Ipsos: 53-47 to Labor

The latest monthly Ipsos poll suggests a steadying for the Coalition after recent abysmal results, although it does so from an unusual set of primary vote numbers.

The latest Ipsos poll for the Fairfax papers is the Coalition’s least bad result of the Scott Morrison prime ministership so far, recording the Labor two-party lead at 53-47, an improvement on the 55-45 blowout the pollster recorded as Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership entered its final week (which was the one poll suggesting a significant weakening in Coalition voting intention in the period up to the spill). Ipsos’ primary vote numbers are still idiosyncratic, with an already over-inflated Greens gaining two points to 15%, while Labor slumps four to 31% and the Coalition gains one to 34%. No conventional leadership ratings that I can see yet, but ratings of the two leaders across a range of eleven attributes finds Morrison scoring better than Bill Shorten on every question other than “has the confidence of his/her party” and “has a firm grasp of social policy”. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1200; more detail presumably to follow.

UPDATE: As related by the Financial Review, the poll has Scott Morrison debuting with 46% approval and 36% disapproval, while Bill Shorten is up three on approval to 44% and down four on disapproval to 48%. Morrison holds a 47-37 lead as preferred prime minister, little different from Turnbull’s 48-36 lead in the last poll.

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.

2,765 comments on “Ipsos: 53-47 to Labor”

Comments Page 3 of 56
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  1. Steady on Confessions, you go from asking me to take photos of the super moon a couple of years ago, which I duly performed and posted the result. Now, you’re accusing me of being among “anti-Labor forces”. That’s no fair. You would have seen many of my posts over a long period. Yes I was on the Rudd side of RGR equation, and yes I was mightily relieved when Turnbull ousted Abbott, but I really can’t see how you conclude I’m anti-Labor. I find the psychology of politicians intriguing. I reckon Shorten is very conscious of his height. It’s just my perception and I may be wrong. It’s not intrinsically important of course but it is notable insofar as a person’s psychological profile determines the way they behave, and politicians are, generally speaking, fairly unusual specimens of the human variety.

    As for Kevin Rudd, I suspect his psychological profile was very unusual. He’s extremely intelligent but adopted this quite quirky tics like the “gotta zip” at the end of media conferences, the obsession with how the hair was presented and various other idiosyncrasies.

  4. No one in the voterland gives a crap about TPP, because most people wouldn’t even have a clue what it is.

    Simply put if you know what TPP is and have strong opinions about it you are not a swing voter or represent a negligible number of people in this country. Apart from political junkies like us, no one is talking about TPP.

    This whole IPSOS dropped because of TPP policy of Labor is rubbish. This take is even worse than “dividend imputation franking credit policy of Labor will hurt ALP” take.

  5. Confessions@9:07pm
    The PV of ALP on last Monday (6 days ago) in Newspoll is 41%
    Every pundit agreed LNP had a torrid week since then.
    Now the PV of ALP is 31% in Ipsos poll. ALP PV drops by 10%, which is catastrophic by any indication. For what? For nothing. LNP PV is more or less same across polls. Greens PV increases by 50% when Greens had bad publicity in last fortnight. To put it mildly, this Ipsos poll is ridiculous.

  6. Let’s say the poll is correct, and the last few have all been outliers.

    Did the Libs toss Turnbull for no good (polling) reason?

  7. alias:

    I’m sorry but I do find it incredulous that you choose such random and inconsequential matters with which to find fault with the opposition (Shorten’s height is surely up there with the most esoteric and inconsequential), most esp given the glaring, up in neon lights chaos and dysfunction of the current govt.

  10. I’m sorry but I do find it incredulous that you choose such random and inconsequential matters with which to find fault with the opposition (Shorten’s height is surely up there with the most esoteric and inconsequential),
    __________________
    Perfect fodder for a blog then.

  11. Maybe the name Shorten makes people subconsciously perceive him as shorter than the would with a name that did not have short in it?

  12. To cut to the far more serious: I asked my politically very tuned out family about the ScoMo social media video clip affair.

    They were all unaware of it. However, when the two teenage kids viewed the video, and were told about the problems with the lyrics, they were both adamant that they had formed a positive impression of ScoMo as a consequence. You could call this the wildcard effect. Will stuff-ups like that video get disengaged punters to create some kind of cult of personality over ScoMo? Unlikely, but in these volatile times, stranger things have happened – and Shorten’s personal ratings remain dire.

  14. @grimace, you say the swing to Labor across WA “probably won’t be 8.2%”. Maybe – we’re dealing in uncertainties after all. But can you give me a reason to prefer some specific WA-wide swing other than 8.2%, given that William Bowe gives me a reason (his BludgerTrack) to expect 8.2% which is about as adequate as any reason can be at the present? In particular, can you give me a reason to think it will be less than 8.2%?

  15. Confessions.. the chaos and dysfunction of the Government is a given. It’s so cataclysmicly bad that it hardly warrants comment since comment on the matter is everywhere. I’m intrigued by these peripheral questions.

  17. many psychologists have agreed that short asses cause all sorts of problems. From the short man syndrome to the Napoleon/Dictator stuff I mentioned earlier. They can be very short tempered ( I wonder where that term came from?) and often have a short fuse. Perhaps some sort of stretching program can be implemented into primary schools or more usefully gene modification. Police statistics reveal a correlation between lack of height and recidivism so it is important stuff.

    I am willing to give Shorten a good stretching on a home made rack I have whipped up with him in mind. Let men know.

  18. Sprocket@10:20pm
    John Howard is 5′ 6″. But he was PM for 11 years. Some people are really ridiculous
    Nath as C@tmomma posted go to sleep.

  19. Anyway, I’m going to bed. I have been elsewhere for quite a few months (ie not here). I’d be intrigued to learn what became of Bemused. I infer from some earlier posts that he was somehow excommunicated from hereabouts? Is that right?

  20. Sprocket. I don’t troll. I find all this interesting. I said “some” shorties tend towards tyranny. Short man syndrome is interesting to me. I’ve observed it in a number of blokes I’ve known over the years. That’s it. I’m signing out.

  22. Alias:

    The ‘short man therefore can’t be a leader’ viewpoint is akin to the ‘she’s only a woman therefore can’t be a leader’ stereotype we often see posted here. Just sayin’, but maybe you need to think a little more about your biases. If you really do think a short man can’t be prime minister let alone a highly effective one, then I think that reflects rather poorly on you.

  23. this has been worse discussion on PB can remember – apart from cricket and like

    i asked a reasonable point on wentworth – in part to add substance – and not a word

  24. Michael @ #114 Sunday, September 16th, 2018 – 8:24 pm

    @grimace, you say the swing to Labor across WA “probably won’t be 8.2%”. Maybe – we’re dealing in uncertainties after all. But can you give me a reason to prefer some specific WA-wide swing other than 8.2%, given that William Bowe gives me a reason (his BludgerTrack) to expect 8.2% which is about as adequate as any reason can be at the present? In particular, can you give me a reason to think it will be less than 8.2%?

    In the entire history of Australian electoral results, an average swing of 8.2% would be somewhere near the top 10 biggest swings. Further, William himself has said there are some issues with the current Bludger Track:

    “In any case, BludgerTrack is in methodological limbo at the moment, as its smoothing method is not designed for convulsions such as the one that set in three weeks ago. Whereas the smoothing parameter is normally determined by something called the Aikake information criterion, this has lately been causing a problem in producing a very low value for the Coalition and a very high one for Labor. The effect of this has been that the current reading of the Coalition primary vote has reflected the sudden change in fortunes, but Labor’s has not.

    As a result, I have junked my usual method for the major parties and simply applied arbitrary low values that get them to the ballpark of where their latest poll results have been. The sizeable increase in the Labor primary vote this week is only because I have moved them from a high to a low smoothing parameter – the latest polls have in fact had them down slightly. When enough data is available from the Morrison era for it to work, I will start up a new series using only post-leadership change data.”

    With the actual 8.2%, it wouldn’t surprise me if Porter copped much more than an 8.2% swing against him on the basis of voter feedback that the campaign team here (Pearce) have got. Some of that swing will be part of the national momentum against the L/NP, the bigger chunk of it will be because Mr Porter has a work ethic and level of engagement with his electorate best suited to a candidate in a very safe seat with rock-solid party connections ensuring their continued preselection regardless of their actual performance.

    It’s unlikely there will be much of a swing against the Liberals in seats like Curtin, Durack, Forrest, Moore, O’Connor or Tangney, leaving a lot of the heavy lifting to be done in the six marginal seats in WA.

  27. alias:

    Short man syndrome is interesting to me. I’ve observed it in a number of blokes I’ve known over the years.

    This is the exact kind of situation where confirmation bias is common, though. Once you’re primed to look for “short man syndrome”, you’ll remember the examples that confirm it but tend to forget about the counterexamples.

  28. What we do know is the results of by elections in Batman and in 5 other by elections – plus in NSW, in Wagga Wagga

    Prior to that we had the Coalition retaining 2 blue ribbon seats

    Among those they have since failed to win have been 2 other blue ribbon seats being Mayo and Wagga Wagga

    Australian elections are rarely landslides – the most recent being very close to 50/50 on 2PP resulting in a government with a 1 seat majority

    Since then we have had redistributions

    Next cab off the rank is Wentworth, the seat of the former pm and a blue ribbon Liberal seat

    We will see how that turns out

    Momentum is everything

  29. This discusses the phenomenon. It’s a sound evolutionary heuristic to prefer a taller leader, as they are statistically more likely to be stronger and healthier (PS I am 178cm, exactly the same as Shorten).
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/caveman-politics/201210/it-s-weird-candidate-height-matters-in-elections
    There are lots of factors which make you statistically more likely to win an election;
    1. male
    2. better looks
    3. facial characteristics

    In some very good studies, if you show photos of candidates to people who they don’t know and ask who they would be more likely to vote for, they will predict who actually wins 72% of the time.

  30. bug1 @ #58 Sunday, September 16th, 2018 – 9:25 pm

    So a third of 18-28 have abandoned ALP, opposition leader netsat improves.

    Labor did drop opposition to the TPP, younger voters might be angry about that and switch to greens, but still, im calling rogue.

    I think we all know the real reason for that shift is the Twitter rap video. Worked a treat! 🙂

    Seriously though, there hasn’t been enough recent mainstream coverage on anything TPP-related for that to be the explanation. Even if there had been, the Coalition would suffer at least as much as Labor, the resurrected TPP being Turnbull’s Frankenstein after all.

    Most likely an odd result from an odd pollster, I agree.

  31. imacca says:
    Sunday, September 16, 2018 at 9:13 pm
    53/47 to the ALP sounds to me like th epolling is starting to settle back to the long term level for this Govt. I’m cool with that.

    With the Labor pv allegedly at 31% and the greens at 15% this poll just cannot be taken seriously IMO. Even in the 2013 wipe out Labor managed 33% yet now with the Liberals on the ropes and in absolute turmoil after sacking a popular leader we are expected to believe that the Labor pv is 2% less than that. Bollocks.

  38. LU not logged in @ #60 Sunday, September 16th, 2018 – 9:28 pm

    One parliament cannot bind future parliaments’ actions, except via legislation, which can be overturned. So treaties can come and go.

    So what happens if Labor, in control of the parliament, says “you know what? ISDS can GAGF…”

    International law says… ah bugger, international law is just a set of conventions and niceties, it doesn’t really say anything and has no coercive power.

    But other govts or their parliaments/legislatures/exectutives (whichever has the powers vested in them to do so) will respond according to their own incentives.

    A slightly different example is is when Theodore Roosevelt basically took away legal ‘rights’ monopoly trusts had accumulated and told them the interests of the public, of voters outweighed theirs.

    There are a whole swag of examples of this in the post Thatcher/ Reagan Western world – just dying out for a similar response.

    In Australia the Bluest of Bluest Chip stocks Boards have been either asleep or most likely complicit in deliberate, willful theft from customers and god only knows what has gone on lower in our Capitalist Business food chain.

    Regulators/ watchdog soundly asleep FFS. OK starved of cash & staff, led by incompetent morons as well – or worse.

    Australian Capitalism is left in ruins and needs a complete going over.

    Where to start – 18th century Adam Smith – of course – the hero of capitalistic spivs normally point too – who was actually the opposite – he believed in well regulated markets as well as the so called “invisible hand of the markets”.

    Smith’s – ” Wealth of Nations” which very very few people have actually read (for good reason, but thats another story for later) was his second book to “Theory of Moral Sentiments” provides the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of the better-known Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, but he was very anti monopolies – particularly the East India Company – arguably the worst example of western capitalism – until recent times anyway.

    Our capitalists have put in place a system with little downside for them.

    That has to change. As Eddie George “Steady Eddie”, former BOE Governor tried to ensure that every Captain went down with their ship (he failed of course) – rather then currently “the scum always float to the top” and bloody well prosper to boot !

    We have one way capitalism – heads they win – tails we all lose.

    Mug voters, disconnected from things put up with it.

    We can do much better.

  39. As a Norwood supporter, I think they should replay the match on Wed and then play the Grannie on Sunday.

    “THE SANFL preliminary final has been plunged into controversy with Woodville-West Torrens seeking legal advice after the league confirmed North Adelaide fielded 19 players for the first five minutes of the final term at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

    The Roosters kicked 1.2 in that period and won the game by five points to secure a grand final battle against Norwood.”

  44. Aunt Mavis says:
    Sunday, September 16, 2018 at 11:15 pm
    nath:

    Please stop being a dickhead! I mean to say, I find more sane people at AA.

    AM

    I don’t quite know what to make of that comment. I am a tea totaler myself but I’ve been to AA meetings and met many of the people there and I wouldn’t characterise them in that way. They just have an addiction they are trying to deal with that’s all.

  45. alias @ #112 Sunday, September 16th, 2018 – 10:20 pm

    To cut to the far more serious: I asked my politically very tuned out family about the ScoMo social media video clip affair.

    They were all unaware of it. However, when the two teenage kids viewed the video, and were told about the problems with the lyrics, they were both adamant that they had formed a positive impression of ScoMo as a consequence. You could call this the wildcard effect.

    Shorten’s personal ratings remain dire.

    alias has probably gone by now, but some ‘reminders” just saying –

    alias
    Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 11:05 pm | Permalink

    ….Turnbull kind of feels sorry for this confidence-deficient bumbling adversary {Shorten }. He plays with him; chides him; has sport with him.

    …. Turnbull challenges Shorten to a series of debates in an election campaign.

    …..Shorten stumbles, his inadequacies as a public speaker are laid bare. Turnbull gains in confidence.

    …..Turnbull wins the election with an increased majority
    …

    alias
    Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 10:03 pm | Permalink

    .. .. Just watch. Turnbull will cement himself into an election winning position. He will then tweak some policies that matter to many Australians

    …

    alias
    Posted Friday, October 2, 2015 at 11:09 pm | Permalink

    I still get a special little heart flutter when I remember Turnbull is PM.
    … However the fact remains that I get a special little heart flutter..
    ..
    alias
    Posted Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 6:16 pm | Permalink

    Shorten, to my close observation, is seriously underwhelming.
    I think he is a total dud.
    …
    alias
    Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 9:43 pm | Permalink

    I am becoming increasingly convinced that the removal of Shorten is the only way to bring to final closure this sorry chapter. Sometimes you only get to the core of the cancer, to rid the body of it entirely, by continuing to perform painful surgery.
    …

    alias
    Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 9:59 pm | Permalink

    Requires Shorten to have a moment of blinding insight into his own inadequacies.
    …
    alias
    Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 9:59 pm | Permalink

    …..Shorten with his own grievous shortcomings and inability to come within a bull’s roar of Turnbull.
    …
    Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 10:16 pm | Permalink

    ….Shorten is clumsy with the English language.

    ….his spoken voice has an odd cadence. He puts emphasis on the wrong words, and quite often he uses words wrongly.
    …

    alias
    Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 10:47 pm | Permalink

    ….he {Shorten} doesn’t have the body to wear a suit well

    ……. his receding hairline means he is no longer turns heads.
    …

    alias
    Posted Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 11:15 am | Permalink

    …..Even Shorten’s name has negative connotations
    …

    alias
    Posted Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 2:41 pm | Permalink
    The bulging eyeballs got away from him {Shorten}.

    Ahem

    FFS – with memories of CTar

  46. alias says:
    Sunday, September 16, 2018 at 9:44 pm

    Shorten is just about 6′ in the old money…maybe just under…I’m 5’10″and he’s taller than I am by at least an inch…

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