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”

Comments Page 28 of 30
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  1. [I’ve been describing Widodo as a serial killer.]

    I haven’t seen you describe Obama as a serial killer, is that just because I don’t read you enough?

  2. GG & WWP
    “I would see the dismantling of an international heroin smuggling racket as very good outcome for the AFP and the Australian community.”

    No but what has happened is JW Howard , Tonny Abbott & GW Bush & their mates ensured the world was flooded with heroin by invading Afghanistan. Production is now at record levels .. total success

  3. Abbott and bishop should have made representations to Saudi Arabia re the the 2 Indonesians that were to be executed

    Would have showed they were against executions not just executions of Australians

    Phililipines made representations to Saudi against the executions

  5. Neoclassical economists have let us down grievously.

    Where does the public get the idea that fiscal deficits are bad from? It is not intuitive. If you have a conversation with a child and explain things clearly they instinctively can grasp the principles of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

    Unburdened by all the ideological conditioning that the economists introduce into the public policy space, they know that if a factory can sell something it will employ people to make the product. They know that people have to spend for there to be sales. They know in a two-person economy if the private person does not want to spend, then the public person (government) has to spend or else there would be no sales.

    They know that if the government issues the currency and the public use it then the former can spend as much as they like and the latter has to get the currency from the government somehow.

    They know that if there are no further real goods available to buy then the government is reaches a limit on their effective spending capacity but up to that point it can buy what it likes simply by spending the currency it issues.

    All this weird stuff that fills up economic textbooks about governments running out of money, and having to issue debts to get some more money and/or taking it from the private sector via taxation, and the rest of the fiscal myths that pervade the public debate are lost on someone not burdened by the years of conservative conditioning.

    http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=30762

  6. [1351
    WeWantPaul

    I’ve been describing Widodo as a serial killer.

    I haven’t seen you describe Obama as a serial killer, is that just because I don’t read you enough?]

    I have been consistently and highly critical of US policies in MENA as well as in our own region. I have said many times that the policies of the US and its allies are largely responsible for the mayhem unfolding in the territories of the former Iraq and Syria.

    Do you ignore me? You would not be alone 🙂

  9. [Neoclassical economists have let us down grievously.]

    I think that sentence is more accurate without the’Neoclassical’ at the front, as is it implies other economists haven’t let us down grievously.

  11. [Do you ignore me? You would not be alone :)]

    I read you enough to know I strongly disagree with your characterizations of how political and judicial systems work. I can’t work out if it is overly simplistic, racist or a deliberately misleading construct, but i think you are wrong about it.

    For example I don’t think Australian Courts and President Abbott would have given a different outcome if we’d had a death penalty for drug smuggling.

  12. [I haven’t seen you describe Obama as a serial killer, is that just because I don’t read you enough?]

    Maybe it’s because nobody has been executed under federal law during Obama’s presidency.

  13. Narns way back @ 1258.

    Your comment about the moral high ground not being very high is right on the money.

    Thanks for the various quotes from the pollies of the day.

    Clearly, all this stuff is to do with the tides of emotion.

    Back then: Indonesian law fair enough to execute the Bali bombers.

    Right now: Indonesian legal processes corrupt.

    The Moral High Ground is a tricky place to find, get to and stay at.

    We in Oz pretend we are better at it than most.

  14. @William/1362

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might be a first.

    Though this site says 11:
    https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/01/07/eric-holder-dzhokar-tsarnaev-and-the-death-penalty

    “The Obama administration has said little publicly about capital punishment, while quietly seeking the death penalty less often in federal cases. Holder’s department obtained 11 death sentences during Obama’s first term, down from 20 during Bush’s second term. During his confirmation hearings, Holder told lawmakers he personally opposed the death penalty, but would “enforce the law.””

  15. Everyone always needs someone else to blame and in the case of 2 convicted drug smugglers caught in the act it seems to be the AFP.

    The AFP were just doing their jobs which was to stop shipments of illegal drugs into Australia.

    Ultimately the responsibility lies at the feet of the smugglers themselves as hard as this is to stomach.

    If you are willing to read into the Bali 9 story more than just the headlines the media give you, you will discover that the AFP had information that the Bali 9 had successfully imported a quantity of heroin into Australia months earlier. So these were not just poor innocent green behind the ear types, they knew what they were doing.

    The AFP then with intel they were about to ship another quantity into Australia acted by contacting the Indonesian police. Had they not done this, they would be doing a dereliction of their duty and that is to protect the Australian population from a large drug importation($4 Million dollars worth).

    While in a perfect world it’s easy to speculate and say they should arrest them after they arrived in Australia(where the drugs could have been gone then depending on whether “others” are involved) the AFP did what it needed to do to stop the shipment happening.

    We don’t know how many Aussies could have OD’d on these drugs while the syndicates got richer.

  18. [and say they should arrest them after they arrived in Australia(where the drugs could have been gone then depending on whether “others” are involved)]

    After arrival … No, on arrival, turkey.

  19. Principles of policing going back to Sir Robert Peel emphasised the importance of community support and cooperation for success. When police lose sight of this, community support can be badly compromised. The AFP are going to lose some skin over the Bali 9 case, but it’s worth remembering that they also emerged badly from their raid on Channel 7 over the Schapelle Corby book, where they got rolled in the Federal Court, and their senior managers were made into mincemeat by Senator Xenophon. And the latest complaint by NITV about the AFP, and the associated film footage, doesn’t reflect well on them.

    I live in NSW, and would hesitate to call the NSW police in over any minor matter, for the simple reason that I saw how the Brazilian student was killed in Sydney, and I wouldn’t want to feel responsible for some petty crook being so extra-judicially killed.

  20. [“After arrival … No, on arrival, turkey.”]

    And find the drugs in the bin. Blow their cover. And wreck any case against the accused.

    Don’t pretend to be smarter than the AFP, they do actually know what they are doing mate.

  21. Senator X on Richo mentions he had a mere 4 properties on which he claimed negative gearing tax concessions.

    As he says he is not a fan (supposedly) of negative gearing I wonder how many properties the negative gearing fanboi pollies claim on ? May explain some (much) of the pollies’ reluctance to touch it.

  22. Many people way smarter than me have come to the conclusion that the war on drugs won’t be won with the current tactics .

    And Am I the only one who thinks it ironic that the Australians were executed a decade after an attempted heroin importation.

    In the last 10 years heroin addiction has slipped way down the list of things to be worried about.

  24. WWP

    The lady going to work saying “God I hate kids” and getting sacked before she even gets to work is quite humorous, to me at least.

    McIntyre isn’t funny. I think an employer should be able to discipline an employee who identifies themselves as being such when using social media but I think that sacking him was way over the top.

    The practice I work in had a staff member comment on Facebook, where we were listed as her employer, that most of the cosmetic patients we saw were nuts and would be better off spending the money on a psychiatrist. We certainly didn’t sack or suspend her but she got a written warning and took down the post.

  27. Hillary (and Bill) Clinton support the death penalty. Obama only believes it should be used for terrorism and “heinous” crimes against children.

    A brain damaged man was executed while Bill was governor just before the New Hampshire primary.

    We should be pretty careful before tipping the bucket on Widodo as a “serial killer”.

  28. Obama’s victims
    ____________
    Under his rule there have been more Drones launched and more innocent civilians killed than under Bush…just ask the Pakistanis….serial killings ???

  29. Porto

    Interesting that back in 2008 when Then premier Alan Carpenter used a captain’s pic to have TV journalist Reece Whitby run for Labor one of the main attack lines for the Tories was that Whitby owned, I think, five investment properties.

    Now he would just be a battler trying to get on and do the right thing by his kids.

  30. rossmcg
    Skin in the game

    Maybe someone can raise a private members bill to abolish tax discount on Negative Gearing.

    All members should declare their interests, those that negative gear should abstain from voting because they are conflicted.

  31. [Under his rule there have been more Drones launched and more innocent civilians killed than under Bush…just ask the Pakistanis….serial killings ???]

    In the health bureaucracy they would be referred to as “quality improvement opportunities” .

  32. Dio

    ” that most of the cosmetic patients we saw were nuts and would be better off spending the money on a psychiatrist.”

    But was she correct in her generalisation?

  36. sceptic

    [” that most of the cosmetic patients we saw were nuts and would be better off spending the money on a psychiatrist.”

    But was she correct in her generalisation?]

    Its definitely true for some but not the majority. I think studies show that about 10% have a serious mental health problem.

    It’s the serial users of cosmetic surgery who are mostly nuts.

  37. Diogenes

    Saw a doco ages ago that described Clinton as the best Republican president the Americans have ever had. From the footage I saw there is much support for that.

    I particularly remember his crack down on “welfare” bludgers. Many changes straight from 2GBland.

    Then there is a recent article by a former US Ambassador to W.Germany who was the go between and a personal witness of the US and USSR agreement re the fall of the Iron Curtain. He detailed how much Bill was responsible for turning Putin from pro to anti West. He used the phrase “the diplomatic equivalent of a series of kicks to the groin” as Clinton violated the agreement.

  40. [1361
    WeWantPaul

    I read you enough to know I strongly disagree with your characterizations of how political and judicial systems work. I can’t work out if it is overly simplistic, racist or a deliberately misleading construct, but i think you are wrong about it.]

    Since I seldom post on these topics, I’m not sure what you mean. I can assure you none of my criticisms of Widodo are racist. They do not depend in any way on his nationality, ethnicity or religion. They go to his personal cowardice and weakness.

    [For example I don’t think Australian Courts and President Abbott would have given a different outcome if we’d had a death penalty for drug smuggling.]

    Well, you might be right. Abbott is prepared to order actions that are intended to result in the deaths of combatants. He has also commissioned the militarisation of parts of our civil law – that is, with respect to immigration. As NM has shown, our officials (obviously including Abbott) also share responsibility for the “theatre of the macabre” on exhibition in Indonesia.

    However, this does nothing to diminish Widodo’s culpability. He has made a political feast of human sacrifice. He is indulging in snuff politics.

  41. Several hundred Australians kill themselves with heroin and other opioids every year. Some of this is through deviant abuse but most commonly deaths occur through extreme variations in supply, both quantity and quality. People die when they get hold of a big dose of purer stuff after not having had much gor a while. This is exacerbated by a reluctance to seek treatment – with prompt attention opiod overdose can be very effectively treated.

    This variation in supply and reluctance of users to call for help are direct consequences of the legal framework we have erected around drug use.

    People who say they are concerned about drug users deaths, but support the current legal regine are confused, hypocritical or just haven’t thought it through.

  46. Martin B at 1391

    You and I are at one on this.

    It is so patently obvious that the war on drugs does not work here or in Indonesia. In fact, it seems to be more of a crisis there, despite the much more draconian penalties, than it is here. Perhaps that tells us something about the practical uselessness of murdering people because they were drug smugglers or drug dealers.

    Worse, in fact, because executing the odd foreigner or impoverished Indonesian mule gives them the false satisfaction of thinking they are doing something, when all they are doing at best is a piece of theatre designed to fool the Indonesian public. At worst, they are taking some of the competition away from the Indonesian drug barons, who can charge more for their product as supply is reduced.

  48. [Several hundred Australians kill themselves with heroin and other opioids every year.]

    I don’t mean to condone the executions, but I watched a documentary on heroin addiction recently and it was absolutely brutal. 8kgs of that stuff would certainly do a vast amount of human damage.

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