best of time, and even less so for Premiers.
All those figures say is that more people have heard of Napthine than Andrews.
Punters like the Premiers boring,and their PMs with a bit of colour.
Go the 2PP and you wont be disappointed.
The public transport party registration attempt seems to have failed. Their petition type signature gathering attempt may have been their downfall.
http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/CandidatesAndParties/CurrentRegisteredParties.html
http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/Media/PoliticalPartiesApplyForRegistration.html
Well, most of Toorak got put into Malvern in the Redistribution. Clem is most unpopular in St Kilda East too. A lot of his posters have disappeared and now Napthine posters appearing. and none of them say that magic word Liberal.
87
Most of Toorak was already in Malvern. Only part, not most, of the part of Toorak that was in Prahran has been transferred to Malvern.
I’ve just moved from Prahran over to the Soviet Republic of Flemington (in the Melbourne electorate both Fed and State).
Before I left I actually saw a lot of the Labor candidate, especially in the mornings at Toorak Station. Saw Clem a couple of times along with Sam Hibbins (GRN candidate). The ALP definitely aren’t running dead, but nor is their candidate or their message terribly compelling. But given that it’s shaping up to be an anti-Napthine rather than pro-Labor election, I don’t think they’ll need much of a message to gain office.
I must say, over here in Flemington it really is Greens Central. Material up everywhere, including in local business shop windows etc. Of course the E/W Link is going to cause some disruption locally so their full-throated opposition is better than Labor’s Milquetoast efforts.
Finally I’d definitely caution all Greens supporters to take the polling numbers with a grain of salt. I guess I’d class myself as a realistic supporter, but so many get carried away with a couple of good looking numbers and start prematurely counting the seats. Just stop it. It’ll feel better on election night if you expect nothing, and haven’t been on PB bragging about winning Northcote, Brunswick, Richmond and Prahran etc.
[I dont think personaly approval counts for much at the best of time, and even less so for Premiers.]
In all but the most unusual of circumstances the assessment of relative leadership merits are already factored into voting intentions, so while separate leadership ratings provide additional information they generally don’t provide additional information about the likely election outcome.
89
Anti-Napthine but not especially pro-ALP is probably the best electoral mood for the Greens in Prahran. That does not mean they will win but they have a reasonable chance.
The high polls are not what the Greens are going to get. That has the Green vote overstated.
There are no certain Green seats but some where the Greens have good and reasonable chances.
Flemington has actually been transferred to Essendon in the redistribution. Racecourse Road is now the boundary between the two.
The biggest impediment that the Greens have in Victoria is Greg Barber as leader. He is almost invisible most of the time and when he does appear he comes over very badly – arrogant and a smarty pants – something that a minor party leader cannot afford to be perceived as.
93
Hopefully the election will provide more visibility and more leadership options (especially in the lower house).
Right you are William – weird that the VEC site the other week showed my new address as in Melbourne District, but now is correctly coming up as Essendon.
ALP candidate / shoe-in for next MP looks pretty uninspiring too…a former Bracks staffer turned lobbyist for 14 years.
This a good forum to have a beef about the VEC. Recently I have been spending quite a bit of time in the Middle East. However, when I checked the VEC website for overseas voting locations – the nearest one is New Delhi. You would think that the VEC would have a voting centre in Dubai considering the number of Australian expats here, and the number of visitors especially with Qantas now flying through Dubai. Just beggars belief when there is a Consulate General in Dubai and an embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Any bets on Abbott’s appearance today being his sole contribution?
Seems to me they were getting it out of the way early and can thereafter say – “well yes, Mr Abbott has been campaigning but he’s a busy man….”
[Any bets on Abbott’s appearance today being his sole contribution?]
All but Tony are probably very much aware that he is electoral poison in Victoria. If Daniel Andrews had his way – he would probably like Tony Abbott in Victoria for the rest of the campaign.
blackburnpseph@98
It’s likely Abbott does not understand the extent to which he weights on Napthine’s campaign. It may be one of the entertaining side shows over the next few weeks. A sit-com entitled “Tony helps Dennis”
To think that this arrogant fool is touted to be the next Premier of Victoria if Libs win the election. It’s time for developer donations to be banned in Vic.
[ A crucial impact has been Guy’s contribution to the decline of the public sector. Planning deregulation and key approvals are driven largely from Guy’s office with the public service reduced mainly to facilitator. Integrated policy across land use, transport and other sectors does not exist. Governments which facilitate the private sector to a business lobby agenda need no policy in the public interest, including for urban and regional development. This is why construction replaces industry policy, freeways are built while investment in public transport lags, population rises without supporting services or infrastructure, and the environment is progressively trashed. It will take a concerted effort by any future government to restore public policy in Victoria.]
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/guys-legacy-a-melbourne-beyond-recognition-for-the-worse-20141030-11dzkc.html#ixzz3HqpIemcK