The Guardian reports the fortnightly Essential Research poll has followed Newspoll in recording the Labor lead narrowing from 52-48 to 51-49 – and also in doing so from primary votes that you would think more likely to convert to 52-48. Labor are actually up two points from an unusually weak result last time, from 35% to 37%, while the Coalition are up a single point to 39%. The explanation for Labor’s two-party decline must lie in the two-point drop for the Greens, from 11% to 9%, and the attendant weakening in their flow of preferences. One Nation are up a point to 6%; no response option has been added for the United Australia Party, and there is nothing to suggest their ascent in the combined “others” tally, which is down a point to 9%.
If preference flows from 2016 are applied to these crudely rounded numbers, Labor starts with its 37% primary vote and gets 7.4% from the Greens (82% of their total), 3.0% from One Nation (50%) and 4.4% from others (49%), plus a 0.1% boost to correct for preference leakage between the Liberals and the Nationals. Add all that together and Labor comes out on 51.9%. Since this is, to the best of my knowledge, more-or-less the formula Essential uses, the explanation must lie in rounding. Dial Labor back to 36.6% and the Greens to 8.6%, and boost the Coalition to 39.4%, and you get primary votes that round to the published totals, but which produce a Labor two-party result of 51.4%, rounding to 51-49. There can’t have been much in it though.
The poll also features Essential’s occasional measure of leadership ratings, but all we are given at this stage is preferred prime minister. Scott Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is 40-31, down from 44-31 when the question was last asked in early March. So here too the poll reflects Newspoll in finding leadership ratings headed the opposite way from the two-party headline.
We will have to wait until later today for the full report, but The Guardian report relates that 59% expect Labor to win compared with 41% for the Coalition (so presumably a forced response); that “voters have logged news stories about the Liberal party’s preference deal with the controversial businessman Clive Palmer’s United Australia party, and are noticing the debates about tax and healthcare”; that the top rated issues were health, national security and the economy; and that 19% reported taking no interest in the campaign, 29% a little, 33% some, and 20% a lot.
UPDATE: Full report here. The preferred prime minister is the only leadership ratings result – nothing on leaders’ approval and disapproval.
Further poll news:
• Roy Morgan, which either publishes or doesn’t publish its weekly face-to-face poll in irregular fashion, has released its results for a second successive week. Polling conducted over the weekend had Labor’s two-party preferred lead steady at 51-49, according to both respondent-allocated and previous election preference measures. Both major parties are up half a point on the primary vote, the Coalition to 39.5% and Labor to 36%, while the Greens are steady on 9.5% and One Nation (which doesn’t do well in this series at the best of times) down two to 2.5%. Also not doing well in this series is Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, steady on 2%. The poll was conducted face-to-face on Saturday and Sunday from sample size unknown, but probably around 700.
• The Advertiser has a YouGov Galaxy poll of Sturt, the Adelaide seat being vacated by Christopher Pyne, which had the Liberals leading 53-47, compared with their post-redistribution margin of 5.4%. The primary votes were 42% for the new Liberal candidate, James Stevens (44.7% post-redistribution); 35% for Labor candidate Cressida O’Hanlon (23.1%); a striking 9% for the United Australia Party (triple what Palmer United managed in Sturt in 2013); and 6% for the Greens. The poll also gives Scott Morrison a 45-31 lead over Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister; finds 40% less likely to vote Liberal because of Malcolm Turnbull’s replacement by Scott Morrison, compared with 25% for more likely; and finds only 22% more likely to vote Labor because of its franking credits and capital gains tax policies, compared with “almost half” for less likely. The poll was conducted last Wednesday from a sample of 504.
• The Age yesterday related that Labor internal polling had it leading 55-45 in Dunkley, 54-46 in Lyons, and by an unspecified margin in Gilmore.
• The weirdest poll story of the campaign so far turns out to be the revelation that a supposed ReachTEL poll of the Curtin electorate, provided by independent candidate Louise Stewart to The West Australian and run as a front page story on Saturday, was fabricated. The Liberals reacted to ReachTEL’s denial that any such poll had been conducted by calling on Stewart to withdraw from her campaign, but Stewart says she believes she is the victim of a trick by her opponents. However, a follow-up report in The West Australian relates that Stewart told the paper she had “committed two polls from ReachTEL/Ucomms before election day”, and is now refusing the provide the email she received either to the paper or to ReachTEL. ReachTEL principal James Stewart said Louise Stewart had told him the email had been “deleted somehow”, but Louise Stewart says this is “not true”. Alex Turnbull, the son of the former Prime Minister, who has loomed large in independent candidates’ efforts to unseat sitting Liberals (though not, so far, in Stewart’s), said he believed he had been impersonated as part of the ruse. Stewart tells Andrew Burrell of The Australian that Turnbull’s investigations linked the distribution of the fake poll to a source “close to a senior conservative WA Liberal MP’s office in Perth”.
[When I first came to PB about 10 years ago, BB used often provide very interesting and reliable commentary about many matters. His entre into the subject of sexual assault of children and adults in which he has argued about a number of high profile cases in recent years, proselytising his narrow angry white male views, stands in marked contrast.]
I blame BB’s diet of Sydney talkback radio.
Rex any trend to the Coalition is weak and insufficient to change the situation to any material extent .
Darren Laver @ #652 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 7:50 pm
It’s toxic.
In the next leader’s debate i wonder if Morrison will be wearing an earpiece aka Abbott , to be told on what to say and how to answer ?
One Nation’s candidate for Leichhardt is in the firing line over sexist social media posts depicting him groping breasts in Thailand, posing with a topless woman and captioning a woman’s cleavage with the words “mmm YUMMY!!!”. #auspol #ausvotes #OneNation
https://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/one-nation-candidates-seedy-social-media-presence-boobs-bums-and-creepy-captions/news-story/aac3ce8fe08a8b97cd24ae0dfddc264f?nk=fd0b3bd120deefe370ce66df44b65042-1556618033
I think that if a judge second-guesses the jury’s verdict in the Pell case, there is no point in having juries, and we’d be stuck with out-of-touch elite judges evaluating the credibility of people whose life experiences they don’t understand at all. Nothing wrong with elite judges making decisions on questions of law, but questions of fact that involve evaluating the credibility of rival truth claims need to be resolved by a process that involves a wider cross-section of society than the elite of the legal profession.
Just heard another election vox pop on ABC, about the sixth, yet to see a person interviewed say that they will be voting Labor. Gee, can’t their ABC find a single Labor voter?
That’s not playing nice, GG.
sprocket_ @ #660 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 7:54 pm
The Nationals leader was correct then when he said they were close to one nation.
davidwh @ #653 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 7:50 pm
If it gets them into a position of minority Govt, the number of country and liberal independents elected could be their saving grace.
Abbott needed an earpiece to say “big new tax” and “stop the boats”.
GG
I see you are in denial about the Greens
The Greens like it or not were part of the Gillard Government They voted with Labor for most of that legislation.
Without the Greens support in voting for that legislation that list Albanese is quite rightly proud of would not have happened.
That’s what the Greens did by signing the deal with Gillard.
That is political reality. I am not saying here other parties and people didn’t have their roles too.
However the very simple political reality is the Greens made a difference just as they are making a difference in the ACT Government.
You can have your own opinion you cannot have your own facts.
davidwh says:
Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 7:56 pm
Abbott needed an earpiece to say “big new tax” and “stop the boats”.
——————————
lol yes,
Pauline can sure pick em.
GG
That’s ok sonny. You’ll eventually grow up.
Guess the fact that I mentioned your leader Pell was hard for you to stomach, so out you come leading with your glass jaw again.
Cheers matey.
Nicholas @ #657 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 7:54 pm
You’d have to logically think that only a monumental technicality breach would see a judge overturn a juries verdict… and from all first hand reports there were none.
Interesting in SA that The Advertiser has had no political headlines since the election was called even though it is a Murdoch paper. Probably because only one seat in play, Boothby.
I’m in Hindmarsh but getting nothing in the way of party campaigning. My mother, dear soul now in her early 80’s and just had knee replacement, is in Boothby has been flooded with it.
guytaur @ #667 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 7:57 pm
Why are your opinions allowed to be facts ?
https://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/one-nation-candidates-seedy-social-media-presence-boobs-bums-and-creepy-captions/news-story/aac3ce8fe08a8b97cd24ae0dfddc264f
In case the first link doesn’t work – though probably good if it doesn’t
This guy makes Steve Dickson look like a paragon of virtue!
Has any one in the media has asked members of the libs/nats
1-The coalition costing of their climate policy
2- The costing of their electric cars policy
3- The coalition’s housing policy where prices are decreasing
4- The coalition’s costing in getting people into jobs
5- Why has the debt and deficit got higher under the coalition
6- Why has the coalition spent and made promises more than double what Labor has
7- The coalition’s cost on no changes to negative gearing and franking credits
Meanwhile, the drumbeats on Hastie growing louder… Libtika on the case from London
NEW. @IanGoodenoughMP says far-right activist Neil Erikson was “dressed like a rapper” when he approached he and Andrew Hastie at a rally in support of South African farmers in Perth last year. From me: latika.me/2GK0tSw #AusVotes19 #AusVotes #AusVotes2019
UPDATED: Ian Goodenough tells me Andrew Hastie DID meet far-right activists. Hastie a short time ago: ‘I have never sought to nor agreed to meet with Mr Erikson. I’m confident that I did not encounter him on the day.”
sprocket_ @ #674 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 6:01 pm
That link doesn’t work either.
Go for broke, Labor need to nail the Tories to this One Nation sleaze. Let Scum Mo and that non entity NP bloke own it!
VP
That’s not my opinion. Its fact. A deal was signed.
When the Greens did not support the legislation it did not pass.
The big example being the Malaysia Solution.
However despite those few high profile disputes the Greens gave confidence and supported most of the Gillard Governments Legislation.
If they had not the fact is the country would have had either an LNP Government or another election instead.
William Bowe @ #665 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 7:55 pm
William Bowe @ #665 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 7:55 pm
Neither does Psychlaw.
Do you think that Tory stooge Probyn asked Hastie about the Nazi links?
See @chriscalcino twitter feed
Vogon Poet @ #675 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 8:00 pm
Please don’t get swept in to the vaccuum of inanity known as guytaur on account of me.
One Nation has no trouble attracting ageing white Aussie bogans who go abroad for sexual purposes as candidates.
But are One Nation supporters like Trump supporters? They probably will let Pauline and co play victim.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world (remember those?)
“Many pieces are slowly falling into place across the immensely complex Eurasian integration chessboard. A key vector now depends on China being able to develop, refine and project soft power.
BRI, apart from its status of being the one and only 21st-century global development project, is also a global PR exercise.”
https://www.opednews.com/articles/2/The-New-Silk-Roads-reach-t-by-Pepe-Escobar-China-New-Silk-Roads_Economic_Putin_Russia-china-190429-872.html
Sproket_
“I did not encounter him on the day”
I guess on the day being operative word
I am very interested in how many more big ticket policy announcements labor will make. Campaign launch is this weekend in Brisbane and I am sure Shorten will roll out the biggest on Sunday. What happens after that ?
With big numbers prepolling and the election only two weeks away after the campaign launch what would be the point in waiting until the last week ? Too many new announcements rushed out one after the other in the last two weeks has the potential to create too much noise and result in detail overload.
Shorten has a knack of doing the unexpected and with Morrison yapping on about “ show me the costings “ perhaps labor may release its costings next week instead of the standard drop in the middle of the last week.
Labor could then campaign on its announced policy suite day after day and just rinse and repeat the detail. At the same time to counterbalance its social agenda labor, with its huge war chest , could campaign on its transparent revenue and expenditure, debt reduction big surplus financials to show its economic credentials.
Progressive policy agenda backed by economic responsibility. This what we will do, this how we will pay for it and this will be our budget position over the next four to ten years. Open and transparent. Yes, it does have its risks but as long as the financials are solid, which they will be, treat the voters with a bit of respect and perhaps regain a bit of trust in politics.
Why wait until the last week ?
Just the thoughts of a complete amateur.
sprocket:
This is the same PHON candidate cracking jokes on Facebook about indigenous Australians.
davidwh says:
Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 7:25 pm
Class warfare???
Labor is defending and looking to repair the things that are an important part of the fabric of our Society.
Our progressive personal tax rates, a strong and able public service, the ABC, welfare and the like, which this Government has actively worked to undermine.
If anyone has been engaged in class warfare it has been this Government in attacking these institutions.
Pauline appeals to a personality type that has a propensity to look to other factors to explain their own failings. Sadle sometimes,those failings stem from the individual’s limited life choices. This can impact on education , earning capacity and a suite of other issues but all of her followers oversimplify the remedy to this situation.
Of course a lot of their angst stems from the effect the above listed factors have on their capacity to deal with complexities that always arise in society.
So….we go for the quick fix that sounds like/agrees with what they’ve always thought, backs up their limited view and understanding of life’s complexities complexities and sticks it to the ‘elites’ who keep them where they are in life.
I follows that the organisational skills posessd by her followers, characterised by communication, analytical and conflict resolution capacities are not great. Therefore, keeping them together as a cohesive team is always going to be like herding cats.
The result, tears.
Darren Laver @ #685 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 6:09 pm
Trump’s rhetoric, much less the man himself has inspired racist and violent acts in the US.
davidwh is my favourite Liberal poster here. Always steadfast but polite. I’ve often let myself down on this measure.
No need to repost the racist ‘joke’ I would have thought.
Having read that Cairns Post article I now wish I hadn’t. 🙁
Darren Laver @ #684 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 8:09 pm
George Christensen being the exception?
@nath…..I’d rather these clowns get exposed……there has to come a time when people say enough is enough.
If people like Ross Macdonald want to post this shit on public forums then they deserve to be exposed and cop the blowback.
I know BK’s daily collection of links has a bit of a following here, but I think he needs to get a bit more discerning in his collation. This morning’s links included a number of crap pieces, all from Fairfax. Here they are:
> Patrick Hatch writes that Australia must find a new way of taxing road users soon or be unable to fund new infrastructure, according to the boss of toll giant Transurban, who says the inevitable mass adoption of electric vehicles will soon demolish fuel excise revenue.
> https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/transurban-says-user-pays-road-charges-needed-within-decade-20190429-p51i9i.html
This is a complete bullshit argument regularly trotted out by entrenched interests. Let’s see fossil fuel cars paying in full for their negative externalities before running an argument to penalise electric vehicles. And who the fuck wants to listen to the boss of a toll roads company?
> If you’re a fan of buying supermarkets’ own-brand products, you would be better off shopping at Woolworths rather than IGA, obesity experts say.
> https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-woolworths-is-a-better-option-than-iga-for-own-brand-products-20190429-p51iaf.html
A submarine advertising piece in favour of Woolworths. Total junk.
> Peter Hartcher examines the Liberal Party’s effective dumping of Jim Molan.
> https://www.smh.com.au/national/jim-is-uniquely-valuable-to-national-security-but-the-coalition-has-dumped-him-20190429-p51i73.html
Who the fuck is going to read an article which describes Molan as “uniquely valuable to national security”? Whatever joy you might feel at the prospect of seeing him dumped.
> Sydney house prices have fallen another 3 per cent and the median is now $170,000 below its mid-2017 peak, new research shows, but the bottom of the downturn could be in sight.
> https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-median-house-price-continues-to-fall-with-3-1-per-cent-decline-in-march-quarter-831595/
How nice for Domain to tell us that the bottom might be in sight. Total bullshit but of course it might entice some suckers to try to catch the falling knife that is the Australian property market.
So BK, while I have found your link collections useful over the years I suggest you cut back on your Fairfax quota, say by half. Cheers.
The “big cahoonas” comment from Dickson was telling.
Where does Pauline find these creeps? When will she ditch Ashby?
Davidwh expressed his honest opinion about the class war point, and that’s good enough for me. Each to their own. For myself, I would love a campaign that involved the waging of fearless, unrelenting, take no prisoners class war – in a pacifist sort of way of course. I see the ALP’s platform in this election as more like genteel disagreement than war, but it’s nonetheless an improvement on the utterly anodyne campaign pitches of the past.
Vogon Poet says:
Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 8:00 pm
Because he’s even more infallible than Rex! 😆
mikehilliard,
I also have the greatest respect for davidwh.
Recently he gave me his candid, but polite, view on one or two posts I had made and which , on reflection, I thought was a legitimate observation.
We can all try harder and I respect his opinion and his always polite contributions.
Cheers to all.
Scott says:
Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 8:02 pm
You missed one.
8. What cuts to spending will you make to pay for your tax cuts?
“Labor can’t manage money, that’s why they’re coming after yours”
“Labor is the Bill Australia can’t afford (with accompanying pic of Bill Shorten)”
The attack ads are out. 🙂
A poster called “LGH” or similar had recently re-emerged here. He was quite offensive last time and prone to nutty and racist theories. Have a scan of his comments back around the previous elections.
Engage with him at your peril.
Sorry Fess, I kept trying to post a strong warning post, but William’s spam filter was eating it
You would think it was political candidacy 101 to quietly purge your social media history before nominating