It’s been an interesting week in opinion polling on a number of fronts, with the Galaxy-conducted Newspoll series making its debut in The Australian, and big shifts emerging in the first leadership ratings to have emerged in three weeks. What there hasn’t been is any particular movement in headline two-party preferred numbers, although that’s of interest in its own right given misplaced press gallery expectations that things were about to turn in favour of the Coalition. So far as the BludgerTrack aggregate is concerned, Labor’s two-party rating has increased by 0.2% compared with last week’s reading, which is not enough to have made any change on the seat projection, with a Labor gain in Queensland having been cancelled out by a loss in South Australia.
However, the real picture which emerges from the latest results is of disaffection with both major parties. On the primary vote, the Coalition has ticked below 40% for the first time since March (before rounding, at least), while Labor is at its lowest ebb since November 2013, leaving room for the Greens to reach an historic high approaching 14%. Even more remarkable is a joint slump in the standing of both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten. Their respective net approval ratings have been precisely tracking each other downwards since May, feeding into a startling reversal in the tone of media commentary concerning Abbott’s performance over the past week. The preferred prime minister trend has Shorten recovering a lead he lost at the beginning of May, albeit just barely.
The debut Galaxy-conducted Newspoll, in which the interview-administered phone polling mode of yore makes way for automated phone plus online polling from a bigger sample (1631 on this occasion, compared with around 1150 previously), has produced a satisfyingly conventional result. Compared with BludgerTrack, the poll was about a point high for Labor, a point low for the Greens, and bang on target for the Coalition. This series will not form part of the BludgerTrack voting intention equation until the model has more than one result to work with, although it does feature in the leadership ratings, for which it and Ipsos broke a fairly lengthy drought this week.
I’ve also published the detailed quarterly BludgerTrack breakdowns, for those wishing to probe primary and two-party vote trends at state level. Crikey subscribers can enjoy my analysis of the results here.
Further on the polling front:
• There were two attitudinal results from the Ipsos poll which I neglected to touch upon earlier. Fully 75% of respondents were in favour of removing citizenship from dual citizens who took part in terrorist activities, with only 21% opposed. However, it should be noted that when Essential Research made a similar finding last month, it also asked a further question which established that most would prefer the determination be made by the courts rather than a minister. The poll also found 85% for support for constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples as the first inhabitants of Australia, up from 77% two years ago.
• The Australia Institute has waded into controversies surrounding the ABC by having ReachTEL conduct polls in the electorates of North Sydney, Wentworth and Sturt, which are respectively held by Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull and Christopher Pyne. Respondents in all three electorates came out strongly against the government’s cuts to the ABC budget, with net approval ratings of minus 27.5% in Sturt, minus 27.6% in North Sydney and minus 18.5% in Wentworth. The poll even found strong majorities in favour of the rather odd proposition that the political independence of the ABC should be enshrined in the constitution. These seemed to have formed questions two and five of a longer questionnaire; Kevin Bonham is unimpressed that the other results have been withheld.
• The Northern Territory News last week reported on a poll conducted internally for the Northern Territory’s bitterly divided Country Liberal Party government, which found it at risk of losing all but one of the 13 seats it still holds in the 25-seat parliament after the recent resignation from the party of Araluen MP Robyn Lambley. The survey of 1154 respondents reportedly had Labor leading 59-41 on two-party preferred, pointing to a swing of 15%, and found many conservative voters of a mind to abandon the CLP in favour of independents. Parliamentary Speaker Kezia Purick was found to be better placed to retain her seat of Goyder if she ran as an independent, while Gerry Wood, the independent member for Nelson, was rated as the territory’s most popular politician with a net approval rating of plus 46%. Robyn Lambley was credited with a net approval rating of plus 10%, whereas Chief Minister Adam Giles and Treasurer David Tollner respectively scored minus 37% and minus 43%. Labor leader Michael Gunner was on plus 13%, and held a 16% lead over Giles as preferred chief minister. The poll also found only 18% of respondents saying the government was doing a good job, 22% saying it deserved to be re-elected, and 54% saying the territory was heading in the wrong direction.
Preselection news:
• Cameron Atfield of Fairfax reports that Labor’s candidate for the seat of Brisbane is Pat O’Neill, a 34-year-old serving army major and veteran of two tours in Iraq, who if elected will become the first openly gay member of the House of Representatives. O’Neil won preselection ahead of Clayfield solicitor Philip Anthony. Brisbane is held for the Liberal National Party by Teresa Gambaro, who won the seat from Labor’s Arch Bevis in 2010. Gambaro is set to face a preselection challenge from National Retailers Association chief executive Trevor Evans, having put noses out of joint with her frequent criticism of Tony Abbott.
• A preselection held the weekend before last confirmed Sophie Mirabella as the Liberal candidate for Indi, which she lost to independent Cathy McGowan in 2013. Rob Harris of the Herald-Sun reports that Mirabella prevailed in the preselection ballot over Wodonga businessman Kevin Ekendahl by 126 votes to 66. Mirabella will also have to contend at the election with a yet-to-be-chosen candidate from the Nationals, with the Border Mail reporting local party members Marty Corboy and Bernard Gaffney are expected to nominate. There has apparently been talk in the party of the seat being contested by Steph Ryan, who won the new seat of Euroa at the November state election, although it seems she is understandably not interested.
Promotion:
• Last week I had a paywalled article on Crikey on the terrible year that opinion polling has had internationally, having progressively dropped the ball in Israel, Britain, Poland and Denmark. Since then, there has been a new entry on the list with the referendum in Greece, at which pollsters heavily underestimated the “no” vote – although in this case, Nate Silver is more sympathetic.
• Also by me in Crikey recently for subscribers only: a look at the wild inconsistency in this week’s poll results for the Greens, and the obstacles facing Tony Abbott with respect to the timing of the next election.
22% on three year bonds…
I mean to say…
@briefly/3148
We know that, the productivity Commission knows that, but the public does not.
dtt
I’d disagree about Tim, who seemed a nice guy.
And I must add that she employed a couple of women advisors who were hopeless — causing me at least one very nasty moment during the 2007 (correct date!) campaign, when they provided me with an out of date list to accompany a media release, and I made a total cake of myself as a result.
Morgan 51-49 ALP
zoomster@3088
OK, you outsourced it to confessions and Puffy. 😉
..having said correct date, I’ve checked on my fingers, and it was 2010! However, before she was PM, which is why I got confused. (Damn it).
BW
Don’t forget the fantastic Greek submarines they paid for ( partly ) & didn’t get
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703636404575352991108208712
In May, Greece’s economic crimes unit began investigating all weapons deals of the past decade—totaling about €16 billion—to determine if Greece overpaid or bought unnecessary hardware.
There is another lesson here for Australia as we don’t see to have learnt anything from the Collins debacle
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/13/cfmeu-boycotts-unions-commission-which-hears-of-massive-bribe-payments
also 51-49 respondent allocated
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6336-morgan-poll-federal-voting-intention-july-13-2015-201507130601
[I cannot stand Greg Hunt.
Now, the others, his colleagues are boof heads, never believed in AGW, are anti-science and believe we have no responsibility for the environment.
Hunt on the other hand had written a thesis on an ETS and talked of the growing dangers of climate change.
I consider Hunt worse than his colleagues because he has traded in everything he believes for a political pension.]
absolutely – I have seen the oily headed weasel boy have his arguments shot down at a conference where he did a key note speech, but the very next night trot out the same lies on lateline. he is scum. I realised this when I wrote to him to ask him to correct the record on abbott continually lying about ‘china increasing their emissions by over 500% by 2020 when Australia will be reducing emissions by 5%’ – The minister for rhyming slang defended this fallacy and it became quite clear that he was the source of the twisted set of assumptions used to arrive at this figure – it was based on very old projections without reference to reality and dated china’s increase in emissions from 1990 and Australia’s from 2000 and based on some dodgy assumptions around land carbon. I provided him with more correct figures and his response was basically a debating team turd that ‘we’ll just have to agree to disagree’ rather than address the fraud of his argument. he is a creep.
https://twitter.com/political_alert/status/620476236326768641
A rebuke for the treasurer and finance minister from the CEFC.
Morgan demonstrating the anchor effect of Bill Shorten on the ALP.
RD
I reckon Abbott should call an election immediately!!
3161
term ‘responsible ministers’ used loosely
If the other pollsters show a similar result to Morgan expect Abbott to leap at the opportunity of an early election.
sust fut
Well, at least you tried, and proved thereby that Abbott is only mouthing the nonsense put forward by his ministers. He was probably pretty good at repeating the catechism, too.
RD
Yep and he needs to have a trigger for an early election. He should do so asap.
makes the next Newspoll a bit interesting anyway
Hmmm.
So the government’s vote goes up 2.5%, but at the same time there is a greater than 2.5% increase in the number of people who think Australia is “heading in the wrong direction”.
Methinks there are a few issues at play here.
It would be a surprise if the CFMEU looks good at the end of this.
[The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has boycotted a royal commission hearing in Canberra that has heard a formwork company owner was forced to pay $135,000 to secure work.
He also paid the membership dues of his workers, which sometimes numbered up to 50, fearing if he did not he would be kicked off projects.
Some of his employees did not want anything to do with the union, he said, explaining how at times he was made to sign their membership forms himself.
“The money was always in normal white envelopes … unsealed but folded over and secured by a rubber band,” he told the commission.]
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/13/cfmeu-boycotts-unions-commission-which-hears-of-massive-bribe-payments
Morgan 51-49 ALP means other polls will have LNP >50-51%. Election to be called within weeks I would guess. Shorten needs to step aside asap – the media has unfairly but predictably decided he’s done – and let plibersek vivisect abbott and the LNP.
victoria
In a gambling sense, I take it you’re going ‘all in’? 😆
RD
Abbott is nothing but an opportunist. What reason would there be to go to an election one year ahead of time? Campbell Newman called a snap election. It was only a few months earlier, but see how that turned out for him
Sustainable future.
Shorten isn’t stepping aside. He essentially confirmed that in his ‘message’ yesterday.
It’s Abbott vs Shorten in a possible DD with both houses up for grabs winner-take-all.
[Morgan 51-49 ALP means other polls will have LNP >50-51%. Election to be called within weeks I would guess. Shorten needs to step aside asap – the media has unfairly but predictably decided he’s done – and let plibersek vivisect abbott and the LNP.]
All based on one poll which has shown itself to be somewhat over reactive in the past. Let’s see the other polls first and subsequent polls before going off half cocked shall we.
3167
He only needs a trigger for a DD. Technically he could call a House only election at any time (like in 1929, 1954*, 1963, 1966*, 1969* and 1972*). I do not think he would call a House only election unless a DD was unavailable and he have a very short window because of either an improvement in the polls or immanent leadership change.
* House only elections near the ends of terms not with half-Senate elections due to the terms being out of whack at the time.
The media would scarcely be the go to people for leadership advice.
If the election’s around industrial relations, Bill will romp it home.
“Trust” – ROTFL! How much trust do the banks inspire!
Well, if the MSM is consistent with its reporting of Morgan, it should be all but ignored.
However, given the bark has seemed to have come off Bill lately, the Friends of the LNP in the media might suddenly discover Morgan.
@zoomster/3177
This election isn’t around policies, it’s around the leader and party.
sceptic
Thanks. Great link.
49/51?
Oh Noes! Three more years of the Year of the Angry Abbott.
ABC Current Affairs @amworldtodaypm 9m9 minutes ago
Iraq receives $350m loan with IMF for reconstruction of towns taken back from IS militants http://ab.co/1fBLb35
So IRAQ is ok to get more money + help with wars that US/Europe help to create that creates uncertainty, but Greek gets short end of the stick?
My guess is that leaders who call a snap election this far out while they are behind in the polls don’t win very often. I’m too lazy to look up the figures though…
zoid
we don’t know what this election is about yet, because we’re not in it.
However, the only way Abbott can call an election is on the back of a DD. There is only one trigger I know of at present, which is around climate change.
The media have been predicting a DD in a few months, based on the Senate rejecting laws around industrial relations.
I’ll take either a campaign around climate change or industrial relations.
BBC World News reporting offical tweets indicating Greek EU agreement
@ zoom, 3185
Labor can win a campaign on either, but I’d rather a campaign on climate change personally.
So we have a backlash against Labor in spite of an increase in the numbers of people believing the country is heading in the wrong direction. Also, this is a sample taken over two weekends, I shudder to think what the sample may have looked like this weekend!
Unfortunately the reality is that if we start to see more polls drift in this direction, it will only convince the media they were right and they will ramp up the Shorten gone narrative to overdrive.
Anyone’s guess how this will play out. Shorten certainly could be in trouble, or this could blow over pretty quickly with the Government keeping the bizarre decisions coming. So in the short term, I think Shorten and Labor should hold their nerve.
@ matt31, 3188
I’m waiting for other polls to corroborate that movement before making any conclusions. If I had a tenner for every time people have jumped on a single poll for commentary before other polls have shown up and failed to give the same impression, I’d be a rich man.
[Labor can win a campaign on either, but I’d rather a campaign on climate change personally.]
Labor would be smashed in a climate change election.
zoomster@3132
Ahhh right… “secret knowledge”. Very gnostic. 😆
Abbott is too wedded to the trappings of power to consider an election before he has to.
Talk of a DD is all it is – talk.
And those who think Labor would benefit from a change of leader before the next election must have been rock climbing in Greenland for the past 2 years.
Now how would the conservative media play it?
Oh, that’s right……..”ABBOTT CLAIMS THIRD LABOR LEADERSHIP SCALP….(AND ONE LIBERAL ONE)”
Oppositions, by and large, along with their leaders, do not win elections. Governments tend to lose them.
sceptic
The Greek navy list includes, on active service, a trireme.
BW
Expenditure on defence for 2014 World total U.S. $1,776.0Bn2.3 % of GDP
Of which Russia & China account for $200 Bn the other $1,500 Bn are on the “same side”
Bloody obscene wast of human resources & capital intellectual & physical
Which country will be intelligent enough to spend nothing ?
And, of course, our beloved ABC would chime in…”The current poll is within a 2% margin of error….blah, blah”
[zoidlord
Posted Monday, July 13, 2015 at 4:44 pm | Permalink
ABC Current Affairs @amworldtodaypm 9m9 minutes ago
Iraq receives $350m loan with IMF for reconstruction of towns taken back from IS militants http://ab.co/1fBLb35
So IRAQ is ok to get more money + help with wars that US/Europe help to create that creates uncertainty, but Greek gets short end of the stick?]
No need to get clucky about chickenfeed.
[Oppositions, by and large, along with their leaders, do not win elections. Governments tend to lose them.]
A truism often forgotten.
BW
Maybe the Greek Navy uses it as punishment posting?
Indeed, there is no DD, Media is owned by Murdoch.
@BW/3196
Typical goal posts being moved, BW.