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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  2. Victoria

    The fact you don’t see the UK government spending millions on a bail jumper watch when they don’t do it for murder suspects and have problems with budgets on witness protection details for court witnesses should tell you something is fishy.

  3. ScoMo needs another week to make sure there’s no-one he’s missed out for a $350,000-plus sinecure, cosy commissionership, CEO position at some obscure qango no-one knew existed, $1,000,000,000 gravy train construction contract, juicy overseas posting for a failed preselection candidate or serendipitous last minute environmental approval.

    And if it means that about-to-be PM Bill Shorten has a major shitfight on his hands with getting the Senate vote properly counted by June 30th then, meh, that’s Bill’s problem, not ScoMo’s.

  4. Sohar, Greens low vote in Vic is probably more about the success of the Labor brand in Vic rather than anti-green sentiment.

  5. @AndrewCatsaras tweets

    Labor was never going to get 57% or anything like that in 2007. I thought at the time they might match Hawke’s 53.2, but only achieved EGW’s 52.7. I think ALP this time will be looking at about 52.5 & seats around mid 80’s. https://twitter.com/mumbletwits/status/1114298431751634944

    @mumbletwits tweers
    Yknow, this far out from the 2007 election Labor was on about 57% in the polls, came in on election day 52.7%. What if there’s a similar shift from the general 53% today between now and election day?

  6. guytaur says:
    Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 9:49 am
    @stilgherrian tweets

    It appears that Crusader Rabbit is objecting to claims in this investigation by Four Corners / The Age / SMH. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-06/abbott-attended-function-hosted-by-communist-party-linked-mogul/10962224 Nice quote here. https://twitter.com/stilgherrian/status/1114298498160029696/photo/1
    ____________________________________________

    It is almost a Law of Nature that when a Tory says one thing it is exactly the opposite.

  7. Actually, those galaxy numbers are the first time for a long time we have seen “Dont know”, in the Victorian state election it was those that turned to Labor and gave them the big win.
    Dont knows, in the current environment i suspect are more likely to be normally anti-Labor, trying to hold out for some reason to still vote liberal.

  8. It was noted earlier that Labor are not spending resources defending seats in Victoria.
    Do you think that this could potentially lead to Australia’s “Donald Trump” moment which happened in the US when the Clinton campaign chose not to spend money defending Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, none of which were remotely considered realistic chances to flip?

  10. Bug1: Sohar, Greens low vote in Vic is probably more about the success of the Labor brand in Vic rather than anti-green sentiment.

    Agreed re Vic, but the Greens would be lucky to get to 9% in Qld, let alone 12%.

  11. Some more on galaxy from Ghost Who Votes

    The WA results haven’t been reported.

    The #Galaxy Poll QLD 2 party preferred is about LNP 45 ALP 55.

  12. Sohar

    Labor people and LNP ones always talk down Greens polling numbers. So we can go on election results.
    In the line ball state of NSW Labor will welcome the fact that in incumbent seats the Greens increased their votes. Good for preferences for Labor seats that the Greens don’t win.

    Less effort needed by Labor to defend seats and concentrate resources in Western Sydney.

    One of the reasons I think its Labor’s election to lose is very simple. The swing is on against the LNP. Labor goes into the election against a minority government with a redistribution nominally giving them that one seat to win. Thats before you factor Victoria into the equation.

    There is very very good reason the LNP are desperate.

    Edit: sorry meant Victoria State election

  16. sprocket_ @ #5 Saturday, April 6th, 2019 – 4:11 am

    Murdoch has his people embedded in Scotty’s camp – saying 11 May is off the table, Scotty believes he can turn things around by going later, probably 25th May

    Scotty thinks he can do seven weeks head to head with the Labor campaign machine?

    Scotty needs a Bex and a lie down.

  17. The Christmas tree has been up for a long time and some people keep peeping at the presents.
    So Morrison justs delays Christmas!

  18. Sohar

    ‘Greens 12 in Qld but 8 in Vic is weird.’

    No, it shows that (some) Green votes are protest votes. If Labor is doing what these voters want, they shift back.

  19. ‘Julian Assange @wikileaks is an Australian citizen and the Govt should intervene to stop his extradition and move to bring him home. #auspol’

    What extradition?

    Until someone has sought one and he’s actually in a courtroom there’s not much the government can do.

  21. sprocket_ @ #6 Saturday, April 6th, 2019 – 4:14 am

    Coalition and Labor teams will move to a campaign footing this weekend, prompting speculation over when Mr Morrison will visit Governor-General Peter Cosgrove to call the election.
    …
    A senior ALP source said the Labor campaign would start ­tomorrow regardless.

    Jesus the SmearStralian posts some crap. In WA we’ve been on the ground 14 months.

  22. Clearly the shifting Greens voters in Victoria care more about social issues (which Andrews is strong on) but are less concerned about the environment (which Andrews is weak on).

  29. So the owner of the recycling factory that burnt down yesterday was convicted In county court few weeks ago and sentenced to six months jail for possessing illegal firearms.
    Meanwhile the EPA and worksafe had been investigating all his business sites etc. I daresay the time has come for the dumped chemicals to be dealt with by law enforcement.
    It’s the only way a proper and thorough clean up can occur.

  30. Victoria

    Does getting citizenship of Ecuador mean you suddenly lose your Australian Citizenship?

    Unless it does raising this is a red herring. Says more about your agenda than that of the law.

  34. ‘Greens 12 in Qld but 8 in Vic is weird.’

    Not really. The sample size is 2,224. This would include about 550 Victorians and 450 Queenslanders. The number of Green voters sampled in each State would be about 55 and 45 respectively, too small to derive too many conclusions. The difference between the sampled Green vote Victoria and Queensland would be just statistical noise.

  37. The historic destiny for the Greens is to evict the environmentalists, capitalist roaders, petits bourgeois, and other impure doctrinal elements, and thence to congregate around some version or other of doctrinaire left purity. As the purists become more and more concentrated and less and less grounded, they will start touting more and more purist and more and more ludicrous policies like the UBI. Anyone who dares critique such policies will be cast out into the outer political darkness and will have inflicted on them such telling soubriquets as ‘You’re a Tory, so yah boo hiss suck!

    This process will involve the classic feedback resulting from the democratic decision making of which the Greens are so proud. The doctrinaire fanatics will drive out reasonable people and thus the policies will become more and more fanatical. Think disarming Australia. Think the UBI.

    The eviction of realist environmentalists will be attended by lots of righteous mouthings, personal bullying and harrassments. There is nothing more vicious than what is happening within Greens ranks ATM. All this is in train as we speak and it has already taken the Greens vote down from around 15% and climbing to around 10% and falling. The Greens who think that this is a temporary glitch don’t understand either the structures or the dynamics that are driving these outcomes..

    This destiny will get the Greens’s vote where all docrtinaire left parties have existed in Australian political history: down to less than 5%.

    The enviornmentalists allowed themselves to be used and the Greens Party to be abused as a Front Organization. At an individual level they are waking up the consequences of this and are deserting the Greens. It took them 30 years. But better late than never.

  39. If Assange has abandoned his citizenship does Australia have any responsibilities for his crimes and misdemeanours.

  40. I often wonder who those stories like McCrann’s are actually aimed at.

    Behind the scenes Labor talks to industry leaders etc. They’d know such nonsense is nonsense.

    Ordinary people don’t bother with the OZ. Circulation numbers would imply that the audience is mostly died-in-the-wool, rusted on Lib voters anyway. So who would such a story sway? A tiny increment of the voter pool at best.

    Politicians/commentators are talking about silos. These kinds of stories are silo echoes.

  41. j
    I would hazard a guess that McCrann is clinically depressed.
    I assume he is given air space by Murdoch because he spouts the driest of dry economic commentary.

  47. Victoria

    The fact you ignore the massive effort by the UK government spending millions to monitor this particular bail jumper and have always argued against Assange from day one on his fleeing to the Embassy.

    You have judged him guilty when the law has not. The only thing he is guilty of is avoiding a bail sentence of Ten days on a belief of persecution. One that a government and the UN has also backed.

    The agenda you have been arguing for is the US one that Assange is a traitor. While I agree he may have become a Russian Intelligence asset that does not make him a traitor to Australia.

    Then GG pops up the citizenship thing as if that means suddenly Assange is not an Australian citizen.
    It thankfully means Assange can’t run for parliament because we don’t need another right wing nutter in parliament but it does not change that he is our right wing nutter.

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