The West Australian brings us the most remarkable poll result in many a long day, with Utting Research crediting the state Liberals with a 54-46 lead on two-party preferred. This reverses a 61-39 lead for Labor from the same pollster immediately after Roger Cook’s took the leadership in early June, to say nothing of the 70-30 result at the 2021 election. On the primary vote, Labor drops twenty points from the May poll to 32%, with the Liberals up nine to 37%, the Nationals up one to 6%, the Greens up two to 10% and “others” up eight to 15%. Roger Cook is down fifteen on approval to 27% and up eleven on disapproval to 37%. Liberal leader Libby Mettam is steady on 31% approval but down nine on disapproval to 24%, marking a significant move in favour of “unsure”. All of which suddenly makes Saturday’s Rockingham by-election a lot more interesting than it had seemed.
The West Australian’s report quotes pollster John Utting not unreasonably arguing that the backlash over Aboriginal heritage laws has likely contributed to the result. Interestingly, the report also says “polls by robocalling tend to skew towards an older, more conservative demographic, while Labor’s success under Mr McGowan had been with less engaged younger voters”, although it then talks up Utting Research’s track record. The poll was indeed conducted by robopolling, from Tuesday to Thursday with a sample of 1000.
I find it hard to believe.
What happened, why the polls put the WA liberals on front
Let’s just all calm down! The by-election this Saturday will give us an actual real time test to see what is actually going on.
If this poll is in any way accurate then democracy is well and truly broken in Western Australia.
State Daddy may need to make a comeback
Well why this suddenly happened, I’m so confused
The Lord works in mysterious ways !
The pollster says it’s the new Aboriginal Heritage Laws. Admittedly I don’t get out much but I am unaware of any discussion in my community about them.
I’m with MABWM, let’s see what happens in McGowans former seat.
Bloody hell.
I’m don’t know a great deal about these heritage laws either, but surely if there is indeed a big backlash against them, it would mostly be contained to rural seats?
LOL if this is true it just tells us not to buy narratives about election results from partisan analysts.
Early election now
Problem for the lib/nats and their propaganda media units this opinion poll is in 2023 not 2025
Wow. A state government introduced an anti-racist law and loses 20% off their primary vote! How did this happen?
Easy. Australians are way more racist than you think. It’s obvious to anyone from overseas but Australians are constantly astonished to find themselves thought of as the Afrikaans of the South Pacific.
There is a possibility the poll is nonsense.
WA is a racist redneck state, and McGowan was a very lucky but incredibly ordinary Premier, and Roger the Dodger is well I’m not sure going for another nothing white guy was brilliant, but even so this seems too much too soon, and the Aboriginal Heritage laws surely couldn’t drive that.
Rubbish polling. Impossible that an Indigenous land rights bill translates into a 30% swing against the government .Rural seats might swing hard, but this is hardly controversial in metropolitan Perth.
Utting got some WA seat polling drastically wrong last year before the Federal election, indicating a swing back to the Coalition which obviously did not happen. They had the Libs holding Hasluck 55-45 and it ended up going ALP 56-44.
The result is startling enough to make you raise an eyebrow and urgently commission a more reliable pollster to check it if you’re the WA ALP, though.
WB: The West Australian’s report quotes pollster John Utting not unreasonably arguing that the backlash over Aboriginal heritage laws has likely contributed to the result.
Now we know why Voice referendum is failing.
“WB: The West Australian’s report quotes pollster John Utting not unreasonably arguing that the backlash over Aboriginal heritage laws has likely contributed to the result”
It seems a fundamentally unreasonable argument, it isn’t an issue that affects that many people, and while we are a terribly racist state and country there is noone who likes to pretend not be racist more than a really strong racist.
Unless Gina and Twiggy commissioned the poll, then it has done its job.
Lol bit of hot air methinks. Yes, the brand has lost its rockstar frontman McGowan but there is no viable opposition. As long as the Clan (Goiran et al) remain the powerbrokers of the WA Libs, and keep installing awful candidates of the Christian persuasion, Labor will stick around for a little while yet.
While the state was never really gonna vote Yes, that story about tree planting getting the axe due to heritage laws is definitely gonna cement the No vote. It doesn’t surprise me that WA Labor hasn’t really done much in the way of showing support for the voice. Would be bad for their brand here.
HB: It’s obvious to anyone from overseas but Australians are constantly astonished to find themselves thought of as the Afrikaans of the South Pacific.
Every other person who lives in the region between 25-60km North of the CBD here is a Saffa
This seems totally unbelievable. The WA libs are on the ropes yet now are in a better position than the Qld LNP c’mon . This seems to be an ultra dodgy poll and I wouldn’t want to be extrapolating the Afrikaans bizzo for this.
Scottsays:
Monday, July 24, 2023 at 6:24 am
Problem for the lib/nats and their propaganda media units this opinion poll is in 2023 not 2025
_____________________
Lol Scott.
This has more to do with Mark McGowen retiring than racism because the polling for the voice isn’t that bad for the yes campaign in WA.
”
Princeplanetsays:
Monday, July 24, 2023 at 10:34 am
This seems totally unbelievable. The WA libs are on the ropes yet now are in a better position than the Qld LNP c’mon . This seems to be an ultra dodgy poll and I wouldn’t want to be extrapolating the Afrikaans bizzo for this.
”
WA and QLD will definitely be No votes for Voice.
The West Australian’s talking up of Utting Research’s record is not telling the full story. Yes they had bad federal polls for the Coalition in WA March 2022 but there was another run from them in May 2022 and their old stuff was way better than their new stuff which had Labor too low by several points in all four seats. It’s supposed to be the other way round, polls should be more accurate closer to the election.
https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-election/federal-election-2022-poll-alp-on-track-to-win-swan-and-pearce-but-hope-remains-for-liberals–c-6773134
The economy….cost of living pressures…enormously high rents…impact of interest rate increases on real disposable incomes…downturn, often registering as postponements, in the construction and related sectors….when things go wrong, someone will be blamed, whether or not they are responsible…
I have some neighbours who supply imported steel products to the domestic construction/home renovation/improvements market. When they’re busy the doors open at 6.30am and they run their 10 tonne flat-tray delivery truck twice day, usually filled up each time. At the moment they’re running once a day, partly filled only, starting at 9.00 am and knocking off for beers before 2.00pm.
Today the doors closed before 12.00. No truck run.
The economy is turning from its high.
Stores in the local shopping mall are offering out-of-season sales…discounts up to 60% on apparel and homewares…traders attempting to drive traffic by cutting prices…
Seems a little unlikely. Whilst Kerry Stokes seems to be wetting himself with excitement, I think I’ll wait for further data before condemning the entire population of my home state.
GrannyAnny @ #6 Sunday, July 23rd, 2023 – 9:37 pm
+1 I haven’t heard much about the new laws either.
I don’t facebook and a lot of nonsense gets pushed on there but as far as I’m aware it’s not a big issue.
Besides Utting’s spotty track record of late, my other query is – if this is robopolls, how does he know it has anything to do with these new laws? Unless the poll was priming with questions about them.
This is complete nonsense and I’d bet cash money on it.
Roger Cook is one of the most genuinely likeable politicians I’ve ever met (and the only reason I’ve ever been to Kwinana). It’s unsurprising that there may be a bit of a swing given McGowan’s resignation and that people aren’t familiar with him yet, but have little doubt given time and attention he’ll have little difficulty trouncing Mettam in an election fight. But I’d be absolutely shocked if there was anything other than a mild swing against in Rockingham.
(I also am incredibly cynical that many people in Rockingham would give two hoots about Aboriginal heritage laws as an issue, especially in a cost of living crisis.)
I get the impression that the Aboriginal Heritage Laws are a bit of a thing with the TalkBack radio demographic and largely ignored by everyone else.
Let’s see what the good people of Rockingham have to say.
how does utting know the heratige laws is the reason if liberals return collier will be running the government again he is basickly in charge of wa liberal party now
@Aaron Newton
Peter Collier is retiring from Parliament at the 2025 election, so he’ll hardly be “running the government”.
Also, I don’t expect the Liberals in WA to regain power until 2029.
It will be interesting to see if The West has follow-up results from this poll — like, say, a result on the Indigenous Voice. If that’s massively worse for yes than other polling has been, that will strengthen the case to doubt the voting intention results. That said, I suggest those who dismiss the impact of the Aboriginal heritage laws are underestimating the cut-through of stories like this.
So question is can wa labor party win the 2025 election
How much polling had there been between the election and this poll? McGowan’s high rating was because he had protected us from the virus, once that stopped and they let the virus in, I didn’t sense that same level of support was still there. Begrudging acknowledgment that they had still done a better job than the Libs would have, so they were still less worse, but also a sense of betrayal that they had given in and opened the borders.
“(I also am incredibly cynical that many people in Rockingham would give two hoots about Aboriginal heritage laws as an issue, especially in a cost of living crisis.)”
I guess we will see, but if it is true that is KKK levels of racist hate in WA and I knew we were bad, but that racist is a surprise.
Anton Kreitzer @ #34 Monday, July 24th, 2023 – 7:45 pm
As a hard core Cheers fan, I worry that not many will get the significance of “Anton Kreitzer”.
You really have to know the show and the characters, but …..
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cheers/comments/10w3wmi/im_not_kreitzer_im_norm_peterson_afternoon/
Expecting everyone to yell “Norm”, they yell “Anton”.
If you don’t know the show, don’t bother, if you do know the show watch the episode “the Two Faces of Norm”
Only nine posts from about four o’clock until now. Not much more than one an hour. I have never seen the blog so sluggish before.
As I neglected to point out at the top of the thread, this is a niche WA post. The open thread with all too many comments on it is here.
This poll is, in isolation, too dramatic to believe.
OTOH, there’s no smoke without a fire.
And I’m sure WA LNP would have gleefully taken a poll showing just half the swing that this one does.
Surely there must be a decent swing away from Lab of some sort even if this poll has somehow got a poor sample and grossly exaggerated its extent.
WeWantPaulsays:
Monday, July 24, 2023 at 9:02 pm
“(I also am incredibly cynical that many people in Rockingham would give two hoots about Aboriginal heritage laws as an issue, especially in a cost of living crisis.)”
I guess we will see, but if it is true that is KKK levels of racist hate in WA and I knew we were bad, but that racist is a surprise.
As an Australian-born bloke who grew up overseas and returned many years ago, having lived and/or spent significant amounts of time in other Anglo settler-colonial/”New World” states as well as the UK, while I’ve always acknowledged the utterly shameful displays of bigotry that can be seen in public in some parts of this country – and the nauseating displays of simmering racial hatred and white supremacy that bubble away right below the surface of Australia’s conservative/right-wing discourse, news media and talkback radio – I’ve always dismissed the claims of members of my community that Australia is a *super*-racist country as somewhat overblown hyperbole, deeply coloured by the cultural cringe that still floats around the collective Australian subconscious.
There’s still some truth to that, but reading, hearing and seeing the absolute rubbish and bullshit being spewed out by those pushing for a “No” vote on the Voice, I see it now in a way I suppose I couldn’t before. There’s a deep-seated fury in particularly the pale, male and stale establishment that wasn’t previously visible to me as another white, increasingly middle-aged male – but it’s crystal-clear now, whenever I hear any of them speak. ‘How dare they think we’d let them anywhere near OUR Parliament, even in an advisory capacity’, floats right beneath everything they say, like a whisper – said without being said. ‘They should take their dole and their humpies and fuck off back to where they belong.’ It’s despicable. I’m sure some of you might be aghast at this suggestion – I do accept that not everyone leaning towards No is a racial supremacist; like the human masses in They Live, you perhaps take their words in earnest and genuinely believe the No campaign has a legitimate argument about vagueness, permanency, or that the Blackfellas are somehow going to use the Voice to take over the government Zimbabwe-style, expropriate your suburban quarter-acre block and stick all of us whiteys’ heads on pikes on the West Gate. Just know you’re in bed with some of the most abhorrent people imaginable.
<3
Oh and this poll? Well, we're post-Rockingham now, and if you ignore the swing (which was always going to be huge at a by-election during a cost of living crisis, where the most popular premier in WA history has retired from the seat, and coming down from the most lopsided result anywhere in Australia in living memory) it's probably about a bog-standard result for a byelection in a safe Labor seat during a Labor government.
Would be interested if either of you had any relevant data, Messrs. Bowe/Bonham?