ReachTEL: 52-48 to Labor

ReachTEL becomes the latest pollster to record movement in favour of the Coalition.

The latest monthly ReachTEL result for Sky News records Labor’s two-party lead at 52-48, down from 54-46 a month ago. The Coalition are up two on the primary vote to 36%, Labor is down one to 35%, the Greens are steady on 10% and One Nation are down one to 6%. On the forced response preferred prime minister question, Malcolm Turnbull now leads 54.5-45.5, out from 52.3-47.7 last time.

Stay tuned for a post on the by-election that now looms in the seat of Perth, following Tim Hammond’s surprise retirement announcement.

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.

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

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  1. guytaur says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 9:56 am

    The only conclusions you can make from the early results is that Leave EU is in trouble.

    g, this is absolute fucking rubbish. There is no voice for the Remain case in the UK. The Brexiteers have coalesced behind the Tories, as was entirely predictable. Labour offer nothing on Brexit. Nothing.

  2. Why does 8.4% in WA seem to big? The swing in the state election was over 10% and the swing to Labor in Tasmania in 2016 was over 8%. Even a 5-6% swing would do a bit of damage… noting that’s a uniform state-wide swing, which won’t happen.

    They do happen and especially in places where there have been single-party fifedoms for a long time. Labor should do well off the back of the sprawl in the North and East of Perth as well as the diversification around Mandurah and Rockingham.

  3. lizzie says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 10:01 am
    Bill Shorten

    1 hour ago

    New trains should be built at home: Shorten
    Of course.

    I’m taking up train-building as a hobby…in the shed out the back… 🙂

  4. briefly

    The Lib Dems who are gaining have a policy of a second referendum and have been vocal in support of Remain.

    So you are wrong on the facts.

    The voters in the Leave areas are turning their backs on Leave. Thats big trouble for May.

  5. Brexit is done, unless something radical happens, it’s happening and the UK best figure out the best way to deal with it.

  6. J341983 says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 10:03 am

    dtt pitches from the Right, keen to downplay any chance of a Labor win.

  7. guytaur says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 10:05 am

    The voters in the Leave areas are turning their backs on Leave. Thats big trouble for May.

    The voters in the Leave areas are…voting for May!!!!!

  8. briefly

    Well duh. Of course. However the message is that the swing is a collapse of standard bearers of Leave and an increase in the support for Remain of the Lib Dems.

    Its like One Nation vote collapsing mostly going to the LNP.

    Thats a message we don’t want extremes.

    UKIP sole purpose was for Leave. That collapse is the only takeout message at this early stage.

    Note I am not saying Labour is doing well. In this area I leave it up to more knowledgeable people like Ray UK.

  9. UK results don’t seem too bad so far.

    Lab+Lib Dem + Green down 7
    Conservative + UKIP down 3
    Others up 10

    And the early results are from rural/small booths. These are typically pro Brexit, and could be expected to have swung behind the Conservatives since they became the Brexit party and Labour became Bremainers.

    London and the big cities will likely swing more left (although from an already high base, they won’t swing too far).

  10. J
    WA is not an intrinsically labor state unlike Tasmania. Federal elections rarely have huge swings. More than happy to agree with 4% swing (even 5%). I think that Hasluck and Canning will go against the trend. probably Porter’s seat too.

  11. UK Labour, led by Corbyn, is on the road to oblivion. There is essentially no reason to vote for them, given they have no policy on Brexit. Despite the fact that the Tories are ill-led, incompetent, divided, dishonest and cruel, they are beating Labour, which has been on a mission to purge itself of dissenters/consolidate the hold of the Corbynistas.

  12. With Brexit there are three options available: deal, no deal or remain. Deal depends on each and every EU countries signing up, including EIRE.

    The EIREans are quite clear about one single thing: there will be no hard border between EIRE and NI.

    May keeps coming up with fake soft border options and Barnier, in consultation with the EIREans, keeps saying no potato.

    The latest idea, which is that Britain will collect customs on behalf of the EU, essentially creating a single customs border around the whole of the British Isles which would be nested withing the EU after all. It might work. One issue is that it only deals with trade. It cannot address the heart of the matter: people movement. The other issue is that the rabid Leavers hate the idea.

  13. J341983 @ #554 Friday, May 4th, 2018 – 10:05 am

    Brexit is done, unless something radical happens, it’s happening and the UK best figure out the best way to deal with it.

    Best way to deal with it is to cancel it and pretend like it never happened.

    Same principle applies to the Trump presidency, really.

  14. Con: +9.0
    Lab: +4.1
    LDem: +3.8
    Grn: +2.9
    UKIP: -19.3

    And of course the fact that the right are doing better on seats, considering the change in vote share above, shows how stupid first past the post is.

    The right have lost 10.3% of the vote, while the left have gained 10.8%, but lost seats

  15. Sorry DTT I only lived in NQ for 25 years. Can’t say I ever really understood it. Herbert always seems a toss up. It’s more a matter of which government (Fed, State or Local) is most on the nose at the time which seems to drive Townsville voters. It should be noted that all governments are regarded as being on the nose by default up there.

    I’m hoping Petrie can be won this time. The LNP member, Luke Howarth, is mostly invisible and will not have the sophomore effect this time. Only need a swing of less than 2%. Labor candidate has been working to raise her profile.


  16. zoomster says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 9:11 am

    Jay

    ….
    There’s a thing called Bludgertrack up on the right hand side of this site. I suggest you have a look at it, and then explain your remarks.

    It’s the jibe you know. He has been helping Wayne get the pigs ready to fly; give him a break.

  17. So perhaps these UK election results mean an increased chance that UK will stay in the single market? Still waiting for that exchange rate improvement!

  18. Bonza says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 10:20 am

    So perhaps these UK election results mean an increased chance that UK will stay in the single market? Still waiting for that exchange rate improvement!

    Nah. The Brexiteers have the numbers inside the Tory Party, and while they do not have the numbers in Labour, they hold the leadership and key posts in Labour. The UK is going to try to re-invent itself in a revival of the 19th century.

  19. Voice Endeavour says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 10:17 am

    Con: +9.0
    Lab: +4.1
    LDem: +3.8
    Grn: +2.9
    UKIP: -19.3

    And of course the fact that the right are doing better on seats, considering the change in vote share above, shows how stupid first past the post is.

    The right have lost 10.3% of the vote, while the left have gained 10.8%, but lost seats

    The mad nationalist/xenophobic vote has dissolved (-19.3). Overwhelmingly, it has gone in anti-Labour directions, but it’s xenophobic/Leaver character is largely intact. It has gone to the Tories (+9.0) and Labour (+4.1).

  20. frednk says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 6:06 am

    …”Rule 1, never ever travel in peak hour, and that applies to pretty much every road in LA. To be amazed by it all the 101, but it is not a road for the faint hearted, the number of lanes and the number of cars”…


    I drove most of the way from LA to SF on the I-5 over about 4 days, using various East/West highways to beach towns and inland to a national park, it was a lot of fun but we ran out of time and had to turn back.
    I also drove from Santa Monica to San Diego and back using the 405 and I5.
    The 405 is sheer terror, at one point 6 lanes of traffic in each direction plus 2 car pool lanes, 2 lanes of entering traffic and 3 exit lanes, 1 of which was onto an inside lane off ramp.

    Not to mention being overtaken on all sides by semi-trailer’s doing 100+ miles an hour.

    I was actually pleased when we hit in-bound peak hour traffic, slowed to a crawl and the white knuckled fear of imminent death subsided.

    Never again.

  21. Briefly – 10:24am – no – the powers that be are not trying to revive the 19th century. … Labour wants to revive glorious visions of bloodied corpses in the snow in the patriotic war against the White Russians circa 1919.

    The Tories want to return the country to the glorious reign of Queen Anne (or perhaps in their dark hearts a return of the Stewarts and popery) – before that ‘moderniser’ Walpole ruined the joint.

    In both cases you are out by at least a century …

  22. Labour not moving the Midlands

    Professor Sir John Curtice
    Polling expert
    Labour has failed to gain control of either Walsall or Amber Valley, where the party only needed a small swing in order to win an overall majority. Yet it is clear on the results declared so far that it is not going to achieve either objective in these predominantly Remain voting areas.

    Remain-leaning voters have been given no reason to shift from Tory to Labour, but Leavers have consolidated behind the Tories.

    Labour, in the hands of Corbyn, is conceding to the Tories on the single most important issue in UK politics since 1945.

  23. Briefly

    Yes the lesson from this election for Labour is to go Remain. They will gain some seats currently held by the Lib Dems.

  24. Getting very frustrated with posts from anti- logging types on social media atm.

    I largely support what they’re trying to do but they do themselves no favours by spreading misinformation.

    For example, there’s a post atm (I’ve seen it on facebook and twitter) which attributes the smoke haze in Melbourne to logging coupe burns.

    5500 ha of forest is logged in Victoria each year (and most of that will be a long, long way from Melbourne…). 230,000 hectares of fuel reduction burning is carried out every year, mainly in autumn.

    So, right at this moment, hundreds of thousands of hectares of fuel reduction burning is happening. Even if every logging coupe is being burnt (and these burns are carried out throughout the year, not just in autumn) then their contribution to the smoke haze is negligible.

    I understand the passion. However, peddling misinformation, whether deliberately or out of ignorance, is detrimental to their cause.

    Imagine that one of these groups gets a chance to sell their message to the Minister. The Minister will have the actual figures – the number of fuel reduction burns, where they are, how much area they cover; the number of logging coupe burns, where they are, how much they cover. If the group starts their conversation with “The present smoke haze is due to logging coupe burns…” they will immediately lose credibility.

    …which is why I’m getting frustrated. Because, basically, the cause has my sympathy, but the way it’s being fought doesn’t.

  25. Relations with Centrelink described as “soul-destroying”.

    Shane Bazzi
    @shanebazzi
    16m

    Dealing with Centrelink has been one of the most invasive, depressing, infuriating experiences of my life.

    @shanebazzi
    14m

    I would sometimes call 50-100 times a day and would not be able to get through to Centrelink. When I could get through I would have to wait for at least 1 hour to speak to someone. I was once on hold for 2 hours 15 minutes.

    @shanebazzi
    13m

    A Department of Human Services staff member once threatened to withhold my payment for 8 weeks if I didn’t disclose my medical history to him, including medications I was on, despite it not being relevant to my claim.

    @shanebazzi
    11m

    It has been incredibly invasive. Centrelink asked if I was in a sexual relationship, what my sleeping arrangements were with my partner, what our cooking and bathroom arrangements were. This was despite me declaring up front I was in a relationship.

    @shanebazzi
    8m

    When I put through my claim I was sent the wrong forms, given incorrect information, locked out of online services, couldn’t get through to phones, and yet would be threatened with having my payments cancelled/withheld if I didn’t comply with requests.

  26. Briefly – 10:46 – I’ve been pointing out for the past year that Labour has gone backwards in working class heartland regions for 4 successive general elections.

    The only available conclusion is that the more ‘progressive’ (i.e. rabid left) Labour devolves itself the less attractive it is to aspirational working class and lower middle class folk it needs (and have always needed going back as far as the McDonald Government) to form government.

    The left sneer at ‘Blairism’ but the fact remains that Tony Blair was the last Labor Leader to get their vote. Th UK left are so dazzled by winning Kensington and getting the smashed avocado eaters out to the polls once in 2017 that they are continuing to ignore the greater truth.

    Propellor Cap Boy, Guytaur etc on Bludger often bang on about the need of the ALP to have an ‘inspirational’ leader like Corbyn and a party base made up of antepodean membership of United Voice and Momentum types – with policies to match. I fear that if Butler gets re-elected as President and the Left gain control of the party for the first time since the disastrous Joe Chamberlain regime THAT is exactly what we will end up with – virtue signalling identity politics up the wazzoo which will be the ultimate gift to our bunyip Tories. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

  27. It’s a very very spooky coincidence,and I probably only have myself to blame, but every time I ring a government agency I’m told that they’re currently experiencing abnormally high demand and thus wait times are longer than expected.

    It must be just me, because if it was happening to everyone the experience wouldn’t be abnormal and they’d know that clients were facing long wait times and put extra staff on or something.

  28. Andrew_Earlwood says:
    Friday, May 4, 2018 at 11:02 am

    I fear that if Butler gets re-elected as President and the Left gain control of the party for the first time since the disastrous Joe Chamberlain regime…

    Yup…Chamberlain was a tyrant. Very fortunately, Labor has been steadily democratised since his era. Stephen Smith played a large in that in WA. Stephen entered from the Left, departed with the Right.

    The purists have taken control in UK Labour and begun to shrink it in the process. They will thoroughly wreck it.

  29. Andrew Earlwood

    Yeah electing the Whitlam government was such a mistake.

    Thats the policies I talk about.

    Labour is losing because the division is still talked up and the latest attacks on Corbyn being either a communist or an anti semite.

    Labour won big in 2014 I do not expect them to make big gains as a result.

    Labour holding its own and the Tories not gaining big is good signs for Labour for the next election as the British voters see May’s Conservatives at work.

    That does not mean you have to return to being Thatcher lite to win in the Uk.

  30. Guytaur – I worked for Whitlam for two years. You don’t have a single clue what you are talking about.

  31. lizzie

    My claim was rejected because I hadn’t supplied forms I hadn’t been asked for.

    This was despite both my husband and I having had phone interviews with Centrelink staff who had told us we’d submitted everything we needed to.

    At one point, I was accused of not declaring a second property, because there was an ‘airbnb’ payment on my bank statement. Which was my sister in law, paying her share of the airbnb we had rented.

    (And yes, P1, before you ask: I did contact the Minister’s office. There’s now someone there who, every time I send a query to Centrelink, has it flagged on the system so it goes to him directly and he sorts it out within a day. It’s the system that’s stuffed).

    It was apparent to me that some major changes in the way people apply to Centrelink have been made recently. These changes don’t seem to have been well thought through, and in some cases would stop someone submitting an application at all, as it’s almost impossible to contact a real person to work out what some of the documents being requested actually ARE. In the end, I did a standard note which said “I don’t know why you want this, explain it to me and I’ll provide the document” which I submitted instead of the requested document just so I could get to the bit where someone was actually willing to talk!

  32. Andrew Earlwood

    Whitlam was accused of most of the things Corbyn is accused of.

    I have always thought Corbyn was a terrible campaigner but his policies are good.

    Just like Whitlam’s policies were good.

    Blair was Thatcher lite. You don’t have a clue if you compare Whitlam’s policies with Blairs.

  33. A reasonable premise is that with:

    1. Extremely high levels of public disunity inside the Tories.
    2. A weak Prime Minister
    3. Fall in living standards
    4. Fall in private sector investment
    5. Fall in the value of the pound
    6. A Brexit negotiating process that stumbles from high farce to low farce…

    … UK Labour would give the Conservatives a proper pizzling.

    But they are not. Why not?

  34. I don’t know what figures you are looking at AR, but I see this on the Guardian:

    The results are now in from 43 of the 150 councils where there are elections.

    Here are the figures

    Conservatives
    Councils: 14 (+2 – Basildon and Peterborough)
    Seats: 241 (+45)

    Labour
    Councils: 23 (-1 – Nuneaton)
    Seats: 428 (-13)

    Lib Dems
    Seats: 65 (+8)

    Greens
    Seats: 7 (+1)

    Ukip
    Seats: 0 (18)

  35. zoomster @ #584 Friday, May 4th, 2018 – 9:06 am

    It’s a very very spooky coincidence,and I probably only have myself to blame, but every time I ring a government agency I’m told that they’re currently experiencing abnormally high demand and thus wait times are longer than expected.

    It must be just me, because if it was happening to everyone the experience wouldn’t be abnormal and they’d know that clients were facing long wait times and put extra staff on or something.

    Funny, the exact same thing happens to me. It also happens when I call the bank, my ISP and my telco.

    I blame Bill Shorten.

  36. Naplan: NSW government call to scrap tests rejected by Simon Birmingham

    NSW education minister Rob Stokes says Naplan has become a tool to rank schools

    This should never be the case publicly.

    Internally it may be useful for Education Departments to do this, so they can plan remedial strategies but I see no useful purpose in releasing individual school results to the general public.

    Simon Birmingham has rejected a call from the New South Wales government to urgently scrap Naplan tests.

    On Friday the NSW education minister, Rob Stokes, used the second Gonski review into educational excellence to call for Naplan to be replaced with smaller, more regular and low-key tests.

    But Birmingham, the federal education minister, told Radio National Naplan testing “serves a very important purpose for many Australian parents”.

    “Parents make clear they want to see how their children are progressing, they want to know whether their children are learning the basics of literacy and numeracy that Naplan assesses,” he said on Friday.

    I agree with Stokes, more regular, smaller tests take the pressure off students with the benefit of more continuous feedback allowing teachers and schools to assess and respond to the progress being made.

    There is no reason why a child’s individual results can not be provided, so I see Birmingham’s final comment as irrelevant.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/04/nsw-governments-call-to-scrap-naplan-rejected-by-simon-birmingham

  37. Boerwar @ #593 Friday, May 4th, 2018 – 9:15 am

    A reasonable premise is that with:

    1. Extremely high levels of public disunity inside the Tories.
    2. A weak Prime Minister
    3. Fall in living standards
    4. Fall in private sector investment
    5. Fall in the value of the pound
    6. A Brexit negotiating process that stumbles from high farce to low farce…

    … UK Labour would give the Conservatives a proper pizzling.

    But they are not. Why not?

    I think you should run for office and show the current bunch of amateurs in Labor how it is done.

  38. zoomster

    I remember that. Centrelink’s records don’t seem to link up with each other. Cross fingers I’ve had no problems so far (except when they lost my copies in my original submission and I had to re-submit. But that was in the good old days before they retrenched staff!)

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