ReachTEL: 53-47 to Labor

Overwhelming support for a banking royal commission, but stable voting intention in the latest ReachTEL.

A ReachTEL poll for Sky News has Labor leading 53-47, unchanged from the last such poll on October 25. However, rounding would have had to have worked pretty hard to prevent Labor gaining a point: the primaries have the Coalition down one to 33%, Labor up one to 36%, the Greens up one to 10%, and One Nation steady on 9%. Malcolm Turnbull’s lead in the forced response two-party preferred question is 52-48, compared with 51-49 last time. Also featured: 69% support for a banking royal commission, with 12% opposed.

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.

1,961 comments on “ReachTEL: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. If I were Haynes, I’d be very reluctant to take on a tainted, politically-slanted inquiry. Such dirty work did no good for Heydon. It will do no better for Haynes.

  2. Ah yes, the perpetual infallibility of one of the parties that voted to ban SSM to the point of not even recognizing overseas unions, in 2004. I keep forgetting about how Labor is definitionally correct which means that even when they are clearly wrong they are always right, so it never actually counts against them. That’s such a useful property to have.

  3. Anna Bligh should be ashamed of herself if she had anything at all to do with the terms of reference for Turnbull’s ‘Get Industry Super Commission’.

  4. c@t:

    Didn’t we think that Labor wouldn’t be so crazy as to have a ‘failed’ PM back to lead them to save the furniture? But they did. And he did.

    While that’s certainly true, Rudd was rolled before he ever got a chance to properly become toxic to the electorate (he’d only just starting dropping under the 50:50 point in the polls a couple months prior), regularly beat Gillard in PPM polls, and was still quite broadly popular in 2013. Abbott was absolutely loathed by time he was kicked out, spent two straight years facing polls that predicted landslide victories for the opposition, and still remains deeply unpopular, significantly more so than Turnbull. It’s also quite clear that since Abbott has returned to the backbench, he has become significantly more unhinged, obstinate, and prone to saying and doing whatever stupid shit enters his mind at the time.

    They’d have to be absolutely insane to bring him back, and that’s without even considering the mockery they would recieve for repeating the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd situation in nearly every respect. If they have even an ounce of common sense, the Coalition must realise that Abbotstoration would be electoral oblivian, to a far greater extent than they would ever face under Turnbull.

    That said, good decision making hasn’t exactly been this government’s forte thus far, so who knows, really?

  5. I keep forgetting about how The Greens are definitionally correct which means that even when they are clearly wrong they are always right, so it never actually counts against them. That’s such a useful property to have.

    There, fixed it for you, el. 🙂

  6. Never forget that the ALP voted to entrench discrimination and prejudice against LGBTI people in the Marriage Act in 2004. The ALP joined the cause of remedying an injustice that they themselves helped to inflict once it became easy to switch sides. The heavy lifting on this issue was done by others. I would not trust the ALP as far as one could throw a lucrative lobbying job to a former ALP parliamentarian.

  8. bemused @ #1786 Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 7:41 pm

    Vogon Poet @ #1778 Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 8:27 pm

    bemused, there’s a whole cohort of old blokes where I live who regularly fill the letters to the editor of the local paper with their climate change denials.
    One of the silly old goats had a big diatribe last week whinging that compulsory voting allows the uninformed to vote….

    Local papers still exist?

    We have 2 for a population of about 8,000. One is A4, the other A3, come out weekly and fortnightly respectively.

  9. Asha Leu @ #1794 Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 4:49 pm

    Surely, Billy McMahon already lost the “Worst Prime Minister” title to one Mr. Tony Abbott a few years ago?

    And as utterly hopeless as Turnbull is proving to be, I don’t think he’s quite reached the depths where he’s likely to beat the current reigning champ.

    Too young to have any idea about McMahon but for me Turnbull takes the prize.

    Both have shown equal levels of incompetence but at least Abbott was truer to his professed values whilst Turnbull has basically ditched everything he supposedly stood for apart from himself! 🙂

  10. C@tmomma
    At no point, have I claimed or implied the Greens are perfect. In fact you will find that I have said the opposite if you want to look back. But I’m sure you’re not going to let an inconvenient thing like that bother you.

    Nicholas
    I will at least grant some credit in that they allowed people to publicly speak against it before they were bound to vote for it. That’s unusual, so they must have had at least some misgivings. Just not, you know, useful ones.

  11. Asha:

    I don’t know, Turnbull’s judgement is pretty poor. He’s always had this impulse to over-reach with everything, rushing to be the person who is front and centre in the expectation of a win, only for it to blow up in his face because he hasn’t thought it through enough.

  12. You’re such a wordsmith C@t (appropriate emoji that you can figure out for yourself dependent on your political orientation)

  14. Oh and what Barney said. It’s def true that Turnbull has walked away from everything he claimed to believe in prior to becoming PM.

  15. @ Asha Leu…….”Abbott has returned to the backbench, he has become significantly more unhinged, obstinate, and prone to saying and doing whatever stupid shit enters his mind at the time.”…………..

    He was saying stupid shit years before he went to the backbench…..lol

  19. ‘Trog Sorrenson says:
    Friday, December 1, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    Looks like Labor 47 and Greens 1 is a high probability. Then, in the likely event of a Labor member falling off a ladder, the Greens will enjoy the balance of rationality, and the Reef will be saved.’

    Yeah. Premier Berkman and the Greens Party Government might just allow Labor a word in.

    Delusions abound.

  21. Re the banking RC, and the ToR to include Industry Super funds.

    Has anyone told Keating?

    I expect he would race straight over to Point Piper and rip Turnbull’s heart out, not that he would have to lay a hand on him, he would just have to robustly put express his opinion.

  22. BiGD:

    McMahon is well before my time as well, but everything I’ve read about him suggests that, for all his flaws, he was a far better Prime Minister then the current office holder and his predecessor could ever hope to be.

    I still think Abbott was rather worse than Turnbull. Turnbull is useless, but at least he wasn’t an international embarrassment. And he has had to clean up his predessecor’s mess and deal with a far more hostile partyroom than Abbott ever did, with a rabid right-wing never satisfied even when he regularly bends over backwards for them.

    I mean, yeah, Turnbull has handled said challenges utterly appallingly and created many more unnessecary problems for himself in the mean-time, but in comparison Abbott had a dream run, which he completely threw down the toilet with an endless series of unforced errors.

  23. Vogon Poet @ #1808 Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 9:03 pm

    bemused @ #1786 Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 7:41 pm

    Vogon Poet @ #1778 Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 8:27 pm

    bemused, there’s a whole cohort of old blokes where I live who regularly fill the letters to the editor of the local paper with their climate change denials.
    One of the silly old goats had a big diatribe last week whinging that compulsory voting allows the uninformed to vote….

    Local papers still exist?

    We have 2 for a population of about 8,000. One is A4, the other A3, come out weekly and fortnightly respectively.

    Only kidding.
    I know we get at least one stuffed in our letterbox, but can’t remember when I last read it. I doubt it is read by many but it is handy if you need to find a local tradesperson.

    Many years ago when they were widely read, I had a friend in the local ALP branch who ran a flourishing correspondence with himself in the form of several alter-egos with bogus addresses. No one ever caught on and it was hilarious.

  24. The Gs, the bourgeois rad-puritans of the present era, should consider getting some dirt under their political fingernails and try to upset the Liberal Party in the leafier parts of the cities. When they have the ability to contest the issues with the Liberals and take seats from the Bishops and the Frydenbergs of the Parliament, then they might be taken seriously.

    As it is, the only echelons to raise a challenge to the LNP have been Crazy Branches on the Right – ON, the Ks, the Xs and the Cories – and Labor from the centre-Left. There are very rich pickings available in the Liberal heartland. Labor is going for them. Pity the Gs are stuck performing re-runs of Howard-era theatrics.

  26. C@tmomma
    Or incredibly sick of the neverending, extremely repetitive, and often completely wrong stream of attacks on the Greens that are one of the worst feature of this blogs comment section. I don’t make generic attacks on the Labor party and I still have to wade through this constant idiocy and hostility to get at the interesting bits. And you’re actively proud of your constant toxicity causing people to be unwilling to engage with you and needling them for that when they do deign to post.

    So probably that, but perhaps your theory. Or maybe both.

  29. Elaugaufein @ #1826 Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 9:16 pm

    C@tmomma
    Or incredibly sick of the neverending, extremely repetitive, and often completely wrong stream of attacks on the Greens that are one of the worst feature of this blogs comment section. I don’t make generic attacks on the Labor party and I still have to wade through this constant idiocy and hostility to get at the interesting bits. And you’re actively proud of your constant toxicity causing people to be unwilling to engage with you and needling them for that when they do deign to post.

    So probably that, but perhaps your theory. Or maybe both.

    I think we should come to an agreement with you and the other Greens.
    You stop lying about Labor, and we’ll stop telling the truth about the Greens.

    Deal?

  30. Asha Leu (Block)
    Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 5:14 pm
    Comment #1820,

    Not that it matters but I think we’ll have to agree to disagree! 🙂

  33. Bemused
    a) I’d have to start lying about Labor in order to stop.
    b) You’re already doing the other part near flawlessly.

    So the entire burden here seems to fall on me.

  34. Apart from BB, GG there could be no other windbag greater than the morbidly obese Paul Murray, dispensing his nightly advice to a principally Right-wing panel. And when there’s a Leftie, he/she normally gets shouted down or doesn’t say what’s in his/her heart for fear of not being invited again.

    And, moreover, thirty pieces of sliver Richardson has completed his metamorphosis into a Right-wing hack, Skynews emulating FoxNews to a tee.

  35. Elaugaufren:

    Or incredibly sick of the neverending, extremely repetitive, and often completely wrong stream of attacks on the Greens that are one of the worst feature of this blogs comment section. I don’t make generic attacks on the Labor party and I still have to wade through this constant idiocy and hostility to get at the interesting bits. And you’re actively proud of your constant toxicity causing people to be unwilling to engage with you and needling them for that when they do deign to post.

    Well said.

    Been trying my best to stay out of the interminable Labor/Greens wars today, but the above really bears repeating.

  36. Laura T quoted by Briefly @8:48PM: “Labor writing to Turnbull and Morrison to state that they will be having a second royal commission into the banks if the Libs rig the proposed one. Especially if they go after industry super funds, it is a thing of beauty.”

    Good stuff. No more Mr Nice Guy from Labor.

  37. Kevin Rudd is in town, and provides a free character assesment for Malcolm Turnbull,and some advice for Labor..

    “”So when Turnbull is smashed at the next election, and he will be, let us understand that holding the reins of government as a progressive political party in Australia is a precious thing, to be nurtured carefully, not to be thrown away lightly through petty personal ambition, and then for government be deployed to the absolute full in the prosecution of a reformist agenda to secure the nation’s future,” he said.

    But he reserved his most savage words for Mr Turnbull, whom he publicly fell out with over the United Nations Secretary General nomination, when he accused the Liberal leader of reneging on a deal to formally nominate him for the position.

    “Turnbull is neither fish nor foul,” he told Labor party supporters.

    “Neither Conservative nor Liberal … the final fulfilment of personal political ambition utterly detached from any real policy agenda,” he said.

    “Turnbull is just Turnbull – standing for nothing apart from Malcolm himself, a profound disappointment to his party, which has now become a little more than a bad joke – just being there,” he said.

    http://amp.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-for-the-good-of-your-party-and-the-country-just-go-kevin-rudd-unloads-20171201-gzx7up.html

  38. So Nicholas bobs up to remind us that Labor didn’t support ME in 2004.

    I reckon I wouldn’t be an orphan on here if I said I would hate to be hanged today for an opinion I held on a social issue in 2004.

    Times change and so do social attitudes.

    Labor’s position (and mine) on ME evolved over quite a few years.

    Unlike Turnbull’s view on a RC on the banks. It changed 180 degrees in 48 hours.

  40. In today’s Crikey re Milo Yiannopoulos. Totally hilarious. And of course Australia’s so-called conservative media figures all flutter their eyelashes at him, not understanding that the man is an idiot.

    Milo is a gay man with a husband, who calls Donald Trump “Daddy”, talks of his own experiences of sex as a young teenager with adult men in positive terms (and argues that young teenagers can meaningfully consent to such), was banned from Twitter for racist abuse of a black actor, and, as recently revealed by BuzzFeed, promised hard-right anti-Semites that they “would like” an article he had written on the roots of the alt-right. He has raised funds for scholarships for “young white men”, that have never appeared, and “organised” a free-speech conference in California, which collapsed in chaos before it was ever held.

    Conservative? He’s a nihilist-anarchist whose very presence at its centre destroys the possibility of conservatism advancing a moral-political line — but he is also necessary to it, because it has no energy of its own. His interviews with figures like Mark Latham and Andrew Bolt have a touch of the “daddy” themselves — exhausted men, dead inside, momentarily revived by Milo’s insouciance. Meanwhile, he’s turned “Planet” Janet Albrechtsen into the country’s oldest, still-operating, embarrassing “fag hag”. She dances round Milo like a second-year arts student dancing round her handbag at a Midsumma launch.

  42. Charlton
    They’ve recognized there’s quiet a lucrative market in right wing idiocy, masquerading as “Facts”, on cable TV. Can’t really blame them for trying to replicate a successful business model, it’s what our system encourages them to do. You’d just have to hope they defame someone which is much harsher here than in the US.

  43. The Labor field campaign in Bennelong appears to be in good form. Voters notice this and they do respond. The other parties respond either with jealousy or melancholy. We have seen both displayed.

    Labor are more numerous, more visible, better organised, more energised and more motivated. They look like winners…and of course, winning is important. A sense of challenge and of purpose will attract support. Excellent graphics from the Bennelong Campaign.

  44. So when Turnbull is smashed at the next election, and he will be, let us understand that holding the reins of government as a progressive political party in Australia is a precious thing, to be nurtured carefully, not to be thrown away lightly through petty personal ambition,

    *coughs*

  45. C@t

    And you have a PhD in toilet humour (if the other night’s effort is any guide)..

    Not everyone is a rich bastard who can afford a plumber to manage simple every day events. (blocked toilet emoji)

  46. I think this section of the form is initially asking if you were an Australian citizen at time of nomination, not if you were an “Australian only” citizen.

    Rates Analyst says:
    Friday, December 1, 2017 at 6:23 pm
    Sprocket

    I notice the Senate form has “Were you a citizen on the date you nominated for the last election?”

    Emphasis on NOMINATED.

    There’s at least three going to the HC from the ALP side. But any interpretation that catches them nets Liberals too.

  47. This lengthy piece in the Murdoch tabloids examines the entrails of who is shafting who in the last days of the Turnbull government. Many great quotes, none better than this..

    “Trying to work out what exactly Morrison is up to has been occupying a lot of minds in Canberra lately, along with his mate, Health Minister Greg Hunt.

    Like Morrison, Hunt is a divisive figure among his parliamentary colleagues.

    “Hunt is an intriguer. Always has been. I think he is working for himself,” one colleague observed.

    “He is almost friendless. He has the charisma of a speculum.”

    He might be almost friendless but like the character of Little Finger from Game of Thrones, who some MPs think he resembles, Hunt does not lack ambition.

    In the week when Turnbull was in Israel for the centenary of the charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba, rumours swept government ranks he was hitting the phones to gauge support for himself as a new deputy “should one be required”.

    Hunt declined to speak to the Herald Sun but is said to be angry at any suggestion he is hard at work plotting his place in a post-Turnbull world. “We (Cabinet) are trying to hold it together, not tear things apart,” one Victorian Cabinet minister said.”

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/malcolm-turnbull-losing-support-in-party-and-branches-as-nationals-go-feral/news-story/b7bd46f7d2ec24a23193bfc78ba4c074

  50. Elaugaufein,
    Oh dear, we’re coming over all sanctimonious and in high dudgeon now?
    Honestly, have you not also monitored the one-eyed anti-Labor contributions Pegasus constantly makes? That okay with you because she is on your team? How about Trog’s comparison of Senator Sam dastyari with an unflushable turd in his septic system the other night? That okay with you too? Because I don’t remember reading your condemnation of that, or other, ‘never-ending (from him) completely wrong stream of attacks’ on Labor.

    Also, no one is asking you to ‘wade through this constant idiocy and hostility’ that you perceive affects your delicate sensibilities when you come to this blog, to what? Have your Green ego stroked by other Green-supporting posters? Sorry, but it’s not a Greens’ blog. It’s a blog for everyone and everything to do with Australian politics, from all points of the political spectrum. Maybe ‘The Green Left Weekly’ have a blog somewhere on the internet, with 2 men and a green-dyed dog commenting on it, where you will find the just the sort of precious petals that can stroke each other’s Green egos.

    And you’re actively proud of your constant toxicity causing people to be unwilling to engage with you and needling them for that when they do deign to post.

    Pot, meet Green kettle. You were the one who put up the original anti-Labor post. I thought you would be mature enough to enjoy a bit of gentle ribbing about it at the expense of your precious Greens. Just also so you might see how it looked to Labor supporters who had to read it.

    Obviously not. I didn’t know that snowflakes came in the colour Green.

    Btw, if there was no basis for criticising The Greens, then I wouldn’t do it. However, the material just keeps on presenting itself to us like an All You Can Eat Buffet.

    Just like Pegasus thinks that the material that presents itself to her in order for her to be able to diss Labor in a never-ending stream of ‘constant toxicity’ is okay to keep posting here day after interminable day. I don’t see you have a problem with that though. Because The Greens, as you have just proven with Jingle Bells on, are functionally incapable of seeing the mote in their own eyes.

    Sad.

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