Category: Federal Politics 2019-2022

My assertion in the previous post that we faced a dry spell on the polling front hadn’t reckoned on Newspoll’s quarterly breakdowns, published today in The Australian. These combine the four Newspoll surveys conducted this year into a super-poll featuring various breakdowns from credible sample sizes (though I’d note that nothing seems to have come of talk that new industry standards would require that such breakdowns be provided in each poll individually, in a new spirit of transparency following the great pollster failure of 2019).

The latest numbers offer some particularly interesting insights into where the Coalition has been losing support over recent months. Whereas things have been reasonably stable in New South Wales (now 50-50 after the Coalition led 51-49 in the last quarter of 2020) and Victoria (where Labor’s lead narrows from 55-45 to 53-47), there have been six-point shifts in Labor’s favour in Western Australia (where the Coalition’s 53-47 lead last time has been reversed) and South Australia (51-49 to the Coalition last time, 55-45 to Labor this time). Labor has also closed the gap in Queensland from 57-43 to 53-47.

It should be noted here that the small state sample sizes are relatively modest, at 628 for WA and 517 for SA, implying error margins of around 4%, compared with around 2.5% for the larger states. I also observed, back in the days when there was enough state-level data for such things to be observable, that state election blowouts had a way of feeding into federal polling over the short term, which may be a factor in the poll crediting Labor with a better result than it has managed at a federal election in WA since 1983.

The gender breakdowns notably fail to play to the script: Labor is credited with 51-49 leads among both men and women, which represents a four-point movement to Labor among men and no change among women. There is also nothing remarkable to note in Scott Morrison’s personal ratings, with deteriorations of 7% in his net rating among men and 8% among women.

Further results suggest the government has lost support more among the young (Labor’s lead is out from 61-39 to 64-36 among those aged 18 to 34, while the Coalition holds a steady 62-38 lead among those 65 and over), middle income earners (a three-point movement to Labor in the $50,000 to $100,000 cohort and four-point movement in $100,000 to $150,000, compared with no change for $50,000 and below and a two-point increase for the Coalition among those on $150,000 and over), non-English speakers (a four-point decline compared with one point for English speakers) and those with trade qualifications (a four-point movement compared with none among the university educated and one point among those without qualifications).

You can find the full results, at least on voting intention, in the poll data feature on BludgerTrack, where you can navigate your way through tabs for each of the breakdowns Newspoll provides for a full display of the results throughout the current term. Restoring a permanent link to all this through my sidebar is part of the ever-lengthening list of things I need to get around to.

Essential Research has seized the day in its latest fortnightly survey with new personal ratings for Scott Morrison, in addition to its normal montly reading (together with Anthony Albanese’s and the preferred prime minister rating) which came in the last poll. The results are broadly similar to Newspoll’s in finding Morrison down five on approval to 57% and up six on disapproval to 35%.

However, the real kicker is the accompanying gender breakdowns, which have Morrison steady at 65% approval and up two on disapproval to 30% among men, but down ten on approval to 49% and up ten on disapproval to 40% among women. This 16% gender gap on prime ministerial approval is twice as big as the Newspoll record from 1996 to the present, which came when Tony Abbott scored 42% among men and 34% among women in January-March 2014 (the biggest the other way was when Julia Gillard scored 38% among women and 31% among men in April-June 2011).

Further questions from the survey continue on this theme: presented with five propositions as to why there are fewer women than men in parliament, the most popular was that “political parties do not do enough to ensure gender equality in their organisations”, with which 63% agreed. Forty-eight per cent indicated support for gender quotas, with 36% opposed. Variations by party support were in the directions you would expect, but were not of great magnitude.

On other fronts, the poll finds respondents taking a mostly positive view of the causalisation of the workforce: while they were most likely to believe it was good for employers, at 65% versus 11% for bad, 46% felt it had been good for the economy, 42% for indivdual workers and 41% for the nation, compared with respective bad ratings of 19%, 29% and 26%. However, 84% expressed support for the right of workers to convert from casual to permanent employment after six months, with only 10% opposed, and 80% felt gig-based workers with regular hours should be recognised with permanent employment, with only 8% opposed.

For good measure, the poll finds 48% supportive for a republic and 28% opposed, although the question emphasises “a republic with an Australian head of state”, which tends to encourage a positive result. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1100.

The Australian has come good with a Newspoll just a fortnight after the last, quickening its usual three-weekly schedule. This actually has very slightly better numbers for the Coalition on the primary vote, up one to 40% with Labor down one to 38%, the Greens up one to 11% and One Nation down one to 2%, but with Labor’s two-party lead unchanged on 52-48.

However, Scott Morrison’s personal ratings have taken a hit: he’s down seven points on approval to 55% and up six on disapproval to 40%, comfortably his worst numbers since the onset of COVID-19. Anthony Albanese is up a point on approval to 43% and steady on disapproval at 41%, and his deficit on preferred prime minister has been cut from 56-30 to 52-32.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1517.

Sundry recent developments relevant to the next federal election, whenever that may be:

• A report by David Crowe of The Age/Herald relates that a) unidentified Liberals are “saying privately that a poll in the first months of 2022 is most likely”, and that b) the Greens are about to identify nine House of Representatives seats they will be targeting, and believe they would have won the inner Melbourne seat of Macnamara at the last election if the newly published draft boundaries had been in place. The latter propose tidying the electorate’s eastern boundary as a straight line down Williams Road and Hotham Street, which would remove Caulfield and its surrounds and add large parts of Prahran and South Yarra. My own estimates are perhaps a little less favourable for them, indicating a 2.0% boost in the Greens vote to 26.3%, still astern of Labor on 30.7% (down 1.1%) and the Liberals on 36.7% (down 0.6%). Josh Burns comfortably won the seat for Labor in 2019 after the Greens were excluded.

• Marion Scrymgour has been preselected as Labor’s candidate for Lingiari, which covers the Northern Territory outside of Darwin. Scrymgour served in the Northern Territory parliament from 2001 to 2012 and as Deputy Chief Minister from 2007 to 2009, and has more recently been chief executive of the Northern Land Council. The Northern Territory News reports other candidates for preselection included Matthew Bonson, who served in the territory parliament from 2001 to 2008; Jeanie Govan, a town planner; and Rowan Foley, chief executive of the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation.

• The New South Wales Greens have preselected David Shoebridge, who has held a seat in the state upper house since 2010, as lead Senate candidate for the next election. AAP reports Shoebridge won a ballot of 2263 party members ahead of Amanda Cohn, the deputy mayor of Albury, and Rachael Jacobs, a lecturer in creative arts education at Western Sydney University.

• Shortly after reports indicating former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson would seek preselection for the Nationals’ position on the New South Wales Coalition Senate ticket, The Australian reports Fiona Nash is keep to recover the position, which she lost in 2017 after being disqualified on grounds of dual British citizenship under Section 44. Also identified as a potential candidate is former state party director Ross Cadell.

Two further polls in the wake of the weekend Newspoll, including voting intention numbers from Roy Morgan and its regularly conducted but irregularly published federal polling series. This shows Labor with a 50.5-49.5 lead on two-party preferred, unchanged from the last such poll a month ago, from primary votes of Coalition 41% (up one), Labor 34.5% (unchanged), Greens 12.5% (down half a point) and One Nation 2.5% (down one). The poll was conducted online and by telephone over the previous two weekends, from a sample of 2747.

The accompanying release takes a deep dive into gender breakdowns in light of recent events, as The Australian did yesterday with recent Newspoll data, which you can read about as an update at the bottom of this post. Whereas The Australian came up empty, Morgan tells us of a 4.3% differential in Coalition two-party preferred between April 2020 and early February (53.5% among men, 49.3% among women), but a 6.2% differential since late February (52.8% among men, 46.5% among women).

There is also the regular fortnightly Essential Research poll which includes the pollster’s monthly reading of leadership ratings. These have Scott Morrison down three on approval to 62% and up one on approval to 29%, Anthony Albanese up one to 41% and down one to 32%, and Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister narrowing slightly from 52-24 to 52-26.

Concerning recent rape allegations, 37% agree with Scott Morrison’s contention that an inquiry into the Christian Porter matter would “say the rule of law and our police are not competent to deal with these issues”, with 33% disagreeing. Sixty-seven per cent felt it was “time women were believed when they say they have been assaulted”, but 62% also felt that “because the charge of rape is so serious, the burden of proof needs to be high” – a difficult circle to square. Fifty-five per cent felt there needed to be an independent investigation compared with 45% who favoured an alternative proposition that “the police has said they will not be pressing charges and that should be the end of the matter”.

Regular questions on COVID-19 management find federal and state governments recovering ground that most had lost in the previous result a fortnight ago. The federal government’s good rating is up eight to 70% and its poor rating is down two to 12%. For the state governments, New South Wales’ good rating is up three to 75%, Victoria’s is up thirteen to 62%, Queensland is up two to 75%, Western Australia is up six to 91% and South Australia is up to 85%. For the small states especially, caution is required due to small sample sizes (though the WA result may be the highest yet recorded anywhere, which would be neat timing if so).

Also featured is an occasional suite of questions on trust in institutions, which finds 66% expressing a lot of or some trust in state and territory governments, up six points six August, and 72% doing so for border security agencies, up five. Other institutions record little change except the print media, which already rated poorly and is now down four points to 35%. The poll also found 38% support for an aged care levy with 30% opposed. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1124.

Newspoll, Essential and Roy Morgan between them have amounted to a healthy infusion of data for the BludgerTrack poll aggregates, which you can see summarised on the sidebar and in much greater detail here. Labor is now credited with a 51.2-48.8 lead on two-party preferred, following a dead heat when the numbers were last updated three weeks ago.

As reported by The Australian, Newspoll caps a sobering weekend for the Coalition by giving Labor its best result for the term, recording a 52-48 lead compared with 50-50 three weeks ago. The Coalition is down three on the primary vote to 39% with Labor up two to 39%, the Greens steady on 10% and One Nation on 3%. Scott Morrison’s leadership ratings are nonetheless largely unscathed, his approval down two to 62% and disapproval up two to 34%. However, but Anthony Albanese’s are considerably improved, with approval up four to 42% and disapproval down four to 41%, and he has narrowed the gap on preferred prime minister from 61-26 to 56-30. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1521.

UPDATE (16/3): The Australian today goes deeper into the Newspoll data in search of gender effects, but doesn’t come up with much — though this may partly be because they have combined the results of the last two polls to get a larger sample size in testing the effect of recent events, and the previous poll three weeks ago would probably have been too early. As compared with the combined polling from October to December, this finds the Coalition down two among women to 39%, with Labor up two to 38%, the Greens down one to 11% and One Nation steady on 3%; while among men, the Coalition is down two to 42%, Labor is up three to 37%, the Greens are down one to 9% and One Nation are steady on 4%.

To keep a general discussion post somewhere near the top of the page, I offer the following:

• Paul Osborne of AAP reports the Australian Electoral Commission has confirmed that the draft federal redistributions for Victoria and Western Australia will be published next Friday. The latter has been the subject of particular media attention over the past week, owing to the potential for Christian Porter’s seat of Pearce to be abolished.

• John Anderson, who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2007 and as Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister from 1999 to 2005, has announced he will seek preselection for the Nationals-designated number two position on the New South Wales Senate ticket. The position is available as a hangover from the Section 44 debacle, which caused the party to lose a seat to the Liberals in the recount that followed Fiona Nash’s disqualification. It was reported last month that state Nationals leader John Barilaro might also seek the position, though this would seem to be rather optimistic of him.

• Kevin Bonham offers a long-range big-picture account of historical opinion polling, which concludes it would be highly unusual for a federal opposition polling only as well as Labor is right now to actually win an election.