As Super Saturday dawns, The Australian brings us perhaps the two most heavy-duty seat polls yet published in Australia, with Newspoll surveying 1015 respondents in Longman and 1002 in Braddon between Tuesday and Thursday. In both cases Labor records a lead of 51-49, putting them at the high end for Labor’s polling record throughout the campaign. Labor is credited with a solid improvement on the primary vote compared with the 2016 election result, from 35.4% to 40%, while the Liberal National Party is down from 39.0% to 36%. This gives Labor the buffer it needs to deal with One Nation, up from 9.4% to 14%, and their stronger flow of what I presume are respondent-allocated preferences to the LNP. The Greens are on 5%, compared with 4.4% in 2016. In Braddon, the primary votes are Labor 40% (unchanged on 2016), Liberal 43% (up from 41.5%), the Greens 5% (down from 6.7%) and independent Craig Garland 8%.
As did the YouGov Galaxy polls for the News Corp tabloids last week, the poll asked respondents how they would vote if Anthony Albanese rather than Bill Shorten were leading the Labor Party, which in both cases would supposedly have lifted Labor to leads of 55-45. Candidate approval questions found 37% satisfied with Labor’s Susan Lamb in Longman and 47% dissatisfied, while Justine Keay in Braddon was on 42% and 41%. Trevor Ruthenberg’s military medal issues apparently haven’t registered, with 61% saying they would not influence their vote, 22% saying it made them less likely to vote LNP, and 16% of people who were presumably going to vote LNP anyway implausibly indicating they would be more likely to vote LNP.
Labor will win. It will be just mad if they don’t.
William, the third sentence should begin “In Longman…”
I always wonder at questions like those about Ruthenberygs medals affecting votes.
IF that is the reason why you do/do not vote for someone, rather than the raft of policy settings for either side, then you really are a dickhead
That LNP primary vote in Longman is low. If replicated today it would be a silver lining or icing on the cake.
I have been consistently predicting that Labor would just scrape over the line in both seats and was starting to feel that I’d gotten it wrong. These single seat polls suggest otherwise but, of course, they have to be interpreted with a fair degree of caution: not least because quite a large number of electors had presumably already voted when the polls were undertaken.
I suspect that when you take postal votes into account, it could well be pretty much a line ball in both electorates, which might make for an exciting night.
ah yes postals – lets not forget labor got slaughtered in postals in 2016.
jenauthor: “IF that is the reason why you do/do not vote for someone, rather than the raft of policy settings for either side, then you really are a dickhead”
I think it varies from region to region throughout the country. Down here in Tassie, where everybody knows everybody to a certain extent, voters focus much more on individual candidates than they appear to do in the major mainland cities. In a seat like Braddon, the residential address of a candidate (eg, whether they are from Devonport, like Keay, or Burnie, like Whiteley – although he now lives outside the electorate) can influence the choices of some voters, and their backgrounds and past achievements most certainly come into play: factors which I think will somewhat boost Justine Keay’s chances tonight. (And I think that the rather low key campaign that Whiteley has run against her is proof that the Libs well understand this.)
In Longman, where I would assume a much higher proportion of voters than in Braddon are comparatively new arrivals to the district, the personal characteristics of the individual candidates are far less significant, and I doubt that the scandals involving Ruthenberg or the PHON guy – or even Susan Lamb’s rather fumbling defence of her failure to renounce her citizenship – are going to have much impact on the vote.
How are postals relevant to the results of the Newspoll poll?
SK@8:45am
It would be “silver lining” because ALP did not win last federal election and did not yet win this by-poll. Icing means you already have the cake, which ALP doesn’t.
Given the lead in time to today’s poll in Braddon and Longman I would think the ALP has had ample time to address their postal vote issues that they faced in 2016.
Was told yesterday afternoon that Liberal internal polling mirrors today’s Newspoll.
Ven, yes, silver lining if they lose Longman (by small margin) and icing on the cake if they win.
SK: “How are postals relevant to the results of the Newspoll poll?”
Leaving myself open to correction from statistical experts such as KB and WB, I would suggest that’s it’s always been my impression that opinion polls tend slightly to understate the favourable impact of postal voting on Coalition’s final vote. I assume they adjust their raw results by some sort of a formula to take account of the fact that their sampling methods don’t tend to reach people in hospitals, nursing homes, overseas locations, etc. But I’d also assume that the task of estimating the impact of these things for a single electorate is more difficult than at a national or state level.
Perhaps I’ve sat through too many election nights with disappointed Labor friends who have seen encouraging polling fail to translate into as many seats changing hands as they had anticipated. (Even triumphant nights such as those of the 1983 and 2007 Federal elections didn’t seem to me to bring quite the avalanches of seats changing hands that the size of the national swings would appear to indicate.)
Anyway, we’ll find out soon.
Yes, I have a shy hope that Labor will have learned from its postal vote failure in half a dozen Queensland seats which arguably cost it the last federal election.
I didnt know that. Assumed pollsters accounted for it.
Any idea of the amount?
We’ve just been to vote in Mayo and the TV camera captures us smilingly approaching Rebekha Sharkie’s mum and dad who were handing out how to vote cards. They are confident. The Liberal Party contingent had faces like dropped pies!
Apparently the betting for Sharkie is at $1.06.
Hi BK, I had the pleasure of driving past your way yesterday evening (Stirling to Mt Peasant). It was good to see far less Downer corflutes over there. Drowning in them here.
I will be voting soon and it will be a very sad occasion – the delightful old chap who has manned the Crafers PS polling booth (for the Liberals) for about 50 years passed away recently.
Robert Ball: “Given the lead in time to today’s poll in Braddon and Longman I would think the ALP has had ample time to address their postal vote issues that they faced in 2016.”
I’ve seen a few posters allege that there were issues with Labor’s approach to collecting postal votes in 2016.
What were these issues? The people running the Labor Party are professionals, so what possible excuse could there have been for there being issues?
I had assumed that the stronger-than-usual postal votes for the Coalition in 2016 (if they were indeed stronger: I haven’t seen any hard data on this) might have been an effect of the rise in pre-poll voting, which would enable many able-bodied people who knew were going to be overseas or in a remote place on election day to avoid having to bother with a postal vote. This would increased the proportion of postal votes that were coming from people in nursing homes, hospitals, remote farms and etc. who seem to be more inclined on average to vote for the Coalition than are able-bodied people likely to be out of town on election day. So it might be more of a demographic effect than a problem with the party organisation.
Re the postal votes in Braddon and Longman: I would have thought that both parties would have been able to direct far more resources to this task than would be the case in a national election. So the numbers of postal votes ought to be pretty high.
SK
Yes, polling booths all have their individual characters.
BK said:
“We’ve just been to vote in Mayo and the TV camera captures us smilingly approaching Rebekha Sharkie’s mum and dad who were handing out how to vote cards. They are confident. The Liberal Party contingent had faces like dropped pies!
Apparently the betting for Sharkie is at $1.06.”
Always love your work BK
SK: “I didnt know that. Assumed pollsters accounted for it. Any idea of the amount?”
Did you read my post? I too assume that they account for it, but that’s a difficult effect to estimate.
It’s just been my impression over the years that large numbers of seats which Labor seems likely to win on national polling trends, and in which they are leading on election night, end up staying in the hands of the Coalition thanks to postal votes.
Maybe that won’t happen tonight: Newspoll has rather put its reputation on the line by reporting that Labor will hold both seats, so this must be an encouraging sign for them.
I have been saying all along that I expect Labor to hold both, but I was starting to feel more uncertain as the campaign went along. Not long to go now.
Mehar baba@9:41am
It is true that LNP has real advantage when it comes to postal votes. Even Anthony Green, William have said so ( 56-44).
For example on election night of 2016 federal election, ALP was expected to win 64 seats and LNP was expected to win 60 seats. Out of the 12 seats which were in doubt, ALP was in lead in 10 seats over LNP on election night. That is the reason MT outburst on election night, which everybody thought was the most disgraceful speech by any PM candidate. We know the rest. That means postals flowed very strongly for LNP.
Betting for Sharkie at $1.06? That’s a 6% return for a one-day investment! Take it! I used to have a mate who would back odd-on favourites at the gallops and say “you’re only lending it to the bookies for a short time”, which was very logical if the favourite won. The problem of course was that even an odds-on favourite sometimes loses – but I don’t think Rebecca is going to.
Jack A
2190 % pa (approx). Better than bank interest!
The issue with postal votes and postal vote campaigns is rather a distraction. The only issue with the opinion polls is if the people postal voting were not being recorded. That would certainly be expected with military people overseas for example and probably most of the tourists away overseas.
Postal vote campaigns seem to mainly consist of sending out letters to electors with information about postal voting, including the forms. Sitting members can use their allowances for this. Unfortunately the system still seems to allow party offices to have the applications for postal votes to be returned to a party office and then handed over to the Electoral Commission. Thus the party office may know the names or addresses of the people who do this and can follow up with posted HTV cards etc. The system should be changed so that return is only to the AEC.
But given that Braddon and Longman have ALP members not Lib/LNP members before election there is no reason why Labor will be disadvantaged. The previous Lib/LNP people probably still have their list from 2016 but it will be a bit less useful this time.
In any event because the party names are on the ballot paper the effect of not having a HTV card is much reduced. Probably max 2% in 2PP for those voting without a HTV. Same reason why a majority of people now don’t take HTV at booths and many others take them as courtesy to the enthusiastic poll workers.
Ven – both postals and prepolls flowed strongly for the LNP at the 2016 election. A lot of people voted early because of the school holidays, and before the last 10 day surge back to Labor.
Personally, I don’t think Labor lost a single vote because of its ‘weak’ postal vote campaign. Postal Voters are not really folk for turning in a campaign. Older folk are simply more conservative as a general rule. They tend to vote LNP overwhelmingly 9even when its not in their personal interests). Postal voters are also overwhelming made up of older folk who don’t like the hassle of going to a local primary school to vote, especially if they have mobility issues. The other big postal demographic seems to be military service personnel who are deployed around the country or overseas. Again, a predominantly conservative base.
Thanks for the post and info William. Close enough in Braddon and Longman that its a real contest.
Should not be as Turnbull is such a pathetic sack of rw owned manure but there you go.
ABC24 on now. Good to see ALP pushing policy. Turnbull still nuthin to offer other than “Bill Bad”.
Does anybody know What the pre and postal vote for Longman and Braddon are?C@tmomma predicted it could be upto 30%.
Sky News Australia
Verified account @SkyNewsAust
6m6 minutes ago
.@jacksonw____: @SusanLambALP was able to vote this morning, Trevor Ruthenberg was not. He doesn’t actually live in the Longman electorate. He was out campaigning with @PeterDutton_MP.
MORE: https://bit.ly/2LScSoM #SuperSaturday #auspol
Ven @ #27 Saturday, July 28th, 2018 – 11:07 am
Ven – all here
Check out @AusElectoralCom’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/AusElectoralCom/status/1022980252572647424?s=09
Re: Postal Votes
They represent a demographic that supports the Conservatives more than Labor, so why would Labor waste effort chasing them? 🙂
I actually think Labor needs to put more effort into postals, making the effort to get the requests out there is another form of outreach.
Barney – because some of them support Labor, and some might even be swing voters?
j341983 @ #31 Saturday, July 28th, 2018 – 8:33 am
Why?
If the 56-44 figure is correct then for every 100 postals you collect the Libs get a 12 vote gain.
Postal campaigns tend to be a lot more targeted than just blanket letters.
“.@jacksonw____: @SusanLambALP was able to vote this morning, Trevor Ruthenberg was not. He doesn’t actually live in the Longman electorate. He was out campaigning with @PeterDutton_MP.”
I didn’t know that.
That means that none of today’s three Liberal candidates currently reside in their electorate (although Georgina Downer has been using some language that kind of sort of suggests that she has returned to live in Mayo: but it’s all a bit indefinite, and she was clearly a long-term resident of Melbourne until very recently).
I suspect the non-resident status of the Lib candidates matters a bit in Braddon and Mayo, but probably not so much in Longman.
J341893: you’re perhaps the fifth poster I’ve read on here that seems to be suggesting that Labor hasn’t been making much of an effort to get postals. Again, I am inclined to question the truth of this.
Does anyone have a source for this assertion? I’m not saying it isn’t true, but a little bit surprising to hear that a well-oiled political machine like the ALP would drop the ball on something as important as this. Because, while a high proportion of postal votes go to the Libs, this certainly doesn’t mean that it’s not worth trying to track down every last Labor one that might be out there.
Joel Richters
@JoelRichters
1h1 hour ago
Energex forced to remove sign illegally erected on a power pole at Kallangur State School after LNP boss refused to pull it down!
“We will just cop the $3000 fine” said an LNP Spokesperson!
#Arrogant #longman #auspol #longmanvotes
On the election night of 2016 federal elections vote conting, Anthony Green gave Longman and Braddon to ALP with in a hour of vote counting.
The Ruthenberg medals question is useless. More likely/less likely questions asked in isolation about a single issue are pseudoscience. They are even worse than focus groups if that is possible.
The Volunteers/ The Gamechangers/ Ground gamers of Longman and Braddon
Let us make the Newspoll opinion poll true.
Remember what MT said about this by-elections
It is a contest between him and Shorten. You do not need a bigger motivation than that. If ALP wins Longman and Braddon, it implies MT is defeated.
meher baba @ #36 Saturday, July 28th, 2018 – 8:52 am
I can understand you wanting Labor to do the Liberal’s leg work. 🙂
Simon² Katich® says at Friday, July 27, 2018 at 9:34 am
Given that Labor and the Coalition sometimes also vote with each other both could be true.
I wonder if all of the postal votes sent to the Liberals got passed on to the AEC?
BiGD: “I can understand you wanting Labor to do the Liberal’s leg work. ”
Good electorate offices have a fair bit of knowledge about loyal supporters who are in nursing homes and hospitals. Making sure they are able to cast a valid vote is a sensible goal.
I think Labor is actually doing BETTER on the machinery required for postal campaigns, it was abominable in 2013, 2016 was better (but still lagged behind their ordinary and absentee numbers). It’s not so much about dropping the ball, but the Libs’ postal campaigns have always been strong. Because, yes, because the Libs vote skews older and people who reside in the same place for a long time. The ALP voter data work has gotten much better, so they can better target voters who are more amenable to them. But it 2016, the Libs/LNP did about 5% better on postals versus their on the day vote, Labor did almost 5% worse on postals.
My issue is that we shouldn’t be ignoring the benefits of a more robust postal strategy, and not discount them because “they’re old and only vote for the Tories” – Labor HAS been weak, and I’ve personally seen evidence of this, but I’m arguing that they can be better.
The Greens also do terribly on postals, but they’re very strong on pre-polls. etc…
Good morning all,
Re postal votes.
I would suggest that labor would have put in a focused postal vote campaign in both Longman and Braddon given the importance of the two by elections.
Re focus during a general federal election.
With limited resources stretched across all seats in each state a more targeted approach based on time and cost effectiveness would be the game plan. Decisions would be made early on which seats to concentrate and those seats would have a focused campaign. Safe labor seats, safe liberal seats would be ignored, marginal seats on both sides seen as having a strong and realistic chance of flipping would be targeted.
” Super Saturday ” ( I really hate that term ) by elections with one seat only up for grabs in both Queensland and Tasmania and the significance of both seats would see labor pouring every energy into postal voting.
Just the thoughts of a complete amateur.
Cheers.
Thanks ajm@11:23am for the info
That means already about 50 % (47 k) of Longman have already voted.
IMO, Prepoll i.e. (~ 34 k) favours ALP marginally. But postat votes (~ 12 k) will strongly favour LNP.
Mehar baba@11:44am
The bloody arrogance of LNP. They were so confident that they selected candidates who reside outside the electorate. None of these candidates were selected by pre-selection.
Defeaning silence from Rex.
Earned my #democracysausage in the Perth by-election.
There were only three parties handing out HTV’s at my polling place;
Labor seemed very upbeat;
Greens seemed to be putting a brave face on it;
Australian Christians who looked like they were thinking “Why the heck did I give up a Saturday to stand out in the rain for?”.
It should be noted that this was before 9am local time, so a long way to go yet. I’d be surprised if the Christians last much longer before they pack it in.
Roll on 6pm for Perth/Freo results to start rolling in. 4pm for Longman/Bradman, and 4.30pm for Mayo (Western Standard Time).
Ven: “The bloody arrogance of LNP. They were so confident that they selected candidates who reside outside the electorate. None of these candidates were selected by pre-selection.”
I think it’s a bit more complex than that. In Braddon at least, I think the choice of Whiteley was partly driven by factional considerations, with one important element in the party being perhaps more focused on ensuring that there was a conservative candidate than on winning the seat. I don’t know as much about what is happening in Longman, but it could well be the case that something similar was happening there. The rationale for the selection of Downer in Mayo appears to have been reasonably clear.