ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor

An automated phone poll by ReachTEL finds Labor maintaining a strong lead, but a small-sample Morgan phone poll shows worrying signs for Bill Shorten.

The Seven Network brings us a ReachTEL automated phone poll of federal voting intention, which was conducted on Thursday from a sample of 2532, showing Labor’s two-party lead unchanged at 54-46, from primary votes of 39.8% for the Coalition, 39.3% for Labor, 11.9% for the Greens and 2.2% for Palmer United. Further questions find strong support for increasing the tax rate on superannuation contributions for high-income earners, at 57.2% with 22.1% opposed, but an even balance of 30.7% support and 31.8% opposition for removing negative gearing on future property purchases. The poll also records 56.1% support for imposing the GST on purchases from overseas companies with 22.3% opposed. Leadership approval questions find a shift for Tony Abbott from “very poor” to “satisfactory”, with Bill Shorten’s numbers broadly unchanged. Hat tip to Leroy Lynch.

There’s considerably less good news for Bill Shorten in a Morgan phone poll on party leadership, which shows Tony Abbott leading him 44-39 as preferred prime minister – the first poll to show Abbott in the lead since November. Tony Abbott’s personal ratings are little changed since the last such poll conducted in mid-January, before the Prince Philip knighthood and leadership spill vote, with his approval steady on 37% and disapproval up one to 53%. Bill Shorten, however, is respectively down three to 34% and up eight to 48%.

With respect to preferred Labor and Liberal leaders, Morgan finds Shorten losing his lead over Tanya Plibersek, who now has 23% support (up five) to Shorten’s 21% (down four), with Anthony Albanese up three to 13% and Wayne Swan steady on 10%. Tony Abbott has lost still more ground in comparison with Malcolm Turnbull (up two points as preferred Liberal leader to 38%) and Julie Bishop (up one to 27%), with his own rating down two to 12%. Scott Morrison is up three to 5%, putting him level with Joe Hockey, who has fallen heavily from favour since the government came to power.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The weekly Essential Research result has Labor gaining a point on two-party preferred, putting their lead at 53-47. The Coalition and the Greens are both down a point on the primary vote, to 40% and 10%, while Labor is steady on 39% and Palmer United is up one to 2%. Other findings:

• The poll shows 40% support for changes to the Senate electoral system to make it harder for micro-parties to get elected, with 33% opposed. Forty-two per cent said minor parties in the Senate were good for democracy, while 35% favoured the alternative proposition that they made government too unstable.

• Fifty-two per cent say they are not confident the government is on track to return the budget to surplus, with 36% confident; 31% believe doing so is very important, 40% somewhat important, and 14% not important.

• Seventy-seven per cent approve of government measures to withhold benefits from parents who do not get their children vaccinated.

• Seventy per cent say the gap between rich and poor in Australia is getting bigger, only 5% say smaller, and 17% say it is about the same.

UPDATE 2: Greens supporters on Twitter are taking umbrage at the wording of the following Essential Research question:

The Coalition, Labor and the Greens all support changes that would make it harder for small parties to be elected to Senate. Would you approve or disapprove of such changes?

And I agree to the extent that I don’t think they should be providing partisan respondents with cues as to what their party’s position is.

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.

1,475 comments on “ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. [his use of his twitter account was a breach of the SBS social media policy. The policy even has a section on use of personal accounts.]

    I’ve just read the policy and he certainly didn’t breach any of the specific offences, it’s just the broad “damage the reputation and integrity of SBS”, “capacity to perform your duties in an effective manner” provisions that he would possibly be in breach of. I’m not an industrial lawyer and don’t know how much scope the courts give management to interpret such provisions – presumably quite a lot – but nonetheless there does seem to be a fair degree of subjectivity in this assessment.

  2. Channel 7 probably held off the release of Reachtel because they didn’t want to upset Tony’s Gallipoli grandstanding.

  3. [I’ve just read the policy and he certainly didn’t breach any of the specific offences]

    I’ve read the policy too, and as someone who declares her employer on her Facebook page, there is no way in hell I’d ever have posted the tweets McIntyre did without clearly stating that these were my private views and nothing to do with my employer. And even then I’d think twice about doing so.

    Subjective assessment? Maybe. But pages 6 and 7 of their policy seem pretty clear cut to me and are very similar to my own employer’s policy on social media use and the airing of personal views. I disagree with the decision to terminate his employment, as I believe it was OTT, but as an employee myself, no way I’d risk being sacked going against corporate protocol.

  4. Crikey Article:
    Perhaps it’s time that employers were reminded that they’re hiring their employees to perform a certain set of duties, or achieve a certain set of goals, in the work environment, and that is all. Owning their every thought and word 24/7 comes at a higher price

  5. The Reachtel questions on negative gearing and increasing the tax for high earners on their super are interesting. The latter because it has strong support, even among LNP voters. The former because of the relatively even split among support/oppose/undecided.

  6. Good to see another proposal to go to National Conference for Labor

    Stephen Jones putting up. Establishing a Federal ICAC.

    Great move.

    Hope it gets up.

  7. [But pages 6 and 7 of their policy seem pretty clear cut to me]

    It’s clear that the policy regards personal use as potentially impacting upon SBS’s reputation, and thus covered by the policy, but there is little specific guidance on what actually constitutes inappropriate or integrity-damaging material. And if we are to rely on the mere existence of a media/social media outrage storm to justify that, well…

    (There are additional responsibilities when posting material specifically about SBS, but they are not relevant here.)

  8. {FWIW I think the “poorly read” tweet was unfortunate. All the rest are much more easily defensible as being largely factual in nature.”}

  9. How ironic that the most potent attack on Hunt’s ridiculous lies about Direct Action so far has been in the Australian.

    Has Rupert lost control or has he had some kind of epiphany?

  10. [but there is little specific guidance on what actually constitutes inappropriate or integrity-damaging material.]

    The Murdoch reactionary claque and their followers who piled onto him, coupled with MT’s entry, guaranteed he breached the ‘bringing SBS into disrepute’. The boy showed poor judgement.

    Shoulda stuck to posting his views under a personal Facebook page with no mention of who he worked for. Or posted his opinions in May when the Anzac Day caravan had moved on.

  11. [Channel 7 probably held off the release of Reachtel because they didn’t want to upset Tony’s Gallipoli grandstanding]

    I confess I’m a little surprised that the COALition didn’t get a bigger gain in this poll.

    Given all the ‘grandstanding’ I would have expected Tony and his party to benefit from all the flag waving jingoism and although the poll was a day or 2 before the actual day the media was, even then and prior, saturated with militarism.

  12. Re Same Sex Marriage: I think that Labor has decided that there are no votes in it. I think that it might be a vote changer for some socially conservative low and middle income people, especially practising Catholics, who might otherwise be inclined to vote for their economic interests. Those who feel strongly in favour probably mostly vote Green. Then there is a middle group, probably the majority, who either don’t care or who are OK with it but will not change their vote on the issue.

    I think this is a battle that Julia Gillard chose not to take on in the last Parliament – too many other battles – while today’s Labor doesn’t want to risk it. It probably only affects a small number if votes at the margins – one or two percent – but that’s enough to lose an election.

  13. [The Murdoch reactionary claque and their followers who piled onto him, coupled with MT’s entry, guaranteed he breached the ‘bringing SBS into disrepute’.]

    But that’s the problem I have. ‘Disrepute’ then gets measured not by a quasi-judicial test, or even the informed judgement of the employer but by the Murdoch outrage storm.

  14. [I think that it might be a vote changer for some socially conservative low and middle income people, especially practising Catholics, who might otherwise be inclined to vote for their economic interests. ]

    Phil Coorey declared in his column today that Georganas lost his seat at the last election because of his support for marriage equality. Utterly ridiculous, but still these kinds of myths persist.

  15. “@AshGhebranious: Oh for fracks sake! Soldiers are taught to kill. Once you teach them to do that, stealing and rape is small potatoes #abc730”

  16. I’ve followed a couple of those cases where someone is sacked for a comment they made outside of work whilst being identified as an employee of a company which has a media comment policy. Each time the court has upheld the dismissal.

  17. [But that’s the problem I have. ]

    I have it too, but this is the online world we live in where most everything we post on the internet is there for people to see. And the Murdoch penchant for bullying domineering by its commentators predates the internet, so we should be used to it by now.

    I’m ‘friends’ on Facebook with several journalists for local papers, a curmudgeonly ABC breakfast radio host, the CEO of the CCI and staff and board members of several local organisations. Despite listing my employer on my Fb page, I therefore still have to be careful of what I post because anything even remotely controversial could be leaped upon, screen-snapped, and sent to my employer with a please explain, which could easily be used by my employer as evidence of unprofessional conduct if they wanted.

    I feel for McIntyre, whose sentiments about war, as well as his right to express them I can appreciate, and as I’ve said I think terminating his employment was way OTT. But honestly, I think he should’ve posted them to a private Facebook account, nothing to do with his employer, and where he gets to choose who reads his content.

  18. [“Re Same Sex Marriage: I think that Labor has decided that there are no votes in it. I think that it might be a vote changer for some socially conservative low and middle income people, especially practising Catholics, who might otherwise be inclined to vote for their economic interests. “]

    Gay Marriage should be put to a referendum.

    Give the Australian people a conscience vote.

  19. “@Lateline: Tonight’s debate: Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson and Barrister Greg Barnes on freedom of speech after SBS presenter sacking #Lateline”

  20. [“There is no such thing as gay marriage. There is only marriage equality or inequality.”]

    Horse Radish.

    That’s like saying people should be able to marry their pet gold fish.

    Marriage is a religious ceremony that has been a tradition for thousands of years.

    Gay people can have a non-religious ceremony with all the same rights and it’s called a Civil Union.

    Also the lefts use of weasel words puts off most Aussies so please give up on them.

  21. TBA

    Horse radish yourself.

    Thats like saying that a black man marrying a white woman is like marrying their pet gold fish

  22. [Marriage is a religious ceremony that has been a tradition for thousands of years.]

    Most marriages in Australia don’t involve a religious ceremony.

  23. TBA v Guytaur.

    The epitome of political correctness faces off against the red necked racist.

    And, I’m not going to tell you which is which!

  24. Diog,

    And what is the difference between a Gay Civil Union and a Religious Marriage in Australian law?

    I’ll give you a clue: There isn’t any.

    This Gay Marriage thing is all about stirring up shit in religious circles, has nothing to do with “equality”

  25. [Most marriages in Australia don’t involve a religious ceremony.]
    My first one did.
    My second one didn’t.
    There won’t be a third.

  26. As marriage is a religious institution, the state should have nothing to do with it.

    If a church wants to marry certain people and not others, that’s up to the church.

    Once upon a time, there was some sense in marriages being registered legally. I can’t see much reason for that now.

  27. TBA

    Its all about equality. No matter how much you want to keep the inequality while hiding behind religious freedom. Se how well that worked for the Governor of Indiana

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