ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor

Labor maintains its commanding lead in the latest ReachTEL poll, as respondents give the thumbs down to company tax cuts.

A ReachTEL poll for Sky News finds Labor maintaining its 54-46 lead from the last such poll a month ago. However, the primary votes are not quite as strong for Labor as last time, when Labor’s two-party lead was subdued by a strong flow of respondent-allocated preferences to the Coalition. This time the Coalition is up one on the primary vote to 34%, while both Labor and the Greens are down a point, to 36% and 10% respectively, and One Nation are steady on 7%.

The poll also finds 56% of respondents opposed to company tax cuts, with only 29% supportive, and only 26% thinking it likely the cuts will be passed on to workers, compared with 68% for unlikely. Not surprisingly, a question on whether Tony Abbott should return as Liberal leader after the next election finds little support, with 25% for yea and 64% for nay.

Together with the Newspoll and Essential Research, the ReachTEL results have been included in the lastest BludgerTrack update, which once again records essentially no change on voting intention, with ReachTEL’s strong result for Labor cancelling out a weak one from Essential Research. However, Labor is up two on the seat projection for Queensland, mostly because Galaxy’s 52-48 lead for the Coalition in that state in a Courier-Mail poll a month ago is no longer exerting its pull. Also included are the latest leadership ratings from Newspoll, which take a small bite out of Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval and preferred prime minister lead. We should have Newspoll’s quarterly state breakdowns next week, which will make the BludgerTrack state breakdowns a little more robust.

If you’re a Crikey subscriber, you can enjoy my piece today on how the recent halt to the rise of minor parties might play out in the Senate over the coming years. Below is a chart I knocked up to illustrate it, which I decided not to use. It combines federal and state election results, so that the reading at any point in time uses results from the most recent elections federally in each state, with each election weighted by its voting population.

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.

1,607 comments on “ReachTEL: 54-46 to Labor”

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  3. That press conference with Steve Smith confirmed 2 things for me:

    The very careful wording all but said that it was Warner and Smith failed to stop it,

    and, that in the presser that followed the initial revelations, Smith believed the reaction would be the same as previous ball-tampering scandals around the world i.e. it would be treated as a misdemeanour and they’d lose skin but I don’t think he anticipated the hysterical reaction from the PM down.

    I say hysterical because I believe it was hysterical – when you look back over the past year and the types of grievances we’ve aired on this blog about the inhumanity of the govt. or the underhanded behaviour of the banks, or the revelations from the RC into Child Abuse … scratching a ball doesn’t rate. Yet every man and his dog has piled in and made them the equivalent of mass murderers.

    That said – I hold Warner in contempt because if he was ‘the mastermind’ (and it looks like he was) and then refused to fess up, but let his captain and his patsy face the music …

  5. Of course Dutton has the embarrassing history of having tried to bail out of Dickson before, but the relevant LNP members were having none of it.

    Whether he has more sway for being the … senior … figure he thinks he is and whether this sways anyone I guess remains to be seen. I don’t imagine his winning personality has helped him much.

  8. PeeBee (Block)
    Thursday, March 29th, 2018 – 6:12 pm
    Comment #1613
    C#t: ‘Some people vote so they can afford another European holiday.’

    And some vote to increase their welfare cheque.

    I can’t believe someone who is purportedly a Labor Party supporter could say that. He would prefer the taxpayer to subsidise his retirement lifestyle than increase Newstart! Shame on you.

  10. Jackol @ #679 Thursday, March 29th, 2018 – 8:36 pm

    Of course Dutton has the embarrassing history of having tried to bail out of Dickson before, but the relevant LNP members were having none of it.

    Whether he has more sway for being the … senior … figure he thinks he is and whether this sways anyone I guess remains to be seen. I don’t imagine his winning personality has helped him much.

    Der Tuberfuehrer – making The Cycling Smeagol look re-electable since 2016.

  13. C#t, same same. No shame at all. People will vote selfishly for an increase in a new start allowance. That is fair as they are looking after their financial wellbeing. Same can be said for the person who is set to lose the benefit of credit.

  14. C@

    Not so in Victoria. We’re still waiting for the AEC to redraw the boundaries. Although some seats have been preselected, there are still quite a few which may not be finished until the end of the year.

    If the AEC wraps things up by August, perhaps. But it’s more likely that we won’t know what the new boundaries are for a month or two after that, and we’ll be in State election mode. If so, preselections for the remaining seats will wait until after that’s all over.

  16. Stan Grant doing the cricket on ABC 24 at 9 pm. Has Gideon Haigh on who knows his stuff.

    Better than Bruce McAvaney showing his Adelaide Crows bias. Creams his pants when Adelaide score a goal, silence when Richmond do.

  17. PeeBee @ #63 Thursday, March 29th, 2018 – 8:56 pm

    C#t, same same. No shame at all. People will vote selfishly for an increase in a new start allowance. That is fair as they are looking after their financial wellbeing. Same can be said for the person who is set to lose the benefit of credit.

    No, believe it or not, some people vote selflessly, for the financial benefit of others. As I always used to do in the 80s when I could earn up to $2000 per week. Maybe you should try it sometime.

  18. I wish Meoldema would turn off the sound and just watch the play, these commentators are just putrid. For some reason I cannot fathom, Eddy McGuire really irritates me.

  19. zoomster,
    I guess, for that reason, we could discount a federal election until those Victorian boundaries are finalised. Malcolm might be counting on picking up the seats he needs to hang on maybe! 😀

  20. “The Australian can reveal …”

    Now there’s irritating phrasing. It never adds anything apart from an ersatz-coy suggestion that the author has Been Doing Real Investigative Journalism With Actual Lawyers instead of mining anecdata and grudges, and there is always an instant tabloid reek to whatever follows.

    Of course they can reveal it.

    It the stuff they feel they can’t reveal that deserves the rimshots.

  21. I always voted ALP, even when it was not giving me any advantage. Maybe having family in reduced circumstances makes it voting selfishly.

  24. Lisa Forrest, on Stan Grant’s program, has suggested that maybe the Australian Cricket Team needs to implement a ‘No Dickheads’ policy. 🙂

  27. it’s possible pending EU privacy legislation will decimate the value of Facebook & Google…

    Goldman Sachs: ‘Existing data will risk becoming obsolete’

    “Organizations will have to re-obtain user consent (for the data they wish to keep) and build a fully documented permission trail before GDPR becomes enforceable – or existing data will risk becoming obsolete.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-eprivacy-gdpr-law-facebook-consent-eu-2018-2/?r=AU&IR=T

  29. C#t, $2,000 a week in the 80s you could have gone to Europe every week and now think it is selfish. You made so much in a week and yet you think a person loses half that in a year is somehow a terrible person.

  30. Pee Bee
    If I remember correctly, you might have a claim for DSP? If I am remembering the correct Bludger. That 1K is important for you as I can understand. Do you qualify for any other Centrelink payment, Newstart maybe? I just think someone with the circumstances you (if I remember correctly, sorry if I have you confused with someone else) described. I do know it is hard to get Newstart if you have even a little in your account.

    I just hope you can get something, plus a health care card. I did post some links for advocacy help and Centrelink criteria. You of course do not want to go into details here, but I do hope you can get some help.

  31. Spray

    From Clive Lloyd in the Independent of 11 Jan 2008

    [In a Test against Australia, for example, Geoff Lawson took the wicket of Gordon Greenidge and waved him to the pavilion with a volley of abuse. “At the end of the day’s play, Greenidge came to me, quite calm, and said, ‘Can I go and have a word with Geoff Lawson?’ I said ‘sure’. So Greenidge knocked on their dressing-room door, with us all peeping round the corner. He asked Allan Border if he could speak to Lawson, and Lawson came to the door. Greenidge said quietly, ‘I’ve played cricket for a long while and I didn’t like what you did today. I’ve come to let you know that if you ever do that again I’ll break every bone in your body.'” Lloyd wiped away a tear of mirth. “In this day and age he would have been fined for that.”]

  32. PeeBee @ #79 Thursday, March 29th, 2018 – 8:35 pm

    C#t, $2,000 a week in the 80s you could have gone to Europe every week and now think it is selfish. You made so much in a week and yet you think a person loses half that in a year is somehow a terrible person.

    Wait, you can’t invoke depreciated buying power in one sentence and then pretend that it doesn’t exist in the next. Losing $1000 today is equivalent to a mere ~$300 back in 1980. It’s not half of anybody’s Europe trip, now or then.

  33. Will – “Not unsurprisingly, a question on whether Tony Abbott should return as Liberal leader after the next election finds little support”
    One too many negatives mate?

  34. C@tmomma and Pee Bee,
    Be nice to each other please. This argument is an example of the Right Wingers divide and conquer strategy at its best.

  37. C@tmomma @ #69 Thursday, March 29th, 2018 – 5:12 pm

    zoomster,
    I guess, for that reason, we could discount a federal election until those Victorian boundaries are finalised. Malcolm might be counting on picking up the seats he needs to hang on maybe! 😀

    It could be an important factor.

    It will depend on whether they think a mini redistribution will be to their advantage or not.

    🙂

  38. Ar, good point, someone making $2000 a week in the 80s would be sneering at someone trying to save $300 (in 80s dollars). That is even worse.

  39. Shellbell

    Yeah, I’m aware of that incident. But I’ve never heard a suggestion that the abuse was of a racial nature. Is there more to the story?

  40. Unless Maladept has even less judgment than most of us (and PK) think, he won’t be calling an election until the polls suggest he could win, or until he has to. So May 18th 2019 it is.

  41. Steve Smith should just have put out a written statement and declined to go on camera.

    It’s just a bloody game.

    He made a stupid decision in a situation where he could just as easily made a wise decision – happens to many people in many contexts. And they lose money and position as a result just as he did – perhaps not as much and not as publicly, but for many people their loss will place them in a truly precarious financial and personal position, more so than Smith who seems to have a family to fall back on and probably reasonable financial resources.

    It’s appalling that he ends up blubbering on national TV. Doesn’t do him or anyone else any good. If CA made it some sort of condition that he give a press conference they are appalling as well. If they knew the state he was in they should have moved heaven and earth to make sure he didn’t appear.

  42. William in today’s Crikey on the return to normal of the 2 party vote:

    Most of the existing crossbenchers will face re-election, having been allocated three-year rather than six-year terms after the double dissolution, including six of the nine Greens and seven of the eleven others (which would be eight out of twelve if Lucy Gichuhi hadn’t joined the Liberal Party).

    The Greens would appear at risk of losing about three seats, and only a handful of other minor party players have real cause for confidence: certainly Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania, probably Derryn Hinch in Victoria and Nick Xenophon in South Australia (if they run), and we probably haven’t heard the last of Malcolm Roberts, who will lead the One Nation ticket in Queensland.

    That suggests a post-election crossbench of twelve or thirteen, around half of whom will be Greens — a dramatically high number by historic standards, but well down on the existing twenty.

    Regardless of the election outcome in terms of who forms govt, the reduced cross bench numbers would be a good outcome in my view.

  43. ajm:

    I viewed the Smith blubbering press conference as a PR thing more than a mea culpa thing.

    As someone said earlier, now come the cricketing rehab of the offending trio: public mea culpas, lots of shots of them all doing their bit with the kids, cultural minorities and disadvantaged communities etc. All in the name of showing Australians they aren’t really a bad sort after all.

    Meanwhile Sutherland and Lehman keep their jobs.

  45. Confessions

    Regardless of the election outcome in terms of who forms govt, the reduced cross bench numbers would be a good outcome in my view.

    Not necessarily. A ‘Storer’ is worth far more than a Dutton, Hunt,Frydenberg or a Truffles..

  46. shellbell @ #81 Thursday, March 29th, 2018 – 5:52 pm

    Spray

    From Clive Lloyd in the Independent of 11 Jan 2008

    [In a Test against Australia, for example, Geoff Lawson took the wicket of Gordon Greenidge and waved him to the pavilion with a volley of abuse. “At the end of the day’s play, Greenidge came to me, quite calm, and said, ‘Can I go and have a word with Geoff Lawson?’ I said ‘sure’. So Greenidge knocked on their dressing-room door, with us all peeping round the corner. He asked Allan Border if he could speak to Lawson, and Lawson came to the door. Greenidge said quietly, ‘I’ve played cricket for a long while and I didn’t like what you did today. I’ve come to let you know that if you ever do that again I’ll break every bone in your body.’” Lloyd wiped away a tear of mirth. “In this day and age he would have been fined for that.”]

    Beautifully done.

    I’ve never understood bowlers giving a batsman a send off.

    Especially to someone like Greenidge. I’d be be interested to see what he got in his next bat!

    You’ve succeeded, they’re gone, it’s what you were trying to do!

    As a batsman it’s the only thing that would annoy me.

    They could say anything they liked to whilst I was batting and I would just ignore them because all they were was looking for a reaction, a sign they were distracting me.

    The bowlers hate it and you can see their frustration grow and they often become more erratic. 🙂

  48. ajm @ #91 Thursday, March 29th, 2018 – 6:15 pm

    Steve Smith should just have put out a written statement and declined to go on camera.

    It’s just a bloody game.

    He made a stupid decision in a situation where he could just as easily made a wise decision – happens to many people in many contexts. And they lose money and position as a result just as he did – perhaps not as much and not as publicly, but for many people their loss will place them in a truly precarious financial and personal position, more so than Smith who seems to have a family to fall back on and probably reasonable financial resources.

    It’s appalling that he ends up blubbering on national TV. Doesn’t do him or anyone else any good. If CA made it some sort of condition that he give a press conference they are appalling as well. If they knew the state he was in they should have moved heaven and earth to make sure he didn’t appear.

    I think they did!

  49. JenAuthor,
    Yet again, you have written a lucid and cogent comment with your response to the Steve Smith presser as well as the overheated media coverage of tbe tampering incident.

    As a daily Pollbludger reader, my appreciation of sagacious contributors like your good self is boundless.

  50. A ‘Storer’ is worth far more than a Dutton, Hunt,Frydenberg or a Truffles..

    Storer is in the Senate whereas the others you mention are in the House.

    I don’t understand your point.

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