ReachTEL: 55-45 to Coalition

ReachTEL finds no indication that the government’s travails over the new year have done any harm to its standing with the voters.

The first ReachTEL poll of the year for the Seven Network supports Roy Morgan and Essential Research in finding nothing too radical has happened over the new year break. The poll records the Coalition’s two-party lead at 55-45, unchanged from the last poll on November 26. That’s all we have at this stage, but hopefully full results will be on the website soon.

UPDATE: Here we go. On the primary vote, the Coalition goes from 48.8% to 48.5%, while Labor goes from 31.1% to 31.8%, and the Greens go from 11.2% to 10.8%. A little surprisingly, Malcolm Turnbull’s lead on the all-or-nothing preferred prime minister question has widened considerably, from 71.3-28.7 to 80.8-19.2.

UPDATE 2 (26/1/16): The latest fortnightly face-to-face and SMS poll from Roy Morgan, which went from being the Coalition’s worst poll series to its best when Malcolm Turnbull took over, has given the government its weakest result since September. The Coalition is down 3.5% on the primary vote to 43.5%, but Labor is likewise down a point to a dismal 28%, with the Greens up two to 15%. On the headline respondent-allocated two-party preferred figure, the Coalition lead narrows from 56-44 to 55-45, while the previous election two-party result goes from 55.5-44.5 to 54-46. The accompanying press release also informs us that the Nick Xenophon team is outpolling Labor in South Australia, where the primary votes are Coalition 31.5%, Labor 21.5% and NXT 22.5%. The poll was conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 3247.

Also out yesterday was a Galaxy automated phone poll of 506 respondents from Clive Palmer’s electorate of Fairfax, conducted for the Courier-Mail, which recorded primary vote support for the beleaguered Palmer at a risible 2%. This compared with 50% for the Coalition and 27% for Labor, compared with 2013 election results of 41.3% for the LNP, 26.5% for Palmer and 18.2% for Labor.

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.

2,714 comments on “ReachTEL: 55-45 to Coalition”

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  1. PO

    Given Terry Barnes was the guy who gave Abbott the medicare co-payment hand grenade, I think he has a hide to comment on politics ever again. 🙂

  2. WWP

    [ Would you pay more GST, say 15% to help Australia get back to a surplus and deliver better health, education and disability outcomes? Yes of course. ]

    We have already established that any GST increase will not be used for health, education or disability outcomes.

    It will be used to subsidize company tax cuts and income tax cuts for the wealthy.

    So no – I do not support a GST increase.

  4. I should also credit mumble for the abuse I’m about to suffer for my labor can’t sell a cold drink on a scorching day, it shouldn’t even try to achieve a paradigm shift on debt beliefs. to be fair mumble didn’t ramble quite like I have, but his posts, oft mocked here, on Labor’s credibility problem going into the then expected Abbott reelection push more than anything led to my rambling views. What is the expression, something like the good ideas are all his, all the rubbish is mine.

  6. [We have already established that any GST increase will not be used for health, education or disability outcomes.

    It will be used to subsidize company tax cuts and income tax cuts for the wealthy.

    So no – I do not support a GST increase.
    ]

    If the liberals get in of course you are right the GST increase will happen and it isn’t going to be used for those things, but why do you think they will tell the truth? Have you been overseas and out of contact since Howard beat Keating?

  7. meher baba – I accept the GST is a necessary evil as it currently is, but I cannot understand how you can see it as economically positive.

    In basic economic terms a GST increase is BAD. The people who the GST most impacts are the people who spend almost all of their income and make make little or no savings. In other words they operate entirely as spenders, unlike the wealthy who operate primarily as savers. Sure the poorest might get some compensation, but there are an awful lot of people stuck in middle who are squeezed by mortgages and bills but who don’t qualify for any sort of assistance.

    Now given that the government is contemplating putting downward pressure on wages via cutting penalty rates and instituting individual contracts, and also given that job security is all but a thing of the past, the mining boom is over, and the global economy is tanking, how can it realistically be a good idea to destroy consumer confidence by raising the prices of everything by 2.5% to 5%?

    (except ,of course, on private health insurance and private education, because we wouldn’t want to undermine the ongoing privatisation of healthcare and education by making it more expensive now would we?)

  10. WeWantPaul@2595


    —
    I’m not an economist, I’ve been involved in used cars, politics and the law but there are levels even I will not sink to.

    Well it certainly shows that you are not an economist.


    RGR as a Government break into to economic eras, ignoring the honeymoon where they thought Keatings boom would continue for ever.

    First is their response to the GFC.

    As far as I can tell it was breaktakingly brilliant, the very best and best value GFC response on the globe. But you ask anyone about it and the response will usually be on party lines, with swinging voters (in my limited non scientific experience) the response seems to be oh I guess it was ok but all that waste on school halls and the pink batts fiasco.

    That is just an unbelievably stupid statement.

    Both the ‘Home Insulation Program’ and the ‘Building The Education Revolution’ were key elements in the stimulus package that was at the centre of the response to the GFC! Both were highly successful despite the Liberal memes you have bought into.

    There was very little waste in the schools program and the industrial deaths in the HIP were nothing to do with the Federal Govt. but a result of employer neglect and poor state OH&S enforcement.


    From then on they promised to deliver a surplus and save jobs. Noone can possibly deny they failed spectacularly on delivering a surplus. It was their stated primary aim, and they failed, massively, not even close laughing stock.

    Well they certainly save jobs in spades.

    Yes, Swan was foolish to make promises of a surplus.

    I can’t be bothered dealing with the rest. Life is too short.


    —

  12. Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk · 3h3 hours ago
    Oh no. Key inflation data today, market risks our 25 years without recession & @abc730 has a segment on heroin. Don’t mention the economy

  13. [In basic economic terms a GST increase is BAD. The people who the GST most impacts are the people who spend almost all of their income and make make little or no savings. In other words they operate entirely as spenders, unlike the wealthy who operate primarily as savers. Sure the poorest might get some compensation, but there are an awful lot of people stuck in middle who are squeezed by mortgages and bills but who don’t qualify for any sort of assistance. ]

    I agree completely but how do you run a scare campaign against a 5% increase in a known quantity when Australia only barely rejected a 10% great big new tax on everything when it was proposed as a scary new thing, and even then that rejection was in the wrong seats such that Howard got to form a majority Govt with a minority vote and then screw the democrats in the senate? If Labor / Democrats / Greens couldn’t effectively win (even though they got a majority of votes and a majority of senators) a scare campaign against a new 10% tax, how can they win the same scare campaign against a rise of 5% in a well known tax that didn’t do (on superficial appearances) any of the nasty things those silly Labor people said it would?

  14. WWP I enjoyed your post at 2595.

    I agree that the neoliberalism argument is much too complex for Labor to have with the public, assuming it would ever be ready to have that conversation. I think Labor should simply show how the debt and deficit stuff is nonsense by borrowing sensibly to build economically productive infrastructure, and reforming the tax system to something that is both equitable and sustainable, and which raises enough revenue to fund needed social programs.

    Your post at 2599:
    [Would you pay more GST, say 15% to help Australia get back to a surplus and deliver better health, education and disability outcomes? Yes of course.]

    But that’s precisely the point – the Government seems intent on using the GST hike to fund cuts to income and company taxes, the economic merit of which looks questionable at best, not to fund social services.

  16. [That is just an unbelievably stupid statement.

    Both the ‘Home Insulation Program’ and the ‘Building The Education Revolution’ were key elements in the stimulus package that was at the centre of the response to the GFC! Both were highly successful despite the Liberal memes you have bought into.
    ]

    Yes it is a stupid comment I agree with you bemused, but my point that even the stupidest child I know would have got, it if all their playmates believe it, then all their playmates believe it. We have these things called elections, if a big chunk of swinging voters believe something stupid and vote because of that stupid belief the team they vote for still wins!!!!! Fancy that. Please do keep up.

  17. [But that’s precisely the point – the Government seems intent on using the GST hike to fund cuts to income and company taxes, the economic merit of which looks questionable at best, not to fund social services.]

    Yes and I’m an idiot to even restate it, it is really a maxim from get smart, slightly adapted, yes the Liberals will say a GST increase is for health and education and the NDIS and more likely than not use it to fund corp tax cuts, but labor could use a smaller GST increase (bad as it is) for good rather than evil.

    Perhaps the key point I’ve failed to convey is that I think as part of a whole package that is otherwise far and away progressive (damn it so progressive it includes the family home over $2 mill in the CGT net) a 2.5% GST rise can help give Labor credibility with the swingers and soft liberal voters (yes it is going to drive some clowns like bemused to the greens but such is life) give labor a shield against the business lobby which will run their usual scare campaign that Labor is on a nasty class war looking to destroy the lives of everyone who is wealthy or even one day hoping to be wealthy (yes it is a stupid lie but many seem to believe it).

  19. WWP

    [ Perhaps the key point I’ve failed to convey is that I think … a 2.5% GST rise can help give Labor credibility ]

    You have certainly failed to convey how this could ever possibly be the case.

  20. [2613
    WWP
    but how do you run a scare campaign against a 5% increase in a known quantity when Australia only barely rejected a 10% great big new tax on everything when it was proposed as a scary new thing    ]

    Well the 10% GST was sold to the public as a tax that was going to the sates i.e. to fund health, education, public transport etc.

    That is most definitely not what this Government is planning, which is to make working Australians pay for tax cuts for the Liberal Party’s wealthy mates and their companies. That’s Labor’s campaign in one sentence.

  21. WeWantPaul@2617


    —
    a 2.5% GST rise can help give Labor credibility with the swingers and soft liberal voters (yes it is going to drive some clowns like bemused to the greens but such is life) give labor a shield against the business lobby which will run their usual scare campaign that Labor is on a nasty class war looking to destroy the lives of everyone who is wealthy or even one day hoping to be wealthy (yes it is a stupid lie but many seem to believe it).

    This is just bullshit.

    You have a total and irrational obsession with raising GST by 2.5%.

  22. all other things being equal, increasing the GST and using the revenue to fund other tax cuts should have a neutral or, at best, mildly positive impact on the structural and actual deficit.

    You do realize that the federal government deficit does not need to be reduced, right? The problem with the deficit is in fact that it is too small to satisfy the desires of the non-government sector to net save in Australian dollars.

  23. [You have certainly failed to convey how this could ever possibly be the case.]

    With you I have failed. Odd thing is I talk to lots of people who already believe that Labor has no credibility and state Labor’s stubborn ignorant religious like refusal to even intelligently consider a GST increase as key evidence for Labor’s complete lack of credibility on all things economic. Fancy that. These are smart successful people too, wonder what they are missing that you in your infallible wisdom are seeing?

  24. [That is most definitely not what this Government is planning, which is to make working Australians pay for tax cuts for the Liberal Party’s wealthy mates and their companies. That’s Labor’s campaign in one sentence.]

    So it comes down to whether Labor or Liberal go into the next election with more economic credibility no?

  25. [2593
    C@tmomma
    They can also create fatter profits for the companies who do not choose to create jobs with their extra money.    ]

    So true. No doubt those companies will then “reward” their executives with even larger bonuses.

  26. JimmyDoyle

    [ That’s Labor’s campaign in one sentence. ]

    All Labor has to do to counter the proposed GST increase is run an ad with Abbott mouthing his stupid “Great Big New Tax on Everything!” line.

  27. Player One@2626

    JimmyDoyle

    That’s Labor’s campaign in one sentence.


    All Labor has to do to counter the proposed GST increase is run an ad with Abbott mouthing his stupid “Great Big New Tax on Everything!” line.

    Agree.

  28. WWP

    [ With you I have failed. ]

    Not just me, I think. I have never seen you propose any rational justification for your monomania with a 2.5% increase in the GST.

  29. [All Labor has to do to counter the proposed GST increase is run an ad with Abbott mouthing his stupid “Great Big New Tax on Everything!” line.]

    What has Abbot got to do with it? Turnbull is well loved, it is not what Nicholas in his funny little world thinks, it is not what bemused thinks, it is definitely not what WWP thinks, what matters on election night is what those soft labor voters, the swinging voters and the soft liberal voters think, and if enough of them think the same thing next morning it doesn’t really matter a jot if they are right or wrong what they chose wins.

  30. there is an irrational obsession with the need for a surplus.

    Since Federation Australia has had a surplus on 25 occasions.

    No Federal Govt has ever been debt free.

    The Liberals have sold the people a myth that running a country is like running a household budget

  31. Great stuff from Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration:

    New York Times columnist Paul Krugman yesterday warned Bernie supporters that change doesn’t happen with “transformative rhetoric” but with “political pragmatism” – “accepting half loaves as being better than none.” He writes that it’s dangerous to prefer “happy dreams (by which he means Bernie) to hard thinking about means and ends (meaning Hillary).”

    Krugman doesn’t get it. I’ve been in and around Washington for almost fifty years, including a stint in the cabinet, and I’ve learned that real change happens only when a substantial share of the American public is mobilized, organized, energized, and determined to make it happen.

    Political “pragmatism” may require accepting “half loaves” – but the full loaf has to be large and bold enough in the first place to make the half loaf meaningful. That’s why the movement must aim high – toward a single-payer universal health, free public higher education, and busting up the biggest banks, for example.</blockquote

    http://www.salon.com/2016/01/26/robert_reich_paul_krugman_just_doesnt_get_it_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

  32. [All Labor has to do to counter the proposed GST increase is run an ad with Abbott mouthing his stupid “Great Big New Tax on Everything!” line.]

    the line should be; “a great big bigger tax on everything”

  33. I think the Global Economy needs to be considered very seriously in 2016, as Satyajit Das says quite succinctly:

    ‘ SATYAJIT DAS: Well I think fundamentally you’ve got to look at why people are doing it. If the world’s growing, then things like globalisation and free trade are very beneficial to everybody.

    Now the pie’s not growing, so we’re fighting about each nation’s share of the pie, and one of the ways to do that is to lower your costs – you can either lower your wages or you can lower that indirectly to the currency to make yourself more competitive, and everybody prefers the devaluation option.

    But as you correctly point out, not everybody actually can have the cheapest currency, and this is actually very important to look at, because the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have very, very clearly tried to cheapen the yen and the euro.

    But if you look at the euro, it’s now stuck and has actually appreciated against the US dollar by about 8 or 9 per cent.

    And it’s going to lead to further steps to try to actually devalue the currency, which is actually, in the case of Europe, to move to even more negative interest rates.

    If China aggressively starts to devalue the yuan, it could set off a huge problem for the emerging market complex, and I think that is going to be one of the central features of 2016 – this very, very aggressive currency war.

    One economist once described currency wars as like basically peeing in bed – it feels warm and comfortable initially but turns out to be an awful mess.’

    With respect to the Coalition’s muted stated aim to lower wages via Individual Contracts and Bargaining away Penalty Rates for a Once Only increase to your base rate of pay, then the money quote in that interview with Das on PM is this:

    ‘ Now the pie’s not growing, so we’re fighting about each nation’s share of the pie, and one of the ways to do that is to lower your costs – you can either lower your wages or you can lower that indirectly to the currency to make yourself more competitive, and everybody prefers the devaluation option.’

    I don’t think Morrison quite realises that adopting a ‘Workers Are Always Cheaper Under A Coalition Government’ approach will pay the sort of dividends for Australian businesses that he hopes and plans for. There will always be another country who will do the job cheaper, or if you consider Service Industries, then beggaring the workforce will only starve the economy of funds to spend on Services.

    Neither can the currency devalue itself to prosperity. There will always be China willing to devalue more in order to sell their own goods cheaper than yours.

    So I think Morrison and Turnbull are setting the country up for Recession.

    Thanks guys!

  34. [Not just me, I think. I have never seen you propose any rational justification for your monomania with a 2.5% increase in the GST.]

    Well that is just unfair, my logic is rational, it just maybe wrong. I don’t really care if you think it is wrong.

    It could be that labor has so little economic credibility that even with a GST increase no one whose vote matters would trust them with the economy. Votes that matter, so soft labor, soft liberal, genuinely swinging votes. if enough of them think the same then what they think is what matters no matter how you, nicky, bemused or anyone else thinks.

    When I first got elected to council (we don’t have parties in WA councils it is all independent individuals) a lot of liberals voted for me, they told me afterwards, because they thought I was one of them. They were pretty disappointed afterwards because they were wrong! I honoured all my promises and did nothing at all dishonest, they just assumed because I was supported by a local church that I was a righty!!! Key voting demographics get the result they vote for even when they are wrong!

  35. [2624
    WWP
    So it comes down to whether Labor or Liberal go into the next election with more economic credibility no?    ]

    ’twas ever thus.

    Besides I don’t see how Turnbull can exactly ‘lie’ by saying the GST hike will fund services and then instead direct it into tax cuts. I think people are going to notice that.

    For me, the issue is not with the practicality of any of the other ideas you favour (the abolition of the CGT exemption on homes over $2.5 million makes sense, as it has just become yet another means of tax avoidance), but with the immorality of the GST itself. It is fundamentally an unfair tax that in an ideal world I would like to see abolished.

    I’ve come around to your thinking over personal income taxes (I think you’re right that it is wealth from assets and capital that needs to be targeted for new taxation, not income). Perhaps to bolster credibility with swing voters and soft Libs, Labor could instead propose income tax cuts funded by new wealth taxes?

  36. [The Liberals have sold the people a myth that running a country is like running a household budget]

    The liberals, and Rudd and Swan and Gillard.

    It has been a bipartisan message since Keating lost. Of course many many people believe it.

  37. [’twas ever thus.

    Besides I don’t see how Turnbull can exactly ‘lie’ by saying the GST hike will fund services and then instead direct it into tax cuts. I think people are going to notice that.
    ]

    Very true. Howard got away with it. Must be a magic trick we on the left can’t see the trick part of.

  38. WWP

    [ what matters on election night is what those soft labor voters, the swinging voters and the soft liberal voters think ]

    Precisely. And if one side is proposing a 50% increase in the GST to subsidize tax cuts for companies and the wealthy, and the other side is proposing recouping lost revenue from companies that currently pay no tax at all, plus a crackdown on tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, then which side do you think those voters are going to vote for?

  39. [I’ve come around to your thinking over personal income taxes (I think you’re right that it is wealth from assets and capital that needs to be targeted for new taxation, not income). Perhaps to bolster credibility with swing voters and soft Libs, Labor could instead propose income tax cuts funded by new wealth taxes?]

    I would love to see something like this (even without a GST increase but don’t tell bemused or the others), something brave, something visionary, something powerful and compelling, even if they lose.

  40. WWP

    [ Well that is just unfair, my logic is rational, it just maybe wrong. I don’t really care if you think it is wrong. ]

    I don’t know if your logic is wrong or not – because I simply don’t see any logic at all. Most of your recent posts seem to come down to “Labor lacks economic credibility because my wealthy friends tell me so, therefore it must be true, therefore Labor must increase the GST by 2.5%”.

    I can’t see any logic in that.

  41. C@tmomma – I think Australia could be in for a bad year as unlike 2008, where we had China to shelter us from the global recession, Australia is high and dry this time and primed for a good n’ bloody recession.

    Turnbull will (justly or unjustly) suffer for it, especially if he follows his ideological bent and refuses to enact adequate stimulus.

  42. Read the other day that the Howard GST cost the Govt $1.15 for every dollar raised because they had set the cuts so high to buy the support

  44. JD @ 2641,

    ‘ Turnbull will (justly or unjustly) suffer for it, especially if he follows his ideological bent and refuses to enact adequate stimulus.’

    Particularly considering that the Coalition government have been providing covert stimulus by letting the deficit blow out and not reigning it in. Where have they got to go?

    Full steam ahead to a Banana Republic? 🙂

  46. Nicholas – I’m looking forward to seeing how Sanders does in the first few primaries/caucuses. I don’t know whether he can win, with things stacked so heavily in favour of pro-corporate Democrats like Clinton, but if he can shift the debate to the left, then that will be a victory for Americans and the world.

  47. [ Perhaps the key point I’ve failed to convey is that I think … a 2.5% GST rise can help give Labor credibility ]

    Disagree strongly WWP, and i am not someone who thinks the GST should never be reviewed.

    However, in the current context..

    Raising the GST should be completely, utterly, opposed, until other, more fair measures to reform taxation (not simply increase it) have been seen to be implemented AND enough time passes for their impact on the budget to be known.

    And IF the GST is raised it has to be for better reasons that to pay half out in compensation and the rest out in personal and corporate tax cuts to try and buy the Coalition another term in Govt.

    This Govt have done sweet fa since they came to power other than trying to screw people who aren’t their donors over. Now they have to craft a budget that will at appear to be tough but please everybody. I reckon that’s beyond them. That combined with and exacerbating the fallout from other matters could do them in.

    The last thing the ALP needs to do is appear to be validating the Libs position on GST. Agree on other matters perhaps, particularly ones which the ALP already has policy around 🙂 , but NO,NO,NO, to buckling on the GST.

  48. JD
    [The difference is that I recognise I am in a small minority of Australians in that regard, and that Labor is the only possible vehicle for any change in this policy area.]

    The ALP is also shedding members because they have had enough of the party.

    Just returned from a meeting of my local Greens branch (and it aint in the inner city).

    Its membership continues to grow and is now at a very health high level.

    New members continue to include ‘refugees’ from the ALP, some of whom have finally let their ALP memberships lapse after a couple of decades or more.

    Asylum seeker policy is often cited as a reason for the switch to Greens membership.

    We are all dismayed Anna Burke is not re-contesting her seat in Chisholm. She was an ALP parliamentarian for many years. Despite being a vocal internal opponent of ALP’s asylum seeker policy, she was unsuccessful in changing the fundamental basis of the ALP’s asylum seeker policy.

    Ditto Melissa Parke who is also not re-contesting her seat in Freemantle.

    Bipartisanship rules in this policy area and has done so for decades.

    How can anyone believe either party in the political duopoly will change its policy any time soon?

  50. [2648
    Pegasus
    How can anyone believe either party in the political duopoly will change its policy any time soon?    ]

    *sigh*

    And how soon do you envision a Greens Government being elected and changing Australia’s refugee policy?

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