ReachTEL: 52-48 to Labor

The first ReachTEL poll for the year records an improvement in Malcolm Turnbull’s fortunes. Other news: Tasmania’s election will be held on March 3.

The first ReachTEL poll of the year for Sky News is one of the Coalition’s better results of recent times, with Labor’s two-party lead down from 53-47 to 52-48 from the previous poll on November 28. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 34%; Labor is steady on 36%; the Greens are steady on 10%; and One Nation is down one to 8%.

Malcolm Turnbull also records a strong improvement on his personal ratings, being rated good by 30% (up six), average by 37% (up two) and poor by 32% (down eight). Bill Shorten is on 31% good (up one), 32% average (down four) and 36% poor (up three-and-a-half). Turnbull has increased his lead on ReachTEL’s all-or-nothing preferred prime minister measure, which typically produces closer results than other pollsters: last time it was 52-48, this time it’s 54-46.

The poll also finds 32% support for a cut in the company tax rate for businesses with a turnover of more than $50 million, with 44% opposed. Thirty-nine per cent of respondents rated that trade deals were good for employment, compared with 20% for poor; but 49% said Labor should vote against the Trans Pacific Partnership if it “doesn’t protect jobs”, with 20% taking the contrary view.

I’m not exactly sure what the field date was for the poll, but ReachTEL uses robopolling with samples of typically around 2300.

In other news, Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman today called an election for March 3, which means there will be no clash with South Australia this time, as there was in 2010 and 2014. I hope to have a full election guide posted later today, so stay tuned.

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.

738 comments on “ReachTEL: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. Boerwar,

    ” Di Natale’s main message about how Changing the Date is the single most important priority for Indigenous Australians.”

    Unsurprisingly, not too subtle verballing of RDN.

  2. Jackol says:
    Monday, January 29, 2018 at 7:41 pm

    It’s more than just about numbers. …

    Seat level polling has delivered much more unreliable results than you would expect from standard sampling error MoE.

    The main reason seat-scale polling is unreliable is because it is very difficult to get properly randomised samples. Pollsters could survey as many people as they can find, but if they do not comprise a random sample, then the concept of MoE becomes very difficult to apply. There will be errors, but they will not be predictable.

  3. Yes Player One – after all one K.Rudd could have won a double dissolution in 2008 with a real emissions scheme and the legacy of failure has rolled on since then.

    What you have is feel good targets from Labor targets whilst the rich adapt with battery and solar systems off the grid and the poor are left to suffer. What a betrayal! They couldn’t even promise to keep Gillard’s watered down ETS.

  4. bemused @ #624 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 4:24 pm

    grimace @ #620 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 7:20 pm

    Voice Endeavour @ #586 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 2:29 pm

    SA seat polling for 3 seats where SAB is running.

    2 Lib seats, including the one NX is running in, will go to SAB.

    The one Labor seat polled will depend on Liberal preferences and be close.

    And Federal polling showing Mayo staying with NXT.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-29/nick-xenophon-sa-best-leading-in-key-seats-poll-shows/9370674

    Lets keep in mind that seat level polling does not have a good track record of predicting seat results before we get too excited.

    My personal view is that SAB’s actual primary will fall off a cliff when it comes into contact with an actual election campaign and they have to release policies, not feel good vibes.

    Seat level polling will be as accurate as any other polling provided the sample size in each seat is adequate.
    What fails miserable is doing a national or state poll and then taking the results for individual seats when the sample size per seat is way too small to be credible.

    It’s not only sample size, it’s an appropriately representative sample. Very difficult to do with electorates of ~100k without a hell of a lot of information on the people you are polling. For that reason, I would not trust any published polling information that came out about Pearce, where I live.

    The ALP’s data analytics program should be able to yeild very accurate seat level “polling” provided that enough data is fed into it and it is configured correctly.

  5. ‘Pegasus says:
    Monday, January 29, 2018 at 9:38 pm

    Boerwar,

    ” Di Natale’s main message about how Changing the Date is the single most important priority for Indigenous Australians.”

    Unsurprisingly, not too subtle verballing of RDN.’

    The Greens have 25 Aims in their Official Policy document with respect to Indigenous Affairs. Not one of those Aims involves changing the date.

    Yet Di Natale launched a Massive National Campaign to Change the Date.
    None of the Greens 25 Aims were not mentioned.
    Other priorities were not mentioned.
    These are the undisputed facts.
    Where is the verballing?

  6. Edwina

    Rudd did not have Double Dissolution triggers in 2008. They take a while to arrive. He really only got them in 2010.

  7. Unsurprisingly, not too subtle verballing of RDN

    *rolls eyes*

    The Greens only way to garner attention now they are so irrelevant is to do stunts, just like PHON, NXT and the Clive Palmer party.

  8. Edwina StJohn @ #699 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 9:40 pm

    Yes Player One – after all one K.Rudd could have won a double dissolution in 2008 with a real emissions scheme and the legacy of failure has rolled on since then.

    Yes, Rudd was a disaster. Almost as big a disaster as an LNP government would have been.

    What you have is feel good targets from Labor targets whilst the rich adapt with battery and solar systems off the grid and the poor are left to suffer. What a betrayal! They couldn’t even promise to keep Gillard’s watered down ETS.

    So, I ask again. Which party do you think is in power? It seems you think Labor is!

  9. Good evening all,

    Interesting to see the greens latte sippers on here tonight holding the contribution of Albanese up as some guiding light in the ongoing greens relevance debate over Austealia Day.

    On Radio National Drive this afternoon Jacki Huggins from the National Congress of Australia’s first people shot his suggestion down in flames as a divisive non solution.

    Perhaps if the greens spent more time actually talking to and listening to indigenous Australians rather than following Di Natalie down the path of a political “we know best, look at us ” campaign they might get it through their heads that much more is at stake in any debate on indigenous policy issues than a simple change the date campaign.

    Di Natalie and all those others who assume shallow solutions will get them a bit of free publicity should hang their heads in shame.

    Cheers and a good night to all.

  10. P1

    Look what is popping up over in Tas.

    “Billboards reading “Labor and the Greens think you’re stupid. What’s next? Don’t let them tell you what to do” are being erected at pokies venues around the state.”

    Emotive buttons are being pushed. What’s new,

    For decades, both major parties and the MSM have derided the Greens to ensure the continuation of the status quo. They have a vested interest in furthering this collaboration.

    The tide is turning. The major parties’ share of votes is declining.

  11. Yes Player One – after all one K.Rudd could have won a double dissolution in 2008 with a real emissions scheme and the legacy of failure has rolled on since then.

    I think the reply to that statement rhymes with Clucking Bell!

  12. JM @ #663 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 5:45 pm

    re dual citizenship

    I am with those who find it a little disturbing how ready some here are to mitigate and excuse the behaviour of the political class on this matter.

    Boerwar @ #604 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 5:26 pm

    Basically I believe in heavily armed neutrality.

    Friendly, and armed to the teeth. 🙂

    Jackol @ #638 Monday, January 29th, 2018 – 6:24 pm

    You intend to allow your air conditioner to be remotely turned off on hot days? Really?

    I think we have yet to see how these demand management systems are going to work in practice.

    If they are crudely and disruptively managed then they will have a serious problem getting people to buy into them, and the system needs the users onside.

    I would have thought that a system that turned off non-essential air-con or fridge/freezer for 5 or 10 minutes in an hour at most in a controlled way would be no real inconvenience or involve much discomfort, and shave 10/15% of major demand factors at peak times would not be trivial.

    I suspect the power saved will be lost in removing the extra heat gained back during the period when the appliance is off. More or less a zero sum game.

    All this technique will do is help juggle the load a little, it will not reduce the overall load. Probably of some use, but only modest at best. No game changer.

    There are other issues:

    How do you determine and allow for differences in individual needs? Will the companies and government be allowed to set lower limits to how cold you can set the temperature on the a/c or fridge, or the upper temp for a heater, etc? How long you can have a pool pump running? Do some users get priority?

    What level of monitoring and control of power use are people prepared to accept from the power companies and the government?

    If you don’t care about privacy, then the load can be juggled and trimmed substantially more efficiently. But that is an awful lot of info about your personal habits you would be handing over to entities that have so far not proved particularly diligent and ethical in the handling of personal data.

    How Demand Side Management works in WA is that you sign up for the program and are paid an amount per MW (last I saw the number it was $17k per MW but it has gone down since then) that you are prepared to reduce your demand by *if* you are directed to by the AEMO.

    The idea is to reduce consumption on the grid during peak grid events, so the reduction in demand only has to occur for very short periods of time.

    If the AEMO does not direct you to reduce your consumption at any point during the year then you still get to keep the financial incentive to participate in DSM.

  13. Re electricity and “smart meters”. This is an article based on the diary of a scientist who lived in Mosul through the ISIS occupation. Seems they were pretty good at administering services and installed “Smart Meters” 🙂 What a seller “Install Smart Meters today, as used by ISIS” 🙂

    how Islamic State ran a city

    The new administration was a hybrid: an attempt at running a modern-day municipality, but using behaviours, titles, dress code and language from 800 AD.

    “The Islamic state was a terrorist state, but it was also a modern state,” said Azzam, the electrical engineer. “They dressed and talked like they lived in early Islam, but administratively they were excellent and ran the state efficiently.”

    The department of electricity where Azzam worked was subsumed into the diwan of services, with a new boss: a French-Moroccan whose first move was to streamline fee collections.

    “The process of issuing an electricity bill used to take us almost two months,” Azzam said. “When [Isis] came, they simplified the system.” All commercial activities, factories and shops now paid a fixed fee. In residential areas, Azzam said, Isis installed smart meters to provide a set amount of electricity throughout the month. “No one dared not to pay their electricity bill, fearing the horrible punishments of the hisbah [religious police],”

    https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jan/29/bureaucracy-evil-isis-run-city-mosul

  14. Just had an enjoyable trip down memory lane watching ‘David Stratton’s Stories of Australian Cinema’.

    There are three episodes and can be seen on iview.

    I had forgotten how many Australian films were produced.

  15. I suspect the power saved will be lost in removing the extra heat gained back during the period when the appliance is off. More or less a zero sum game.

    All this technique will do is help juggle the load a little, it will not reduce the overall load. Probably of some use, but only modest at best. No game changer.

    The networks are capacity networks. The capacity is typically determined by the zone substation, which contains *very expensive* lumps of metal. “Juggling the load a little” can significant reduce peak loads, which can remove the need to install extra bits of this very expensive equipment, or at least defer the need it for a few years. This adds up quickly, and has very long effects on network tariffs – the bits of metal are amortised over >40 years as part of the network companies regulated asset base.

    Getting lots of small loads to work together on this presents some challenges – recruitment, communications, state estimation, verification, enforcing participation commitments, payments, etc., but none of them is insurmountable. With batteries and EVs on the network, the task is actually a lot simpler. I know this because we are doing it.

  16. Evan McMullinVerified account@Evan_McMullin
    23m23 minutes ago
    Today, the U.S. Treasury “is required to begin imposing sanctions against entities doing business with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors as well as to produce a hotly anticipated list of oligarchs maintaining close ties to Putin.” I hope it does.

    How unfair to Trump. This whole governing business? Who knew it would be so hard!

  17. CTar1 @ #726 Tuesday, January 30th, 2018 – 5:06 am

    Just coming through. Lunch time in Washington now so official statement expected in the next 3-4hrs:

    FBI Deputy Director McCabe stepping down

    https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/29/politics/andrew-mccabe-fbi/index.html

    How does he do it!?! How does Trump, the incompetent buffoon, keep getting his way in attacking the pillars of American democracy, and the people that support them, time after time?

  18. C@t, for a man-baby Trump has amazingly thick skin. I am almost envious, but I think it is borne by a complete lack of self-awareness.

  19. Question @ #731 Tuesday, January 30th, 2018 – 5:38 am

    C@t, for a man-baby Trump has amazingly thick skin. I am almost envious, but I think it is borne by a complete lack of self-awareness.

    Q, I actually believe he is a genius, in the Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer mode. You know, a person capable of devising ways to knock off, metaphorically, person after person, that is between him and his goals, while at the same time giving the outward appearance of normalcy.

    I mean, I know he has a person who also does some of his Tweets, but the way he uses the medium himself, and he does a hell of a lot of the Tweeting himself, is masterful. You have to admit it, he gets just the right amount of mass hysteria-inducing persuasion of his base and psychological manipulation into every Tweet!

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