ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor

A GetUp! commissioned poll records the government sinking, One Nation nudging into double figures, and widespread hostility to the government’s shakedown of welfare recipients.

The Fairfax papers report that a ReachTEL poll commissioned by GetUp! has Labor leading 54-46 (I wouldn’t normally give a non-media poll its own post, but you take what you can get at this time of year). When responses for a separate follow-up question prompting the 7.8% undecided are integrated into the result, the primary votes are Liberal 33.8% and Nationals 3.2% (a combined 37.1%, compared with 42.0% at the election), Labor 35.0% (up 0.3% on the election), Greens 9.8% (down 0.4%) and One Nation 10.6%.

The poll also finds 46.2% supporting and 31.8% opposing the government “stopping the automated debt collection system”, though I wonder if the wordiness of the preceding explanation* and the negatively framed question might have caused confusion, resulting in opposition being understated. Certainly that might help to explain the finding that more respondents (49.8%) said the system had made them less likely to vote for the Coalition than said they wanted it stopped. Of the remainder, 14.4% said it had made them more likely to vote for the Coalition, while 35.8% said it would make no difference.

A GetUp!-styled money shot question found 82.2% responding that “cracking down on corporate tax dodging” should be a “higher priority for the Turnbull government”, compared with 17.8% who favoured recovering debts from Centrelink overpayments, with even Liberal voters dividing two to one in favour of the former option. A further question had 78.6% responding that the burden of proof in establishing wrongful overpayment should fall on Centrelink, compared with 21.4% for the recipient – though here too the question is a bit wordy for my tastes**.

The automated phone poll was conducted on Thursday from a sample of 2126.

* “The Turnbull Government recently started using an automated system issuing tens of thousands of letters to Australians about alleged debts from Centrelink overpayments. The Government admits that at least 20% of these letters are incorrect, but the burden is on Centrelink clients to correct the information or pay the debt. Do you support or oppose the Government stopping the automated debt collection system?”

** “The Turnbull Government has acknowledged significant errors in the Centrelink automated debt collection system. Where there are potential errors, do you think the burden should be on Centrelink to verify their claims against information they already have on file or on the individual to defend themselves, which may include accessing pay slips and employment records from up to five years ago?”

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.

2,415 comments on “ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. It would seem that this ‘incident’ in the Melbourne CBD was perpetrated by someone with personal / family / mental health issues.

  2. Fess:

    I think you are intentionally trying to lose brain cells by trying to understanding some of those people. That or you are big into self punishment.

  3. Poroti:

    Esp for an Australian news outlet. The NY Times referred to it as “an incident”, but with most of its readers based on the other side of the world, that’s to be expected.

    Mikeh:

    He was reportedly elected by many voters confusing his party with the Liberal Party.

  4. Simon Katich

    A female friend used to quote his poetry to me.

    My lack of ‘culture’ was once again rammed home to me because I had to look him up as I had not heard of him and then discovered ……………………..

    Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran

  5. It’s Time – I’ve never watched any Presidential inauguration – American ‘rah rah’ pomp ‘aren’t we great’ never sits well with me at the best of times, and this certainly is not the best of times…

  9. No idea, can’t understand how he was elected in the first place.

    David Leyonheljm has a 3 year term, expiring 30/6/2019. He was elected in 2013 because many voters who actually intended to vote Liberal inadvertently voted for the Liberal Democrat Party. He also had a bit of good luck in the draw for the Senate voting paper in 2013, his party getting the top spot. So, confused Liberals, true believers and donkeys put Leyonhejlm there in the first place. In 2016 he was able to retain enough of a following to get re-elected for a short term.

  13. My sympathy goes to the families of those killed in the Bourke St attack. I just found out by reading about it here on PB.

    Ialso read that maggot Leyenhelme’s tweet. Now I know where to park that dildo.

  14. David Leyonheljm has a 3 year term

    Thank goodness. Hopefully he’ll be gone in 2019, having lucked out with the DD election managing to get re-elected.

  15. I’ll probably watch part of the inauguration. Mostly because I’ll probably wake up at 4am anyway but a little bit because I want to see if there are big protests and if they stop Trump from doing the customary walk up the mall to the White House. The only president who canned the walk was Bush in 2000

  19. Malcolm Turnbull, in his New Year’s Address told us to fear the terrorists in our midst. What he should have said was to be fear the Ice Epidemic in our midst. It’s killed more than Terrorism and screwed up the minds of more of our young people than Terrorism ever will.

  20. Did anyone catch a background article in the Daily TerrorGraph today talking about Gladys? My mum mentioned that she had read it briefly at a coffee shop and it mentioned that Gladys wanted a metro that would go express rather than duplicating an existing line. Its frustrating for me not having read the article if its talking about the currently under construction Sydney Metro or if its talking about the proposed Metro West (CBD to Parramatta)

  21. Did Assange make good on his extradition promise now that Obama commuted the sentence of Manning? Or was that yet more empty rhetoric from a man who is forever more looking like the wannabe player he so clearly strove to be?

  22. Confessions

    Assange has an ‘out’ as Obama’s release date is after the Trump ascendancy to the throne. Can and will Trump rescind it ? It is a commutation rather than a pardon so ?

  25. I heard discussion on radio today as to whether Ms Berejillian, evidently not having children nor being married, will be in line for similar taunts along those lines by Abbott and other RWNJs (both media and pollies) as were directed to FPMJG.

    Alan Jones is already pushing the anti Berejiklian barrow, so I won’t put it past that el scummo.

  26. fess

    ‘“Mr. Assange welcomes the announcement that Ms. Manning’s sentence will be reduced and she will be released in May, but this is well short of what he sought,” Barry Pollack, Assange’s US-based attorney, told the site. “Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/julian-assange-chelsea-manning-barack-obama-hand-in-embassy-arrest-extradition-us-a7533911.html

  27. Assange has an ‘out’

    Hmm I expected he would find one.

    So St Julian will remain sequestered, martyr-like behind Ecuadorean embassy doors, clinging to this belief that the US is out to get him. Why am I not surprised the man isn’t a man of his word.

  29. …and, of course, the second Assange steps out of the Ecuadorian embassy, the British court system is waiting to arrest him for skipping bail – a totally separate matter from extradition.

  30. I find it passing strange that Alan Jones, Single Male *cough*, can criticise Gladys Berejiklian, Single Female *cough*. If that’s what he is criticising her for. Being Single.

  31. Confessions
    On the other hand if conspiracy stories are true then Trump would look favourably on Assange and the work he did during the POTUS election and so mean Julian is pretty safe.

  32. Poroti:

    Trump would look favourably on Assange and the work he did during the POTUS election and so mean Julian is pretty safe.

    Yes, on all metrics Assange , he should be safe to ‘go home’ to the US. He isn’t however, which says more about his own drama llama meter than anything else.

  33. From some one who lives in Victoria, Gladys biggest impediment to political longevity is likely to be the prononciation of her name.
    But, then again, Joh di d al right!

  34. Washington Post ‏@washingtonpost 4h4 hours ago

    Opinion: “Donald Trump has assembled the worst Cabinet in American history”
    The Australian ‏@australian 8m8 minutes ago

    Kim Jong Un set to mark Donald Trump’s inauguration with a bang

    American media couldn’t see this prior the election…. Fools to them!

  36. Craig Wallace ‏@CraigWtweets 2m2 minutes ago

    Here is new @POTUS @realDonaldTrump mocking people with disability – what a disgusting person #TrumpInauguration

    You Fools America….

  37. Did anyone else see a surprisingly persistent female ABC reporter interviewing the demented Queensland fishwife in Perth today?

    The harridan herself raise the issue of the Melbourne tragedy after being harassed by questions regarding some of her moronic WA candidates. She demanded that she be questioned about the Moslems. In the same breath she categorised the sad incident as an act of terrorism and then commenced a diatribe against those of the Islamic faith, whom she emphatically declared had perpetrated the crime and, apparently, should not be allowed into the country. When told it had nothing to do with terrorism, she asserted she had been informed otherwise by her Intelligence unit, and would not be swayed.

    I wonder how she now feels about the Greek Orthodox religion?

  39. Yes, Imacca, obviously the same interview, but the video shown on the ABC showed the whole exchange ,which was closer to what I described above, without the Mandurah Mail’s genteel editing.
    What an abhorrent bogan that woman is.

  41. To Hansonites he was just another one of those swarthy arab types that perpetrate these kind of things. Not a WASP so must die. She picked up votes today.
    Not that this is in any way a good thing.

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