ReachTEL: 53-47 to Labor

Reaction to the government’s second budget has been mediocre at best, according to the first of what promises to be a flurry of new opinion polls.

ReachTEL has leapt into the post-budget field on behalf of the Seven Network, with an automated phone poll conducted last night from 3180 respondents. It records a slight improvement for the Coalition compared with the pollster’s earlier holding pattern, with the Coalition primary vote on 41.1% (up 1.3%), Labor on 38.3% (down 1.0%), the Greens on 12.1% (up 0.2%) and Palmer United on 2.2% (steady). Interestingly, the poll provides breakdowns by respondents’ employment status, which I might take a closer look at later in comparison with past post-election survey data. The budget doesn’t get a huge endorsement, with 16.4% rating they will be better off, 30.3% worse off and 53.3% about the same.

Contrary to other recent polling, this result gives Bill Shorten a clear lead on preferred prime minister of 57.2-42.8, with the important methodological distinction that respondents to this poll were not allowed an “uncommitted” option. Questions on leadership approval provide more evidence of Tony Abbott’s ongoing improvement, while Bill Shorten’s “satisfactory” result is up at the expense of both favourable and unfavourable responses. A three-way question on who has done the best job promoting the budget finds only 11.7% favouring Tony Abbott, with the rest divided between Joe Hockey (44.8%) and Scott Morrison (43.4%). Full results here.

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.

1,059 comments on “ReachTEL: 53-47 to Labor”

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  2. Expat Follower @ 1048 – “circumventing the system” is essentially the same kind of rhetoric as “queue jumping” to which I say there is no such thing as a “refugee queue”. Even if there were, with 15 million refugees in the world and less than 100,000 resettled annually worldwide, that “queue” would take 135 years for a refugee to get to the front. It is also NOT illegal under international law to seek refuge in another country, even if you are found not to be genuine.

    As for the possibility of potential refugees disappearing into the community, that would a) be a matter for law enforcement and b) be a small price to pay for a truly humane way of processing refugee applications.

  3. bold off I hope . Going to call it a night also. But thanks all for a constructive discussion in which i have learnt much

  7. Jolyon Wagg@1033

    [I just went back to the earlier comments re bracket creep and found this from you which I don’t understand at all…

    If you used ave weekly earnings then you could get the situation where someone with real wages growth above the CPI wouldn’t move up through the bands.

    If the brackets were indexed correctly people with real wages growth would be the only ones to move up through the brackets.
    ]

    The discussion was about indexing the tax brackets, the commentator before suggested you could use average wage growth (AWG) or the CPI.

    I was arguing that you should use the CPI as only those who received real wage growth would be in danger of moving into a higher bracket as it should be.

    If you used AWG this might not be the case depending on whether this was higher or lower than the CPI.

    eg AWG is higher than the CPI.

    If your wage growth is less than the AWG but greater than the CPI. You are experiencing real wage growth but you would never move to a higher bracket because the tax bracket is indexed to the higher AWG.

    Looking at the opposite case, AWG less than the CPI.

    If your wage growth is greater than the AWG but less than the CPI. You are not experiencing real wage growth yet it would be possible for you to move up to a higher bracket because the tax bracket is indexed to the lower AWG.

    Hope that makes it clearer. 🙂

  9. Lots of misinformation everywhere about this small business accelerated depreciation. When in doubt go straight to the ATO website.

    You can elect out of the small business concessions but not on an asset by asset basis. It is a one-in-all-in kind of deal. The big increase in depreciation this year could easily end up pushing you into a higher tax bracket next year (and the year after) if you don’t have the need and finance to buy another ute every year like some. This is all part of Joe’s bracket creep “credible path to surplus” bringing forward asset purchases to make the books look better for 2 years. This leaves Labor with the choice of either extending the measure beyond June 2017 or getting the blame if investment suddenly drops off soon after they are back in government. The coal party will be ready to whinge and attack either way.
    Anyone borrowing to purchase a big asset now that they would not have otherwise bought is an idiot. And yes of course if you sell the asset after claiming the full amount as depreciation then every dollar of the sale price is included in taxable income as a balancing adjustment.

    If you choose to use the simplified depreciation rules, you must use them to work out deductions for all your depreciating assets that the rules apply to.

    https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Small-business-entity-concessions/In-detail/Income-tax/Simplified-depreciation-rules/

    The Government will also suspend the current ‘lock out’ laws for the simplified depreciation rules (these prevent small businesses from re-entering the simplified depreciation regime for five years if they opt out) until 30 June 2017.
    This proposed measure commences 7.30pm (AEST) 12 May 2015 and will cease on 30 June 2017.

    https://www.ato.gov.au/General/New-legislation/In-detail/Direct-taxes/Income-tax-for-businesses/Small-Business—expanding-accelerated-depreciation/

    Also interesting to note that

    If small businesses exhibit behaviours that indicate a high level of risk, they can expect a higher level of interaction with the ATO. The ATO has a risk-based program to identify taxpayers that are not meeting their obligations and will take measured approaches to influence taxpayer behaviour.

    BB

    If you already have a depreciation schedule running, then you have to exhaust that before you get around to claiming Joe’s cut on any new purchases.

    This is not true, the example in the SMH article was an asset that cost more than $20,000, which is allocated to the general small business pool.

    Assets valued at $20,000 or more (which can’t be immediately deducted) can be placed in the small business simplified depreciation pool and depreciated at 15 per cent in the first income year and 30 per cent each income year thereafter. The pool can also be immediately deducted if the balance is less than $20,000 over this period (including existing pools).

    TPOF

    The upside is that if you go out of business quickly, you’ve had one over the taxman in that you’ve been able to claim the whole deduction in a short space of time, rather than lose the deduction instalments you might have claimed if you stayed in business.

    This is not true, if you go out of business then a balancing adjustment event occurs.
    https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Small-business-entity-concessions/In-detail/Income-tax/Simplified-depreciation-rules/?page=4#Step_3__Asset_disposals

    A balancing adjustment event occurs when you stop using a depreciating asset for any purpose, or you dispose of, sell, lose, or destroy the asset.
    If you dispose of an asset and you have changed the taxable purpose proportion during the time it was in the pool, you must also adjust the termination value. You must work out the average taxable purpose proportion during the income years the asset was in the pool.

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