ReachTEL: 50-50

Movement in the Coalition’s favour on the primary vote from ReachTEL, but their enthusiasm will be tempered by an alarming result from the South Australian seat of Grey, where Rowan Ramsey is under the pump from the Nick Xenophon Team.

ReachTEL has produced another lineball result on two-party preferred for the Seven Network, which stays at 50-50 after moving from 52-48 in Labor’s favour the week before. However, the poll offers some encouragement for the Coalition in having them up and Labor down on the primary vote for the second week in a row, and the two-party result would have rounded to 52-48 in their favour if 2013 election preference flows were applied, as ReachTEL did until quite recently. Labor was able to retain parity in the headline result through a still greater flow of respondent-allocated minor party and independent preferences, which already looked stronger than plausible.

Labor did particularly poorly this week (and to a lesser extent last week) on the forced response follow-up question for the undecided, on which they failed to crack 20%. With the result of the follow-up question integrated into the total, the primary votes are 42.7% for the Coalition (up 1.2%), 33.2% for Labor (down 1.7%), 9.9% for the Greens (down 0.2%) and 4.5% for the Nick Xenophon Team (down 0.5%). On personal ratings, Malcolm Turnbull’s combined very good and good rating is up from 26.3% to 28.3%, and poor plus very poor is down from 40.8% to 37.4%. Shorten is down on both measures, from 29.0% to 27.5% on the former and 39.6% to 38.6% on the latter, and Turnbull’s lead on preferred prime minister is effectively unchanged, down from 55.6-44.4 to 55.4-44.6. The automated phone poll was conducted last night from a sample of 2175, which is on the low side by ReachTEL’s standards.

Of perhaps even greater interest than the national result is the regular weekly supplementary marginal seat poll, which credits the Andrea Broadfoot of the Nick Xenophon Team with a 54-46 two-party lead over Liberal member Rowan Ramsay in the electorate of Grey, which covers South Australia’s “iron triangle” of Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie, together with the state’s remote areas. Inclusive of the forced preference results, the primary votes are Liberal 39.4%, Nick Xenophon Team 32.7%, Labor 14.5% and Greens 5.5%, with around three-quarters of preferences flowing to Broadfoot. The poll was conducted last night from a sample of 665.

UPDATE: BludgerTrack updated with the ReachTEL result below. As BludgerTrack is going off 2013 election preferences, it’s treating this poll as being close to 52-48 in the Coalition’s favour, and there has accordingly been a significant shift in that direction on two-party preferred. However, it’s only yielded one extra seat on the seat projection because of some fairly substantial changes in the state-level results. This is because I’ve only just now added the state results for the last two ReachTEL polls, because their new practice of reporting undecided results presented an accounting difficulty that I’ve only now attended to. The inclusion of these numbers has makes little difference in New South Wales, pares the Coalition back in Queensland, and inflates them in the other four states. In seat terms, this knocks three off their tally in Queensland, and adds two in Western Australia (corrected what looked like an excessive result there earlier) and one each in Victoria and Tasmania.

bludgertrack-2016-06-10

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.

830 comments on “ReachTEL: 50-50”

Comments Page 16 of 17
1 … 15 16 17

  1. ‘fess

    Has Turnbull been asked what the Liberals would do in the event of a hung parliament

    Good question!

    Retreat to Point Piper? Throw a tantrum? Or both?

  2. Some journalist should ask Mr Turnbull a simple question, sooner rather than later: Shouldn’t his candidate Mr Jermyn show respect for the voters of McEwen by giving a full public account of the facts surrounding his involvement with Mooter Media and the Shutterbug Millionaire program.

  8. I can completely understand why the lnp disendorsed Mr Min-Chiang Hsu. His little business f**king the punters of Frankston was just a preview of what the fizzer’s lnp want to do to the people of Australia………. f**k them over and take the money.

  10. evan parsons @ #721 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 9:40 pm

    The realistic part of me thinks the Libs will fall over the line, perhaps by 10 seats.
    But throw Xenophon into the mix, + the Palmer United voters from 2013, and things might get messy indeed on July 2.

    The effective post-redistribution LNP seat tally going into the election is 89, including Fairfax. The requirement for a majority is 76. So they have a starting margin of 13. They appear to have 3 seats at high risk in SA, probably 4 in WA and 1 in the NT. These losses would produce a majority of just 5. However, Labor appear to have good chances of winning 2 in Victoria, 4 in QLD and 5 in NSW. If this occurs, the LNP will be reduced to 70 seats. If Windsor also wins, they will have 69.

    The LNP could not hope to govern with just 69 MP’s. Labor would have 74 (57 starting + 17 wins). The crosses would total 7.

    So even if the polling appears tough for Labor and they still appear to be outsiders to win in their own right, the prospects are likely to be even more difficult for the LNP. Realistically, they need at least 71 to form Government. Presumably, they would be able to take office with 71 + 2 (NXT) + 1 (Katter) + 1 (McGowan) + 1 (Wilkie) = 76. They would be opposed by Labor (72) + 1 (G) + 1 (Windsor) = 74.

    Such a House would be very unlikely to pass any of the LNP’s anti-social agenda. The Opposition and the minor parties would be able to set the legislative agenda on all kinds of matters. They could implement a whole range of measures that would open up splits and rancour inside the LNP. So while the LNP may hold office with 71 MP’s, they would not hold power. Such a Parliament surely could not last long and we would expect another election early in 2017.

    Of course, on the current polling, it’s possible the Liberals could lose all of their SA seats, a total of 6. They may lose as many as 7 WA seats to Labor. (They may also lose 1 or 2 to the WA Nationals.) This alone would wipe out their majority, regardless of any losses elsewhere. Were this to happen and to be complemented by losses in other States, the LNP may return as few as 62 MP’s even though the polling may be tight in Victoria, QLD and NSW.

    The LNP have campaigned against the economic interests of the people of SA. They have provided an incompetent, slovenly, imprudent and arrogant Government in WA. There is no reason to suppose they will not pay a heavy price for this. It’s very hard to find a voter anywhere with a good word to say for Barnett.

    I was door-knocking today in Cowan. There’s no doubt at all that past-Lib voters have lost confidence in the Liberals and are forming an intention of voting Labor. Voters are very willing to converse with Labor volunteers, something that in itself is positive for Labor. The question is whether they will hold on to their intentions to change their vote when they actually attend a polling place. From what I’ve heard in the Liberal-leaning glades of Cowan, they are in genuine trouble here.

    I think the really interesting question is the expression of the “other-leaning” vote. This seems certain to manifest as a pro-NXT/ anti-Lib vote in SA. If a similar anti-Lib sentiment is present in “other-leaning” expression elsewhere, the LNP will lose seats everywhere on 2 July. Presumably the 2PP will be more favourable to Labor than is suggested by ReachTEL’s latest report.

  11. As a matter of interest, does anyone know how old Mr Jermyn is? It’s not immediately clear from his various web presences, but he strikes me as possibly a good example of a syndrome some of us were discussing a few nights ago, the overgrown kid who has had limited life experience, has a rigidly oversimplified view of the world, and basically lacks the sort of maturity you would hope to find in a representative.

  12. Kevin Bonham – thank you for the explanation on how to best use our vote in the senate. May I share it on Facebook? If so, how?

  13. william
    are you saying that they just moderate and don’t censor, sorry my mistake they’ve justed moderated comments instead of censoring them.
    katherine (with a K ) goes to her attacking people making comments to her articles ,spelling her name wrong .
    when they were having a go at her , her come back was My name is Katherine with a K.
    i might be able to trawl back through and locate them if you wish,
    love to bring to bring you some censored/moderated comments but i wasn’t quick enough to save them.
    so going forward william what would you like me to do ,censor/moderate myself.
    cheers MrMoney

  14. CTar:

    It was a serious question. So far I’ve seen the question of support put to MPs like McGowan and candidates like Oakeshotte, but seeing as the coalition is the incumbent govt, why not them?

  16. Briefly @ 10.47 pm: Of course, any cross-benchers who are elected could be expected to be more sympathetic to the ALP if they had had to rely on ALP preferences for their victories.

  17. as i have pointed out ,to which you didn’t commented these weren’t from RWNJ sites but the comment section of the guardian australia which i was able to save before being censored/moderated out. So again what was that about RWNJ sites

  19. The thing that gets me about that Hartcher article is that Turnbull tries on the line that he is bound by the decisions of the Liberal Party Room from when Tony Abbott was leader! Now that HE is leader he pleads that he is bound by those decisions! What a load of malarkey! Simply a convenient lawyer’s artifice to explain his way out of trouble.

  20. Perhaps the use of 2PP expression is concealing more than it reveals at present. If third-party expression is strong enough to change the results of elections – strong enough to determine who will govern – then we need another index. Doubtless, this is a project for WB, KB and Mark the Ballot.

  21. Steve777
    Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 10:23 pm
    Re Evan Parsons @9:39PM: I think that the Liberals are the default party of the disengaged, especially when they are the incumbents. They are the party of money, the party of middle class respectability. They beat up side issues like ‘Boats’ to get the disengaged interested and on side. They cultivate fear of the bete noire du jour – communists, ‘union thugs’, jihadis, whatever. They have large sections of the mainstream media actively boosting them, while the rest of the media including our ABC mostly parrots their talking points before moving on to the NRL/AFL/celebrity trivia. They also have money on their side.

    They are always going to be very hard to beat.

    ————very well said – like republicans in america
    my worry is that there are too many disengaged at present due in part to dull long election (not sure this is what malcolm planned but it might work to his favour)
    labor need(ed)s to explain clearly loudly and passionately risks involved ….

    i do hope someone was correct here tonight that there is a lot of dissatisfied voters – who might be undecided in polls …. is undecided stated in poll figures always?

  22. briefly
    I was door-knocking today in Cowan. There’s no doubt at all that past-Lib voters have lost confidence in the Liberals and are forming an intention of voting Labor. Voters are very willing to converse with Labor volunteers, something that in itself is positive for Labor. The question is whether they will hold on to their intentions to change their vote when they actually attend a polling place. From what I’ve heard in the Liberal-leaning glades of Cowan, they are in genuine trouble here.

    I think the really interesting question is the expression of the “other-leaning” vote. This seems certain to manifest as a pro-NXT/ anti-Lib vote in SA. If a similar anti-Lib sentiment is present in “other-leaning” expression elsewhere, the LNP will lose seats everywhere on 2 July. Presumably the 2PP will be more favourable to Labor than is suggested by ReachTEL’s latest report.
    ——— this is comment i referred t – i hope briefly is right, in this comment and in his overall results analysis – we are all hoping for dramatic result, so it is amaxing that there is some reaon to hope

  23. pedant @ #766 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 10:53 pm

    Briefly @ 10.47 pm: Of course, any cross-benchers who are elected could be expected to be more sympathetic to the ALP if they had had to rely on ALP preferences for their victories.

    Cross-bench MP’s win because they pose an independent alternative. They can promise to represent a constituency rather than a party. This is enough to get them elected when voters are disaffected with the majors. The ability to attract major prefs might or might not be important to them. For example, McGowan does not need to align herself with Labor to attract Labor prefs. Labor will pref her simply because she’s not a Lib. Voters in general will support her for the same reason. She can win not simply on the basis of who she is, but also on the basis of who she is not.

    The G’s are similar. They attract Labor prefs not because Labor like the G’s or the
    G’s like Labor but because they are not Liberals. (We have to recall, the G’s align themselves against both the Liberals and Labor.) Their gig is essentially to be “independent” with a “left” tang. McGowan is “independent” with a centre-right hue.

  24. William
    Maybe your right . But that RWNJ site the guardian australia just draws me in with those nutty headlines, and i just carn’t help myself.
    I’m addicted to them Those RWNJ sites are just pure evil soon it will be the OZ and the SMH ,oohh for heavens sake william where will i go. i”ll be a lost sole /soul wandering the internet.
    Landing @pb

  26. pritu @ #762 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 10:47 pm

    Kevin Bonham – thank you for the explanation on how to best use our vote in the senate. May I share it on Facebook? If so, how?

    Very welcome to. At the bottom of the post is a series of buttons one of which is a Facebook share button. (Don’t know if it works, never tried it!)

  27. Pleasantly surprised by how many people I talked to today out doorknocking who understood the Senate changes. I made a point of asking each person if they were aware of them, and if they knew how to vote in the Senate. Only one person had any questions, and even she had a basic grasp of the idea.

  28. c@tmomma @ #769 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 11:00 pm

    The thing that gets me about that Hartcher article is that Turnbull tries on the line that he is bound by the decisions of the Liberal Party Room from when Tony Abbott was leader! Now that HE is leader he pleads that he is bound by those decisions! What a load of malarkey! Simply a convenient lawyer’s artifice to explain his way out of trouble.

    Voters don’t buy the excuses. They simply reinforce the perception that Turnbot is weak. Interestingly, while campaigning, increasingly fewer voters talk about “individual leaders or leadership”. The words they use “they”, “the parties”, “the sides”, “all of them”. Leadership is trading at a discount at this election, which possibly means the LNP brand-focus on Turnbot is not really working for them. Voters mention themes…education, health, traffic (especially congestion and hooning), taxes, the budget deficit, asylum-seekers, jobs, the cost of living…and somehow have forgotten about the Federal leaders.

    Barnett gets a run but only because people so deeply resent him.

  29. Can any of the non true blue Labor supporters, like I am, tell me do you think Turnbull will last long after the election.

  30. Zoomster @ 11.22: The real worry is that so many people will absorb the idea of voting just 1 to 6 for the Senate that they will do the same for the House. In the seat in which I live, where there are nine candidates, that would render their votes informal. (Something like that happened in 1984, when the informal rate for the House jumped because of the number of people who just marked a “1′, mirroring what was then the new way of Senate voting.)

  31. Briefly
    Took WA long enough to realize Barnett was a dud. Over 10 yrs hes done jackshit there except running up massive state debt.

  32. Briefly @ 11.25: On themes and policies, I still think it’s really important that the ALP try to frame the proposed business tax cuts as something for which ordinary voters are going to have to pay. It’s one thing to say that the tax cut is undeserved and won’t do much good; it’s a much more potent message if it’s added that “by the way, you will all be paying for it, throughthe pensions and benefits which are cut or frozen, the government charges which are increased, and the declining investment in the public hospitals, schools and facilities on which you have to rely”.

  33. cupidstunt @ #781 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 11:29 pm

    Briefly
    Took WA long enough to realize Barnett was a dud. Over 10 yrs hes done jackshit there except running up massive state debt.

    Yeah…Labor have been given several beatings in a row. The Libs think they have a freehold title to office in WA. They are about to find out that summary eviction remains a discretion of the voters.

  35. Briefly
    The Libs built one bit of rail infrastructure in a decade.The extension to Butler. I think that their record was something like in total 15km of rail track since they were formed as a party.

  36. cupidstunt @ #781 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 11:29 pm

    Briefly
    Took WA long enough to realize Barnett was a dud. Over 10 yrs hes done jackshit there except running up massive state debt.

    ……………………………………………………………………………

    Thats just flat out unfair.

    He is an over the top incompetent jackass who wasted the bounty of a once in a lifetime minerals boon while at the sametime pointing the finger at everyone else.

    PS WA voters swallowed it all. Hook. Line. Sinker.

    Suckers!

    Bounties for Regions ? Kicks in the arse for other taxpayers.

  39. Received a flyer in my mailbox for the “Mature Australia Party”. Seems they oppose corruption and want companies using tax minimisation scheme to pay their fair share of taxes that are due to them rather than try to doge it.

  40. pedant @ #782 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    Briefly @ 11.25: On themes and policies, I still think it’s really important that the ALP try to frame the proposed business tax cuts as something for which ordinary voters are going to have to pay. It’s one thing to say that the tax cut is undeserved and won’t do much good; it’s a much more potent message if it’s added that “by the way, you will all be paying for it, throughthe pensions and benefits which are cut or frozen, the government charges which are increased, and the declining investment in the public hospitals, schools and facilities on which you have to rely”.

    Sure…my own view is voters basically know this. At another level, voters (at last in WA and I’m sure also in SA) are experiencing heightened economic insecurity. So “fear” drives their responses. Remarkably, the LNP are trying to elevate these fears. This is a stand-by tactic for them. It frequently works very well. But in WA, voters don’t want more fear. They want a whole lot less. So messages of re-assurance – demonstrations that we will listen; that we will help support individuals, families and communities in a very considered and practical way – will attract support. The LNP are very ill-placed to market these messages. Labor’s lyric “Putting People First” is helpful. It opens the way for Labor to talk in re-assuring terms to an apprehensive electorate.

    Very interestingly, today I encountered a voter who was swinging from Labor to Liberal. He was about to retire, has had an unskilled, blue-collar job all his life, belongs to a union and is angry. He is angry because he perceives Labor to be offering support/help to people “who have done nothing to deserve it” while he “never had any help at all but worked hard and paid his taxes”. At last one other Lib voter expressed the same sort of sentiments. So Labor is certainly seen as the Party that will spend to help individuals and families. That has to be a positive, taken overall. It also illustrates that feelings of jealousy, of being left out or being “under-preferred” by the system are also very powerful. This voter had tears in his eyes. He’s cross…at the end of his working life, feeling insecure himself, no doubt, feeling that he is about to be forgotten and has been used.

  42. Very interestingly, today I encountered a voter who was swinging from Labor to Liberal.

    …………………………………………………………..

    Good luck with that boyo – you will bloody need it.

    Its called doubling down in my game.

  44. Dave

    PS WA voters swallowed it all. Hook. Line. Sinker.

    And donated to the Federal sphere people like Porter and Hastie …

  45. Briefly
    So the guy was in a union.Cant he see the Libs hate unions with a passion.It also was Labor who give retirees the biggest raise in the pension for 100 years. Howard gave them nothing for 11 years.

  47. CTar – Porter got out I’ll give him that.

    He might just might be playing a long game. Either way he did OK getting away for wearing disgrace when the tories fall in WA.

    The ‘old’ time and distance caper ?

  48. dave @ #792 Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 11:59 pm

    Very interestingly, today I encountered a voter who was swinging from Labor to Liberal.

    …………………………………………………………..
    Good luck with that boyo – you will bloody need it.
    Its called doubling down in my game.

    I felt sorry for him. He is going to change the habits and loyalties of a lifetime ‘cos he’s feeling hurt for some reason. In similar style, I’ve spoken to plenty of past-Lib voters who are also cross. One of the reasons they’re cross is because they have to change their political expression. They have had to scrap the “investments” they’ve made in the past. Change for these voters will be an expression of regret and bitterness. They blame the Liberals for this too, meaning their anger is in a way multiplied. I feel for these voters too. They take their vote seriously but, of course, also feel “exposed” in a way. This year, there will be many voters acting from vulnerability and difficult necessity, as they see it. Labor must keep faith with those who support it. This is a cardinal matter for me. The Libs have broken their bond. We must not do the same thing.

  49. William the Katherine with a K was a correction made by Murphy herself and I may be wrong but I don’t think Murphy worked today moderating comments.

  50. cupidstunt @ #795 Sunday, June 12, 2016 at 12:07 am

    Briefly
    So the guy was in a union.Cant he see the Libs hate unions with a passion.It also was Labor who give retirees the biggest raise in the pension for 100 years. Howard gave them nothing for 11 years.

    Sure. He knows that. He has decided to break with his own past and was close to tears because of it. He is experiencing a kind of grief, I think.

Comments Page 16 of 17
1 … 15 16 17

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *