Another night before Christmas

Doubts the election is quite as imminent as all that, and a slightly dated poll result showing business as usual pre-budget.

Or maybe seven nights. According to Anthony Galloway of the Herald Sun, “speculation intensified yesterday about whether Mr Morrison will call the election tomorrow for May 11, or wait until the end of next week for a May 18 poll”. The latter would suit me better, if he’s reading. Liberal sources say the Prime Minister might be considering holding off “in the hope of a poll bounce after this week’s Budget”, which would be optimistic of him.

Also in the paper today is a rather unusual bit of opinion polling from YouGov Galaxy, which was conducted pre-budget – last Monday to Thursday, to be precise – from a large sample of 2224. The interesting bit is that Labor leads 53-47 on two-party preferred, discouraging the notion that the New South Wales election might have changed anything. However, the larger purpose of the exercise is to burrow down into voters’ perceptions of the party leaders, taken to include Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer as well as the usual suspects. I don’t find this stuff particularly interesting myself, but there’s a lot of detail in the report linked to above, if you can access it.

UPDATE: The poll appeared not to provide the usual forced response follow-up for the initially undecided on voting intention, thus includes an undistributed 8% “don’t know”. The remainder went Labor 34%, Coalition 33%, Greens 9%, One Nation 8%, United Australia Party 3% and Australian Conservatives 2%. Excluding the don’t know component, this becomes Labor 37%, Coalition 36%, Greens 10% and One Nation 9%.

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.

1,277 comments on “Another night before Christmas”

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  1. Kate @ #1230 Sunday, April 7th, 2019 – 6:27 pm

    I’m always interested when people see no difference between the Coalition and Labor. As someone very much at the lower end of the scale financially it matters to me a great deal.

    With a partner about to undergo radiotherapy and with finances stretched to the limit – I am desperate for a Labor win.

    With sickness benefit the same rate as newstart it doesn’t take long for meagre savings to be swallowed by treatment costs.

    Hearing Shorten’s cancer policy had this household in tears.

    It’s funny isn’t it, unless you walk in pinching shoes it doesn’t really sink in how painful life can be.

    Some who post on here glibly say “same same” – and isolate for criticism policies that don’t suit them perfectly. I guess I should be pleased for them that their shoes fit so perfectly.

    I’m a survivor Kate.

    I welcome the medicare changes re cancer treatment costs. Long overdue in my opinion. What took so long ?

    I wish your partner a speedy recovery.

  2. Vic says:
    Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 6:20 pm
    For the umpteenth time, NO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ACCOUNTS FOR THE MASSIVE YOUTH ENROLMENT FROM THE GAY MARRIAGE PLEBISCITE
    So Greens 13% is possible
    ———————–
    A greens vote of 80% is possible but not at all probable. The labor campaign I am working on has been overrun by young people who are switched on and working hard. My heart is bursting with joy.

  3. As predicted, Libs get zero bounce from their budget

    No one’s listening! You’re a terrible government, the worst most voters have ever seen, and you’re just waiting everyone’s time and taxpayer money.

    Dead government walking.

  4. Let’s see whether the massive turnout at recent climate change marches yet again doesn’t matter come polling day. Recent reports are that it is at 2007 levels of public consciousness

  5. What did the Greens poll at in the recent Victorian and NSW State elections – being the 2 most populated States?

    Remember also that the Coalition is the Liberal, National and Liberal National Parties noting the restrictions on those parties standing in the same seat although those contests do occur

    Then there are the Independents now having impact

    I am informed that the report attributed to a Party Insider referring to Abbott’s plight and the status of other seats was bravado for media consumption and to rally the remaining on the ground troops (volunteers are apparently very hard to find adding to the cost of letter boxing which is being attended by Australia Post – and paying for representation at Shopping Centres etc)

    Hence the delay in Caretaker mode

  6. Sprocket
    Party leaders don’t receive Newspoll results on the morning of their release. They get them at the same time as everyone else.

  7. Kate;

    Its the human condition that people only really understand things based on their own experiences, some peopleare better at empathy than others and try to see it from others perspective, but its not the same thing.

    A lot of the people who see Lib/Lab as the same are outside the mainstream and are looking from a distance, rather than from the center. Security is an example of a policy area where Lib and Lab are the same, deliberately.

    It is a brilliant policy from a human and political perspective.

  8. BK I don’t like to correct you but it strikes me as very unlikely they will be trying to come up with new slogans. They are much more likely to scour the internet for old slogans once used by other failed conservative governments.

  9. I think the Fourth Estate will “do a Daley” on Labor – they’ll nitpick every single thing Shorten says, every single thing he does, and eventually find something they can whip up into frothy, anti-Labor headlines. Which they’ll then run variants of every day for the week leading up to Election Day, while running their tame spiv “journalists” as talking-heads on every TV show they can to repeat them ad nauseum. Every effort Labor makes to present their side, or change the topic to policy, will be flat-out ignored at best, or misrepresented at worst (“They refused to answer our questions” style). The hatchet-jobs (yes, plural) on Clinton in 2016 were a preview of this.

    By Election Day, the electorate – comprised of chancers, spivs and sheep as it is – will buy fully into the rhetoric and stampede for the Coalition. Two days after Election Day, Murdoch will call Scummo and demand both legislation favouring NewsCorpse interests, and more money for his adroit job in public manipulation, which Scummo will give gladly.

    My take: Next poll will be 52/48 for Labor.

  10. The Beetoota Advocate (parody site) have a great description of the shouty one. …..

    The night watchman

    Hope it is true

  11. After Shorten’s Budget reply Richo said Morrison ‘Would be an absolute mug” if he did not call an election before Estimates . Good to see Morrison living up to ‘expectations’.

  12. Al Pal. I can’t believe that News Corpse didn’t immediately tell Scottie what was in Newspoll, whereupon Scottie broke down and cried and said: “God, why hast though forsaken me.” And God replied: “Because you’re a dick and my biggest mistake.”

  13. Peter Stanton says:
    A greens vote of 80% is possible but not at all probable. The labor campaign I am working on has been overrun by young people who are switched on and working hard. My heart is bursting with joy.
    ———————————————-
    Labor gaining 39 senate seats is possible, but not at all probable
    And FYI “the plural of anecdote is not data”…

  14. It is possible that Morrisson has made a mistake by drawing out the call to the polls. All over the MSM & internet is the idea that he is doing it solely to spend lots & lots of our taxes just to promote the LNP.
    Most people will not appreciate that. They just may change their minds about voting LNP.

  15. Kate says:
    Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 6:27 pm
    ————————–
    I feel for you Kate. I grew up in a poor household and know pain of having to choose between the competing essential expenditures. That is what feeds the anger that has driven my political life. No one should have to live like that in a wealthy country. I hope you win through and thinking of you will inspire me to do more in this campaign.

  16. Kate says:
    Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 6:27 pm
    ————————–
    I feel for you Kate. I grew up in a poor household and know pain of having to choose between the competing essential expenditures. That is what feeds the anger that has driven my political life. No one should have to live like that in a wealthy country. I hope you win through and thinking of you will inspire me to do more in this campaign.

  17. It is quite funny all the absolute statements coming from the IPSOS figures.

    Unlike the budget, it’s one thing guaranteed to bounce, the only uncertainty is which way.

  18. Vic

    ‘For the umpteenth time, NO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ACCOUNTS FOR THE MASSIVE YOUTH ENROLMENT FROM THE GAY MARRIAGE PLEBISCITE
    So Greens 13% is possible..’

    Except the Green vote in Victoria and NSW – well after the youth enrollment (and most of them would have been enrolled by now, over the normal course of events anyway) – went down.

    The figure on Bludgertrack seems consistent with this.

  19. I just saw one of the ads that Morrison and Co. are foisting on us before they have to pull the pin. Apparently the Fast Train from Geelong to Melbourne got a guernsey simply so it could be put into an ad. Well, not the Fast Train itself because it hasn’t been built yet but some shmick footage of A Fast Train gliding through some countryside somewhere in the world.

    How freaking cynical.

  20. Rex Douglas @ #1243 Sunday, April 7th, 2019 – 6:30 pm

    EGW @ #1220 Sunday, April 7th, 2019 – 6:21 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #1200 Sunday, April 7th, 2019 – 6:03 pm

    IPSOS back as the darling of PB

    You really are thick Rex.
    BTW, how are you coming along with that link to show how the CFMMEU, not just a section of it, support Adani? Must be struggling a bit.

    Surely you’d agree that we need a genuinely progressive balance of power elected to the senate to protect the people and environment from socially irresponsible political donors …?

    https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6003192005001

    CFMEU is threatening to campaign against federal Queensland Labor candidates at the upcoming election if they do not support the state’s Adani Carmichael coal mine.

    The union says it will endorse individual candidates, rather than endorsing all of Labor’s Queensland candidates at the upcoming federal election….

    That is local CFMMEU members and officials in Qld.
    Back you go to your research, you still haven’t come up with a credible link.

    We need a Labor majority in the Senate, either with Labor in its own right or with the support of others with a progressive leaning. Might even include the Greens.

  21. Kate,
    My heart goes out to you. I was in a very similar situation to you when my late husband contracted Multiple Myeloma in his early 50s. I’d already left my job to care for my second child who was born with a congenital abnormality, so money became very tight overnight. As I always tell anyone who will listen, if it wasn’t for Medicare and Social Security, our family couldn’t have continued to live our lives with dignity.

    Only Labor cares about US.

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