NOTE: The main discussion thread has fallen down the page a little, to here, below the latest New South Wales election post and Brexit update from Adrian Beaumont.
Today’s Sunday Mail (the Adelaide one) brings the first published poll of state voting intention in South Australia since the election of Steven Marshall’s Liberal government last year, courtesy of YouGov Galaxy. It produces a status quo result on two-party preferred, with the Liberals leading 52-48, compared with an election result of 51.9-48.1, but shows considerable movement on the primary vote thanks to the collapse of Nick Xenophon’s SA Best: the Liberals are on 42%, compared with 38.0% at the election; Labor is on 37%, compared with 32.8%; the Greens are on 7%, compared with 6.7%; and SA Best are on 7%, compared with 14.1%. Steven Marshall holds a 46-26 lead over Labor’s Peter Malinauskas as preferred premier. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 844.
I am despondent here in SA. The Lib gov’t are cutting services as usual. These numbers offer no comfort.
Anything the Pommy YouGov puts its name to is worthless.
What I have noticed about SA is that, whatever Marshall is doing, nobody is talking much about it nationally. Why does the national press seem to have gone quiet on Marshall, whereas Weatherill was such a “front page sensation”, usually in a forced and artificially negative way?
Is that a case of Protection-by-Inconspicuousness?
Alpo @ #3 Sunday, March 17th, 2019 – 7:22 am
Yes.
Alpo @ #3 Sunday, March 17th, 2019 – 7:22 am
Yes. But no-one is really telling us what they are doing. You don’t know what you had until it’s gone.
I sent this complaint to the ABC. Not that it will do any good.,
Nothing much is happening here. You could blink and think Weatherill was still in power. Malinauskas has been very quiet. I’ve heard he’s very impressive but haven’t seen much of him. Not that we’ve seen much of Marshall either.
Malinauskas is a really decent person. Marshall is a Pyne puppet.
These figures are virtually the same as those of the last election.
People take a while to wake up. They will.
I find it interesting to hear these comments, which shows it really matters what you watch/listen/read and that I’m possibly in a bit in a bubble.
My take was that Malinauskas has been way more visible and influential than most Opposition Leaders, especially this far out from election, and taken up a number of high-profile campaigns to build a strong profile for a new leader.
He appears to be regularly consulted by the media and offers an opinion on most major SA issues across Channel 7 news, The Advertiser, ABC Adelaide etc. More often than not he’s the only opinion aired (e.g. occasionally a Liberal minister but very rarely Marshall himself).
On a local levels, Malinauskas is also attending a lot of community events and has undertaken an extensive listening tour across every electorate in the state.
In contrast I’ve seen plenty of messaging from Liberal ministers (e.g. Knoll, Wade etc.) but Marshall from my perspective has been largely missing in action apart from a couple of ribbon cuttings, a few comments on the Chapman debacle, and an increase in good news announcements in the last fortnight or so.
This is all to say, it’s interesting and refreshing to get some other perspectives.
“You have a responsibility to our community, You are our ABC. Act like it.”… At the moment it’s not our ABC anymore, it’s their ABC, which was exactly the objective of all recent Liberal PMs, yes including Malcolm Turnbull. The trick was very simple: repeat ad nauseam that the ABC is left-wing biased (against evidence upon evidence that disproved it), control the ABC, shift it to the right and…. continue to argue that the ABC is left-wing biased, which protects the ongoing right-wing shift from being challenged.
A clean up of the ABC-SBS will be required as yet another urgent initiative of the coming Shorten ALP Federal government.
Weatherill frequently intervened in federal debates, did high profile deals with billionaires, crashed press conferences, etc and was talked about ad nauseum by the federal government. What has Marshall done to attract that level of news coverage and how much time has federal Labor spent talking about him? It’s hardly a conspiracy…
“Mr Marshall is preferred as premier by almost half of the 844 respondents to the statewide YouGov Galaxy poll, leading his Labor rival, Peter Malinauskas, by 46 per cent to 26 per cent.
However, 28 per cent remain uncommitted.
Mr Marshall’s dominant position as preferred premier is the first time he has held a commanding lead over his Labor rival in a YouGov Galaxy Poll since becoming Liberal leader in February, 2013.”
Any thoughts on what Preferred Premier polling indicates, if anything?
It indicates even less than preferred prime minister polling, to whit, that the only time a premier can lose on that measure is if they are comically hopeless.
@MM
My observations are the same. I think Peter has been very active for an opposition leader at this stage in electoral cycle. He has been out and about campaigning on SA service closures and bus route closures. Used byelections to increase his profile.
There is a sense that Marshall government is similar to Baillieu/Napthine governments in Victoria. Not doing much, a few cuts here and there, industrial fights with workers in public sectors and no overarching theme.
I wouldn’t worry about better premier ratings at this stage of electoral cycle because no one gives a shit.
Marshall Liberals will be a one term wonder like they were last time in office. All the idiot Liberals know what to do is cut spending and privatise. They are basically just a bunch of liquidators who get political office amd apply liquidation stategies passed off as economic policy. They are morons. Rob Lucas knows one thing i.e. sell public assets. He presided over the sale of SAs electricity system.