Electorate polling round-up

Scattered reports of internal polling provide encouragement for Labor in New South Wales, but find them struggling in a number of other places.

There’s a bunch of electorate-level internal polling doing the rounds at the moment, something that always needs to be viewed with regard to the fact that those who commissioned might only be publicising the results that they like. Nonetheless, the display at the bottom of this post, which is updated with all the latest results, shows up no distinction in the average swing recorded across media and private polls over the course of the campaign period. As for published polling, Essential Research should, as usual, be with us later today. Roy Morgan has decided to dispense with its national polling and instead focus on electorate-level polling for the remainder of the campaign, the latest example of which isolates the ten strongest seats for the Greens. These results are based on samples of around 300 aggregated from all the outfit’s regular polling going back to January. That means a good deal of the survey period was from a time when the Coalition still had a substantial lead, and the “others” vote was lower than it has since become. Morgan has presumably, and probably correctly, concluded that it will generate more headlines this way than if it were merely one national poll among many.

• The Age reports that a poll conducted for the Greens suggests the party to be well in the hunt in the inner Melbourne seat of Batman, despite the blow dealt them when the Liberals announced its how-to-vote cards would preference Labor ahead of them. The poll has Greens candidate Alex Bhathal leading Labor member David Feeney by 41% to 28% on the primary vote, which pans out to 55-45 on respondent-allocated preferences, and would produce much the same result on 2013 election preferences. The automated phone poll was conducted by Lonergan Research from a large sample of 1600 respondents. However, The Age report also relates that “internal and larger-scale polling for the ALP” actually shows Labor leading on the primary vote. The report also says Labor’s poll shows the party to be “much more popular with voters under 24 than the Greens”, whose “strongest age bracket is 35-50 year olds” – a finding that frankly isn’t credible.

• The Advertiser reports that “high-profile Labor frontbencher Kate Ellis is facing a shock defeat to the Liberals in her inner-city seat of Adelaide”, although it’s based on a rather thin sample of 364. The poll was conducted for the ALP by ReachTEL, which I’ve never seen associated with a sample of this size before (UPDATE: And sure enough, ReachTEL denies it was their poll). According to the report, the poll credits Liberal candidate David Colovic with a 51-49 lead over Labor member Kate Ellis. The report speculates that Labor provided the paper with the polling “to rally support for Ms Ellis in the face of a statewide surge by the Nick Xenophon Team”.

• The Australian Education Union is circulating three ReachTEL polls conducted in marginal seats in New South Wales, one of which shows Labor with a commanding lead of 55-45 in the legendary bellwether electorate of Eden-Monaro. Primary votes are 41.2% for Liberal incumbent Peter Hendy, 38.6% for Labor challenger Mike Kelly, and 11.0% for the Greens. A fairly extraordinary flow of respondent-allocated preferences pushes Labor’s two-party total well past where it would be based on 2013 election preferences, in this case 52.6%. Sample: 719.

• In Lindsay, Liberal member Fiona Scott has a narrow lead of 51-49 over Labor candidate Emma Husar, the primary votes being Liberal 42.9%, Labor 36.6%, Christian Democratic Party 6.4% and Greens 5.3%. Based on previous election preferences, Scott’s lead is 51.6-48.4. Sample: 656.

• In Page, Labor challenger Janelle Saffin leads Nationals member Kevin Hogan 52-48 on both respondent-allocated and previous election preferences, from primary votes of Nationals 42.1%, Labor 38.4% and Greens 12.2%. Sample 788.

• The Daily Telegraph reports that a poll of the South Australian regional seat of Barker, conducted by ReachTEL for the CFMEU from a sample of 869, has Nick Xenophon Team candidate James Stacey leading Liberal incumbent Tony Pasin by 52-48.

• A ReachTEL poll for the eastern Melbourne electorate of Menzies, conducted for independent candidate Stephen Mayne, credits Liberal member Kevin Andrews with a two-party preferred vote of 61-39, which would be 63-37 on previous election preference flows. Andrews’ share of the two-party vote in 2013 was 64.4%. The poll was conducted June 13 from a sample of 719.

2016-06-21-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.

957 comments on “Electorate polling round-up”

Comments Page 14 of 20
1 … 13 14 15 … 20

  1. Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report discusses the Brexit polls:

    Almost inevitably people are going to look at these polls and assume that the murder of Jo Cox on Thursday has caused the move back towards remain.

    My own view is that Jo Cox’s death probably isn’t the cause of the reverse. YouGov also conducted a poll on Wednesday-Thursday for ITV, and that already showed Leave’s lead falling (and indeed, a third of the fieldwork for this poll was conducted before Jo Cox’s death was announced). Looking at the rest of the questions, there is also a marked shift in people’s views on how they think leaving the EU would impact their finances – 33% of people now think that they would be worse off outside the EU, compared to 23% a fortnight ago.

    The historic trend in referendums is for people to move towards the status quo. In Scotland a couple of years ago a couple of polls a fortnight out were neck-and-neck, but moved back to a clear NO lead by the final polls (and there was a further swing on the day itself). In the EU referendum polls have consistently shown that people think leave is the riskier choice and that people think it will damage the economy. While it was never inevitable, this has always suggested that late movement towards Remain was quite likely. If people are increasingly worried about Brexit’s impact on their own personal finances, then even more so.

    Of course, we will never know for sure. The reality is that we can see changes in headline voting intention in polls, but we can never be certain what causes them: all we can do is look at what events happened at the same time and at what changes there have been in other questions in the poll that might have driven a shift.

    http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9720

  4. SK:

    It makes you wonder whether Fischer would’ve supported the apology to the stolen generations had they still been in parliament at the time.

  5. Golly, now TPOF, Rod Hagan and Koser have done runners. It shouldn’t be too hard:
    Here is your Greens reality test: why do YOU, right now, think ‘The Australian’ spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about the likelihood of a Greens/Labor Government?

  9. To be clear: I don’t care if you vote Labor or Greens, let’s just focus on beating the future-eaters, okay?

    This election is the last chance to try to save the Great Barrier Reef. If you haven’t been following the science closely, you might not have noticed, but the climate is starting to stutter. At the same time, forecasts are getting grimmer as x-factors are resolved and processes are understood better. The last year has seen burning Canada, baking Arctic, mega-droughts and global underwater catastrophe. Parts of the UK washed away because they’ve never experienced downpours before.

    To prevent things from becoming much much worse, as opposed to simply quite a bit uglier, we need to elect a government that has some ability to come to terms with this reality. Grand Mal has proved himself incapable of doing that.

    Let’s get rid of them.

  10. boerwar @ #504 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 6:27 pm

    Why would people in other states vote for Mr X. He has made it patently obvious that he intends to blackmail more money for SA.
    In fact it is in everyone’s interest beyond SA to vote against him.
    He has already dominated a thorough bastardisation of the $50 billion sub project.
    And that is just for starters.

    Because this is a society, not a business.

    SA needs all the help it can get from the rest of Australia, as does Tasmania.

    It does the rest of Australia no good at all to have a state which is on its knees financially. We are brothers and sisters, we should act like it.

    I support my tax dollars going to the poor, the down and outs, the single mothers, the sick, the frail, the elderly, the ones with mental health problems, and all the rest.

    That is what being a member of a society is. You help those who need it. You even help those who are a pain in the arse and who milk the system. There are vanishingly few of those, and they are to be pitied more than excoriated.

    Helping those less fortunate than yourself is part of being human. If SA needs our help by directing the subs contract to SA, that is just fine by me. It is a lovely part of the world, and the people are fantastic. They are our brothers and sisters, we should stand by them when they need it.

    We are not a business, we are a society. I refuse to accept your underlying concept that it is every person for themselves. Bugger off, that is not what Australia is about. We help our mates. If you don’t do that, shame on you.

  13. confessions

    And praise be to the state pollies of all stripes who have over the decades successfully fought to keep the pokie plague outside of the state

  14. Boerwar: “Golly, now TPOF, Rod Hagan and Koser have done runners. It shouldn’t be too hard:
    Here is your Greens reality test: why do YOU, right now, think ‘The Australian’ spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about the likelihood of a Greens/Labor Government?”
    Can I have a go?

    Because they know that their base (who they are worried will desert them for a strongly performing Shorten-led Labor) have been subjected to constant Pavlovian conditioning of regarding the Greens as dangerous nutters (hence the drumbeat use of never saying “Greens” but rather always “extreme Greens” in the RWNJ press), and will be turned off wavering towards Labor if they pull out their pre-prepared bogeyman.

    Got a better theory?

  15. Don
    I endorse the idea of wealthy states supporting less wealthy states.
    I just don’t think that blackmail by a single person (as in Harradine – who succeeded, for example, in ensuring that Australian foreign aid did not support birth control) or a couple of people as in the Greens or Mr X doing what is effectively blackmailing, is the best way of going about it.
    This is, incidentally, how we got our White Elephant Light Rail in the ACT: Greensmail from Rattenbury.
    With a bit of luck it will cost ACT Labor government.

  16. Every Election That I have been following since 1961 when I was 13 the Libs aided and abetted by the MSM have used scare tactics.
    Reds under the bed; Yellow Peril; the domino theory;Great big debt; great big tax etc.
    I remember my parents saying the tried to use nationalizing banks before that.
    For the LNP and their media mates to scream scare campaign is pathetic, as are they.

  17. OlivierK
    Easy. The Australian does it because it favours the Liberals.
    Second question.Why do the Greens constantly (as did Rod Hagen and TPOF in this string, and as has Di Natale) talk about the inevitability of Labor going to the Greens in the case of a hung parliament.
    I rest my case.

  18. boerwar @ #613 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 7:56 pm

    Well, Rod Hagen and TPOF have both done runners from this one. Gun shy, I reckon. Maybe Meher Baba would like to explain it.
    Here is your Greens reality test: why do YOU, right now, think ‘The Australian’ spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about the likelihood of a Greens/Labor Government?

    My family was demanding I cook dinner and I had to oblige. And to answer your question (which I think was misdirected to me) it is clear that the suggestion of a Labor agreement with Greens (fairly or unfairly) stinks with the vast majority of non-committed centrist voters who have no sympathy for the Greens. Therefore it is tasty meat for a Coalition scare campaign and, consequently, it is poison for Labor to even contemplate it in the privacy of a toilet cubicle.

  19. Some say J Bishop not looking at ease with herself.

    Surely the prospect of having to knife another leader eventually weighs on your mind

  20. OK BW, here you go:

    why do YOU, right now, think ‘The Australian’ spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about the likelihood of a Greens/Labor Government?
    Because that suits Rupert Murdoch.

    And why do You, right now, think the Greens continue to talk it up?
    Because journalists, including those employed by Murdoch, ask them questions like: would you rather work with the Coalition or with Labor. No option C. Like my phone poll this evening: Katter or the LNP stooge?

    A red/green alliance is a lot more natural than a green/blue one, even if my favourite colour is purple.

    Now that I’ve answered your questions, do any of you want to have a go at any of the points I raised? I might check back in a few hours.

  21. Still waiting for Rod Hagen, TPOL, Meher Baba and RKoser to surface in order to explain why the Greens deliberately engage in behaviour that gives oxygen to the Liberal Party.

  22. Confessions – I’m surprised you would say you didn’t give a preference to NXT. That means you would equally prefer to see Lib, CDP or NXT get a last Senate spot in WA.
    NXT declared “core focus” is: Predatory Gambling, Australian Made & Australian Jobs; Government & Corporate Accountability. Surely preferable to other right wing groups?

  24. boerwar @ #665 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 8:35 pm

    Don
    I endorse the idea of wealthy states supporting less wealthy states.
    I just don’t think that blackmail by a single person (as in Harradine – who succeeded, for example, in ensuring that Australian foreign aid did not support birth control) or a couple of people as in the Greens or Mr X doing what is effectively blackmailing, is the best way of going about it.
    This is, incidentally, how we got our White Elephant Light Rail in the ACT: Greensmail from Rattenbury.
    With a bit of luck it will cost ACT Labor government.

    A pathetic response. You are better than that, act like it.

  25. Boerwar:
    But what the Greens say is true: Labour *would* come to them for support.

    Left parties co-operating isn’t the problem. The right-wing media’s manipulation of their audience’s perception of the Greens by constant misrepresentation and smear is the problem. There is literally nothing the Greens can do to prevent that.

  26. Poroti:

    Yes we are very fortunate in WA that our govt doesn’t rely on pokies revenue, but the end of the mining boom does raise a question as to whether current and future govts might be tempted as a revenue raiser.

  29. RKoser
    Sorry, you are playing dodgem cars.
    The reason The Australian talks it up is because it favours the Liberal Party.
    Not all instances of the Greens raising it are in direct response to the MSM asking them the questions. Di Natale did it deliberately and unprovoked I think on Q&A?
    Indeed, Rod Hagen and TPOF, unprovoked, initiated the issue here today.
    So, the Greens do it deliberately.
    They know that it helps the Liberals.
    They could say something like, well, we’ll see when Australian voters have decided.
    But the Greens do not do this. They feed ‘The Australian’.
    These very same Greens will come round after the election, smiling with their false smiles, looking for some assuagement of their relevance deprivation syndrome.
    Once again they will want to play the game where they screw Labor coming and going.
    Di Natale has been quite helpful actually. Whatever else you could say about Milne and Brown, they were passionate about the environment. Power was a means to an end. Di Natale is just passionate about power.
    As for Shorten: once bitten, twice shy.

  32. Cathy McGowan has people standing out in the cold and rain handing out cards with “Vote 1 McGowan” on them.

    Surely people can figure out how to do that for themselves.

  33. Don
    What?
    You are OK about Harradine using his BOP to use political blackmail to pervert foreign aid to third world countries according to his Roman Catholic beliefs?
    Just like the Greens scuppered a decade ago the beginnings of a carbon trading system that Australia still does not have as a direct result of their 100% purity?

  34. Rossmcg:

    Personally my view is JBishop has dialed back on the exercise and is therefore looking healthier for it. Yes she may have checked out of this campaign for whatever reason, but has her presence really been missed? She never added substantive value to political debate the previous campaigns she’s been more prominent in, hence I can imagine the Libs declaring she’s out for this one.

  36. So, the Greens have acknowledged they are helping the Liberal Party.
    What they have been unable to do is to explain why.

  37. Phone rang a while back. “Hello, this is Julie Bishop ………”.

    Despite knowing that it was a recording, my response was immediate and spontaneous. “Fuck off” and then an immediate hang-up. I felt good even though talking to a machine. Catharsis is wonderful.

  38. confessions

    Had not thought of that. It is a worry. The Emperor has well and truly stuffed the state financially. Nobody cared of course that he was adding each and every year the total state debt he inherited during the mining boom. With the music stopping the bill will be very high.

  39. Ms Bishop’s extremely powerful position in the Liberal Party has been based on the large number of Liberal seats come from the West. Maybe she is just not enjoying the seat by seat polling in WA. She is going to lose some buddies.

  40. Boerwar:
    When I said:
    “Left parties co-operating isn’t the problem. The right-wing media’s manipulation of their audience’s perception of the Greens by constant misrepresentation and smear is the problem. There is literally nothing the Greens can do to prevent that.”
    I was actually wrong: there IS something the Greens could do to talk down the impression that they’d end up working together with Labor. They could give the impression of being open to working with the Liberals. But you’d go ballistic about that too, as proof off your conspiracy theory.

    You’ve created an unfalsifiable hypothesis, and when people realise this and give up talking to you about it because they know you’re arguing both sides of the fence (Greens say they’ll work with Labor – GreensBad; Greens say they’ll work with Libs – GreensDoublePlusBad), then you accuse them of running away.

    They’re not running away, they’re backing away slowly.

    As am I, having received a far more attractive offer…

  41. zoomster @ #682 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 8:45 pm

    Cathy McGowan has people standing out in the cold and rain handing out cards with “Vote 1 McGowan” on them.
    Surely people can figure out how to do that for themselves.

    I feel sorry looking at the volunteers giving out HTV cards just opposite my workplace in the past week of Melbourne’s winter rain.

  42. I havent seen it, but Turnbull has done a last minute advert about medicare, and it has been on tv several times already tonight. Panicked indeed

  43. OK
    ‘I was actually wrong: there IS something the Greens could do to talk down the impression that they’d end up working together with Labor. They could give the impression of being open to working with the Liberals. But you’d go ballistic about that too, as proof off your conspiracy theory.’
    I openly recommended that the Greens form a coalition with the Liberals.
    That way everyone would know that the Greens and the Liberals are on the same side.

  44. Lee Wool,

    You have an unhealthy obsession with turds.
    Are you a fecalist?
    If the level of shit that comes out of your mouth is any guide I would say yes you are.

  46. [Liberals break the system. Labor throws money at the broken system. Greens will revolutionise and fix the system.]
    If only they would tell how us and convince more than 1/10. From memory when the browse project noted that it wasn’t going ahead there wasn’t a single green who could explain where 50 billion was going to come from to create the same investment in renewables.
    I personally don’t consider shutting down the economy a ‘fix’.

  47. You rabid labor partisans and your ‘with us or against us’ mentality reminds me of a certain ex American president…

  48. BW @ 8.43

    Indeed, Rod Hagen and TPOF, unprovoked, initiated the issue here today.

    Have you been on the turps for the last couple of hours? If you read my posts I am in the camp that says that Labor has no interest, full stop, in doing any sort of deal with the Greens.

    So why you lump me in with those who believe that Labor will do anything to get a simulation of power for five minutes leaves me befuddled and bemused.

  49. TPOF – [My family was demanding I cook dinner]
    Hee hee. I had the same thing this evening when the 4yo said “Daaaaad! I am hungry. Cook me something!” Nice.
    In the middle of cooking dinner she then demands I help her put on her ballet clothes (the whole kit, whateva they are called). I explained my dilemma of having 2 pots and oven on the go and she says “but I would be so happy and impressed”.
    Bless her.

  50. psyclaw @ #687 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 8:47 pm

    Phone rang a while back. “Hello, this is Julie Bishop ………”.
    Despite knowing that it was a recording, my response was immediate and spontaneous. “Fuck off” and then an immediate hang-up. I felt good even though talking to a machine. Catharsis is wonderful.

    I have to admit that I subject Siri to all sorts of appalling abuse.

Comments Page 14 of 20
1 … 13 14 15 … 20

Leave a Reply

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