Morgan: 53-47 to Labor

The latest fortnightly federal poll from Morgan, plus updates on looming state by-elections in New South Wales, which could potentially be forfeited by Labor.

The latest fortnightly federal voting intention poll from Roy Morgan finds the series continuing to bounce around within a range of 52.5-47.5 to 54.5-45.5 in favour of Labor, as it has through seven polls since July. The result this time is 53-47, in from 54-46 last fortnight, from primary votes of Coalition 37.5% (up one-and-a-half points), Labor 36% (steady), Greens 11.5% (down one) and One Nation 3% (down half).

The state two-party breakdowns, which range from respectable sub-samples in the case of the large states to a tiny one in the case of Tasmania, have Labor leading 53.5-46.5 in New South Wales (unchanged on the last poll, a swing of about 5.5%), 56-44 in Victoria (unchanged, a swing of about 3%), 55-45 in Western Australia (out from 54.5-45.5, a swing of about 10.5%), 54.5-45.5 in South Australia (in from 58.5-41.5, a swing of around 4%) and 53-47 in Tasmania (out from 52-48, a swing to the Liberals of about 3%). In Queensland, the Coalition is credited with a lead of 55-45 (out from 52.5-47.5, a swing to Labor of about 3.5%). The poll was conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 2794.

Also of note, particularly in relation to state politics in New South Wales:

• There is now a fourth by-election on the way, following yesterday’s announcement by Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons that she will seek preselection for the federal seat of Hughes, where former Liberal incumbent Craig Kelly has defected to Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. Holsworthy is far the most marginal of the four seats that will be vacated, having been retained by Gibbons in 2019 by 3.2%. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Labor leader Chris Minns has said Labor “needs to consider whether to run in Holsworthy”, having “already suggested to his shadow cabinet that they should not run a candidate in Monaro or Bega”.

• The Sydney Morning Herald further reports that Willoughby mayor Gail Giles-Gidney is the front-runner for Liberal preselection in Gladys Berejiklian’s particularly safe seat of Willoughby. Based on the comments from Chris Minns noted above, it can presumably be taken as read that Labor will not run.

• As for Melanie Gibbons’ hopes for Hughes, both the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph today report a view among senior Liberals that she would, in the words of the latter, “face difficulty securing preselection in a vote of party members”.

• If my thoughts on the federal election landscape are of interest to you, I have lately been providing material to CGM Communications’ state-by-state analyses, which have recently covered New South Wales and Victoria, and was interrogated for an election preview that aired on Nine News over the weekend.

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.

3,090 comments on “Morgan: 53-47 to Labor”

Comments Page 3 of 62
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  1. GG,

    The one thing they’ve got going for them is that their antics get media attention, which encourages them and so it continues. But I still think the amateurish rabble of January 6 represents the best they’ve got. (And of course the “fraudit” ninjas in Arizona.)

  2. Ven says:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:

    Reported yesterday: 2,297 new local cases and 0 cases acquired overseas.
    – 37,611 vaccines administered
    – 82,762 test results received
    – Sadly, 11 people with COVID-19 have died
    ”
    Really really bad.
    ————-
    Certainly not great, but Reff hasn’t changed much, and based on the fundamentals, you’d expect the declining trend of the last few days before today will come through some time soon. Disappointing though. With this latest Victorian outbreak- thanks Gladys – I’ve come to expect that just when you start getting your hopes up, daily case numbers the next day will be at the worst case scenario end of the range

  3. @briantaylorcohen tweeted 5 hours ago

    NEW: Jen Psaki announces that the commission studying the expansion of the Supreme Court will release its preliminary materials tomorrow.

    ————————————————————————————

    I am glad to see this is still on the agenda. It could just save Democracy in the US.

  4. ”
    C@tmommasays:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:12 am
    Delta @ #80 Thursday, October 14th, 2021 – 10:01 am

    C@tmomma, why would it be a “pyrrhic victory”? Could Labor not potentially win government if enough of these by-elections go the wrong way for the libs/nats?
    Also, Parramatta Moderate makes a good point about potential damage to Labor’s chances at the general elections in these seats.

    Delta,
    I made the point that it would likely be better for NSW Labor to hold their cards close to their chest and build up to the scheduled NSW State election in 2023. That way they would not be seen as wreckers who brought down a government because they could, and they would have to go to the scheduled state election anyway, and the electorate, so sick of a decade’s worth of destabilisation politics, may take it upon themselves to punish Labor for it.

    These are just my views and not the views of head office but I honestly believe they would rather give Dominic Perrottet enough rope then win government legitimately.

    Also, if they took over now it would overshadow ICAC. So the timing doesn’t seem right to me.
    ”

    As I said earlier NSW Labor should give an option for the electorate to vote against ruling party.

  6. As I said earlier NSW Labor should give an option for the electorate to vote against ruling party.

    Are you prepared to stump up the $$$ so they can do that?

  8. ”
    maxsays:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:30 am
    …………………

    *I don’t know enough about it to assess the probability of success myself, but I’m guessing that if the NSW ALP felt it had a good chance of winning these by-elections it would not think twice about contesting them.
    ”

    This is the message Media will hammer home if Labor does not contest.

  9. I am sure Wiki could have more elegantly expressed Craig Knowles reason for resigning.

    “Resigned after it became apparent that he would not become Premier”

  10. C@tmomma at 10:47
    A major party not running a candidate in an electorate is a loud and clear message to the voters in that electorate how much the party cares about giving them a voice.

  11. Ven

    Are these seats which Labor would need to win to gain government at the next election?

    If not, then they’d be upsetting people they don’t need to vote for them anyway….

  12. For NSW Labor to not run candidates in either Holsworthy or Monaro is piss weak.

    Minns is terrified of a fight: one of those B grade debutants from the political staffer class who is too frightened to get out of bed in the morning without a focus group or poll to tell him it is safe to do so.

    In this case he’s scared that the effort he spent backgrounding against Jodi to get the Press Gallery to turn the Upper Hunter Byelection into a ‘test’ of her leadership will rebound upon him. No effort to actually establish a narrative that in fact the byelections are a test of the new Government team (which has the additional benefit of being actually true).

    Holsworthy is exactly the seat that Labor needs in its ‘mist win’ column. Some of that electorate – on present boundaries – falls within the LGAs of concern and subjected to harsher lockdown measures. All of the electorate would feel that its needs fell well behind the preoccupations of the government during the Gladys outbreak.

    Monaro may be sitting on a large margin, but that is a mirage: until 2019 the last four elections were decided by less than a thousand votes. It is wholly within the federal electorate of a popular sitting labor MP. Bruz’s poll bounce from 2019 was off the back of him going into that election as a newly minted Deputy Premier and popular for his ‘pork barrelaro’ moniker. he’s gone, and its a huge assumption that any of THAT will flow directly and automatically to his NP replacement. Furthermore, many NP seats have a track record of HUGE swings against the NP upon the retirement of a sitting member: Labor shouldn’t simply gift this to the LNP, thereby running the risk of imbedding another Nat into a genuinely marginal seat for a generation.

    It’s like Chris Minns thinks that he will ultimately be gifted government simply by practicing Aikido moves. He needs to actually throw a punch.

  13. ”
    C@tmommasays:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:47 am
    As I said earlier NSW Labor should give an option for the electorate to vote against ruling party.

    Are you prepared to stump up the $$$ so they can do that?
    ”

    Why should I? I am only asking for the party to give me option and Labor is there to contest and win elections. Holsworthy, which was called Menai earlier, was a Labor seat till 2011 election. A good portion of Liverpool LGA is in that electorate and they were in stage 4 lockdown for a long time.

    Also, if Labor is having difficulty in fielding a candidate in Holsworthy, then field Ms. Charisma, who contested previous to elections from that area (I can’t remember whether it is Hughes or Holsworthy). She has name recognition and Liverpool city counsellor.

  14. If NSW Labor want to be in the political game, they have to front up at elections and appeal for the support of voters. If they fancy themselves as an alternative to the LNP, they have to give voters that choice.

    Really, the NSW government has been abysmal. If Labor don’t run they are really saying they do not care about the record of the Government and don’t think that voters care either.

    Neville Wran would be running.

  15. “ Are these seats which Labor would need to win to gain government at the next election?

    If not, then they’d be upsetting people they don’t need to vote for them anyway….”

    Yes.

    Holsworthy definitely.

    Monaro is a bellwether seat. NSW Labor needs to win regional seats outside greater sydney. Monaro would have to be close to the top of that list.

  17. “ I told youse Minns was the Labor Debnam.”

    I think you also said that I’d soon fall in line if and when he assumed the leadership.

    Minns is no Debnam, who genuinely resembled a member of the royal family that had been quietly sequestered into an out of the way institution lest the public cotton on to the genetic streak of madness that runs through the institutional madness of our hereditary monarchy.

    Minns is a lazy fuck. One that is more frightened of suffering a loss along the path, that he lacks the courage to fight for a win.

    All about ‘the pivot’ and framing the 6 second grab, which is excellent, but he’s not up to the hard work to fashion all of that into the momentum required to … win. Every step of his progression up the ladder has been by the grace and favour of benefactors. If he can’t be fucked to do the hard work over the next 6-8 weeks in Holsworthy and Monaro when we are all fucked in the longer game.

  18. Maybe NSW Labor just don’t believe in themselves or the voters any more. Maybe they have been bashed into complete submission. You have to believe in the voters, all told. The day you stop believing in the people is the day you have to give up democratic politics.

  19. I’m learning from the discussion on the tactics of contesting an election. Thank you.

    To my regret I never studied literature, but in my ignorance the bit in Macbeth about being or not being seems apt in this moment. (Bradbury gave it a go even if he didn’t think he could win.)

  20. As I’ve already said, not contesting by elections isn’t at all unusual, and it would be if the gains were obvious and real.

    I can’t make any comments about NSW politics in particular, so I won’t.

  21. Late Riser says:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 11:14 am

    Hamlet

    To be, or not to be: that is the question:
    Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
    No more; and by a sleep to say we end
    The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
    That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
    Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
    To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
    Must give us pause: there’s the respect
    That makes calamity of so long life;
    For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
    The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
    The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
    The insolence of office and the spurns
    That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
    When he himself might his quietus make
    With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
    To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
    But that the dread of something after death,
    The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
    No traveller returns, puzzles the will
    And makes us rather bear those ills we have
    Than fly to others that we know not of?
    Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
    And thus the native hue of resolution
    Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
    And enterprises of great pith and moment
    With this regard their currents turn awry,
    And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
    The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
    Be all my sins remember’d.

  22. Name recognition – get the party candidate for the main election seen and heard.

    Does anybody have any history on candidates who have lost by-elections then won the general election for the opposition? I can’t think of any…

    There’s plenty of by-election government losses that have been reclaimed a la Dave Sharma.
    Or plenty of won by-elections by the opposition who have then held the seat at the general election. Tony Robinson (Mitcham 1997).
    Momentum can be gained by a by-election win – think Chris Pearce (Aston by-election).

  24. Ven says:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:50
    …………………

    *I don’t know enough about it to assess the probability of success myself, but I’m guessing that if the NSW ALP felt it had a good chance of winning these by-elections it would not think twice about contesting them.
    ”

    This is the message Media will hammer home if Labor does not contest.
    —————

    That’s a fair call Ven – especially since to the best of my understanding it’s unusual for an Opposition not to contest seats in this sort of range of current or historical winnability (as opposed to seats like Willoughby) . That point will probably be made too. However:
    (1) if the Murdoch media wasn’t hammering home this anti Labor message they’d easily find another one
    (2) it’s a message that might be floating around for a few weeks, but is likely to be completely forgotten come election time.
    (3) compared to old reliable messages such as “Labor has a secret plan to hit you with new taxes, and/or will saddle the State with unsustainable debt until the 27th century” messages around failure to contest by elections aren’t likely to get much attention.

    In an ideal world I’d like to see the LNP opposed in every potentially winnable by election but it is a pragmatic judgment. If the ALP doesn’t contest them, or even if they do, it would be great to see some serious independent candidates run as well.

  25. ”
    Andrew_Earlwoodsays:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 11:02 am
    “ Are these seats which Labor would need to win to gain government at the next election?

    If not, then they’d be upsetting people they don’t need to vote for them anyway….”

    Yes.

    Holsworthy definitely.

    Monaro is a bellwether seat. NSW Labor needs to win regional seats outside greater sydney. Monaro would have to be close to the top of that list.
    ”

    If Labor does not contest any of the 4 seats then Minns will not campaign for Labor. However, if Labor contests Holdsworth and Monaro, then he has to campaign and we will know his campaigning skills. The thing is in 2019 election there was huge swing against Labor in Minns seat (Kogarah, whatever may be the reason). It is now a marginal seat.

  28. Betoota:

    The High Court of Australia has rejected beanbag with eyes Clive Palmer’s bid to enter our nation’s prosperous West today, leaving the mining magnate with no other option than to wait it out like the rest of the filthy East.

    High Court Justice Richard Tickler handed down the verdict today in Canberra, where he made a special mention that Mr Palmer can “suffer in his jocks”.

    This decision means Mr Palmer has also exhausted all legal avenues to enter Western Australia and the ‘Government of Western Australia v Clive Palmer (‘The “How Does Get Fucked Sound, Clive? Case’”) [2021] HCA 31 sets a precedent in constitutional law that severely impedes any further legal challenge to the West’s strict border measures.

  31. Shellbell says:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 11:23 am

    Hands up if you have a bare bodkin within easy reach.

    Well yes. It’s sharp right to the point. But it’s used to skin my breakfast fish, rather to sever the days.

  36. Former corporate titan Ron Brierley has been jailed for at least seven months after he was found with a large amount of child abuse material in his possession, including photos of young girls in sexualised poses.

    Brierley, 84, was stopped at Sydney Airport in December 2019 on his way to Fiji for a holiday. Authorities found 11,765 child abuse images on his laptop and two USBs, some of which were duplicates.

  37. Late Riser says:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 11:28 am
    Singing Coot, ah thank you. It’s a good read. Those sentiments work for me.

    And for me. The range of thoughts….so very present. Such questions and expectancy…so compelling.

  39. Note the curve for Australia. The graph, I think, attempts to show community willingness to vaccinate.


    Dr Behrooz Hassani-M
    @behrooz_hm

    Also worth noting, the horizontal axis is total population, in our terminology that’s +0, not +5, +12, +16.

  41. “Dan, your plan is not working.”

    Yeah, stupid Dan. How dare he attract all those anti-lockdown/anti-vaxx/far right protesters! What was he thinking?!!

  44. Queensland man Bruce Lehrmann has appeared before court charged with the alleged sexual assault of Brittany Higgins at Parliament House in 2019. Adjourned to Nov 5.

  45. LR

    Pleasingly, we did not hit the wall at 60%, 70% etc.

    ACT will reach Portugal levels of vaccination and NSW/Vic will reach Spain and maybe beyond

  47. Seasonally adjusted employment fell by 138,000 people (1.1 per cent) between August and September 2021, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

    Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said: “Extended lockdowns in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory have seen employment and hours worked both drop back below their pre-pandemic levels.

    In September 2021, there were 111,000 fewer employed people (0.9 per cent) and 2.0 per cent fewer hours worked than in March 2020.”
    Employment, unemployment and participation

    With a combined share of close to 60 per cent of Australia’s employed population, labour market changes in New South Wales and Victoria continued to have a large influence on the national figures.

    “In September, there were large falls in employment in Victoria (123,000 people) and New South Wales (25,000 people, following the 173,000 decline in August). This was partly offset by a 31,000 increase in Queensland, as conditions there recovered from the lockdown in early August,” Mr Jarvis said.

    The participation rate fell 0.7 percentage points to 64.5 per cent. This was the third consecutive monthly decline from the near historic high of 66.2 per cent in June 2021 and continued the pattern of large falls in participation during lockdowns.

    The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage points from 4.5 per cent to 4.6 per cent in September 2021.

    “The low national unemployment rate continues to reflect reduced participation during the recent lockdowns, rather than strong labour market conditions,” Mr Jarvis said.

    The fall in the national participation rate was again underpinned by large drops in parts of the country with lockdowns in effect. The participation rates for Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory both fell by 1.9 percentage points, and in New South Wales by a further 0.6 percentage points, following a 2.5 percentage point drop last month.

    In September, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory both recorded their lowest participation rates since the pandemic began. Victoria’s participation rate also fell but remained above the previous low during the second wave lockdown last year.

    “Over the past three months, participation in the labour force has fallen by over 330,000 people, with employment falling by 281,000 people and unemployment falling by 53,000 people. Beyond people losing their jobs, or working reduced or no hours, we continue to see how challenging it is for people without work to remain active within the labour market during lockdowns. This was also reflected in the mutual obligations for jobseekers living in lockdown areas in September.”

    https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/employment-and-hours-below-pre-pandemic-levels

  48. Shellbell,

    Yeah, indeed it was.

    I reckon the threat of unemployment unless double vaxxed persuaded many recalcitrants to get on board.

  49. Zerlo says:
    Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 11:37 am

    I thought we were blaming the AFL Grand Final because the NRL Grand Final is completely different. No?

  50. Bucephalus @ #140 Thursday, October 14th, 2021 – 12:00 pm

    Dan, your plan is not working.

    Did you copy and paste from the Hun commenters?
    Actually probably not – they would have included Sutton as well.
    Same level of understanding though

    They would also add Lockdown the high case / North and Western suburbs. Not thinking that many essential workers live in those areas and now its all over the city – in fact SE suburbs will soon take over. Not much logic from those posters

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