Galaxy: 50-50

Yet another poll recording nothing in it on two-party preferred, this time with the novelty factor of a follow-up question probing how the Coalition might have gone if Tony Abbott had been kept as leader.

The Sunday News Corp papers have a national federal poll from Galaxy, although their websites are being a little coy about the fact. The poll shows two-party preferred at 50-50, which is all I can tell you about voting intention at this stage, because I’m not seeing any primary votes, sample sizes or field work dates. (UPDATE: Primary votes here – Coalition 42%, Labor 35% and Greens 11%). The report does relate that a follow-up question found Labor would lead 53-47 if Tony Abbott was still Liberal leader; that 38% believe Labor’s claim that a Coalition government would privatise Medicare, compared with 45% who don’t; and that 30% believe Malcolm Turnbull’s claim that Labor’s negative gearing reforms would drive down house prices, compared with 40% who don’t. More to follow on that at a later time.

In other news, today’s Fairfax papers have a report canvassing party insiders’ views on the state of the horse race:

• A Nationals source is quoted saying the party is “pretty nervous” about Rob Oakeshott’s challenge to Luke Hartsuyker in Cowper, and “fearful of losing Page”, where Labor’s Janelle Saffin seeks to recover the seat she lost to Kevin Hogan in 2013. However, its polling is also said to show Barnaby Joyce leading Tony Windsor in New England.

• Labor is said to be confident about the outer Sydney seat of Macarthur, but less so about other Sydney marginals including Lindsay and Banks.

• In Central Queensland, Capricornia and Flynn are rated as “likely Labor gains”, while Nationals MP George Christensen is “precarious” in Dawson.

• In Victoria, Corangamite is said to be the only Liberal-held seat Labor is now targeting, suggesting it is not hopeful about the Melbourne seats of Dunkley, Deakin and La Trobe. The Labor-versus-Greens contest in Batman is rated as lineball, but Labor is thought unlikely to lose its vulnerable Melbourne seats of Chisholm and Bruce to the Liberals. Liberal candidate Chris Jermyn’s poor performance is thought likely to save Labor from the Country Fire Authority backlash in McEwen, but the controversy is giving the Liberals an “outside chance” in Bendigo.

Further:

• David Crowe of The Australian reports Jacqui Lambie is “performing so strongly in Tasmania that major party observers expect her to win and perhaps gain enough votes to elect her running mate, Devonport mayor Steve Martin”. The report also suggests the Nick Xenophon Team could potentially win seats in Victoria and Western Australia, and suggests Derryn Hinch, Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm are stronger prospects than Pauline Hanson and Glenn Lazarus, without writing either off (unlike Ricky Muir and John Madigan, who don’t rate a mention).

• Sarah Elks of The Australian reports on Labor efforts to shore up Terri Butler, its member for the inner southern Brisbane seat of Griffith, citing Liberal National Party insiders who say “the ALP has been panicked into throwing money at a seat it is no danger of losing”.

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.

998 comments on “Galaxy: 50-50”

Comments Page 17 of 20
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  1. Don
    The UK economy is the fifth biggest in the world.
    It represents around 4% of the world’s economies.
    The UK military has been a key element in the eventual collapse of the USSR – without having to fire a shot. It is still immensely powerful.
    The UK provides financial services that are crucial for the world’s connected economises. In particular these relate to things like capitalising the world’s mining industry and insurance and re-insurance provision.
    The UK economy is intimately intertwined with that of the EU.
    Mutti Merkel was, once again, spot on when talking about the UK leaving the EU.
    WTTE, we need to do this properly and without revenge.
    Part of the world context is that there is both humungous debt and stupendous amounts of capital that has nowhere to go.
    Capital flows and the flow of goods and services have been pretty well entirely deregulated. What no-one in any developed country knows how to do is to stop those unrestricted flows from forcing lesser incomes and conditions on working class and middle class people.
    The kneebones are all connected to the thighbones.
    30% of China’s exports are to the EU.
    It those exports suffer as a consequence of Brexit, then China’s chief supplier suffers as well.

  4. Dio
    I have walked it: one of the best holidays of my life.
    I suppose that one might assume that the current borders would hold.
    But there are no guarantees in life, as Brexit is about to demonstrate in spades.

  5. William, do you know whether we’ll be seeing a Newspoll tonight or no? Apologies if already answered.

  6. Hmmm… the Poles? There are around 700,000 Poles in Britain. They do a lot of the crap work for crap pay that the chip butty brigade of exiteers will not touch anymore.
    Are they really going to kick them all back to Poland?
    Some of them have made their lives in the UK.
    They have been there for decades.
    Goodness!

  11. bemused

    On Sky after the Truffle Waffle launch it was a bit of a Labor ad blitz. A couple of Liberal ads but very much out numbered.

  12. Victoria,

    “Lab MPs now suggesting Tom Watson could take over as interim leader with no election – he is on a train back from Glastonbury…

    The Tories will be dubbing him the new Lenin.

  13. Boerwar

    “One idea that might get legs is for Northern Ireland and Scotland to form a loose confederacy for the sole purpose of gaining EU membership.”

    Oh dear, that would give the SNP a very bad fright.

    They introduced the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 (mainly aimed at the Orange Order and Rangers Club and the IRA paising songs of Celtic supporters); to ban the singing of sectarian songs and booze at footbal matches. The Orange Order is largely an import from Northern Ireland but of course was a strong supporter of Unionism and they celebrated the No win by ugly actions in Glasgow in 2014.

    Pictures:
    http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/memories-of-last-referendumand-this-one.html
    .

  14. “You have detected Bluey’s Brexit Premium for the Coalition”
    Does that mean bonus points, or is Bluey on the turps, Boerwar?

  15. Imacca

    [How do they divide up the nukes??]

    No division: they are all Westminsters… they can park them in the Thames.

  17. Swamprat
    Ahem. A similar set of conjugal difficulties awaits should the Northern Irish decide to mate with the Republic.

  18. For those contemplating Boris Johnson as UK PM, here’s how David Cameron left him (or whoever replaces him) a poison pill:

    http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/people-are-desperately-hoping-this-theory-about-david-cameron-and-brexit-is-true–bJhqBql0VZ

    If Boris Johnson looked downbeat yesterday, that is because he realises that he has lost.

    Perhaps many Brexiters do not realise it yet, but they have actually lost, and it is all down to one man: David Cameron.

    With one fell swoop yesterday at 9:15 am, Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.

    How?

    Throughout the campaign, Cameron had repeatedly said that a vote for leave would lead to triggering Article 50 straight away. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the image was clear: he would be giving that notice under Article 50 the morning after a vote to leave. Whether that was scaremongering or not is a bit moot now but, in the midst of the sentimental nautical references of his speech yesterday, he quietly abandoned that position and handed the responsibility over to his successor.

    And as the day wore on, the enormity of that step started to sink in: the markets, Sterling, Scotland, the Irish border, the Gibraltar border, the frontier at Calais, the need to continue compliance with all EU regulations for a free market, re-issuing passports, Brits abroad, EU citizens in Britain, the mountain of legislation to be torn up and rewritten … the list grew and grew.

    The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound to commit itself in that same direction.

    The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50?

    Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?

    Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-manoeuvred and check-mated.

    If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over – Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession … broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.

    The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.

    When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was “never”. When Michael Gove went on and on about “informal negotiations” … why? why not the formal ones straight away? … he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.

    All that remains is for someone to have the guts to stand up and say that Brexit is unachievable in reality without an enormous amount of pain and destruction, that cannot be borne. And David Cameron has put the onus of making that statement on the heads of the people who led the Brexit campaign.

    An interesting hypothesis.

  19. Maybe Danby contacted Bibi to get his riding orders re preferences.

    Michael Danby certainly exhibits more loyalty to the Israeli Likud Party than to the Australian Labor Party.

  20. Chris Kenny on Viewpoint: “after a long campaign this election is now falling in to place nicely for the Government”. Reckon he’s seen Newspoll?

  23. Boerwar… …….to be sure, to be sure.
    NI Unionists are in a pretty pickle EU or UK.
    NI Nationalists have it easy: Ireland and EU.
    It is not Scotlands problem. 🙂

  24. Chris Kenny on Viewpoint: “after a long campaign this election is now falling in to place nicely for the Government”. Reckon he’s seen Newspoll?

    This is my suspicion. I hope it’s not the case.

  28. Dan Gulberry

    I have read a few pieces that suggest Boris didn’t expect Brexit to win but saw the referendum as a chance to further his ambition to replace Cameron.

    He and Gove and their hangers on are like the dog who caught the car. They don’t know what to do next. EU bosses seem to have called them out: piss off quick seems to be the message.

    In a way it reminds me of Abbott. He won the war and didn’t know how to deal with it.

    And look how that turned out.

  29. C
    The supreme irony of the boats ‘debate’ is that Australia has, at any one time, around 30,000 foreigners who are on the loose illegally.
    They flew in.
    Most are in exploited labour.
    When they have done their time, saved their bundle, they leave – or the Border Defenestration Force catches them and turfs them out.

  32. Swamprat
    The Rev Paisley’s son this morning was urging Northern Ireland people who are entitled to an Irish passport to get one.
    I am not sure what that was about.

  36. GrahameLucas: President of #EU parliament Martin Schulz calls on #UK to trigger Article 50 to exit #EU next Tuesday at #EUsummit. #EU rejects any delay

  37. profsarahj: The only one actually acting like a leader with a plan is Nicola Sturgeon. Given how weird the weak is, maybe she’ll be PM soon #Brexit

  39. BW

    It does explain why media is treating Northern Ireland unification referendum idea with real credibility. If the Protestants vote for reunification its a done deal.

  40. Whats happening now between the 2 old parties in the UK at this very moment are possibly vindicating peoples vote for independents here.

  41. it takes very little provocation for a Blue Ringed Octopus to panic and start poisoning everything it can reach

  42. confessions @ #802 Sunday, June 26, 2016 at 8:32 pm

    Fess, southern WA is thick with the bastards.

    Don, tell me about it! We’re a cultural monologue here!

    Fess, southern WA from about 200 km north of Perth to Albany is one of the most beautiful and valuable places in the world. I guess I don’t need to tell you that.

    But scratch a Brit in that region, and you get a complaint. They live in paradise, and that’s why they came, fair enough, good on them for showing some guts in upping stakes and going to a new country, but jeez, I wish they would appreciate what they have.

    A climate and botanical treasures and public transport facilities to die for, and they think they are back in Tottenham West, and need to whinge.

    The sun is shining, it does most of the time, for chrissake! The weather is superb, the humidity is low in summer, winter lasts about three weeks, the surf is great, the sea water is clean, the plants are exotic, there are grass trees everywhere, the road system is great, the train service is good, the surf is great, windsurfing is better than anywhere else in Oz, soak up the sunshine and enjoy a beer or three.

    Life is short, death is long, they should make their choice.

  44. fess

    This is highly likely politically incorrect, but if the Brexit vote and tanking pound value means we see less whingeing Poms migrating here

    Nope we’re going to see more of them after they realise they have just turned their country into West Albania.

    One of the main google searches after the result was “move to australia”, followed by “move to Ireland”.

  45. Boerwar
    Author JK Rowling, who has previously been subject to harsh criticism and online abuse for her pro-UK stance, suggested Scottish independence was now inevitable, stating that David Cameron’s legacy would be “be breaking up two unions” in a series of tweets sparking speculation about her position.

  46. cupidstunt

    With cultists emerging in the Labour stoush I suspect Murdoch involvement.

    Great opportunity for him to attack now to deflect some attention from the Tory infighting.

  47. Kenny is a nasty sort, he’d relish it if Newspoll was better for the Libs and definitely feel the need to skyte

  48. ‘paaptsef
    Sunday, June 26, 2016 at 9:02 pm
    it takes very little provocation for a Blue Ringed Octopus to panic and start poisoning everything it can reach’
    Damn right. But they never came anywhere near his rockpool.

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