Polls: federal Morgan, YouGov on COVID-19, WA miscellany

Morgan finds the federal Coalition keeping its nose in front; YouGov records a thumbs-up for COVID-19 restrictions; and some striking (if somewhat dated) measures of Mark McGowan’s ascendancy in the west.

Three bits of polling news from around the place, including some rare intelligence from Western Australia, which has still only had one public poll of voting intention in the three-and-a-half years since the 2017 election:

• Roy Morgan made one of its occasional random drops of the federal voting intention polling it conducts weekly, crediting the Coalition with a lead of 51.5-48.5, out from 50.5-49.5 when it last published figures a month ago. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 43.5%, Labor is down one to 33.5%, the Greens are up half to 11.0% and One Nation is down 1.5% to 2.5%. Also included are state two-party breakdowns with the Coalition leading 52.5-47.5 in New South Wales, 58-42 in Queensland, 53.5-46.5 in Western Australia and 53-47 in South Australia, and Labor leading 53.5-46.5 in Victoria and 58-42 in Tasmania. The poll was conducted online and by phone from a sample of 2589 respondents over the weekends of July 11-12 and July 18-19.

• Today’s News Corp tabloids ($) have results of a national YouGov survey of 2307 respondents concerning COVID-19, of which the most interesting finding is that only 6% consider current restrictions too tough, compared with 33% for too lenient and 60% for about right. Despite variable national experience of COVID-19 at the present time, results were fairly consistent across the states, with Victoria only slightly outperforming the national “too tough” response at 11%. The poll was conducted from July 15-20.

• The West Australian reported that polling conducted for “a prominent business group” by Utting Research, which has conducted much of Labor’s internal polling over the years, producing the remarkable finding that Mark McGowan’s state Labor government held a 66-34 lead. The poll was conducted back in May, but there is little reason to think the McGowan balloon would have burst since then. The poll recorded approval ratings of 86% for Mark McGowan, 64% for Scott Morrison but only 25% for state Liberal leader Liza Harvey, though the latter would have a much higher uncommitted rating.

• Staying on the subject of WA polling that’s perhaps not as fresh as it might be, Painted Dog Research published leadership ratings early last month that escaped this site’s notice at the time. These showed Mark McGowan with a satisfaction rating of 87% (including 63% very satisfied) with only 4% dissatisfied (2% very dissatisfied); Scott Morrison on 67% satisfied (33% very) and 19% dissatisfied (7% very); Anthony Albanese on 27% satisfied (7% very) and 29% unsatisfied (12% very); and Liza Harvey on 19% satisfied (4% very) and 37% dissatisfied (17% very) (UPDATE: For what it’s worth, this is metropolitan only). The poll was conducted June 5-7 from a sample of 800. The West Australian reported at the time that it understood Labor internal polling showed similar results.

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.

1,359 comments on “Polls: federal Morgan, YouGov on COVID-19, WA miscellany”

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  1. Nicholas @ #1298 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 4:59 pm

    Having a services-dominated economy is empowering. It means we have a lot of options about how we deploy our resources. We can choose to prioritise jobs that care for people, care for communities, and care for the environment. We can prioritize the arts, the humanities, the sciences, culture, recreation, civilisation.

    Oh my goodness. Where to start dismantling such nonsense 🙁

    Stick to Magic Money Trees, Nicky. At least you don’t look like a complete fool.

  2. Nicholas @ #1298 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 4:59 pm

    The key thing is to have a monetarily sovereign national government that uses fiscal policy to ensure non-inflationary full employment at all times. And to ensure that there is ecological sustainability, no poverty, and a low degree of inequality of wealth and income.

    I think I have to withdraw my previous post 🙁

  3. Sharnelle Vella
    @SharnelleVella (7News)
    ·
    4h
    Late addition to daily dickhead spotted by my cameraman:

    Trophy the mask seller in a shopping centre that is allowing people to try before they buy.

  4. Nicholas

    If the rest of the world are willing to send Australians high tech manufactured goods in exchange for our agricultural goods, how is that bad for us?

    Well you could say it is part of the cause of us busily turning our agricultural land in to a barren wasteland with the need for such intensity in order to maintain $$$$$$$$$$$$$$s. Definitely not good for us and all the other inhabitants of our land.

  5. From Bevan Shields’ article

    [As imperfect as it is, Victoria also has a track and trace system in place whereas the pandemic swept across Europe so fast that hunting down infected people and asking them to self-isolate was effectively impossible. New South Wales boasts a track and trace regime that probably ranks among the world’s best.]

    There cannot be a reason why, after a time but no later than say May, the systems were not the same.

    Someone is going to be on any discrepancy at some stage.

  6. Victoria Police are on red alert ahead of plans by coronavirus deniers to stage a public demonstration in Melbourne as the number of cases of the highly infectious disease soars.

    Photoshopped images referencing the Anzacs and Australia Day urging people in every state to gather at their shrines on Friday are circulating on social media.

    It comes as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews pleaded with people to wear masks on Tuesday after a woman dubbed “Karen from Bunnings” went viral for refusing to wear a face cover.

  7. south
    As things stand construction is all that is left to simulate the economy. The Liberals have pretty much destroyed ship building. They told the car industry to piss off.

  8. Peter van Onselen
    @vanOnselenP
    ·
    3m
    If the staffer develops symptoms and the PM has to self-isolate for 14 days he’ll miss the parliamentary sitting fortnight! Well, he would have missed it…if he didn’t already cancel it. #auspol

    ***
    10 News First
    @10NewsFirst
    · 9m
    ALARM BELLS | @Stela_Todorovic can exclusively reveal tonight that a senior member of the Prime Minister’s office is in self-quarantine after being linked to a Potts Point #COVID19Au case. #auspol

  9. mundo and south have limited access to news, so I can fill,them in on Labor’s Aged Care shadow, Julie Collins has to say..

    “Labor’s aged care spokesperson, Julie Collins, has been speaking in Hobart. She says the federal government should have learned the lessons of the NSW outbreak and responded more quickly.

    She’s contradicting Greg Hunt’s claim that the federal government has learned the lessons from Newmarch.

    There is a royal commission into aged care. Sadly, we’re seeing the stress on that system and the wonderful staff in aged care and the families and the relatives who are trying to and having to deal with that.

    My empathy really is with the staff, the family and the loved ones today, particularly those family members who are not getting the information they need about their loved one and what is happening. We need to do better. The Government should be able to do better.”

  10. More from Julie Collins…

    “She said many aged care providers still did not have adequate PPE, and the government should have conducted an audit after the mask began.

    When the federal government asked providers, ‘Do you have anyPPE?’, when they set up an inbox for people to request PPE, they get 1,300 requests. Why did they not do an audit of how much protective equipment those facilities had sot hat they could deal with outbreaks?

    There are reports today they’re sending now more protection equipment to Victoria – two weeks later after the first outbreak in aged care. We need to do better than this. The federal government should have learnt the lessons of what happened in New South Wales, in Dorothy Henderson Lodge and in Newmarch.

    Collins said the aged care sector in Australia was “in crisis prior to Covid-19”.

    But she said the failures of individual providers to respond properly would be a matter for the royal commission into aged care.

    The issues are widespread. They have been known for a long time. Aged care in Australia was in crisis prior to Covid-19. We knew that there were issues around staffing. We know there are not enough staff. We know they’re not paid enough. And we knew this before Covid. We knew this along time ago when the royal commission was called. To say that we didn’t know all of this would happen or that it wouldn’t happen this way is just not true.

  11. frednk says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 5:23 pm

    “ The Liberals have pretty much destroyed ship building. “

    Utter rubbish- they’ve actually saved the industry through their continuous build program.

    Remind me what the Rudd-Gillard Governments did for shipbuilding? In particular Navy?

  12. Well you could say it is part of the cause of us busily turning our agricultural land in to a barren wasteland with the need for such intensity in order to maintain $$$$$$$$$$$$$$s.

    There is definitely a pressing need for the Australian Government to make ecological sustainability a top priority policy target and to ban agricultural practices that are inconsistent with that target.

    The question of “how is this bad?” is directed to people who think there is something inherently wrong with a high percentage of exports being agricultural goods.

    Our policy targets should be ecological sustainability, full employment, excellent public services and public infrastructure, low and stable inflation, no poverty, a low degree of inequality of wealth and income.

    What mix of economic activities will enable us to meet those targets depends on a lot of variables and circumstances. There isn’t some magic percentage of workers who ought to be in high tech manufactures. There are people who romanticize manufacturing and look down their nose at agriculture. Those folks are getting distracted by irrelevant aesthetic considerations.

  13. Bucephalus says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 5:38 pm


    frednk says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 5:23 pm

    “ The Liberals have pretty much destroyed ship building. “

    Utter rubbish- they’ve actually saved the industry through their continuous build program.

    Remind me what the Rudd-Gillard Governments did for shipbuilding? In particular Navy?

    Collins class sub
    Anzac frigate.
    LHD

    All came to an end under this useless lot.

  14. Nicholas @ #1313 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 5:44 pm

    There are people who romanticize manufacturing and look down their nose at agriculture. Those folks are getting distracted by irrelevant aesthetic considerations.

    This is a fetish of yours, clearly. No-one else here has mentioned anything remotely like this … but you have … three times so far … 🙁

  15. Agriculture employs very few people.

    Yes. About 1 percent of the workers are needed to feed the whole society.

    Similar productivity growth has happened in manufacturing. Whereas an industrial society might have employed 60 percent of its workers in manufacturing in the past, today it might only need to employ 6 or 7 percent.

    So more than 90 percent of the workers are available to work in services sectors.

    Some people take a superficial look at those numbers and screech: “Hollowing out! We have too many people caring for people, too many people caring for communities, too many people caring for the environment. We have too many people in the arts, in the humanities, in the sciences. We need X percent of the workforce to be making high tech stuff. Otherwise we aren’t advanced.”

    What those people don’t realize is that purpose of the economy is to serve our goals. The top goal should be ensuring no poverty – meeting everybody’s needs – in an ecologically sustainable way. We can add other goals based on our political values. Full employment. First rate public services and public infrastructure. Decent housing for all. Low and stable inflation. A low level of inequality. Etc.

  16. As I see it, Aged Care has been a portfolio given to someone on the outer edge of talent and not expected to do much. As the popn has aged the importance of Aged and Disability Care has remained unfashionable. Time to step up.

  17. Head of the AMA, Tony Bartoni shafting the non-response of the Commonwealth to the C19 impact on the ‘broken Aged Care system’. RN

  18. ——Did anyone notice this updated bit of reporting of the Essential poll in the guardian?——
    Sure did Soc. The PB morning shift was all over this like a virus on a cruise ship.

  19. Nicholas

    Of course we have too many scientists. After all we are neck and neck with Burkina Faso on our economic complexity. So we gotta keep discouraging people from studying science and if the feckers still do it encourage them to leave the country. We need more baristas.

  20. You would not expect any dyed in the wool Liberal to admit that the Liberals ever get anything wrong…
    If things to go ‘wrong’ it is due to events, usually overseas, beyond the ability of the Liberals to have any influence over, or more likely, it was/is/will be Labor’s fault….
    I have Liberal voting friends and when we get into any kind of civil debate it usually gets down to the above……………When the economy goes pear shaped – overseas/’other’ factors or Labor does not know how to manage the economy.
    They genuinely do believe that Labor is all to do with higher taxes and spending beyond a balanced budget……..I don’t think their tune has changed in modern history……………………..
    The pity of it is that the people who do worst in society actually believe that Liberals will look after their interests….Not only here of course—————those in the sticks in the US believe this; those in the NE of England now believe this and those in Queensland believe this…….

  21. Simon Katich @ #1324 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 6:25 pm

    ——Did anyone notice this updated bit of reporting of the Essential poll in the guardian?——
    Sure did Soc. The PB morning shift was all over this like a virus on a cruise ship.

    Speaking of cruise ships, Trump and the RNC were so desperate to have a Convention in Florida, before they called it off this week, that they suggested having it on a cruise ship off the Florida coast!

    In this week’s episode of ‘Bone-Headed Stoopid’.

    A floating petri dish! 😆

  22. The Guardian article and the new Essential 2pp+ is as consequential as a Morrison presser… which perhaps explains the lack of dedicated thread.

    Either that or WB was on a bender last night and yet to crawl out from his cranny.

  23. Nicholas @ #1319 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 6:20 pm

    Some people take a superficial look at those numbers and screech: “Hollowing out! We have too many people caring for people, too many people caring for communities, too many people caring for the environment. We have too many people in the arts, in the humanities, in the sciences. We need X percent of the workforce to be making high tech stuff. Otherwise we aren’t advanced.”

    Now four times … 🙁

  24. poroti @ #1252 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 2:59 pm

    Wee GHunt going for gold in the responsibility avoidance race. A ‘look how caring I am’ and start a faux debate combo .

    LIVE
    CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
    Emotional Hunt says he will not ‘hear a word against’ aged care nurses

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-live-victoria-braces-for-more-deaths-as-nsw-clusters-grow-australian-death-toll-stands-at-161-20200727-p55fyz.html

    More crocodile tears from Greg the Lying Hunt. So, if he cares so much about Aged Care Nurses, why doesn’t he introduce a regulation to increase the Nurse to Aged Care patient ratios and the number of RNs per shift?

  25. ——We need more baristas.——
    Good looking ones. Who make good coffee and not the slow food type. Who the F is happy to wait 12min20secs for a coffee? It is outrageous. $4 bucks for a 10min wait?! I feel like hitting them for my lost f’ing time. Double time in fact as it was before my first coffee (obviously).
    12 f’ing minutes! I watched them chatting away, giggling, schmoozing with a smarmy business type… where is my f’ing double shot macchiato?!?!
    SERENITY NOW!

  26. Simon Katich @ #1328 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 6:30 pm

    The Guardian article and the new Essential 2pp+ is as consequential as a Morrison presser… which perhaps explains the lack of dedicated thread.

    Either that or WB was on a bender last night and yet to crawl out from his cranny.

    I’m trying to imagine what sort of a bender Mr Bowe would go on?

    Some heavy duty number crunching? 😀

  27. C@tmomma @ #1338 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 6:39 pm

    Simon Katich @ #1328 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 6:30 pm

    The Guardian article and the new Essential 2pp+ is as consequential as a Morrison presser… which perhaps explains the lack of dedicated thread.

    Either that or WB was on a bender last night and yet to crawl out from his cranny.

    I’m trying to imagine what sort of a bender Mr Bowe would go on?

    Some heavy duty number crunching? 😀

    He’s be close to an overdose situation if you found him at the local servo polling the pumps so he could watch the numbers go around and around on the bowser.

  28. SK

    Thanks for confirming the poll discussion.

    Cat
    “Also on China and whether the US should be allowed to station ICBMs in Australia.”

    Surely there is no point? The US can already reach China with the ICBMs stationed in USA. Stationing shorter ranged missiles here would be a different story, and I would be opposed.

    “Not that Labor isn’t concerned with China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea. It is. However, we should continue to engage China, never averring from Australia’s interests and Australian values.’

    That is a balanced position, which I support.

    Night all. Good luck to all Victorians with relatives in Federally regulated aged care homes.

  29. Lizzie says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:23 pm
    As I see it, Aged Care has been a portfolio given to someone on the outer edge of talent and not expected to do much. As the popn has aged the importance of Aged and Disability Care has remained unfashionable. Time to step up.

    The LNP are really bad at providing services for people who need them. Veterans Affairs is another example that has been highlighted recently and as for Centrelink…

    The people at the coalface providing services are generally dedicated and do the best they can but their efforts are hampered by incompetence at the top.

  30. Of course we have too many scientists. After all we are neck and neck with Burkina Faso on our economic complexity. So we gotta keep discouraging people from studying science and if the feckers still do it encourage them to leave the country. We need more baristas.

    Poors need to know their place in the new economy.

  31. He maybe religious. I find churches peaceful…. if I ignore the pipe organ, the singing, the sermons, the creepy stain glass windows, the gargoyles and all the pious people.

  32. I have to laugh at Morrison claims that Victoria is his 1st priority , if that’s the case why was Morrison not in Victoria but in Queensland

  33. Scott @ #1347 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 6:56 pm

    I have to laugh at Morrison claims that Victoria is his 1st priority , if that’s the case why was Morrison not in Victoria but in Queensland

    All politics is about turning up. Andrews has been fronting difficult media conferences presenting challenging information every day for weeks. Morrison has been largely invisible.

    Andrews has built up cred. Morrison has been surfing on the salute the office meme.

    But, when the wheel turns like it has today regarding responsibility for Aged Care facilities then of course Morrison is going to flounder.

  34. What can Morrison do in Canberra about the private nursing home crisis in Victoria that he cannot do in Queensland? It seems to be all about the ‘optics’ of looking like he is doing something.

    Earlier, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced he was cutting short a trip to Queensland and returning to Canberra to deal with the aged care crisis in Victoria, where defence personnel have manned a shift at an understaffed facility overnight.

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6852901/sas-of-the-medical-world-to-help-staff-privately-run-aged-care-facilities/?cs=17318

  35. Scott:

    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 6:58 pm

    [‘If the media was not the Libs/nats corrupt foreign propaganda unit , Morrison should have been under pressure.’]

    Dear, you do tend to be repetitive.

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