ReachTEL: 53-47 to Labor

A new ReachTEL poll for the Fairfax papers is almost identical to one conducted last week for the Seven Network on voting intention, but gives Bill Shorten a greater lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister.

A ReachTEL automated phone poll in the Sunday Fairfax papers is another 53-47 result, with primary votes of 40.2% for the Coalition, 38.3% for Labor and 12.8% for the Greens. These results are all but identical to a ReachTEL poll conducted for the Seven Network a week ago, with none of the primary vote changes amounting to more than 0.4%. An all-or-nothing choice of preferred prime minister, with no uncommitted option, records a 58.5-41.5 lead for Bill Shorten over Tony Abbott, up from 55.1-44.9 in the Seven Network poll. Both leaders are found to be in third place as best leader for their party, which for Labor runs 40.1% Anthony Albanese, 34.9% Tanya Plibersek and 25.0% for Bill Shorten, and for the Liberals goes 45.4% Malcolm Turnbull, 24.4% Julie Bishop, 18.9% Tony Abbott and 11.4% Scott Morrison. All we have to go on at this point is this photo of the hard copy, so it’s not yet clear when the poll was conducted or how big the sample size was.

UPDATE: The report in The Age establishes that the poll was conducted on Thursday night from a sample of 2534. I’m anticipating another four polls over the coming days UPDATE: Sorry, make that three.

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.

530 comments on “ReachTEL: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. BH @247

    another sign the liberals are losing the unassailable dominance they have enjoyed since 1996 within the media.

  2. BH

    [ ‘if Abbott is now so keen on a manufacturing industry for South Aust (ships) what was the point in killing the car industry’.]

    Very good question! Of course it was done to pick up seats in SA lets see how that works.

  4. [what was the point in killing the car industry]

    Wasn’t that Hockey insisting that the age of entitlement was over and everybody had to fend for themselves?

  8. MTBW and lizzie

    It was an interesting line. Thought OH was going to throw something at the telly when he heard it. Nothing seems to have been thought through properly with this Govt

  10. What a joke Mod Lib is.

    Every time she comes here she includes a swipe at all PBers, collectively, except her self. She promotes herself as a know all with integrity, whereas she is merely a shifter and shaker who is skilled at dodging any accountabiity for what she writes, continually weaving a web of “me? I didn’t say that. Blah Blah Blah. Unicorn Unicorn Unicorn.

    Always the same.

    To my way of thinking she is either very dishonest person who will change her story as required. Either she is not a doctor as she claims (insufficient intelligence), or she is one of those doctors we can all name, who are entrepreneurial accountants disguised as medicos and who although very intelligent, lack any moral compass.

    The sort who stuff up our system by writing sick forms out for anyone who asks (without any medical examination but claiming the medicare rebate) and by certifying people a s requiring a Motor Transport Disability sticker without due course.

    There are a couple of such doctors where I live ….. I know people who patronise them for “certificates” but go elsewhere for their actual medical treatment.

  11. BH and citizen

    I am getting to the point of feeling that the Libs and Abbott in particular have lost the plot.

    They are besieged and just shooting at anything they think will get them points with the electorate.

    Thus far nothing they do will dissolve the contempt people have for them.

  12. Briefly @6:

    [As long as the LNP stick with Abbott they will be heading to defeat. His political judgment is almost uncannily bad. He has put them into a position where they have nothing to campaign on. They have no policies worthy of the name on tax, super, pensions, education, science & technology, health, the labour market, jobs, productivity, the economy, infrastructure and transport, energy, the environment and climate change…]

    I disagree. Tony Abbott’s got plenty to campaign on – bash the poor, bash the unemployed, bash students, bash refugees…

  14. abbott has also ran on the terrorism card and it has not worked in the long run.

    howard used it in the 3 months leading up to 2001. But abbott cannot realistically campaign on it again as he has already used up so much political capital.

  16. [262
    Matt

    Tony Abbott’s got plenty to campaign on – bash the poor, bash the unemployed, bash students, bash refugees…]

    This might make the Libs feel good but it won’t win them an election.

    They mainly just want to shrink the domain in which the Government may act, cut taxes and do as little as possible. Politics is all about illusion – about theatrical ceremony and dress-ups – as far as the LNP are concerned.

  17. Well, of topic but i feel a lot better than i did an hour ago.

    On the joys of metadata retention. There is an upside. 🙂

    My daughter is going through a bulling issue at school. Last weekend had harassing calls from some little girlie scumbags who left a recorded message and used a phone that sent its number attached to the message and in the call log. der…

    Their school takes this seriously as its bullying following kids home into what should be a safe place. Kids identified, admitted it and hauled over coals by school. local Police contacted and have noted incident for reference in case of future escalation.

    This weekend she gets 2 harassing calls from a Private Number using the same type of terminology as the last, and late at night which she found very distressing. Had to go and pic her up from a sleep over she had been really enjoying up till then. Pretty safe bet that the little girlie scumbags have decided that they can get caught if they set their phone to not send the number and use their boyfriends to do the talking this time. 🙁

    Me REALLY angry. Not good. You wouldn’t like me when i’m angry in this context. 🙁

    Contacted Iinet, my service provider, and they have emailed me back (so its all in writing) that yes, if they are asked by someone with appropriate authority, they can, EASILY, track down the number and the location, and the handset the calls as logged as Private Number on my daughters phone came from.

    If needed they can also arrange with Optus to send a cease and desist notice and/or blacklist the number.

    Now, hopefully things dont go there. But, since we know pretty much who is responsible, having this info does mean that the school can have a quiet but firm word with certain people about the degree of anonymity they dont actually have and without actually accusing anyone directly. Which is great as it may stop this escalating and provides a real alternative to an angry daddy with big fwarking stick scenario. 🙂

    Anyhow, just thought i would share that. Mainly for the useful and reassuring info that Private Numbers can be tracked if its needed and authorized so bullies can hide behind that one.

    Moral of the story? Don’t be a nasty dickhead on a carriage service. There is always someone more tech savvy that you who will burst your self satisfied pustulent bubble. 🙂

  18. [264
    Unitary State

    abbott has also ran on the terrorism card and it has not worked in the long run.

    howard used it in the 3 months leading up to 2001. But abbott cannot realistically campaign on it again as he has already used up so much political capital.]

    Aside from anything, why would the country want to rely on Abbott in the event of a real security challenge. He is conspicuously unreliable. On a day to day basis, he’s the main risk to public safety in this country.

  19. Hockey is in exactly the same boat (plane) as Burke.

    [TREASURER Joe Hockey has proved the age of entitlement isn’t dead jetting his family to Perth on business class flights during school holidays at a total cost to taxpayers of $14,566. ]

  21. [Wasn’t that Hockey insisting that the age of entitlement was over and everybody had to fend for themselves?]

    My memory of it was that while Abbott was off at Mandela’s funeral, Hockey and Truss in Parliament provoked and finally dared GMH to close down (and bedamned to them).

    So they did.

    Very poor discipline. Pure ingulgence.

    Either that or they really did believe that riches beyond their wildest dreams were a’coming from the (then) relatively high price of iron ore and the predominant position of coal.

    The latter theory is supported by them giving the Reserve Bank $8 billion, and their cutting of the relatively lucrative Carbon Tax, as ideological actions, rather than rational ones. Plenty more sources of revenue were up for axeing too. The Coalition thought the coffers would be full again in no time. Perhaps they believed their own publicity as savant-like economic geniuses.

    By geez, they’ve fucked it up, haven’t they? Their time in office has been one disaster lurching on to another. Almost everything they dabbled in, or closed down in spite, has been a cock-up. What a con job they’ve perpetrated on the public.

    And true to human nature, the public who voted for them still can’t fully accept it, or else the polls would be off the scale. Shorten has a role in this too. He’s leading comfortably with more wind to spare, while Abbott falls behind.

  22. [ In my view, the high court should dismiss these claims, and on top of that, decrease their former Mps entitlements. ]

    Jeez, they must hate BB. Bringing this into focus when they have this case running. 🙂

    Hope the court considers the merits, then throws it out and hits them for costs.

  23. [Hockey is in exactly the same boat (plane) as Burke.]

    But Hockey is extremely wealthy, $200 million worth, apparently. A glutton for a freebie. Very small-time.

    Clive Palmer, on the other hand is worth a lot more than probably everyone in Parliament put together. And he drives himself, or gets his driver to do so.

  25. Tony has no idea how to stand back from a situation and look at it objectively.

    [Prime Minister Tony Abbott has refused to say if Parliament’s new Speaker should withdraw from partisan politics by skipping party room meetings, despite the practice threatening to erode cross-parliament support for Bronwyn Bishop’s replacement.]

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/prime-minister-tony-abbott-silent-on-whether-new-speaker-should-skip-party-room-meetings-20150809-giuuix.html#ixzz3iHxkVL2R
    Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

  28. And only caught the last bit of Abbott’s presser, but he got asked several times about people in (I think) indigenous communities stocking up on Vegemite and brewing potent drink from it.

    His response? Talked about WelfareCard trials.

    @sprocket___: Abbott asked about Vegemite being used for home brew. Responds that WelfareCard will only allow people to buy groceries. WTF? #auspol

  29. [Malcolm Farr ‏@farrm51 · 4m4 minutes ago
    What about the anomaly that ministers flying O/S banned from flying 1st Class, but senior public servants travelling separately can?]

    I think everyone should stop the kneejerk reactions and wait for the calm assessment.

  30. [ What a horrible experience for your daughter! ]

    Its awful and upsetting for all of us. But…its something she, and my missus and i have to learn to deal with, without introducing other peoples little darlings to the joys of emergency room medicine. 🙁

    We have had support from the contacts in her school, and the local cops are actually pretty good with this. No-one wants to go to charges and incident numbers, but instead find ways to stop it escalating much beyond a spat in the schoolyard and just have it stop.

    I’m hoping that once these kids are made aware that they aren’t as smart as they think they are, and that since they have brought themselves to peoples attention as bullies they are more likely to get blamed anyway even if they do try and cover their tracks, then things will calm down.

  31. [I would agree with this except we have Abbott. The swinging electorate had a good look at him and still voted him in.

    The media treatment of Abbott is something I have never seen before or since – a wilful excusing of the most ordinary behaviour, both in opposition and in government. No leader on either side that I can ever recall has been treated so lightly by the media. I don’t know why. Perhaps because he was a ‘journalist’; perhaps because of his incredible ability to sweet talk people on a one to one basis and convince them he is a really genuine person.

    Whatever, nobody ever has nor ever will get the free ride that Abbott has gotten to date.

  32. Why on earth are senior public servants allowed to fly first class *anywhere*???

    Honestly. Who thought up this nonsense?

  33. JD @ 246

    Yes, indeed. My post was not directed at you. Indeed, my initial reaction to the AFP bouncing it back to Finance was one of outrage. It was only about thinking about it since and reading some reasonable analysis of the problem of holding politicians to account for their expense spending that I realised that the AFP investigating now would be theatre only. And therefore not in the public interest. I suspect that has not occurred to Hapless anyway.

  35. [ perhaps because of his incredible ability to sweet talk people on a one to one basis and convince them he is a really genuine person. ]

    Psychopaths can do that cant they??

    And why has it taken them soooooooooooooooooooooo long to realise he is a complete incompetent??

  37. [What about the anomaly that ministers flying O/S banned from flying 1st Class, but senior public servants travelling separately can?]

    Perhaps they are using their own FF points to upgrade to first class?

  38. sprocket_@278

    And only caught the last bit of Abbott’s presser, but he got asked several times about people in (I think) indigenous communities stocking up on Vegemite and brewing potent drink from it.

    His response? Talked about WelfareCard trials.

    @sprocket___: Abbott asked about Vegemite being used for home brew. Responds that WelfareCard will only allow people to buy groceries. WTF? #auspol

    How do you use Vegemite for home brew???

    I know it is a yeast extract. Is there some live yeast in it that can start fermentation? If so, you would hardly need to stock up. It certainly hasn’t got much in the way of sugar to be fermented.

  39. [Tony Abbott didn’t “garner a great deal more respect” as a result of becoming Prime Minister.]

    If you can’t see where in the graphs on the right Abbott instantly went to positive netsats and great leads in PPM as soon as he won the election that’s your problem not mine. He pissed it against the wall with the lies that started pretty early on with Pyne’s nixing Gonski, but there is no question in the first few months people were prepared to give him a go (or at least hope they’d made the right choice).

    Shorten will get the same and more and he’ll keep it reasonably well so long as he doesn’t stuff up and go doing stupid shit you Greens fantasise over but the vast majority of the population don’t want a bar of (ie the left wing loon version of the right wing loon crap Abbott destroyed his chance by pursuing).

  40. [Why on earth are senior public servants allowed to fly first class *anywhere*???

    Honestly. Who thought up this nonsense?]

    Why wouldn’t they, senior executives do and all senior executives do is serve the corporation. Why would we want to ensure our best and brightest public servants were underpaid and treated comparatively poorly. Might it not lead to poor public servants?

    Might the companies that dance around the ATO not love the fact that their tax people are paid better and travel better than the ATO? Might not people chose to go to the companies rather than the ATO if going to the ATO is going to result in lower pay and poor classes of travel?

    I think this whole idea of wanting pollies and public servants to do it for free, or minimum wage or at most average weekly wages is just self sabotage, like we want the stupidest and least effective people in our society to be the voices and hands of our democracy while the best and brightest run off to the private enterprise where they can fly business or first class without question, where they can get massive bonuses, where they are well paid.

    dumb just dumb dumb dumb.

  41. teh_drewski@282

    Why on earth are senior public servants allowed to fly first class *anywhere*???

    Honestly. Who thought up this nonsense?

    Business class should more than suffice and should be on the presumption that they can work during the flight. Something not really possible in economy class.

  42. On the closure of the car industry industry from Gottliebsen in 2013 –

    [……But we have a majority in cabinet that believe, with a passion, that 2016 is just the time to hit the economy, that Australia needs to be taught a lesson and the labour force requires a good cleansing.

    So as a deliberate policy they are determined to abandon the previous government’s deal to save the motor industry at least until 2022.

    But clearly the more cavalier cabinet members can see the chance to shut down the industry and do not care about the timing or any other consequences.

    …Australia has never before seen a prime minister act this way towards employment.]

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/12/9/economy/australias-five-tidal-waves-unemployment

  43. So Abbott claims to tell the public to use Welfare cards because of Vegemite, while the politicians continue to rip us off via loopholes within the ‘entitlements’.

  44. imacca:

    Unfortunately it’s so much easier for kids to bully these days, reaching other kids at home through mobile phones or social media. Glad the school and the authorities are onto it though.

  46. [ ‘Any government which makes it harder to manufacture cars is making it harder for us to continue to be a first world economy because without cars, without steel, without aluminium, without cement, we don’t have these manufacturers in Australia, we are not really a sophisticated economy any more.”

    These thoughtful words, taken from the Liberal Party website, were uttered by none other than Tony Abbott after one of his fancy dress tours of the Ford production line at Geelong in 2011.

    My, how things change. In his few short months in government, Abbott has seen off the entire Australian car making industry, with the loss of who knows how many tens of thousands of jobs and an even chance of plunging Victoria and South Australia into at least a local recession.

    There goes his sophisticated economy.

    It’s a unique achievement, unmatched by any incoming government.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbott-opposition-leader-bites-tony-abbott-pm-20140214-32r1i.html#ixzz2tLxlfgmJ

  47. I can’t believe this. Justa phone call and she’ll be right, mate.

    [Paul Barratt
    ‏@phbarratt We have @GregHuntMP assurance that IESC gave him an oral assurance #Shenhua will not damage water table, but nowhere us that in writing.]

  48. PvO on the damage BBishop did to the govt in not resigning earlier and allowing the public backlash to go on as long as it did:

    [Bill Shorten fronted the Trade Union Royal Commission, with seriously damaging revelations that he used an undeclared staffer on his campaign to enter parliament, employed by an organisation (secretly) that was negotiating with Shorten’s union. It stinks to high heaven.

    Throw in the Labor National Conference, which exposed deep divisions on boat turn backs, with Anthony Albanese voting against his leader on the issue, and the party deputy Tanya Plibersek and senate leader Penny Wong not supporting Shorten either, proxying out their votes to others who voted against him. Labor announced a renewable energy target which wasn’t grounded in realistic benchmarks, and gave the government the opportunity to accuse Shorten of carrying a policy that would increase the cost of living.

    And don’t forget Labor used it’s National Conference to declare it would bind MPs in favour of gay marriage four years from now.

    Even someone like me, who has long-supported same sex marriage, finds such positioning ridiculous.

    But all of that faded into the background, courtesy of Bronwyn Bishop.

    A card-carrying spear thrower for the Liberals became Labor’s best asset.]
    http://m.perthnow.com.au/news/opinion/peter-van-onselen-labors-woes-fade-to-black-after-bronwyn-bishop-resignation/story-fnhocuug-1227475577147

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