ReachTEL: 51-49 to Coalition; Ipsos: 51-49 to Labor

More evidence of a fine balance of support on the national two-party preferred, but with Labor falling short where it matters most.

The latest weekly campaign poll for the Seven Network from ReachTEL has the Coalition hitting a lead of 51-49, following headline results of 50-50 in the last two polls and a 52-48 in favour of Labor three weeks ago. This week’s forced preference primary vote totals are Coalition 43.5% (up 0.8%), Labor 33.6% (up 0.4%), Greens 9.1% (down 0.8%) and Nick Xenophon Team 9.1% (down 0.8%). Malcolm Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is out from 55.4-44.6 to 57.6-42.4, but both leaders’ personal ratings are little changed: Turnbull goes from 28.3% to 27.4% on very good plus good and from 37.4% to 36.3% on poor plus very poor, while Shorten goes from 27.5% to 29.6% favourable and from 38.6% to 39.7% unfavourable. The automated phone poll was conducted last night from a sample of 2576.

A rather different set of results emerges this evening from the latest fortnightly campaign poll by Ipsos for the Fairfax papers. It records a dramatic increase in the minor party vote, with both the Coalition and Labor down three points, to 39% and 33% respectively. Most of the yield goes to “others”, up four points to 14%, with the Greens up one to 14%. This cancels out on two-party preferred, which is unchanged at 51-49 in Labor’s favour on both the respondent-allocated and previous-election two-party preferred measures. The major parties’ loss of support isn’t reflected in the personal ratings, with both leaders up two on approval (47% for Malcolm Turnbull, 43% for Bill Shorten) and steady on disapproval (42% for Turnbull, 47% for Shorten). Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister narrows from 49-31 to 48-34. The live interview phone poll was conducted Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1437.

ReachTEL’s weekly marginal seat poll is a disappointing result for Labor, showing Liberal member Ken Wyatt retaining a 53-47 lead in his eastern Perth seat of Hasluck, suggesting a modest swing to Labor of 3%. Forced preference primary vote results are 46.1% for Ken Wyatt (46.2% at the 2013 election, post-redistribution) and 32.6% for Labor candidate Bill Leadbetter (29.2% for Labor in 2013). The Greens are on 13.5%, up from 10.7% in 2013, much of which comes from the forced response follow-up question asked of the undecided. The Greens got 10.9% on the first round question, but 21.1% of those who responded as undecided favoured the Greens on the follow up. The two-party headline is from respondent-allocated preferences, but 2013 election preferences would have produced the same result. The poll was conducted last night from a sample of 753.

Also:

• A ReachTEL poll commissioned by GetUp! suggests Rob Oakeshott is looking competitive in his bid to unseat Nationals member Luke Hartsuyker in the seat of Cowper in the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales. Inclusive of forced preferences, the primary votes are Hartsuyker 42.6%, Oakeshott 25.6%, Labor 14.0%, Greens 8.4%, Christian Democrats 4.5%, others 4.9%. Hartsuyker would likely get over the line after preferences on those numbers, but only by a few per cent. The poll was conducted on Monday from a sample of 842.

• Roy Morgan has released details results of its polling conducted from April to June in South Australia – a little too detailed in fact, since results are provided at electorate level from samples of only 180 each. Taken in aggregate, the Nick Xenophon Team is at 21.5% statewide, which would score them three seats based on Kevin Bonham’s modelling. There is no clear indication of major geographical variation in the NXT vote, as was the case with Xenophon’s Senate vote in 2013.

Another Morgan report repeats the electorate-level voting intention exercise for the seven seats recording the highest levels of Greens support, which suggests their primary vote to be slightly higher than Labor’s across Melbourne, Batman and Wills, but a) it’s hard to read much into this given the sample size, and b) Morgan has long been reporting excessive-looking results for the Greens. The report also tells us that Labor led 51-49 in Morgan’s regular polling over the fortnight, unchanged on the previous result, which didn’t get the usual published result this week for some reason.

UPDATE: Here is an update of BludgerTrack with the two latest polls, whose peculiarities have essentially cancelled each other out. The Coalition is up a seat in Queensland, but down two in New South Wales.

bludgertrack-2016-06-18

2016-06-16-marginal-seat-polls

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.

1,029 comments on “ReachTEL: 51-49 to Coalition; Ipsos: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. Sky News24 should be closed on Sundays. Although saying that they have actually been more balanced than ABC lately or maybe Shorten is smashing it so badly they just can’t hide it any more.

  2. Evan Parsons
    Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 11:03 pm
    Darn – Labor should hammer the Medicare thing for the next 2 weeks, that and Gonski.

    Evan

    All the signs are that that is exactly what they are planning – especially in regard to Medicare. The Liberals have good cause to be concerned.

  3. [ Economics isn’t something this government should be campaigning on given their results. ]
    Like ‘we can’t afford medicare but we can afford 50 billion worth of tax cuts to overseas shareholders and medicare’

  4. [This is sad. I know the person concerned and think he’s mistaken in substance. It’s also very sad that he’s chosen to ventilate his thoughts in public. This cannot serve his interests. It cannot serve Labor. And it cannot serve the people of Cowan.]
    It is very sad but the WA Labor Party learned nothing from the debacle that gave WA Barnett.

  5. Bushfire Bill
    #973 Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 10:06 pm
    Just been reading Michael Gordon’scolumn in The Age here…

    Turnbull doesn’t have to charm anyone. He will just wait for the Business Council of Australia or some such body to request that penalty rates get dropped and when they do, he will just say it’s the referee’s decision and he has to honour it.

    Tom.

  6. William, can you tell me how many federal and state elections we have election-eve polls where we can compare the predictive accuracy of last-election-preference and respondent-allocated preference? I guess I’m just asking about the published polls here and not party internal ones, but it might also be interesting to know if anyone has heard that the parties have such comparative data on their accuracies.

  7. I would like to believe the theory about preferences not being counted properly, and there is sound theories behind it, but the couple of full Morgan releases (not most recent) had respondent allocated preferences within 0.5% of the result as distrusted at previous election.
    It could be that preferences on a national scale balance each other out between PUP moving back to LNP in QLD, and some LNP moving to ALP in WA, and NXT muddying the water in SA.
    I think most of us know there are going to be big surprises, the MSM are too shallow to look for it, but the clues are there, we will probably be kicking ourselves after it happens.

  8. It is completely unsurprising that so many here idolise Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech. It was all style, no substance, rehearsed and showed the blatant hypocrisy of the ALP… since only political skeptics like myself bothered to listen to the whole question-time broadcast.

    Of course, the context was Tony Abbott rightly criticising the political expedience of JG continuing to support Peter Slipper as speaker, for the purposes of clinging to power, when under investigation for misappropriation of Cabcharge vouchers. Something that (arguably) the best speaker in my lifetime, One Harry Jenkins, was never involved in. JG’s treatment of Harry Jenkins was another appallingly ruthless decision by her. He was an honourable man.

    Of course, history shows that soon after this ‘famous’ speech which so eloquently obfuscated the core allegations raised by the member for Warringah, Peter Slipper had texts released to the public which were beyond repugnant in relation to women, their private anatomy and their place in society.

    Yep, she wouldn’t be lectured by that particular misogynist (TA) but was only too happy to support a known bastard of a man and well-known woman hater, if it was expedient to her. Confected outrage worked a treat for JG, she deserved an academy award for that performance.

  9. Of course, the context was Tony Abbott rightly criticising the political expedience of JG continuing to support Peter Slipper as speaker, for the purposes of clinging to power, when under investigation for misappropriation of Cabcharge vouchers.

    Actually, the context was Abbott trying to have Slipper removed for the content of his crude and sexist texts. Gillard rightly pointed out that Tony should be removing the plank from his own eye first given his own long history of crude, sexist remarks.

  10. [Yep, she wouldn’t be lectured by that particular misogynist (TA) but was only too happy to support a known bastard of a man and well-known woman hater, if it was expedient to her. Confected outrage worked a treat for JG, she deserved an academy award for that performance.]
    The speech resonated because it was genuine, yes I think it was scripted but that doesn’t make it any less genuine.
    And I’m not a Gillard fan, she made a hideous error in agreeing to become PM. Abbott deserved what he got and more.
    The thing about Slipper that is most important is that he was a liberal MP, who got preselection over and over again. Also seems trouble with expense claims in pretty common amongst the libs. Sweet dreams.

  11. a b @ #686 Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    The bases of both major parties are getting older and the younger generation aren’t filling the void. They will be the ones that determine future elections.

    Labor is certainly attracting many new young recruits. They are attracted by Labor’s long commitment to protecting the rights of workers and to Labor’s social and economic programs. Labor is re-creating its historical bond with working people.

  12. william bowe @ #726 Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    How come the preference skeptics on this blog never ask if the Greens flow to Labor is likely to remain at 83% now the Liberals are led by Turnbull rather than Abbott?

    I think 3/4 or 7/10 is likely to be closer to the mark. In places where Labor-G tensions have been high, the result could be even lower for Labor than this. The G’s have been sending a lot of signals for a long time that will undermine the flow of prefs to Labor:

    – Labor and the LNP “are just the same”…suggesting that there is no reason for G-voters to prefer one side to the other
    – The G’s have campaigned hard to win seats from Labor…suggesting that Labor and the G’s are competitors more than collaborators
    – The G’s do not necessarily pref Labor 2nd on their HTV’s (and sometimes not at all)…suggesting their pref recommendations in favour of Labor are half-hearted
    – Labor candidates are spectacularly defamed by the G’s in various ways…in effect condemning Labor and guiding G-voters away from Labor

    If G-voters start to pref “tactically” against Labor, the share of their prefs going to Labor may fall far enough to start to divide in favour of the LNP. At this point, the approach of Labor to the G’s would have to change considerably.

    There is certainly a resentment of Labor to be found among G-voters and vice versa. This is hardly surprising.

  13. Considering the agenda of the G’s is aimed at achieving the B-o-P and then using it prosecute various pro-G institutional changes, it is quite likely that at some point the G’s will try to guide their supporters to pref against Labor candidates in selected Labor/Liberal contests. If the G’s thought their own party interests would be best served by replacing Labor members with Liberal members, there’s no doubt they’d try to do it. We’re not at that point yet….but maybe we’re not far from it.

  14. Your points are moot.

    All it matters to me is that they preference Labor over the Libs. Many in their support base come from people who would never give first preference in the first place.

    What about the likes of the DLP who is Labor only by name, but instead preference Libs over Labor?

  15. c@tmomma @ #977 Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 10:19 pm

    This is priceless! Go the Guerilla Grannies of Wentworth and Warringah!
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/06/17/malcolms-makeover-group-hijacks-turnbull-campaign-posters-in-w/

    I really like what they’ve done here.

    I was closely watching Singapore’s last election campaign, and while they’re pretty strict with how election posters are portrayed, some have designed similar supplementary posters like that which completely twists the message of the incumbent ruling party. I have to go find some examples of this being humourously applied.

  16. bluepill

    It is completely unsurprising that so many here idolise Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech. It was all style, no substance, rehearsed and showed the blatant hypocrisy of the ALP

    Julia’s speech was not rehearsed. It was the outcome of months of seething anger against Rat Abbott.
    She said herself that she had a few notes on his behaviour, that’s all.
    If you had really paid attention as you say it is obvious that she wasn’t reading a prepared speech.
    No substance? You sir, have no judgement and are obviously an unreconstructed male.

    (I wrote a longer, much more angry response, but the bloody gerbils ate it.)

  17. gorilla @ #887 Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    I have a question too. I’m doing some letterboxing for Labor tomorrow. Do we think pamphlets in letterboxes still work?

    Whatever you do, make sure you’re putting the right flyer in the right addresses and be aware of where the electoral boundaries are.

    I received a flyer from a candidate from the neighbouring electoral division.

  18. CTar1

    I’m on a roll this morning. My frustration with Mr Harbourside Mansion and his devious crew is reaching new heights. Disappointment is far too weak a word.

    The Coalition was foreshadowing this “she’ll be right, no need to risk change” meta-message from early in the year, and it became very evident when opinion polls began showing the tax cuts for big business were actually pretty unpopular. The Coalition just shuffled the tax cut specifics down its list of talking points and turned up the broad-brush rhetoric.

    On the Liberal party’s website the opening spiel talks about how the world is “very uncertain” but, luckily, Turnbull can offer the “political stability” with a “strong economic plan for jobs and families”. No mention of tax cuts, or any other policy. Even when you click on the link offering more information about a “strong new economy” you only get told about “tax cuts and incentives for small businesses”. It’s not until you read well down a separate link about small business that you find out the tax cut will, over time, extend to all businesses.

    And if Turnbull is ever asked about the tax cuts now he emphasises how those benefits for big business are a long, long way away.

    The Coalition is briefing that it is intending to go “small target” for the remainder of the campaign because voters are “disengaged”, but surely that’s inverting reality. One reason voters are disengaged is precisely because the Coalition has been running its small target strategy so very successfully from the start. There’s only so many times a person can listen to that speech about jobs and growth.

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/17/debate-forces-leaders-off-script-but-small-targets-still-rule-the-campaign?CMP=share_btn_tw

  19. Whats this libs/greens crap some of you keep repeating? When you look at actual policies, its the liblabs who are virtually identical. Corporate whores that they are. Absolutely zero difference who is in to most aussies, but it WILL be the greens who keep this scum in check. Thank your lucky stars.

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