Category: Federal Politics 2010-2013

In my continuing quest to keep the posts ticking over until the paged comments problem is fixed, some polling nuggets that had previously escaped mention:

• Dennis Shanahan of The Australian reports on Essential Research polling on what ails Labor, which was conducted for Troy Bramston’s newly released book Looking for the Light on the Hill. The poll has only 12 per cent believing the party was “clear about its goals and objectives”, with only one in three party supporters believing the party had clear goals and principles. The Coalition was rated equal to Labor or better on “the values of sharing economic prosperity; social justice, fairness and compassion; security defence and active foreign policy; and extending opportunities. On the issue of environmental sustainability, Labor scores behind both the Greens and the Coalition with a vote of just 22 per cent among ALP voters.”

• The Nielsen poll a fortnight ago came with questions on mandatory pre-commitment for poker machines and the carbon tax which I had previously neglected to mention. A telling gap in acceptance of the poker machine reforms was evident between Victoria, where 70 per cent were supportive, and New South Wales, where it was only 52 per cent. Nationally it had 61 per cent support (down five on April) and 34 per cent opposition (up five). The policy was more favoured by women (65 per cent to 58 per cent) and young people (72 per cent of 18-24, 53 per cent of 55+).

• Andrew Crook of Crikey has been told of Labor internal polling suggesting Labor would easily recover Melbourne from Adam Bandt and the Greens if the Liberals put them last on preferences, as they did at the state election. Said to have been conducted by UMR Research from a sample of 400, the poll had Labor’s primary vote steady since the election at 38 per cent, the Greens down three to 33 per cent and Liberals up four to 25 per cent, which would translate into a 58-42 win for Labor or a 54-46 win for the Greens depending on what the Liberals did with their preferences (80 per cent of which went to the Greens at the federal election, compared with 40 per cent at the state election). This stands in very stark contrast to polling conducted for the Greens by Galaxy and published in the Sun-Herald last week, which had the Greens at 44 per cent against 29 per cent for Labor and 23 per cent for the Liberals, translating into a Greens two-party win of either 65-35 or 56-44. Andrew Crook’s report in Crikey also related that Cath Bowtell, ACTU industrial officer and state party president, is likely to run again for Labor after failing to succeed Lindsay Tanner as member at last year’s election.

The latest quarterly Australian National University poll on various aspects of public opinion was released earlier this week, this one targeting “attitudes to government and government services”, as well as asking its usual question on the most important problems facing the country. The poll is derived from a weighted sample of 2001 respondents to phone polling conducted between September 5 and 18, and boasts a margin of error of 2 per cent.

• Satisfaction with the “the way democracy works in Australia” produced the same results as obtained from the ANU’s Australian Election Study survey after last year’s election, with 73 per cent satisfied and 27 per cent not satisfied. Last year’s result marked a plunge from 86 per cent satisfaction recorded after the 2007 election, which was part of an apparent peak recorded in the middle of the previous decade. The report notes that of 29 advanced democracies surveyed in the 1990s, only the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and the United States had higher levels of satisfaction with democracy than Australia (I suspect the mentality at work in the latter country differed from the first three).

• The public appears to have soured on the federal tier of government since 2008, when 40 per cent of respondents were receptive to an expansion in federal power. This time it’s at 30 per cent, with opposition up from 39 per cent to 50 per cent. Western Australia stands out among the state breakdowns, recording only 18 per cent support compared with 29 to 35 per cent for the other states. The current results still compare favourably with 1979, the previous occasion when an ANU survey had posed the question, when 17 per cent were supportive against 66 per cent opposed.

• Respondents were a lot more inclined to believe taxes, unemployment and especially prices had gone up since Labor came to power than they were to believe that health, education and living standards had improved. In the case of prices, this is incontestably correct: the inflation rate may be a different matter, but this isn’t what was asked. However, 58 per cent believed prices had risen “a lot”, which is probably untrue in historical terms. The figures for unemployment offer an even more telling insight into voter psychology, with only 19 per cent believing it had done anything so boring as remain the same, which it essentially has. Forty per cent believed it had increased against 29 per cent who thought it had decreased, which no doubt tells you something significant about the government’s fortunes.

• A trend of recent years has been maintained with higher support recorded for increased social spending (55 per cent in the current poll) than for reduced taxes (39 per cent). The report notes that opinion on government spending “tends to be both secular – in that it is largely unrelated to partisan debates and changes in government – and cyclical – in that it is responsive to broader economic conditions”. Contra John Maynard Keynes, it seems that “national electorates are more likely to favour spending on social services and welfare when economic conditions are benign”. Tax cuts are preferred to government spending to stimulate the economy during downturns.

• The policy areas in which respondents most wanted more money to be spent were education (81 per cent want more spending) and aged pensions (71 per cent), with unemployment the only area where more wanted spending cut (33 per cent) than increased (20 per cent). Small businesses (66 per cent) beat people on low incomes (52 per cent) as most deserving of tax relief, with mining companies, banks and companies which produce carbon pollution essentially tied for least deserving (in each case 59 per cent thought they paid too little tax). Somewhat bewilderingly, all revenue-generating measures suggested to respondents recorded very strong support, and while “a carbon tax on the 500 largest polluting companies” was the least popular of the seven, it still had 63 per cent approval and 34 per cent disapproval.

• As always, respondents were asked to identify the two most important problems facing Australia today. Following the previous poll in July I produced a chart plotting the progression of this series since April 2008. If that were updated with the current results it would show “economy/jobs” continuing to trend upwards (37 per cent rated it first or second, up from 34 per cent) and “better government” jerking sharply upwards from 14 per cent to 26 per cent, taking third place behind a stable immigration (down a point to 31 per cent).

NOTE FOR READERS: Following a software upgrade, the feature which breaks pages down into digestible chunks of 50 comments is not working. This will be rectified, but in the meantime I will be keeping the posts frequent to keep the comments pages at manageable lengths.

Morgan has released two sets of poll results, one from a phone poll of 538 respondents conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, the other its usual weekend face-to-face poll of 961 respondents. The phone poll’s margin of error is over 4 per cent, but its results broadly agree with Newspoll’s: the primary votes are 31 per cent for Labor, 47 per cent for the Coalition and 12.5 per cent for the Greens (Newspoll had it at 29 per cent, 45 per cent and 15 per cent). However, it does not replicate Newspoll’s finding that public’s view of the carbon tax has gotten particularly worse: support is down one point since August to 37 per cent, with opposition up one to 57 per cent (Newspoll had it at 32 per cent and 59 per cent). The face-to-face poll finds the spike Labor recorded a fortnight ago continuing to ebb away: they are down 1.5 per cent on the primary vote to 35 per cent with the Coalition hiking 5.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent, taking up the slack from a curious slump in “others” from 9.5 per cent to 5 per cent.

On two-party preferred, the face-to-face results produce their usual mismatch between the respondent-allocated and preferences-as-at-previous-election methods, which respectively have it at 56.5-43.5 and 54.5-45.5. It’s interesting to note that this is not true of the phone poll, where the two methods produce similar results: 55.5-44.5 and 55-45. The only other agency to publish both measures, Nielsen, uses a phone polling methodology and hasn’t generally produced hugely different results. It could be that Labor’s weak respondent-allocated preference share is specific to face-to-face polling.

NOTE: Apologies for the issues with the site, both in relation to it being down and comment pagination not working. The former seems to be resolved, touch wood; the latter will be attended to reasonably soon. Until it is, I’ll put up regular posts so that comments threads don’t get too long.

The latest fortnightly Newspoll offers the government a mixed bag: its best result on two-party preferred since May, with the Coalition lead cut to 54-46 from 57-43 last time, but a 10-point net decline in support for the carbon tax since late July. The two-party shift is entirely down to a four point drop in the Coalition primary vote to 45 per cent, with Labor remaining stuck on 29 per cent. The Greens have leapt three points to 15 per cent, their best result since March. Julia Gillard is up on both approval (three pionts to 31 per cent) and disapproval (one point to 61 per cent), while Tony Abbott is down two on approval to 34 per cent and up two on disapproval to 55 per cent. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 40-35 to 39-36. Support for the carbon tax is down four points to 32 per cent, with opposition up six to 59 per cent.

Redistributions:

• The federal redistribution for South Australia has been finalised, with no changes made to the draft proposals from August. The biggest changes are the transfer of about 10,000 areas in an area around Aberfoyle Park from Mayo to Boothby, and a redrawing of the northern end of Port Adelaide, which has gained 8000 voters around Burton from Wakefield and lost a projected 7200 voters in an area of rapid growth around Salisbury Park to Makin. None of the changes is too remarkable in terms of likely outcomes at the next election – Antony Green has as always calculated notional margins on the new boundaries.

• Antony also reviews the finalised state redistribution for Western Australia, where the main change on the draft is the reversal of a plan to move Mandurah from the South West upper house region to South Metropolitan.

• There’s also the finalised redistribution for the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, which on this occasion has proved a slightly less dull subject than usual.

Preselections:

• The Sun-Herald reports a “fractious meeting of the 17-member Liberal state executive” has narrowly endorsed a plan to hold preselection primaries in federal seats yet to be determined. According to Niki Savva on the ABC’s Insiders program, it is “only a decision that’s been made in principle and they might try it in one or two seats to see how it goes, and that’s something that will be negotiated between the NSW and the federal divisions”. The Sun-Herald report also says nominations for most Liberal-held seats will be open tomorrow (Monday) and settled by next month.

• With respect to the state’s Labor-held seats, the federal Liberal Party is fast-tracking preselections for eight key seats: Dobell, Robertson, Lindsay, Greenway, Reid, Banks, Parramatta and Eden-Monaro. The Sunday Telegraph reports “local builder Matthew Lusted” is the front-runner in Dobell, and that Tony Abbott has approached unsuccessful 2010 candidate David Gazard to try again in Eden-Monaro. The Telegraph has elsewhere reported that Ross Cameron, who held Parramatta from 1996 until his defeat until 2004, is contemplating a return to politics depending on the state of his business affairs. However, he is not interested in recovering his old seat, instead having his sights on Dobell, Robertson, Kingsford-Smith or the Senate. Cameron is encouraging Rachel Merton, daughter of former state Baulkham Hills MP Wayne Merton, to contest Parramatta. Di Bartok of the Parramatta Advertiser reports that the candidate from 2010, engineer Charles Camenzuli, is also interested in running, as are “Martin Zaiter, Brett Murray and George Goivos”.

• Michelle Harris of the Newcastle Herald reports Jaimie Abbott, a former media adviser to Paterson MP Bob Baldwin and RAAF reservist who has served in Afghanistan, has emerged as the front-runner for Liberal preselection in Newcastle.

• The NSW Nationals have changed their constitution to allow local party members to determine what kind of preselection they want, including the option of “community preselections” along the lines of US-style open primaries. A trial in the seat of Tamworth before the 2011 election attracted over 4000 voters and produced a winning candidate in Kevin Anderson.

• LNP campaign director James McGrath has confirmed his interest in succeeding Alex Somlyay as member for the federal Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax. McGrath has recently been embroiled in controversy over his role in paying former Labor candidate Robert Hough to compile dirt files on party figures. In 2008 McGrath was sacked from a job as adviser to London lord mayor Boris Johnson after making an allegedly racist comment about the city’s black community.

• The Burnie Advocate reports Glynn Williams, “Poppy Growers Tasmania president, legal practitioner and Hospice Care Association North West president”, has nominated for Liberal preselection in Braddon. It is presumed he will face opposition from Brett Whiteley, who lost his seat at last year’s state election. The Advocate reported on September 17 that an internal Liberal poll of 220 respondents conducted from August 22-25 had the Liberals leading 60-40 on two-party preferred.

Other polling:

• Market research company ReachTel has recently published two results from automated phone polls, the first targeting 850 respondents in Labor’s most marginal Queensland electorate of Moreton and published on October 12. The poll put incumbent Graham Perrett 54-46 behind on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 35 per cent for Labor, 48 per cent for the LNP and 9 per cent for the Greens. The poll also asked respondents about the carbon tax, finding 39 per cent support and 54 per cent opposition.

• The second ReachTel poll, published on October 19, was a national survey of 2428 which canvased three attitudinal questions. On the future of the present government, three options were offered: 50 per cent went for an immediate election, 36.5 per cent thought the Gillard government should serve out its term, and 14 per cent believed that Kevin Rudd should take over as Prime Minister. A question on same-sex marriage produced a very much more negative response than previous such inquiries from Essential Research and Westpoll: 43 per cent were in favour and 47 per cent were opposed. The Transport Workers Union’s industrial action against Qantas had 36 per cent support and 44 per cent opposition. Results on all three questions showed strong distinctions according to voting intention.

The Australian brings results of a Newspoll survey conducted from Tuesday to Saturday in Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott’s regional NSW seats of New England and Lyne. The polls targeted about 500 voters each, producing margins of error of a little under 4.5 per cent. As expected, the results indicate a plunge in support for the incumbents since the election and their subsequent decision to back a Labor minority government. In New England, the poll has Tony Windsor at 33 per cent compared with 61.9 per cent at the election, with the Nationals at 41 per cent compared with 25.2 per cent. In Lyne, Rob Oakeshott’s primary vote is at 26 per cent compared with 47.1 per cent at the 2010 election, and the Nationals are at 47 per cent compared with 34.4 per cent.

Determining two-candidate preferred results for individual electorates in circumstances so radically different from the previous election is problematic, and Newspoll has done the best that could be done under the circumstances by publishing both previous-election and respondent-allocated measures. In New England, the previous election measure has Windsor and the Nationals tied at 50-50. Unfortunately we do not have a full set of primary vote figures at this stage, but it would seem to me from the two-candidate result that the “others” vote (excluding Windsor, Nationals, Labor and Greens) must be in the mid-teens. UPDATE: Full tables here courtesy of GhostWhoVotes – “others” is at 14 per cent in Lyne and 13 per cent in New England. At the 2010 election it was only 1.2 per cent, that being the combined total for One Nation and the Citizens Electoral Council. To apply these parties’ preference distribution to such a large chunk of the vote is obviously imprecise at best. The respondent-allocated preference measure has Windsor trailing 53-47, but this has problems of its own – in particular it requires respondents to make up their own mind, when many will in fact follow how-to-vote cards.

In Lyne, Rob Oakeshott trails 62-38 on respondent-allocated preferences and 55-45 on the previous election results. Similarly to the New England poll, the latter figure appears to have been obtained by amplifying a mid-teens “others” vote through the 2010 preference distribution of one independent who polled 0.7 per cent. While this is by any measure a depressing set of figures for Oakeshott, it is a good deal better for him than a ReachTel automated phone poll conducted in August, which had the Nationals leading 55 per cent to 15 per cent on the primary vote. That poll was rightly criticised at the time for asking about the carbon tax and pokies reform before getting to voting intention. It may also raise doubts about the precision of automated phone polling, which in this country at least has a patchy record (though it seems to be a different story in the United States).

Another difficulty with polls for these two seats is that it is not yet clear which candidates the Nationals will be running, which can have a very significant bearing on regional seats especially. After initially stating he wasn’t interested, the party’s state leader Andrew Stoner has recently said he would “never say never” to the prospect of running in Lyne, with earlier reports suggesting he was being “courted” to make such a move with a view to replacing Warren Truss as federal leader. This was said to be partly motivated by a desire to block a similar move by Barnaby Joyce, who has declared his interest in New England. However, Tony Abbott has said the candidate in Lyne from 2010, Port Macquarie medical specialist David Gillespie, would get “wholehearted support” if he wanted to run again. According to a flattering profile of Abbott by Tom Dusevic in The Weekend Australian, Gillespie is a “boyhood friend” of Abbott’s.

Newspoll also sought approval ratings for the two independents and gauged opinion on their decisions to support the Labor minority government and the carbon tax legislation. This provided one heartening result for Tony Windsor, who retains the approval of 50 per cent of his constituents with 44 per cent disapproving (UPDATE: Sorry, got that the wrong way around). Rob Oakeshott’s respective ratings are 38 per cent and 54 per cent. Voters in Lyne were the more hostile to their member’s support for the Labor government: 32 per cent were supportive and 61 opposed, against 36 per cent and 54 per cent in New England. The results on the carbon tax seem to have been effectively identical, with respective opposition of 72 per cent and 71 per cent. Only 22 per cent of respondents in Lyne were supportive; The Australian’s article neglects to provide a figure for New England, but it can be presumed to have been very similar.

UPDATE: The weekly Essential Research has the two-party preferred steady at 55-45, although Labor is off a point on the primary to 32 per cent with the Coalition and the Greens steady on 48 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. My favourite of the supplementary questions, as it was at my suggestion, gauges current opinion of major reforms of the past few decades, which gives a resounding thumbs-up to compulsory superannuation and Medicare, strong support to floating the dollar and free trade agreements, a fairly modest majority in favour of the GST. Privatisations, however, are opposed in retrospect as well as prospect, although reversing those already conducted has only bare majority support. For some reason though, more support regulating the dollar than thought it was a bad idea in the first place, and a big majority favour increasing trade protection. Other questions relate to a republic (41 per cent for, 33 per cent against), the Commonwealth (47 per cent believe membership of benefit) and succession to the throne (61 per cent believe it should be gender-neutral) and who is to blame for the Qantas dispute (management by and large).

Morgan has got in a day early with its face-to-face poll, again publishing a result from one weekend of polling rather than combining two for a fortnightly result as it had been doing for the previous four months. The figures show Labor hanging on to about half of the eyebrow-raising improvement they recorded in last week’s poll. On the primary vote Labor is at 36.5 per cent, which is down three points on last week and up one on the result of the previous fortnightly poll. The Coalition is up half a point to 44 per cent, after dropping from 46.5 per cent to 43.5 per cent last time. The Greens have gone from 10 per cent to 11 per cent and back to 10 per cent. On the more reliable two-party preferred measure which distributes minor party and independent preferences according to the result of the previous election, the result has gone from parity to a 51.5-48.5 lead to the Coalition. The measure which allocates preferences according to how respondents say they will vote records the Coalition lead increasing from 52.5-47.5 to 53.5-46.5.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the latest monthly Nielsen has the Coalition leading 57-43 on two-party preferred, down from 58-42 last time. Consistent with other recent polling, it has Labor’s primary vote recovering from unprecedented lows, up three points to 30 per cent. The Coalition is steady on 48 per cent, with the Greens down a point to 12 per cent. Julia Gillard’s approval ratings are basically steady (approval up one to 33 per cent, disapproval steady on 62 per cent), but she has halved her deficit on preferred prime minister, now trailing 44-48 rather than 40-48. Tony Abbott is down two on approval to 41 per cent and up two on disapproval to 54 per cent. The poll includes yet another bad result for Julia Gillard against Kevin Rudd, who leads 61 per cent to 30 per cent, but Nielsen has at least done her a favour in extending the question to the Liberal leadership, which has Malcolm Turnbull on 44 per cent and Tony Abbott far behind on 28 per cent, with Joe Hockey also competitive on 23 per cent.

The News Limited tabloids also carry a Galaxy poll of 1009 respondents which has it at 58-42, from primary votes of 51 per cent for the Coalition, Labor on 29 per cent and the Greens on 12 per cent. Attitudinal questions produce familiar results: support for the carbon tax is at 34 per cent against 57 per cent opposed, and Kevin Rudd holding a 53 per cent to 29 per cent lead over Julia Gillard as preferred Labor leader. On the question of whether Tony Abbott would have a mandate to abolish the carbon tax if elected, the results are 60 per cent yes and 29 per cent no.

UPDATE: Essential Research shows no change on voting intention: the Coalition continues to lead 48 per cent to 33 per cent on the primary vote and 55-45 on two-party preferred, with the Greens up a point to 11 per cent. There is some relatively good news for the Prime Minister on the monthly measure of leaders’ personal ratings, in the shape of an 11-point improvement in her net approval rating after a disastrous showing in the September 12 poll. Gillard’s approval is up six points to 34 per cent and her disapproval down five to 59 per cent, and her deficit on better prime minister is down from four points (40 per cent to 36 per cent) to one (39 per cent to 38 per cent). Tony Abbott’s ratings have recorded no significant change: his approval and disapproval are both up one, to 40 per cent and 51 per cent respectively.

A question on carbon tax gives the government slightly better results than the Galaxy poll, with 39 per cent supporting and 53 per cent opposed, but effectively unchanged on Essential’s survey of September 19. This continues a pattern where Essential Research’s online panel methodology has consistently produced less unfavourable results on this issue than phone polls. Essential also gave respondents three options for what should happen to the tax if Labor is defeated at the next election, finding 34 per cent in favour of a double dissolution to secure the repeal of the tax, with 33 per cent prepared to allow that the tax should remain “if it proves to be effective in reducing carbon pollution”. Twenty-one per cent felt it should remain in any case “to provide certainty for individuals and business”. Respondents were also asked to take their pick from 12 options to describe the positions taken by the leaders on asylum seekers, and the results provide consistently unflattering reading for Julia Gillard. The bitterest pill would be that she outscored Tony Abbott on both “too soft” (21 per cent to 7 per cent) and “too hard” (10 per cent to 6 per cent). Abbott even managed to record an effectively equal score to Gillard on his traditional negative of “just playing politics” (47 per cent to Gillard’s 46 per cent).

The latest Morgan face-to-face poll, covering a sample of 930 from last weekend only (so before the passage of the carbon tax and the government’s new policy on asylum seekers), records a sharp move to Labor: the Coalition’s lead on the respondent-allocated two-party preferred measure is down to 52.5-47.5 from 57-43 at the last poll, which covered the weekends of September 24-25 and October 1-2. Labor has actually drawn level on the two-party measure that allocates preferences according to the result of the previous election – the measure favoured by all other pollsters – after trailing 53.5-46.5 last time. Labor’s primary vote is up three point to 38.5 per cent and the Coalition is down three to 43.5 per cent with the Greens up a point to 11 per cent, which are all very similar to the results at last year’s election. On all measures this is Labor’s best result since March. Labor’s share of minor party and independent preferences on the respondent-allocated measure is 50 per cent compared with 42 per cent last time, but still very different from the 65.7 per cent at the election, hence the ongoing difference between the two Morgan two-party preferred measures. Since the poll was conducted at the same time as the most recent Newspoll and Essential Research polls, neither of which showed any change, a considerable measure of caution is advised.