As foreshadowed earlier this evening by a cunning stuntman in comments, ACNielsen shows Labor’s two-party lead narrowing to 54-46 from 56-44 earlier in the month. Primary vote figures suggest rounding accounts for part of the 2 per cent shift – the Coalition is up from 40 per cent to 42 per cent, but Labor also is up from 47 per cent to a formidable 48 per cent. Here’s a table of ACNielsen’s recent results. In typing the results over the template from my earlier Galaxy table, I was struck by how similar the two series have been.
| TWO-PARTY | PRIMARY | ||||
| ALP | LNP | ALP | LNP | ||
|
Oct 19
|
54 | 46 | 48 | 42 | |
|
Oct 6
|
56 | 44 | 47 | 40 | |
|
Sep 8
|
57 | 43 | 49 | 39 | |
|
Aug 11
|
55 | 45 | 46 | 41 | |
|
Jul 14
|
58 | 42 | 49 | 39 | |
|
Jun 16
|
57 | 43 | 48 | 39 | |
|
May 19
|
58 | 42 | 48 | 39 | |
|
April 21
|
58 | 42 | 50 | 37 | |
he already ‘crowed’ last night. He is a crow troll obviously.
Everyone’s been waiting for the Howard magic all year. It didn’t happen and 2 to 3 per cent of the 2PP hasn’t changed that. The libs think the rot is in and Howard will now just mop up the remaining 4%. However, mightn’t be that simple. The anti-union campaign is starting to unravel, given JWH’s rebuke of Hockey for saying essentially unions have no place in Australian industrial relations and the Mad Monk’s admission of yet another dalliance in his youth, this time with industrial democracy. Rudd can’t just run on three vague issues and a couple of road upgrade promises. I agree, he needs a big hit.
So EStJ, does that make me a Maxwell Smart troll, or a Kaos Troll or maybe a Dr Evil Troll??
I think we need a troll dictionary.
Speaking of dictionaries, one of my fav. Paul Keating quotes, referring to former labor politician Jim McClelland:
That you Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a f***ing dictionary when you were about 15 doesn’t give you the right to pour a bucket of sh*t over the rest of us.”
I have identified an old species of troll; the moron troll. They are readily identifiable by their words.
The 54-46 result sounds ok, but is not a significant shift
It could easily be driven by rounding and its too early to get hopes up..
However…the 5 point fall in rudd’s approval and the 2 point increase for Howard is, beyond question, a new picture in the Neilson numbers.
Neilson hasn’t had Howard as high as 52 all year
Rudd has only been lower than 60 once this year.
I would say the Libs would need to hold this position and pick up another 2-2.5% in the 2PP to win.
Not impossible but still very hard to do. You are all wrong to assume the $34B was the one shot in the locker, I assume they are holding back something big on housing affordability for later in the campaign.
I think the real positive for the Libs is the turn in PPM ratings against KR, assuming the negative ads work they should drive that up nicely in the next couple of weeks. Will be interesting if KR maintains the zen or if he comes out snarling as the pressure piles on?
Does anyone else think that currently the government is winning the debate on unions? Over the past couple of months they have successfully demonised them, with little real defence from Labor or the unions, and turned it into an election “issue”.
It reminds me strongly of the interest rate scare in 2004.
Labor and unions have to fight back on this *now* before it gets beyond them. IMO they have already waited far too long. I don’t really understand why they’ve held off on their ads… I suspect it is part of the plan to appear “above the fray” and not engaging in negative politics.
Well… nice guys finish last. This is one area where they need to fight back hard. Much of Labor’s success in the polls has ridden on the union anti-workchoices ad campaign which ran for several months earlier in the year. Where the f*** is it now?
There is a lot of talk here about the need to release policies to make up or extend the gap. My question is: How is “releasing policies” going to help either side much when the Coalition’s big 34 billion tax policy delivered very little bounce?
Sure policies are important (we politics buffs know that), but the average punter, who tunes into politics for maybe one minute per day total .. how much are they influenced by “policies”? I would have thought perceptions, appearances, soundbites would be more influential.
Well, $34 billion has to get you something – even a bit of popularity.
Most amazing thing about all these polls is Labors Primary Vote hasn’t budged.
Where is the coalition stealing all these votes from?
I would think the Greens would poll at LEAST 5%, so it seems like they are getting votes from no where.
ESJ — I agree. The government have got way more in store than the 34 billion in tax cuts. Which is why I think it is risky to allow them more or less clear air in the first week of the campaign.
Still, as I said previously, they obviously have a reason for doing so. Their campaign team has shown itself to be pretty effective (up until about two weeks ago) so I suspect that holding on to their policy announcements is part of their overall strategy.
It will be much easier to judge whether this was a good move or a stupid blunder in a few weeks time.
ESJ, I agree with you that the tax cuts aren’t the coalition’s only shot in the locker. However, nothing the coalition can release between now and election day will generate as much media interest as tax cuts. The media love them: they can publish fancy tables showing how much you will save in each income range, all sorts of silly analysis.
So my argument is that nothing the coalition can release from now on will grip the narrative in the media like the tax cuts have done. Hence this is why I referred to the tax cuts as the coalition’s “bazooka”.
Yes, Rudd needs a big hit. He has two of them; I.R and Climate Change. Let the Coalition fire all of their (taxation) guns at once in an early attempt to dazzle the electorate. There are five whole weeks to go – five weeks of Rudd talking about the Government’s failure to deal with Climate change, its dreadful I.R laws, the uncertainty surrounding the retiring P.M and his “successor”, the gap between Howard’s claims of “never been better off” and the everyday pressures that “working families” feel, the neglect of our national infrastructure, the dithering over establishing a proper national broadband system, the slapdash approach to the water crisis, the constant playing of the blame game……to name a few.
He can also talk about the fact that the coalition are in policy disarray on several fronts – an example being the fact that you have the Environment Minister running all over Wentworth telling the sizeable gay community that he supports the removal of discriminatory legislation affecting same-sex couples while the P.M gets up at a presser to say that he won’t change a thing. He can also talk about the fact that you have a P.M in waiting in Costello who is too scared to differentiate himself from Howard and show leadership on anything at all!
The list goes on and on – Rudd remains the same Rudd we have seen all year; measured, thoughtful, patient, focused and extremely disciplined.
He looks like a determined tortoise plodding along steadily while the Coalition hares kick up a heap of dust, running in circles.
Ashley – Agreed, I am a union official and am gob smacked by how silent the ACTU and Rudd are being. To be referred to as a “representative of working families” is damn insulting too.
People,
This is a politics blogsite, not a personal insults forum. Even though each side wants to win (and, by extension, see the other lose), surely we can be civil to one another. While I passionately detest JWH and everything he has done to our nation, I bear no personal malice towards ESJ, Glen or any other Liberal-leaning/siding commentator. Indeed, the ALP-siding people should be thanking them for granting an insight into the heads of their opponents. Instead, what I read is a barrage (by no means one-way) of personal insults. I don’t care who started it, I simply wish it would stop!
We all want what’s best for this nation, we simply disagree on what that is. We can each argue the others’ wrongness while still acknowledging their concern, remain civil and DEBATE the points, not just throw empty rhetoric back-and-forth. Let’s set an example for the pollies to live up to!
Having got that out of my system, I do believe that KR has some kind of strategy behind his moves – his past shows him to be a tactical thinker. Whether I agree that it’s a good strategy – another matter. Every move he has made thus far has been precalculated to make him look good. I doubt that he was caught off-guard by what he had to know was coming – a child of 5 could have seen a huge “tax-cuts” announcement coming a mile off, surely Rudd has. Mark my words (and yes, I understand that I may end up eating humble pie), the ALP has a carefully-planned comeback up their sleeves.
A troll troll: finds trolls.
Rx @ 108:
If these two polls are to be believed, there may have been a 2% bounce towards the Coalition.
Labor needs something like 51.6% of the TPP to win, so if they *are* actually sitting back down on 53% this early in the campaign then that’s not good news for them.
Policy announcements during the campaign play a significant role for swinging voters, and for consolidating soft votes. Rudd has put himself forward as a man with a plan for the future… so obviously if Howard is the one who is making all the policy announcements it doesn’t look good.
But that’s not going to happen. Stand by for a big policy announcement sometime between Friday arvo and Sunday evening.
Just as I acknowledge Howard’s tactical nous (at least historically), I don’t think it is even arguable that Rudd’s team has outpointed him all year. I’m not entirely sure what he is up to, but I expect a suckerpunch soon.
Any real progress on housing affordability must involve punishing speculators and thereby lowering house proces. This plays against the Howard constituency which is already hurting from increased interest rates. Subsidies will immediately fuel price rises and take up any slack. If the stock market falls on the back of further sub-prime shocks, the money will go into property. Howard won’t want that but wont de-oncentivise it either. In short, a Liberal housing affordability policy will be a sham.
My feeling is that this has been a horrible probably 2 months or so for the ALP. This makes me think the 53/54% is pretty solid for the ALP. If those 53/54% haven’t been budged yet, it’s certainly hard to imagine exactly what’s going to budge them now.
LTEP, is that some slight optimism from you? 😉
There is an internal contradiction in Labor, it always needs to make a case for change to win. Labor has assumed that buying into the “I am an economic conservative” was the way to neutralise the coalition on economic management strengths and that time for a change would be enough to get them over the line.
The problem with that is that if you buy into that framework how do you now differentiate yourself, particularly when the Libs start attack ads which basically say you are a out of touch union party?
If you “me too” the tax cuts you confirm the Liberals as the trend setters and Labor as the followers, if you give cuts to the low and middle income earners you get accused of attacking “aspirational” voters. Its a lose lose proposition for Labor.
The other great thing from the Liberal perspective they have already used up a week talking about economics and tax – not much of a peep about WorkChoices.
I disagree somewhat. I think the ALP lost the agenda about two weeks before the election was called. They ran out of policy announcements to make because they were betting that the election would have already been called by then. So they were left with nothing much else to do other than carp at government ad spending and taunting Howard to call the election.
So I think it has been a poor 3 weeks for the ALP… pretty much no new headline ideas or policies.
I guess that’s the positive news for ALP supporters though. After 3 relatively poor weeks for Labor, and 3 strong weeks for the Libs, there hasn’t been a huge dent in the polls. They would be starting to feel rather uncomfortable about the deafening policy silence though…
I said earlier in the week that Howard’s tax cuts were an ‘all in’ strategy, which at 56-44 he had to do, and if he didn’t get a good bump the election would be over for the Liberals.
The bump for him today means he is still in the race, the problem is now that Rudd has 30 odd billion more to play with then Howard does and Rudd doesn’t need to win any new voters, he just needs to keep the ones he has already got.
At the beginning of the 2004 election I was convinced that Latham was just taking his time to come up with a killer response to the L plate campaign, turns out he was spending his time being an idiot.
Rudd really needs to be getting more media then the tax cuts by tuesday and be countering the Union ads effectively by middle of next week or the polls or we will see 51-49 by the end of next week.
Yes, I’ve already explained in another thread that these polls, to me, don’t cause any sense of panic. The ALP primary remains well above what they’ve achieved at the past 4 elections, published polling in the key seats to this date has the ALP at least fractionally in front in those seats, unexpected seats have shown the ALP in front (North Sydney, Leichardt, rumours of Ryan).
There’s still a long way to go to the election, and whilst the ALP certainly could fall further behind, there’s nothing to suggest they can’t stay at this point or slightly improve with a carefully planned and executed campain, both nationally and on a more ‘on the ground’ approach.
It doesn’t change my feeling of what the final seat count will be, but it certainly makes me feel no less confident for the ALP.
Again: Chill Pills everybody.
The campaign for your normal human being hasn’t really started. They will focus in on the last 2 weeks. Asking them to be engaged for 6 weeks was never going to happen.
No probs with holding onto the Lab big gun policies for later but start engaging with the enemy. Policies aren’t everything to voterland. They identify with individuals and themes. Get in their, throw some punches and there’s a few haymakers (the obvios one is the lame duck PM theme) and show a bit of backbone. That’s what I’m hearing from people (the old ‘ticker’ rubbish may be coming back)
LTEP is a well known type in Labor/left circles. He is no doubt a genuine Labor supporter but is clearly suffering from a bad dose of PTHS (post traumatic howard sydnrome)
This disorder has been common in lefties ever since the 2001 election. The sufferer has usually been so badly battered by previous Howard resurrections that they are unable to concieve or embrace any concept/fact or prediction rated to his demise. At election time they spend a lot of their time neurotically scanning the horizon for oil tankers loaded with refugees. Their analysis of polls views any Howard non statistically relevant movement as consituting a ‘surge’
Post election, if Howard is gone, seat and all, you will no doubt find them wandering around the national tally room muttering that its not all over and the little guys gonna find a way back. In years to come they will be nattering on about Lazarus with a quadrupal bipass and quad chair, wielding his walking stick like a saber, marching triumphantly on parliament house.
The bookies have Labor winning 16 seats, 2 seats on even money and over 20 very good chances with only $1 or less between the odds. Do they know things we don’t?
Ashley is correct about Labor needing to counter the anti-union scare campaign, and I can’t believe they have virtually conceded this ground to the Liberals. In this respect its just like 2004 and interest rates. Have they learnt nothing???
Everyone seems to be missing the biggest factor this election will have which will be a knock out punch for Howard.
INTEREST RATES. Or more specifically the rate rise that may be happening after the November 6th meeting.
Sean, that’s very good, especially the neurotic scanning of the horizon. I’m off to take my tablets
Am i mistaken or has the knowledge/information of individual seats exploded amongst the public. I remember looking at past elections on the night and going where the f#5k is that. I probably even know the candidates
If interest rates go up on the 6th November, Howard may as well move to Bangladesh for the remainder of the campaign. At least they play cricket there.
Damien
I am of course partially describing myself as well…..
Let me also defend LTEP against this accusation of “concern trolling”. I’ve been an avid follower of politics for over thirty years, and have always voted either Labor or Greens. The last eleven years under the Coalition have been agony for people like me. I just can’t get optimistic about a Labor victory, having had my hopes dashed so thoroughly over the last elections.
If I (or others like me) can’t feign optimism, that doesn’t make us “concern trolls”. Just very human.
Maybe I have missed something here?
Howard called the election, released a $34 bn tax cut, got lots of MSM support, ran some union bashing adverts and Labor’s primary went up 1%
In the real world you would have to be pretty relieved that the LNP biggest gun has failed.
The AC Neilsen showed the Tax Cut had negligible effect, so I assume that it was calling the election and, I bet the images of Howard doing the big tax release that got people to file up behind their preferences.
The LNP primary went up 2% whilst the ALP has been 47/48 all year. The LNP’s new 2% would still have to be the softer vote because its the ‘newer’ vote.
ALL year the biggest worry for the LNP was their abysmal primary of 39/40% – 42% is a little better and new. Will it stick; is it simply a bit of MOE being kind to them? AND we could still have 55/45 here.
Labor has the $34 bn to divide in responsible ways and was very wise to not blow the opportunity the way Howard was trying to make them.
AND it important because a policy something like
$20 bn on Tax Cuts,
$7bn on Hospitals,
$1 bn Aged care,
$2 bn on Housing Affordability/Rent relief or whatever,
$4 bn on Water or some such thing sounds much, much better – and the difference for the punter in tax cuts maybe just $5 a week less.
And – whatever the LNP has to spend in surpluses the ALP also has.
8% of voters apparently are now still swinging meaning they have no pre-conceived affiliation. Rudd can win them with positive policy and vision while Howard will be trying the negative campaign again to win them.
Can’t say I trust the Galaxy this year and, because they were lucky enough in their sampling to get the closest figures in 2004 doesn’t make them more accurate. Their algorythm seems to discount ALP whilst Morgan tends to favour ALP [but now is schizophrenic]. Newspoll/Neilsen may a little closer to the centre of them both. The next Morgan is from Friday last? If so a meanigless poll.
Labor still have a strong advantage with that resolute primary and a good campaign should see them keep enough of it to win. With Latham Labor’s strength came via the minor preferences I believe.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. With 48% Primary nothing has really changed for the ALP. Preference flows are never accurate anyway.
speaking as a howardhater, and with a sizeable mortgage myself, i’m desperately hoping for a rate rise in november.
It appears the election result has been decided in the minds of the Chaser.
http://blogs.smh.com.au/newsblog/archives/dom_knight/016119.html
Nice to see that Steven Kaye is back, it gives this site a bit of balance from all the partisan trolls on hallucinogens.
Next round of polls: 51/49.
Hey, at least Rudd isnt ignoring the fearmongering, as Latham did. Those ads are effective.
The PM was the one who needed to ‘grow up’ afterward – Rudd sends it back to the public, taking the piss, and Howard whinges that the ALP didnt just cop it; and then does a piss lame version of the same stunt.
Wait for the counter punches – and the demoralising, comeback narrative destroying poll widening in two weeks!
Yeah right. Most of Australia just wants low interest rates and continued economic growth and national security and traditional family values.
The Coalition won every day of the election campaign so far and everyone knows it. And don’t assume L-plate Krudd is going to win the debate. It’s going to be yet another anticlimax at the end with the Coalition winning with the net loss of maybe a couple of seats.
Kina
What your up against is the need for Coalition and its bevvy of media backers to construct momentum. The few pro howard supporters on this site are reflecting that need, rather than any real capacity to look at the numbers soberly. I suppose if youre starving you’re gonna pounce on a plate of crumbs. As you say, Galaxy have been relatively poor for labor and this result is the same as one they came up with in june (or july) when nothing was happening. Wait till Rudd puts something on the table before reading anything into the polls other than more of the same – a Labor landslide.
Nostradamus,
Don’t worry. You and Stephen Kaye will run away and hide again once the polls turn against the government. And when the election result is announced I somehow doubt you’ll be here.
Krudd has nothing, nada, zip, zilch, to put on the table. The best he can manage is a mediocre me-too at the best of times. As for his own ideas – NONE.
Being a Labor supporter doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of the election campaign/tactics/Rudd’s performance etc! To label anyone offering criticism as a troll is rather unfair. Like many of you, I’ve suffered through 11 long years, and any movement, however slight, back to the Rodent in the polls makes me frigging nervous.
I’m trying to stay optimistic, but if Newspoll has the gap narrowing substantially next Tuesday, I’ll be getting very worried.
Lift your game Kev!
“Don’t worry. You and Stephen Kaye will run away and hide again once the polls turn against the government.”
They won’t!
Speaking to ALP candidates there was indeed a very structured 33 day campaign plan…..
So the next 33 should be much better than the first 7.
Hopefully.
Why is it considered ligitimate to give preferences based on votes at a previusly election? I know there’s probably no better way (apart from directly asking) but in an election where the ALP were, by all accounts, pretty pathetic, wouldn’t you epxect the new competitive attractive Rudd to gain a LARGER share of the preference flow than seen in 2004?
I really hope the ALP gets the act going, they’ve been too responsive so far, but I look at 48% primary and I calm down a little….
Edward, how do you account for the Galaxy PPM? Rudd is streets ahead.