The latest result of the Essential Research fortnightly rolling average is back at 54-46, after moving a point to the Coalition last week. On the primary vote, Labor is up one to 41%, the Coalition is down one to 39%, and the Greens are down one to 9%. The result combines two polling periods from the past two weekends extending from Friday to Monday, and so does not meaningfully account for the three-days-and-counting that the Prime Minister has spent as a national laughing stock.
Other questions ask respondents to rate the government’s handling of various issue areas, and since this question was last asked at the peak of a recovery period for the government in September, the movements are adverse. There has been a 10% correction in the government’s biggest strength of that time, relations with foreign countries, the net rating down from plus 15% to plus 5%, but managing the economy is also down solidly from minus 6% to minus 14%. Other movement is in the order of zero to 5%.
A separate question also finds the government copping a surprisingly mediocre rating on handling of asylum seekers, with good down three since July to 38% and poor up one to 36%. However, a further question finds 26% rating it too tough, 23% too soft and 35% opting for “taking the right approach”, which seems to be the best result that can be hoped for. Forty-four per cent expressed support for sending asylum seekers to Cambodia with 32% opposed.
Not sure if we’re going to get the Morgan face-to-face poll we would ordinarily have seen on Monday, but I can reveal that Ipsos will be in the field this weekend for the Fairfax papers.
UPDATE (Morgan): Morgan has published a poll that’s not quite cut from its normal cloth. The method is the usual face-to-face plus SMS, the field work period is normally Saturday and Sunday, and the results published the combined work of two weeks’ polling. But this time the field work period was Friday to Tuesday, and not inclusive of any polling from the weekend of January 17-18. In other words, a substantial part of the survey period comes after the Prince Philip disaster. The portents for the government are not good: compared with the poll that covered the first two weekends of the year, Labor gains a point on the primary vote directly at the Coalition’s expense, leaving them at 37.5% and 39.5% respectively. After a hitherto soft set of polling results so far this year, the Greens shoot up from 9.5% to 12%. Labor now holds formidable two-party leads of 56.5-43.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, up from 54.5-45.5, and 55.5-44.5 on previous election preferences, up from 53-47 to 55.5-44.5. The sample of 2057, while still large, is about two-thirds the usual.
ReachTEL, which is not normally prone to hyperbole, is talking up results federally and from Ashgrove which the Seven Network will reveal shortly.
UPDATE 2 (ReachTEL): The ReachTEL poll, conducted last night to take advantage of the Prince Philip imbroglio, is bad-but-not-apocalyptic for the Coalition in terms of voting intention, with Labor’s lead up from 53-47 to 54-46. The primary votes are 40.1% for Labor, 39.7% for the Coalition and 11.3% for the Greens.
However, the headline grabbers relate to Tony Abbott’s personal ratings. The poll finds him a distant third for preferred Liberal leader, on 18% to Malcolm Turnbull’s 44% and Julie Bishop’s 30%. The five-point scale personal ratings find Tony Abbott moving 9.5% in the wrong direction on both indicators, with very good plus good at 21.6% and bad plus very bad at 61.6%.
Bill Shorten is respectively up from 21.3% and 27.1% and up from 37.7% to 38.3%, and while that’s a net improvement, it’s interesting to note he does less well on the five-point scale than approve-uncommitted-disapproval. The poll also found 71% of respondents were opposed to the Prince Philip knighthood, with 12% in support.
Narns
Thanks for the dates. I was wondering how long he had to hang on to beat them . Oh the ignominy for him if he doesn’t last as long as Rudd and Gillard.
I accidentally clicked on Sheehan’s article, thanks to them hiding the byline, and made it three paragraphs in before I abandoned it in disgust.
God. They really are trying to turn away their readers.
[Perhaps they would if the Zinger didn’t exist. Want the press to stop writing sh@t? Stop feeding it to them. Fairly simple.]
Gecko
Shorten’s zingers are OK if they’re pertinent and they do get him space on the news bulletins.
Fran Kelly told me a few years ago that Abbott commands attention from the press because he puts out easy grabs for the news bulletins. Reporters waited for them because Gillard/Rudd’s answers at pressers were too long, explanatory and hard to report as a grab and viewers ‘went blank’. Not so with Abbott as LOTO. I hated them, the press and others loved them it seems.
Shorten’s full pressers are quite impressive lately but he has to have a 5 second grab to hit the news. We didn’t complain too much about Hawkie’s somewhat silly ‘zingers’, even tho many were cringeworthy.
[Date when Abbott will have been PM longer than:
Rudd (1st term) – 10/4/2016
Rudd (both terms) – 2/7/2016
Gillard – 22/9/2016]
On this basis, I confidently predict the 2016 election date to be Saturday 24 September.
[Both are hollow rhetoric and a veiled insult to an electorate arrogantly perceived as incapable of thinking beyond a simplistic soundbite.]
Great post, this and the rest of it.
The double standards here about Shorten’s stupid soundbites are breathtaking. He is doing what Abbott did, because he saw it working for Abbott.
Labor has been putting tweets of statements out. Some of which I have posted here. Like a snapshot transcript from the presser. Same as they do with QT questions.
In my opinion they should record the pressers themselves and the questions asked by the journalists. Post the transcript audio and video on the web you tube labor site whatever.
It will cost a little but it will mean that Labor messages get out as Labor puts it at pressers and eventually the Media and other parties would wake up to this tactic as social media will watch and put its not the media slant on.
We saw how effective this approach is with the Gillard Misogyny speech and the Ludlam speech.
[ they aren’t that funny, but that’s Bill. If he was to drop them now he’d be accused of being robotic and risk averse. ]
Another lesson learned. 🙂 Its interesting looking at what can be inferred about the ALP’s strategy as an outsider, observing. It seems a lot more multifaceted and nuanced than that of the Libs in Opposition. Not that the Libs do nuance at all. 🙂
Crikey, lizzie, I will forever think of Newman as a ‘little sperm’. What an image 🙂
imacca @ 600 and TPOF @ 597 both articulate my feelings very well.
K17 @ 595
Good point about Turnbull, but I can’t see him getting support from a mob that keeps insisting that the only problem is the salesmanship not the lemons they are selling.
Question@587
No, not true. Loved his budget reply speech and he demolished Abetz at the Press Club in 2013. I merely made the comment that I thought the Zinger was bad idea. But it seems we’re going round in circles.
Do I think Bill Shorten is the messiah… maybe not, but he’s capable, its early days, and who else?
Perhaps I’m disillusioned by the standard of debate… ground hog day drivel… the MSM… the lack of inspiration.
I miss Gough… I’m envious of the US having Obama… envious of their media choice. Maybe I’m just tired of the crap that seems never to end and the downward spiral of political discourse that nobody can or wants to address.
Perhaps it has always been thus. I don’t know… whatever.
Time for a red. 🙂
Labor could certainly do with a stronger social media strategy, guytaur, I agree.
Nothing on the ALP Youtube channel since Shorten’s Christmas message.
imacca @ 600
[But she got that point wrong, and personally i think it says more about the electorate than her. :(]
Absolutely. And I could see it at the time. Everyone was giving the MSM great copy (i.e. something to knock the dog off the surfboard (thanks for that Ratsak) except Gillard. She appeared to have an inviolate policy of not backgrounding or having a few favoured journalists who could provide scoops. As noble as that was, it was poor management of the Fourth Estate.
Still, I imagine she sleeps well at night that she stuck to her own principles.
Re Murdoch’s influence, much blame lies at the ALP’s feet. For too long, Labor allowed itself to believe that it could do deals with Murdoch just like the Tories, and allowed the Australian media to get into its current stupidly consolidated state.
It dawned on Rudd too late last time around that if you try to suck up to your enemies they will take whatever gifts you offer them and then just kick you in the crotch anyway.
One of the best things Labor could do for Australia’s future next time they win power is take immediate steps to reduce his holdings and prevent him strangling even more content (e.g. via the new Foxtel streaming service). Murdoch’s warmongering, hatred of “socialism” and intent to destroy the planet are eating away at the country’s soul.
Xoanon @ 604
[On this basis, I confidently predict the 2016 election date to be Saturday 24 September.]
2015? Will he last the distance to even then?
[
600
imacca
…and i want the Libs to finally get the fwarking message that their happy clapper tea party mining magnate utopia agenda is not something we want in Australia, and for them to rebuild to a more politically centrist party so that people can see a system they can have more faith in.
]
May come as a surprise to one or two here, but I actually don’t think Labor or the left generally are the font of all governance wisdom or all worthy political & social values.
I believe in the checks-and-balances thing. Hence I do not want the Libs to be so permanently dysfunctional and unelectable that they cannot deliver a competent opposition to hold the government to account between elections, let alone deliver a workable government when their next turn comes around.
But I do want them to get a very serious kicking indeed at the next election, to help encourage them along the path back to a saner and more civilised standard of values & operation.
PB
Hear hear.
Its insane when Mr Murdoch is choosing staff appointments in the PMO
No Worries Gecko,
Remember, there was plenty of time between Gough’s best quotes… impossible to do on a daily basis.
My favourite zinger was Keating on Howard (from memory)
“He’s a shiver looking for a spine…”
PB @ 614
[It dawned on Rudd too late last time around that if you try to suck up to your enemies they will take whatever gifts you offer them and then just kick you in the crotch anyway.]
As Abbott is now finding.
Rural Fire Brigade advocating voting against the LNP apparently
[Matt
Posted Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 1:32 pm | Permalink
Boerwar @413:
Now you’re lying about what I, personally, have said. Please point to where I’ve approved of Syriza picking ANEL as a coalition partner (hint: you can’t, because I don’t).]
What I said was that as soon as the rubber hit the road on that one you ran a mile. My point was that you are a Greens hooray henry for SYRIZA but that you were not prepared for the realities of grubby Greek politics. Typical Greens stuff, actually.
[I’ve also acknowledged that part of the problem (not all of it, as you claim, but certainly part) is Greeks not paying their taxes.]
Really?
[I’ve pointed out that the Australian Greens actually don’t support endless deficit spending (only for the next few years, till the private sector has recovered), your cartoonish caricatures aside.]
I know exactly what the Australian Greens SAY they support. I suspect that I am the only Bludger who has actually read the entirety of the Greesns’ policy documentation. From my experience, very, very few Greens posters have done so.
The Greens say three things:
(1) a balanced budget over the business cycle
(2) fully costed policies by the budget thingame jigame.
(3) SYRIZA is right.
Nothing in points 1-3 adds up at all.
I have done back-of-the-evelope costings for most Greens polices and provided the detail in posts on Bludger. There is no way in heaven or hell that (2) is in any way consistent with (1).
In any case, despite claiming that their policies have been officially costed, it turns out that ONLY those policies that the Greens have provided for costing have been costed. The rest of the Greens policies have NOT been costed and are blue sky.
In any case, if Greens posters are going to laud SYRIZA to the high heavens then they really can only do so on the basis that SYRIZA’s promises are consistent with Greens principles as per the Greens policy documentation.
What are SYRIZA’s (and Greens approved) promises? (1) Don’t pay your debts. (2) borrow more. (3) spend more.
Only a Greens could find this to be OK.
You seem to have missed it that SYRIZA only got around 1 in 3 of the primary vote. A significant part of that vote came in the form of people who were outraged at having to pay the property tax. (Spot yet another internal contradiction?).
[In short, you’re lying about just about everything I’ve said, and what many other Greens (here and elsewhere) have said as well. When you’re prepared to stop doing so, I’ll acknowledge you again – until then, I’m just going to ignore your posts, if only to spare myself the irritation of perusing your latest rounds of bullshit, fallacies and outright slanders.]
No worries. When you awake from your befuddlement about SYRIZAN and Greens’ policies, let me know. I will try and help you through your manifest confusions.
[614
Patrick Bateman
Re Murdoch’s influence, much blame lies at the ALP’s feet. For too long, Labor allowed itself to believe that it could do deals with Murdoch just like the Tories, and allowed the Australian media to get into its current stupidly consolidated state.]
Much as I am a fan of them both, Hawke and Keating have a lot to answer for on this.
Dealing with the media problems in Oz must be one of the top priorities for the next centre-left government. No doubt there are a number of tools that can be used (e.g proper FTTP NBN), but done it must be.
That’s the biggest thing that’s changed – the immediacy of the modern media cycle. You need to hit the nightly bulletins every day, at the very minimum, and the second you lose “visibility” the knives come out in backrooms because there is always someone who thinks they can do better.
Labor are (hopefully) taking time to get their policy and narrative right but until closer to the election, just keep visible is their challenge. Not too visible – the story still has to be the government – but they can’t risk being ignored either.
It’s a tough line to walk.
@Pollytics: Tony Fitzgerald writes a piece for The Drum on #qldvotes “Qld must put a stop to the political rot
[a balanced budget over the business cycle]
How long is this ‘cycle’?
[He is doing what Abbott did]
Rubbish. He answers questions reasonably intelligently (for politics) and he doesn’t turn and run as soon as the questions get a bit tough. Yes he uses a few catchphrases (welcome to modern political communications 101), but they aren’t the totality of his policy suite as the three word slogans were for Abbott and he can elaborate and expound from them as a starting point.
Zinger’s are communication tool for Bill, not the crutch three word slogans were for Tony.
Agree with most of your 614 though. Actually reducing his holding might be too much to ask, but stopping his malign influence from becoming stronger should be a no brainer. I’ll be heartily pissed if Shorten makes the pilgramage to NY or Holt St. Offer the bastard nothing and plan for the attack. He should get no favours from another Labor government and should never be under any illusions about it.
Boerwar
A while back you introduced the Indonesian word Bodoh to the bludger lounge. Tony has scored another “Bodoh” over there.
[Laugh and the world laughs with you — Abbott’s overseas knightmare
Alan Austin takes a look at the world’s thigh-slapping reaction to Tony Abbott’s decision to knight Prince Phillip.
……..Jakarta Globe. Both it and Kompas emphasised the ridicule from Abbott’s colleagues, who called the decision “keliru dan bodoh” ]
http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/01/29/laugh-and-the-world-laughs-with-you-abbotts-overseas-knightmare/
Question@618
I think he was referring to Costello.
I was reading the “The Book of Paul” yesterday – and my memory says Hewson
If the parliarmentary Liberal Party were in anyway sensible…
err…
So, Morrison then?
[Raaraa
Posted Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 1:17 pm | Permalink
BW
I find it outrageous that the Greens apparently plan to apply their favourite Greek principles to Australia – don’t pay your taxes, spend more than you earn, rack up the debts, don’t pay your debts, and then blame someone else while the country goes to rack and ruin.
You have to be careful not to confuse the Green-Left elements in SYRIZA with the “ecolo” Greens in Australia (they are a whole different breed). My understanding is that the Greens in PB are FOR tax increases. Inheritance tax, carbon tax, mining tax, etc.]
When I refer to ‘Greens’ on Bludger, I am referring to the Australian Greens.
My points about SYRIZA and tax are:
(1) tax receipts prior to the election, such as they were, fell away as people realized that SYRIZA was going to form the new government. Nothing like: I had better pay my taxes because SYRIZA is going to get serious about tax collection. In fact, the opposite.
(2) SYRIZA has put back on the bargaining table the institutional reforms agreed as part of the bailout package. I assume that these include the bureacratic and information infrastructure reforms (including a lands register) required to collect property tax, income tax and a GST. If SYRIZA were serious about any or all of these, they would be seeking to speed the implementation of these institutional reforms.
(3) Many of SYRIZA’s new voters voted for SYRIZA because they were outraged about having to pay the property tax.
(4) SYRIZA has made it quite clear that it intends to target and to soak the rich. It has not particularly mentioned ordinary greek taxpayers at all. It does not take a genius to understand that the rich will simply bugger off, that capital will flee Greece and that new borrowings are going to be extremely expensive. The immediate consequence has seen the Greek stockmarket plunch by 5% in a day and Greek bank stocks plunge by between 15% and 20%. The Greek bond rate climbed to 14%.
(5) SYRIZA has threatened to renege on hundreds of billions of euros worth of state debt. Easy as that.
The immediate budget resets by SYRIZA include an immediate dramatic increase in spending, a cessation of all sales of state assets, no compensating budget cuts, an immediate fall in tax receipts, an immediate flight of capital, an immediate loss of wealth via the stockmarket plunge, along with a demand that the EU writes off 200 billion euros in debts. This will, no doubt, be nicely topped off by a wholesale flight of the wealthy along with their corporate headquarters, and anything else they think that SYRIZA thinks might be able to reach.
Greens posters have consistently been telling us that all this is wonderful and that the greeks are finally going to put paid to the banks, the neo-liberalists, the capitalists, the Greek Orthodox Church, the rich and the nasty germans. They are going to go back to borrowing and spending their way out of trouble…
My point is quite simple: if the Greens posters think that way about Greek issues, then we had better not let them anywhere near the handles of the Australian economy.
Bemused and RA,
Happy to yield my unreliable memory to either 🙂
[I’ll be heartily pissed if Shorten makes the pilgramage to NY or Holt St. Offer the bastard nothing and plan for the attack. He should get no favours from another Labor government and should never be under any illusions about it.]
Labor and the left owe Murdoch precisely nothing after the last few years, and would be damn fools to bow to him.
But I will be happy with Shorten giving Murdoch the impression that Labor are no threat to his kingdom, and getting his support.
And then delivering several public hard kicks to Teh Evil One’s goolies when Labor next gets in.
After all, as Rupes himself said, leaders do have to make cruel decisions.
Varoufakis says
[Furthermore, he mentioned the money European people lend to Greece, saying that “Slovaks gave money, which were apparently thrown in a black hole. This will not happen again.”]
I guess people believe him, they really do. They must. Otherwise, the bond rate would not be 14%.
One thing is clear. SYRIZA is going to be hell on Porsche dealers:
“We are in favor of a frugal lifestyle. What is the necessity of so many Porsche Cayennes’
– See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/01/28/new-greek-finmin-varoufakis-growth-doesnt-mean-porsche-cayennes/#sthash.yfhqRWM2.dpuf
Yep JM,
and do it in the honeymoon period 🙂
Please guys, stop with the SYRIZA stuff.
The track wheel on my my mouse is rapidly wearing out.
poroti
The interesting thing is the extent to which the MSM has bought (and sold to Australians) the story that Abbott and Bishop have a wonderful relationship with Indonesia – despite all the many signals to the contrary.
Bemused and Question.
I cheated and Googled. It was indeed Hewson – but having read it only yesterday I had an unfair advantage.
“He’s nothing but a shiver looking for a spine to run up”
Are we certain the “honeymoon period” still exists?
Seems like opinion polling starts about a week after the results are finalised these days.
[CTar1
Posted Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 4:17 pm | Permalink
a balanced budget over the business cycle
How long is this ‘cycle’?]
One of the innemerable things about which the Greens are remarkably coy in their policy statements.
tf
Nah. Look at Andrews in Victoria. You keep the honeymoon period if you stay out of the crazy punish the voters for no reason zone
Thanks RA
td @ 639
The honeymoon period definitely still exists. Voters have always shown a reluctance to revisit their votes soon after the election. For example the Lindsay by-election in 1996 resulted in a stronger outcome for Jackie Kelly even though Howard had started to already roll back some of his non-core promises. I know that was some time ago but I have seen no evidence to contradict that view. Rudd was a good example too, where his popularity stayed high for much longer than it deserved to. Even Newman stayed relatively high for a long time.
The exceptions are Gillard and Abbott. Gillard because she was undermined prior to the election by Rudd and Abbott because no new government in Australian history took power with less political credit in the bag, having earned power totally by not being the other mob.
TPOF
Gillard did not get a honeymoon as she was not first term.
guytaur @ 644
Fair enough. She got a honeymoon in the polls after taking over from Rudd, but that was slaughtered by the two carefully placed and timed leaks to Laurie Oakes.
Rates Analyst @638 …. Now those were the days when you looked forward to Question Time.
[
635
Question
Yep JM,
and do it in the honeymoon period 🙂
]
Sooner is better. Get it done. 🙂
“@MarkDiStef: “The phones are running hot. They will not turn to the deputy leader, Julie Bishop. It will be Malcolm Turnbull.” – Paul Sheehan
It’s on”
Abbott is still in his honeymoon period. If his polling was reflective of his ability the 2PP would have a 3 in front of it.
Guytaur
Whenever Sheehan crops up I am reminded that if you make enough predictions you might eventually get one right.