YouGov-Fifty Acres: 51-49 to Labor

The debut entry from a new federal poll series finds low primary support for the major parties and an unusually tight race on two-party preferred – although it would be a different story if preferences flowed as they did at last year’s election.

As reported here in early May, British-based market research giant YouGov has entered the Australian federal polling game, in conjunction with Australian communications agency Fifty Acres. After reporting attitudinal polling on a fortnightly basis over recent months, the pollster has produced its first set of voting intention numbers, which are exclusively related below.

First though, a few points about methodology. The poll is conducted through an online panel, similar to Essential Research, and indeed an increasingly dominant share of public opinion polls internationally. The polling is conducted fortnightly from Thursday to Tuesday from a sample of a bit over 1000 respondents (1125 in the case of the latest survey), drawn from its pool of survey volunteers.

With respect to voting intention, respondents are presented with a mock ballot paper featuring (together with party logos) Coalition options that vary by state, Labor, the Greens, One Nation, Nick Xenophon Team, Katter’s Australian Party, a generic option for “Christian parties”, and “other/independent”. The results are weighted not just by age, gender and region, which is standard in Australian polling, but also by education and past vote. The latter two are common in Britain but, as far as I’m aware, unique in Australia. Needless to say, this leads to two-party preferred results based on respondent allocation, rather than results from previous elections.

The results for this week’s poll are distinctive in the narrowness of the two-party preferred, with Labor’s lead at 51-49, and low primary votes for both major parties, which come in at 34% for Labor and 33% for the Coalition. Results for the minor parties are Greens 12%, One Nation 7%, Christian parties 4%, Nick Xenophon Team 3%, Katter’s Australian Party 1% and other/independent 6%.

The first thing to be noted is that Labor would record a much stronger lead of 54-46 if preferences were distributed as per the 2016 result, rather than respondent allocation. However, such is the size of the non-major party vote that this would be heavily dependent on preference flows remaining stable despite some fairly dramatic changes in vote share. The second point is that the Greens are two to three points higher than the recent form of Newspoll and Essential Research, although not Ipsos. One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team respectively come in at 7% and 3%, which would be fairly typical coming from Essential Research, but the combined vote of 11% for everyone else is around double the equivalent figure from Newspoll and Essential Research over the past two months.

For the regular attitudinal questions, this fortnight’s poll focuses on Donald Trump, with findings that 58% consider him “erratic” and a third “unhinged” (not sure if the one response here precludes the other, or if we should combine them to conclude that nearly everybody considers him unstable or worse); that 47% think his presidency threatens to destabilise the world; that 44% feel he won’t last long; and that 52% think his use of Twitter not suitable for a world leader. The poll also records 52% saying Australia is “ready to be fully powered by renewables”, 47% considering climate change a threat to the economy, and 51% supporting the inclusion of clean coal in a clean energy target.

NOTE: Separate to this one, I have a new post that takes a detailed look at the census results.

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.

688 comments on “YouGov-Fifty Acres: 51-49 to Labor”

Comments Page 7 of 14
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  1. It’s pretty obvious the LNP Right is a bigger threat to Turnbull than ShortenInc.

    Actually, they were reasonably well behaved up until the election, so I think you are overestimating Turnbull and discounting Shorten a bit too much there. But yes, they appear to be out in full force now : )

  2. Moksha
    Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 5:49 pm
    Malcolm Turnbull is 80 days behind Tony Abbott for time served as PM… I reckon Tony is really keen to get him out before he takes the lead… Gone by mid September?

    You might have something there : )

  3. Yabba
    “How many individuals with similar evidence would it take to convince you?”
    It depends on how similar, plausible and detailed their stories are, and if there are specifics that act as a smoking gun. And if there is any independent corroboration.
    I’d say four or five as a guess. I don’t know anything about the evidence Pell is facing.

  4. ‘I’m definitely not a Pell fan but I’d be very sceptical of convicting anyone based solely of eyewitness testimony of something that happened 45 years ago when they were children.’

    Maybe that’s because you haven’t seen or heard the evidence.

    The sheer number of similar testimonials of alleged abuse would lend credence to their veracity.

  5. shellbell @ #296 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 5:43 pm

    Most of this is insolvency mumbo jumbo but we should ban very personal services (eg legal, aged care) from being corporatized
    https://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/biglaw/21386-grech-exits-as-lenders-take-control-of-slater-and-gordon?utm_source=lawyersweekly&utm_campaign=newsflash29_06_2017&utm_medium=email

    How is being corporatised any worse than the rapacious partnership arrangements? Or sole practitioners for that matter?
    They all seem to be highly dependent on generating protracted litigation and appear to do so.

  6. grimace @ #112 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 10:34 am

    George Pell.
    Bolt & his sewer mates will be apocalyptic.
    We’ll be “treated” to millions of words on this in the coming months.

    I’ve just arrived home to the wonderful news of George being asked to face the music.

    As you predicted the Catholics in the Rabid Right of the media are foaming at the mouth with the Devine Miranda and Mr Bolt already sprouting their bile.

  7. barney in go dau @ #306 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    grimace @ #112 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 10:34 am

    George Pell.
    Bolt & his sewer mates will be apocalyptic.
    We’ll be “treated” to millions of words on this in the coming months.

    I’ve just arrived home to the wonderful news of George being asked to face the music.
    As you predicted the Catholics in the Rabid Right of the media are foaming at the mouth with the Devine Miranda and Mr Bolt already sprouting their bile.

    My Catholic wife is delighted with the news. Many other Catholics will be too.
    It is just a shame Anthony Foster did not live to see this.

  8. In a short statement to Fairfax Media on Thursday after the charges were announced, Mr Abbott offered support for his friend.

    “Obviously, the legal process must now take its course,” the former prime minister said.

    The support from Mr Abbott, albeit carefully worded, is not surprising as the pair have been close for years.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-praises-fine-man-cardinal-george-pell-20170629-gx17uk.html

  9. It is not possible to serve continuously, from the one pool of money, the interests of shareholders on the one hand and highly dependant clients on the other

  10. shellbell @ #309 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 6:14 pm

    It is not possible to serve continuously, from the one pool of money, the interests of shareholders on the one hand and highly dependant clients on the other

    Pardon me, but I thought clients provided the money.
    Shareholders may or may not get a dividend dependent on whether operations are profitable in any year.

  11. Funny how the journos reporting on accused sexual predator Pell, suddenly discover the presumption of innocence, a legal concept largely forgotten for most accused persons these days.

  12. A fresh round of Coalition infighting has broken out, with Defence Minister Marise Payne sharply rebuking Tony Abbott for suggesting Australia should consider buying nuclear-powered submarines.

    And Labor has played down Mr Abbott’s suggestion the opposition could offer bipartisan support for a nuclear submarines program, arguing such a move was unrealistic.

    …
    The usually media-shy Senator Payne is a leading Liberal moderate and her decision to fire back at the former prime minister underscores the tensions between the moderate and conservative wing of the government, which re-ignited this week over same-sex marriage.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/marise-payne-rebukes-tony-abbott-as-former-pm-goes-nuclear-on-submarines-20170629-gx1bvn.html

  13. c@tmomma @ #279 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 4:47 pm

    I’m amazed Pell evaded being caught in the CSA Royal Commission dragnet but was eventually brought low by the Victoria Police!

    I’m not sure that’s the case.

    The evidence that lead to the Vic investigation probably came from submissions to the RC.

    Plus the RC has not handed down its final report.

  15. The evidence against Cardinal Pell could be a combination of:

    (a) direct evidence – what people observed;
    (b) some circumstantial evidence – Cardinal Pell was ministering in the area at the time, used to participate in activities etc.

    A third type of evidence, propensity evidence, ie people asserting conduct of a similar nature (which is or is not the subject of any charge) is now more readily available because of the High Court decision in Hughes (two weeks ago) which found its use in Victoria had been too restricted.

  17. A little weird?

    Dee Madigan‏Verified account @deemadigan · 36m36 minutes ago

    There is no mention of the Liberal party on Tony Abbott’s website. No logo, nothing. Weird huh?

  18. Potentially the best hardball way to put the kybosh on Mr Abbott would be for the Australian Government to make a formal request to the UK Government for advice as to when Mr Abbott renounced his UK citizenship. Depending on the date, it may be that Mr Abbott has made false statements in past election nomination forms, a criminal offence conviction and sentencing for which would see him disqualified from the Parliament under s.44 of the Constitution.

  20. A church report contains allegations about George Pell abusing an altar boy in 1961-62

    Australia’s Catholic Church hierarchy received a complaint in 2002 that a trainee priest (George Pell) had sexually abused a twelve-year-old altar boy (named Phil) in 1961-62 at a holiday camp for boys on Phillip Island, south-east of Melbourne. According to a church document, Phil has alleged that, on several occasions, the trainee priest George (then about 20) thrust his hand down the inside of Phil’s pants and got “a good handful” of the boy’s penis and testicles; and, on other occasions, George allegedly tried to guide the boy’s hand into the front of George Pell’s pants. By the year 2000, when Phil was aged 50, he realised (from television news footage) that the trainee priest George had risen to become an Archbishop. Phil was shocked — “he did not think it right that someone who had behaved indecently towards children should lead the church,” the church document says. So, beginning in 2000, Phil tried to alert the church authorities. Phil emphasised that he was not seeking compensation. And he was not reporting this matter to the police (therefore there is no police investigation into Phil’s complaint). Rather, Phil was concerned about the safety of children in the church’s care; and he merely wanted the church authorities to be aware of the offences that were allegedly committed upon him (Phil) at the altar boys’ camp. In 2002, the hierarchy paid a senior barrister, Mr Alex Southwell QC, to examine (and report on) Phil’s complaint. Archbishop George Pell (who was indeed at the altar boys’ camp) denied committing any abuse. Mr Southwell’s report concluded that the former altar boy “appeared to speak honestly from an actual recollection”. Mr Southwell said he was not persuaded that the former altar boy was a liar as alleged by Pell.

    http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/

  21. pedant @ #318 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 6:31 pm

    Potentially the best hardball way to put the kybosh on Mr Abbott would be for the Australian Government to make a formal request to the UK Government for advice as to when Mr Abbott renounced his UK citizenship. Depending on the date, it may be that Mr Abbott has made false statements in past election nomination forms, a criminal offence conviction and sentencing for which would see him disqualified from the Parliament under s.44 of the Constitution.

    He might be asked to pay back all his earnings as happened with that nutty ON Senator from WA.

  22. Mr Abbott’s sudden enthusiasm for nuclear submarines is clearly driven not by an analysis of their strategic value, but because he wants to start a fight with the left. He doesn’t seem to realise that politics as a never-ending sequence of fights appeals to about 10% of the population (at the extreme edges of political discourse), and turns everyone else off big time. It’s basically attention-seeking behaviour, the equivalent of toddlers mucking up in a supermarket. The psychologists say the best thing to do is ignore them.

  25. Lizzie

    Tony Abbott’s website doesnt mention the Liberal Party, even in his biography… which in part says “Tony Abbott was elected Prime Minister by the Australian people on 7 September 2013 and served for two years.”

    Nah tones, it was 1 year, 362 days.

    So funny that he doesn’t know how Australian democracy works… its the parliament that chooses the PM.

  26. Lizzie
    Did you work out your ABC streaming problem? I get the same thing on Firefox and Chrome, because I have deleted Adobe Flash, which is apparently a security risk.

    For some reason it still works on Safari for me.

    See if your Flash needs updating, if you still use it.

  28. One obvious danger in Abbott becoming the GG is that he will represent the Crown, and many of the Colonel Blimps still believe they serve the Crown, and not the Australian people. Abbott would interfere in military matters, BoysOwn style, and some of the uniformed may support him.

  29. For example, when he was PM Abbott wanted to send a battalion into Ukraine to ‘secure the site’ of the downed Malaysian airliner. He had to be talkd out of it by wiser heads like Angus Houston.

    This is akin to sending the gunboats up the Irawwady to ‘sort the darkies out’, which the BoysOwn heroes of Abbott’s youth would have done, with the soverign’s standard flying proudly.

  30. moksha @ #326 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:00 pm

    Lizzie
    Did you work out your ABC streaming problem? I get the same thing on Firefox and Chrome, because I have deleted Adobe Flash, which is apparently a security risk.
    For some reason it still works on Safari for me.
    See if your Flash needs updating, if you still use it.

    Flash is an abomination. There are add-ins for Chrome and I think Firefox which will run things like ABC iView and YouTube.
    Nothing Apple uses Flash, they use HTML5.

  31. Moksha. Some browsers let you turn on flash but otherwise make it disabled. I got that on an ABC site recently but have forgotten what browser/machine I was on. There was a message somewhere about the address bar to allow it.

  32. sprocket_ @ #328 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:03 pm

    One obvious danger in Abbott becoming the GG is that he will represent the Crown, and many of the Colonel Blimps still believe they serve the Crown, and not the Australian people. Abbott would interfere in military matters, BoysOwn style, and some of the uniformed may support him.

    One of the reasons I left the RAAF.
    I had joined thinking it was to serve the Australian Nation and People.
    A Liberal Minister informed us that we were merely ‘instruments of the Governments will’. Not quite what I and many others had in mind.

  33. sprocket_ @ #329 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:07 pm

    For example, when he was PM Abbott wanted to send a battalion into Ukraine to ‘secure the site’ of the downed Malaysian airliner. He had to be talkd out of it by wiser heads like Angus Houston.
    This is akin to sending the gunboats up the Irawwady to ‘sort the darkies out’, which the BoysOwn heroes of Abbott’s youth would have done, with the soverign’s standard flying proudly.

    Yes, sheer insanity.
    It is the utmost folly to risk Australian lives in Iraq or Syria fighting ISIS while pretending that our ‘ally’ Saudia Arabia is not the source of the problem.

  34. The NSW Parliamentary Working Group on Assisted Dying is holding a forum on the draft of its Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill on Thursday July 13 (6pm – 7.30pm) in Parliament House Sydney.

    Free but registration necessary:
    Leanne Abbott
    sydney@parliament.nsw.gov.au
    9267 5999

    Details and links to the draft here on Alex Greenwich’s website.

    For those not familiar with Alex Greenwich, here’s his story, with details of the Exploding Cigar Legislation Premier O’Farrell passed to get rid of two-thorns-in-their-side Clover Moore from either the Town Hall or/and Parliament, as she served as both Lord Mayor and a Member (donating her mayoral salary to someone-or-other), the upshot of which was Clover stayed as mayor, and has been walloping them ever since, and an openly gay and same sex married Alex Greenwich got her seat, and kept it. Ha ha hardy ha.

  35. As is well known, the Liberal has two wings, the Right Wing and the Far Right Wing. Members of the Right Wing are called “Moderates”, which rather begs the question of what we should call members of the other wing. Immoderates? Crazies? Extremists? Whack Jobs? In the media, they are called “Conservatives”, but that term implies caution, moderation if you will. Conservative people aren’t extremists. These people are at the very least pretty hard line ideologues.

  36. Apologies if this has already been posted, but Germany looks increasingly likely to legalise same sex marriage, tomorrow.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-29/stefan-kaufmann-confident-on-germanys-same-sex-marriage-vote/8664540

    Ms Merkel’s current coalition partners, the Social Democrats, as well as two other parties that may be part of her government after the election, have made support for her party contingent on backing same-sex marriage

  37. steve777 @ #335 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:31 pm

    As is well known, the Liberal has two wings, the Right Wing and the Far Right Wing. Members of the Right Wing are called “Moderates”, which rather begs the question of what we should call members of the other wing. Immoderates? Crazies? Extremists? Whack Jobs? In the media, they are called “Conservatives”, but that term implies caution, moderation if you will. Conservative people aren’t extremists. These people are at the very least pretty hard line ideologues.

    “Extreme Right” and “Fascist” are my preferred descriptions. Terms I adopted after a friend used them many years ago.

  38. bemused @ #332 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:21 pm

    sprocket_ @ #328 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:03 pm

    One obvious danger in Abbott becoming the GG is that he will represent the Crown, and many of the Colonel Blimps still believe they serve the Crown, and not the Australian people. Abbott would interfere in military matters, BoysOwn style, and some of the uniformed may support him.

    One of the reasons I left the RAAF.
    I had joined thinking it was to serve the Australian Nation and People.
    A Liberal Minister informed us that we were merely ‘instruments of the Governments will’. Not quite what I and many others had in mind.

    How quaint, an honest Liberal. I suppose they were different times back then.

    It’s good to see you were naive when you were young. 🙂

  41. Loons and slightly less insane for me.

    But scumbags and scumbags works too.

    Someone on the Grauniad came up with ‘the Dickson Sebago’. I’m going to add that to ‘Rhyming Slang’ as my favorite.

  43. Tony Abbott can never be Governor General. The job has real power, so it’s just too dangerous. In any case, someone like Abbott can never represent all Australians, which is what the job requires. He is a ferocious cultural warrior of the Right, a street fighter, an attack dog. Maybe Turnbull could prevail upon Her Majesty to confer upon Tony a Sinecure which looks important but where he can do no harm. Lord Warden of something perhaps. Or make him ambassador to somewhere glamorous but unimportant. Establish an embassy in Monaco?

  45. barney in go dau @ #338 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:36 pm

    bemused @ #332 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:21 pm

    sprocket_ @ #328 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:03 pm

    One obvious danger in Abbott becoming the GG is that he will represent the Crown, and many of the Colonel Blimps still believe they serve the Crown, and not the Australian people. Abbott would interfere in military matters, BoysOwn style, and some of the uniformed may support him.

    One of the reasons I left the RAAF.
    I had joined thinking it was to serve the Australian Nation and People.
    A Liberal Minister informed us that we were merely ‘instruments of the Governments will’. Not quite what I and many others had in mind.

    How quaint, an honest Liberal. I suppose they were different times back then.
    It’s good to see you were naive when you were young.

  46. Evening all. News of the charges against Pell made my day. For how long now has he ducked and weaved and tried to evade the RC? Good to know it all caught up with him in the end.

  47. Bemused
    You can add me to the list of (ex) catholics delighted to see Pell “get his day in court”. Similarly, I agree the real tragedy is people like Anthony Foster, who died before seeing justice for his own daughters. Rest in peace.

    You can also add me to the list of those who wish we got out of Iraq, where we only make targets of our troops, cannot possibly influence the outcome, and probably just push our nation higher up terror target lists.

  49. which rather begs the question of what we should call members of the other wing. Immoderates? Crazies? Extremists?

    Ideological reactionaries is what I call them.

  50. socrates @ #347 Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 7:48 pm

    Bemused
    You can add me to the list of (ex) catholics delighted to see Pell “get his day in court”. Similarly, I agree the real tragedy is people like Anthony Foster, who died before seeing justice for his own daughters. Rest in peace.
    You can also add me to the list of those who wish we got out of Iraq, where we only make targets of our troops, cannot possibly influence the outcome, and probably just push our nation higher up terror target lists.

    It will not be fixed up until Saudi Arabia is called to account, the Wahhabi’s declared a terrorist organisation and all the Saudi money cut off from the nutters. Even then it will take a while.

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