I wouldn’t normally lead with a Morgan poll so soon after a Newspoll result, but today of course is a special occasion (for future generations who might happen to be reading this, Tony Abbott today beat off a spill motion by the unconvincing margin of 61 to 39). After conducting an unusual poll last time in which the field work period was extended and the surveying limited to a single weekend, this is back to the usual Roy Morgan practice of combining face-to-face and SMS polling from two weeks, with field work conducted only on Saturdays and Sundays, with a sample of around 3000 (2939 to be precise about it). So the poll was half conducted in the knowledge that a spill was imminent, and half not.
On the primary vote, there has been a straight two-point shift from the Coalition to Labor since the previous poll, which was conducted from January 23-27, with Australia Day and the Prince Philip knighthood having landed on January 26. This puts Labor on 41.5% and the Coalition on 35.5%, with the Greens steady on 12% and Palmer United down one to 2%. A slightly better flow of preferences for the Coalition blunts the impact a little on the headline respondent-allocated two-party figure, on which Labor’s lead is up from 56.5-43.5 to 57.5 to 42.5. The move is a little bigger on previous election preferences, from 55.5-44.5 to 57-43. Tomorrow’s Essential Research should complete the cycle of pre-spill opinion polling, and I’m well and truly back in my old routine of updating BludgerTrack overnight on Wednesday/Thursday.
UPDATE (Essential Research): Essential Research’s reputation for stability emerges unharmed with another 54-46 reading this week, with the Coalition up a point to 39%, Labor steady on 41%, the Greens up one to 10% and Palmer United steady on 3%. It’s a different story on the monthly reading of Tony Abbott’s leadership ratings, with approval down eight to 27% and disapproval up nine to 62%. However, Bill Shorten’s position has also sharply worsened, with approval down six to 33% and disapproval up five to 38%. Given this is nowhere reflected in other polling, one might surmise that Essential has hit bad samples for Labor over consecutive weeks. Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister is nonetheless out from 37-35 to 39-31.
Other questions find 59% approval for the government dropping its paid parental leave scheme versus 25% for disapprove; 59% support for same-sex marriage, up four since December, with 28% opposed, down four; 26% saying support for same-sex marriage might favourably influence vote choice, 19% saying it would do so unfavourably, and 48% saying it would make no difference; 44% favouring a negative response to government retention of personal data and information against 38% for a positive one; and a suite of questions on privatisation that do a fair bit to explain what happened to Campbell Newman.
Ouch, Jamie Briggs bring out a point but accidentally bringing the point that Howard actually brought the GST to election, no such thing in the Abbott govt..
Happiness
Unfortunately you seem to have Lib blindness. Labor mum invests in their child’s education. Liberal mum tells the child that nothing can be done because they are too busy spending money on the new car.
In my opinion that was a pretty good effort by Shorten today. A good general attack on the government’s social policies and priorities. Lots of contextually appropriate zingers today. I liked this line:
[A nation of lifters being led by a government of leaners]
Abbott looked as though he wished he were anywhere else but there while Shorten spoke.
[Oh I see, the ALP splash money around to be popular]
And Howard splashed tax cuts around to be popular and single handed created the revenue shortfall we have today.
[Raaraa
Posted Monday, February 9, 2015 at 10:08 pm | PERMALINK
Are those figures supported?
$350 M in surplus and $350 M in debt. Doesn’t sound quite right.]
It was billion, and it was across multiple governments (Keating, Rudd and Gillard I think) versus Costello’s budget surpluses (there were MANY of course….almost all of the budgets were in surplus).
Jones is all over the place. On one hand, debt and deficit is Teh Evil; on the other, governments should be borrowing money to build infrastructure.
There will be a couple of hard questions Shorten will need to answer before he is given the the captains helm of Australia.
A couple of those questions he will just need to answer:
Question 1. Do you rule out introducing a Carbon Tax under a Government you lead? Yes/No
Question 2. What is your plan to reign in the $300 Billion in debt your government left last time you were in power? And do you promise to deliver a budget surplus as Wayne Swan and yourself promised on over 400 seperate occassions over 3 Years?
Question 3. A boat packed full of human cargo is sent to Australia by the Indonesian people smugglers. What is your next step?
Until Shorten can answer those 3 questions, he won’t be taken seriously by the Australian people.
LOL! Alan Jones spends the first 40 minutes of Q&A complaining about how much debt we have.
Then he points out that the government is borrowing at 2%.
He needs to make his mind up.
Listening to Briggs and Jones – such grubby hypocrites.
They demand that Abbott and Liberals be supported without question when they objected, misrepresented and outright lied about Labor in Government, especially under Julia Gillard.
Even now they are pretending that the Global Financial Crisis never occurred.
Sickening to listen to them.
Guytaur, I stand corrected, but I guess she at least is willing to go into discussion rather than think everybody else is wrong.
Mod Lib, how many deficit budgets have we had since Federation? When were the boom times? What happens when a government runs surpluses? (Quick answer for you on that last question: It blows out household debt).
[cud chewer
Posted Monday, February 9, 2015 at 10:12 pm | PERMALINK
Oh I see, the ALP splash money around to be popular
And Howard splashed tax cuts around to be popular and single handed created the revenue shortfall we have today.]
Howard actually HAD that money, and splashed it around (agreed).
Hawke, Keating, Rudd, Gillard and Rudd (#2) splashed around money they DIDNT have.
They had to borrow it from China in order to splash it around.
Get it?
[Ouch, Jamie Briggs bring out a point but accidentally bringing the point that Howard actually brought the GST to election, no such thing in the Abbott govt..]
He also had the unmitigated gall to blame Labor for running a scare campaign on the GST after his own party ran an unsubstantiated fear campaign against carbon pricing.
Alan Jones is such a dickhead.
But i love Corrin Grant. 🙂
Happiness@205
Doesn’t sound right. If I owe you $1000, and pay it back over a period, and then borrow another $1000 later, why does it matter if I borrowed that first $1000 if I’ve already paid it off?
TBA @ 207
Shorten owns you and your kind. Suffer.
[confessions
Posted Monday, February 9, 2015 at 10:14 pm | PERMALINK
Ouch, Jamie Briggs bring out a point but accidentally bringing the point that Howard actually brought the GST to election, no such thing in the Abbott govt..
He also had the unmitigated gall to blame Labor for running a scare campaign on the GST after his own party ran an unsubstantiated fear campaign against carbon pricing.]
Unsubstantiated? The ALP government admitted that the carbon tax was a hit on working families and that is why they were going to “Axe the tax” remember?
[The ALP is the dad who takes the kids on the weekend and gives them KFC
The LNP is the mum who thinks about the kids long term best interests and tells them: No]
lol WTF bahahaha
Confessions @ 213
[He also had the unmitigated gall to blame Labor for running a scare campaign on the GST after his own party ran an unsubstantiated fear campaign against carbon pricing]
If you take out hypocrisy, all you have in a Liberal is a bag of wind.
Just look at Briggs and Alan Jones.
[cud chewer
Posted Monday, February 9, 2015 at 10:14 pm | PERMALINK
Mod Lib, how many deficit budgets have we had since Federation?]
How many ALP governments have we had?
[ When were the boom times?]
How many LNP governments have we had?
[ What happens when a government runs surpluses? ]
The ALP opposition complains
[(Quick answer for you on that last question: It blows out household debt).]
How did I do? 🙂
TBA
1) Let’s move on to the ETS already.
2) Abbott said it was only $68 billion.
3) Boats! Boats! Boats! Sorry, what was the question?
Hey rummel hope you are keeping the fires at bay?
[190
Raaraa
Posted Monday, February 9, 2015 at 10:08 pm | Permalink
Are those figures supported?
$350 M in surplus and $350 M in debt. Doesn’t sound quite right.]
In August 2013, the sum of Commonwealth securities on issue was $269 billion. By last Friday this had increased to $354 billion. The LNP borrowing has been increasing is now running at around $1.9 billion per week. Labor borrowed about $0.5 billion per week during their last year in office.
Under the LNP spending as a share of GDP is rising but tax collections are stagnating and the deficit is rising.
Alan Jones makes me want to support coal mining on arable farm land. It is an enormous effort to come to terms with the fact that Jones is the broken clock that is right two times a day. And this is one of those times.
Alan Jones is going to be campaigning for Labor in NSW too.
😆
Interesting question that puts Alan Jones head to head against Briggs.
Alan Jones refuses to ask the hard questions here though even if he is angry with what’s happened.
Raaraa at 215. gets it right. this nonsense about Lib surplus vs Lab deficits ignores your simple correct point.
Yes Mod Lib, unsubstantiated. Your mob told us that the carbon tax wouldn’t do anything to reduce GHGEs. That ended up incorrect.
Your mob also told us that abolishing it would return $550, principally through lower electricity prices to Australians. I’m still waiting to see my electricity prices decrease.
[If you take out hypocrisy, all you have in a Liberal is a bag of wind.]
It’s hard to find a Liberal MP with an ounce of substance these days.
220
Happiness
It is a completely well-established fact – incomes are invariably lower under Liberal Governments.
[Raaraa
……Doesn’t sound right. If I owe you $1000, and pay it back over a period, and then borrow another $1000 later, why does it matter if I borrowed that first $1000 if I’ve already paid it off?]
If you owe something, pay it off, then borrow more, there is no problem.
The ALP has not had a balanced budget in a quarter of a century.
Thats the problem.
doGs but i am heartily sick of Alan Jones and his obsession with throwing big numbers around. Most of them are meaningless and for theater.
Why shouldn’t we ensure that polluters pay for the poison that they spew into our atmosphere ?
Here’s a novel idea, how about we ensure that corporates, and high income earners pay their fair share, and close corporate tax loop holes, restructure negative gearing et al, instead of middle to low PAYE income earners bearing the brunt of our taxation system, as is happening under the current Tory regime ?
Treat them as fellow human beings, instead of exploiting their wretchedness as a way of trolling the votes of racist ignoramuses.
The way things are going, he is being taken a hell of a lot more seriously than the incumbent PM, not that that is really that hard to do.
There was a report in 2013/2014 that showed that GHGE did decrease as a result of the carbon tax. Shame it was scraped just as that report was released.
Happiness@231
AFAIK the only surplus the coalition had was in 2002 onwards.
Yesiree Bob
Well said
Only just caught up with this. Looks like Tony’s been making promises to all and sundry.
[
Latika Bourke @latikambourke
MP tells me PM ‘pleaded’ w. MPs right up until 12am for 6 months time to turn things around & gave impression would stand aside if not.
]
[
Latika Bourke @latikambourke
Seems there could be a bunch of the PM’s midnight hour promises made public if he doesn’t make good on ’em….
]
Wonder if he contemplated selling his arse again.
https://twitter.com/latikambourke
Happiness @ 231
[The ALP has not had a balanced budget in a quarter of a century.]
The ALP have not had a chance to deliver a budget for half that time. And the Liberals only achieved it in 4 years on the back of the biggest mining boom in the history of this country.
So as clever as your point is, it is the typical lying, dishonest bullsh$t that Liberals cannot avoid saying.
In other words, your post is CRAP.
[briefly
Posted Monday, February 9, 2015 at 10:26 pm | PERMALINK
220
Happiness
It is a completely well-established fact – incomes are invariably lower under Liberal Governments.]
Where are your sources for this “well-established fact”?
Last 40 years ALP vs. Coalition governments
1. Unemployment rate 6.8% vs. 6.3%
2. Inflation rate: 6.5% vs. 5.5%
3. Interest rates: 4.4% vs. 2.8%
4. Real non-farm wage growth: 0.8% vs. 1.7%
5. Economic growth: 3.0% vs. 3.2%
6. Budget surpluses as % GDP: -1.6% vs. +0.2%
(based on Whitlam to Gillard 2011)
Thats from the Australian Parliamentary Library
So happy(ness) to see Labor so profligate..
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/hey-big-spender-howard-the-king-of-the-loose-purse-strings-20130110-2cj32.html
Oh and the last deficit under Labor was $18b, what is it this year?
Yesiree Bob @ 233
[Question 3. A boat packed full of human cargo is sent to Australia by the Indonesian people smugglers. What is your next step?]
If you are an Indonesian government official, you take your cut of the kickback from the people smugglers. On the other hand, if someone is smuggling drugs to Australia then you blow them away for political brownie points in Indonesia.
madcyril:
Yes, I saw that earlier. ABbott’s got an interesting coming weeks ahead of him.
Aren’t inflation rates generally tied to interest rates?
I don’t think either government should be proud to claim high or low interests rates as a good thing as these are not directly determined by them.
[Bob’s Uncle
……Oh and the last deficit under Labor was $18b, what is it this year?]
Ahem…..just to clarify….the last ALP government SAID the budget deficit would be $18b…….it was $47b
I agree with AJones that the death penalty is barbaric. However, I don’t see what our giving Indonesia foreign aid in the wake of the 2004 tsunami has to do with granting clemency to those two men.
Happiness@245
Is $47B figure coming from the coalition? Meanwhile Abbott said $68B, and Alan Jones said $350B
ModLib
[(based on Whitlam to Gillard 2011)]
At least you demonstrate here that you’re cherry picking – as you well know, if you take the numbers through to 2013, you get quite different results.
confessions
Jones is mistakenly looking for a lever.
Apropos nothing relevant, today my letterbox was resplendent with an eight page glossy “January Newsletter” from someone purporting to be my local WA State member for Brentwood, Matt Taylor.
Matt is quite obviously a lovely chap, loves his wife and kids, donates to charity, is fulsome over school chaplains, and is apparently personally responsible for every excellent initiative in our local area, and even some that he considers excellent and which I don’t.
I’m prepared to overlook the latter point as this guy, by his own uncontradicted testimony, is the bee’s knees, the local saviour, the font of all goodness, and clearly to be supported at all cost.
Problem is, although I studied his missive front to back, back to front, and every which way, I couldn’t for the life of me see any reference in it to the party he represents.
I had to Google his name to discover he is a representative of the Liberal Party.
Surely I shouldn’t vote for a fellow, no matter how saintly and good, if he can’t even remember the party he represents?
What do you advise?