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. From my view point religion has little to do about sexual equality, seems a bit one sided. So shit stirring is required.

  2. [36
    TrueBlueAussie

    Gay Marriage should be put to a referendum.
    Give the Australian people a conscience vote.
    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.]

    If there were a referendum it would pass overwhelmingly. The reason there will be no referendum is because the
    LNP would be shown to the reactionary backwater they actually are.

    Medieval churches may have annexed exclusive rights to marry people, but so what? Once upon a time they used to charge the faithful an entry price to the afterlife as well. Happily, marriage rites are no longer a monopoly trade of any religious outfit.

    We will have equality whether the LNP want it or not.

  3. [GhostWhoVotes ‏@GhostWhoVotes
    #Morgan Poll Preferred L/NP Leader (L/NP voters): Abbott 25 (-5) Turnbull 30 (+4) Bishop 25 (-3) #auspol]

    Where is this coming from? I get Abbott on 51+% of coalition voters vs Turnbull on ~23% from the actual Morgan results as linked by GG at the top of the thread.

  4. 1000 years ago consent was not required for marriage; 400 years ago the age of marriage was 10; 200 years ago wife sales were a common popular form of divorce.

    Let’s not get too misty eyed about the unchanging institution of marriage, eh?

  5. [If there were a referendum it would pass overwhelmingly. ]

    Having once agreed with this in the past, now I don’t think it would, not without bipartisan support for the referendum. That’s using history as a guide, but still. Plenty of waters to be muddied if the issue was put to a referendum.

  6. TBA

    [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.]

    That is true but it is untrue to say marriage is “Religious Marriage”. Marriage may be religious or non-religious.

  7. 54
    Greensborough Growler

    It was first aired a few days ago and is probably correct. Will it make a difference to anything? Who knows?

  8. [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…]

    It seems that the Australian punter is figuring out that glorifying and mytholigizing what happened 100 years ago isn’t going to solve unemployment, the carpet bombing of the manufacturing industry, the gutting of the alternative energy industry, knighthoods for knights, fear, uncertainty and doubt over the coming Budget, cluelessness regarding economic, social and educational direction, ideology run rampant, phoney terror scares, the emasculation of communications on behalf of Murdoch and his poxy, outdated, inefficient and worthless Foxtel, the imminent destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, billions spent on bribing polluters not to pollute, tumbling pensions, static wages, the destruction of Medicare, lies, broken promises and utter bastardry today.

    Today’s problems need today’s solutions, not jingoism and sentimentalism for happenings that didn’t happen. White Anglo boys went to Gallipoli fighting Turks. Abos and Chinamen weren’t allowed (although some sneaked in, only to be ostracized after it was all over).

    Today Australia is a polyglot society, with most – including Abbott – having no direct connection to Gallipoli and no reason to celebrate it, other than base exploitation, or an excuse to booze on and party. Instant traditions are spruiked. Truths told are rewarded with the sack. At all costs we must preserve the myth that Santa Claus exists, generous Anzacs played cricket with the Muzzies, gave cigarettes to the Hun and won the War… and Tony Abbott is a sentient being capable of thinking beyond 4pm on any given day.

  9. GG

    [Anyone know what to make of this story?]

    I read a few days ago that he was dead so I guess “brain dead” shows he is doing better than expected.

  10. 49

    Marriage is a cultural institution larger than marriage. Such a major cultural institution should not be entirely, or even mostly, in the hands of entities beyond the reach of most anti-discrimination law.

    Marriage is a near universally accepted evidence of a relationship. That should be kept publicly available to people to provide evidence of relationships. Removing officially recognised marriage would make many people`s lives administratively harder.

    Ending the official registration of marriage would reduce impediment to people conducting under-age and/or forced marriages by removing oversight.

  11. GG

    [What about the Israel connection?]

    Israel treats Syrian rebels in their hospitals in Golan Heights. I think it’s a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend but that gets very messy when everyone is everyone’s enemy.

  12. As has been touted repeatedly when this issue of Homosexual Unions are raised, the answer lies in establishing legal civil unions that ensure all access to government services.

    Then, calling the unions between men and women marriages and the other types something else.

  13. [Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop are considering all options – including the dramatic step of recalling Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia – in a sign of the federal government’s growing fury at the looming executions of Bali nine duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bali-nine-australia-considers-recalling-indonesian-ambassador-over-executions-20150427-1mue7q.html ]

    Too late, I think.

    They should have thought of that when they arrogantly went ahead with the Stop-The-Boats “solution”, confidently expecting Indonesia to capitulate.

    Indonesia is getting stronger and Australia is getting weaker. Bam-Bang was our last hope and we kicked sand in his face. We bought orange lifeboats and set them adrift in Indonesian waters. The shock jocks and their callers were full of indignation over our supporting Indonesia by way of military training, equipment and assistance.

    “Cut them off!” they all said, “They’re just a bunch of monkies who don’t know their proper place!”

    Well, this is the payback. The Indonesians are hundreds of millions and we are a couple of tens of millions, the population equivalent of a couple of Indonesian cities. Let’s see who has the last laugh now.

    “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!”

  14. Diogs,

    This cove is the leader of a band of merry men who’ve been murdering aid workers from a number of western countries.

    Israel treating him in their hospitals will not make them very popular with the rest of the world.

  15. 56

    I believe that the age of marriage in culturally Christian Europe has not been bellow twelve in over a millennium. However it persisted at that age in much of Europe into the 20th century (In the UK it was 12 for girls and 14 for boys until 1929 and I believe the legal age of marriage in the Vatican is still 12 (as it was in Italy when Vatican City was recognised and adopted Italian law of that date)).

  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.]

    Well, I haven’t followed the cases but looking back on some, they seem to involve direct comment on internal matters, or client relationships. Are there precedents for this more generalized “bring into dispute”?

    As I said, my expectation is that courts would give a fair amount of discretion to the employer to interpret, but OTOH I can imagine an argument that the fact of whether serious reputational damage has been done is a ‘fact’ that might need a bit more establishing than Twitter/Devine said so.

  17. [ Horse Radish.

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

    Hey Goatchaser, are you sure you want to go there?? 🙂

  18. [I believe that the age of marriage in culturally Christian Europe has not been bellow twelve in over a millennium. However it persisted at that age in much of Europe into the 20th century (In the UK it was 12 for girls and 14 for boys until 1929]

    IIRC it was 12 from about the twelfth century but was reduced to 10 in the 1550s. Not sure when it went back to 12.

  19. [As has been touted repeatedly when this issue of Homosexual Unions are raised, the answer lies in establishing legal civil unions that ensure all access to government services.
    Then, calling the unions between men and women marriages and the other types something else.]

    Why the need to assert difference?

  20. GG and Diogenes

    Given that this report is in the Iranian press, I suspect that it is nothing more than Iranian propaganda linking Daesh with Israel. Israel is certainly providing medical assistance to some Syrian civilians and people involved in the fighting – but I doubt they would have any interest in helping al-Baghdadi. Still – it would be a great coup for Israel to actually have al-Baghdadi in their hands, even if he is brain dead.

    Watching a great documentary on 4 corners about the Kurdish fighters against Daesh.

  21. The last thing was put to referendum got side lined by the LNP, so why should we believe what TBA says at all?

    MRRT and “Carbon Tax” was apparently a referendum, when it wasn’t at all, it was just a policy by lobbyists.

    Not to mention the so called “referendum” on “Indigenous Australians”.

  22. Life expectancy was around 40 in those days. Our current concept of extended childhoods also did not exist.

  23. 82

    That was from birth. If you survived few the first few years of infectious disease risk, the life expectancy was a bit longer.

  24. Whatever one might think of the historical realities involved, it is just not an even slightly credible argument to say “we must preserve marriage in the form that it has traditionally been observed, except for all of those bits that we do agree are inappropriate for modern times”

  25. http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/apr/27/general-election-why-labour-dominating-london-polls-uk
    The UK election polls have a marked trend to Labour in London with a lead of about 10%

    In Scotland there is a remarkable Nationlist vote of 47% ,over all other parties
    As The Guardian says…if you thought the independence issue was dead …think again…as the Scots Nats have no intention up giving up the fight

    In fact they are in line to sweep Scotland and may win every seat…a disaster for Labour,but giving the Scot Nats the balance of power in the Commons ..after that what next ?

  26. [ They should have thought of that when they arrogantly went ahead with the Stop-The-Boats “solution”, confidently expecting Indonesia to capitulate. ]

    Abbott an Bishops diplomatic incompetence was always going to come back at them somehow but rather than the actual executions i think we are seeing it in the definitive and rather pointed insult of announcing them on Anzac day, after having been asked by Bishop to please avoid that. That’s a direct slap-down to her from the Indonesian govt. Suck it up Julie, you’re a small fish in a big pond and your opinion just doesn’t matter.

    I think that whether or not the executions go ahead was always going to be determined by Indonesian domestic politics. They are pointless i think quite hypocritical given the effort that Indonesia apparently puts into trying to get its own people off death row elsewhere in the world but their domestic politics and how THEY see that is whats driving this.

    They are applying the same metric as the Abbott govt did earlier. That domestic political perceptions are more important than the diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

    Thats wrong. But, Abbott and Bishop in particular have NO right to complain. They should be apologizing for their behavior instead.

  27. Hartcher, like the proverbial broken clock that is right two times a day, is right on this occasion:

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/indonesian-president-widodo-under-corrupt-thumb-of-megawati-20150427-1muhkk.html

    It appears few in Indonesia realise that these executions will not only result in anger from the countries where those who are being killed hail from, but sneering condescension from those countries, like Saudi Arabia, who will press forward with the execution of Indonesian citizens on their death row.

  28. [Whatever one might think of the historical realities involved, it is just not an even slightly credible argument to say “we must preserve marriage in the form that it has traditionally been observed, except for all of those bits that we do agree are inappropriate for modern times”]

    There is no logical argument against same sex marriage.

  29. [ Hartcher, like the proverbial broken clock that is right two times a day, is right on this occasion: ]

    Read that Hartcher article. If Megawati’s comments at the party congress are reported correctly that’s a worry and beyone the current issue means a less stable Indonesia. 🙁

  30. imacca

    I’ve seen that reported elsewhere too. Sadly for Indonesia it is all returning to the corruption norm as the old republican military aristocracy reasserts itself.

  31. Auskar Surbakti ‏@AuskarSurbakti · 4m4 minutes ago
    BREAKING: Andrew Chan & Myuran Sukumaran’s lawyer says #Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has agreed to consider a last-ditch legal challenge

  32. [“Springborg may be in serious trouble.”]

    Laughable allegation by a guy who doesn’t pay his kiddy support.

    Thanks for the chuckles though.

  33. [“Read the analysis.”]

    I don’t read rubbish.

    An individual handing over by their own choice documents they are entitled to view to others to view by their own choice is not a violation of any privacy laws.

    I mean this isn’t make up your own law day. I know those on the left are desperately trying to cover their arses from the Billy Gordon fallout much like they did Thommo, but this really is grasping.

  34. “@AuskarSurbakti: BREAKING: Andrew Chan & Myuran Sukumaran’s lawyer says #Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has agreed to consider a last-ditch legal challenge”

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