ACNielsen: 54-46

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

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.

832 comments on “ACNielsen: 54-46”

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  1. The ACTU isn’t ignoring Team Rodents attack here is their response that they emailed to all their Rights at Work suppoerts last night :

    Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey has today confirmed the Howard Government’s intention to go further on industrial relations and get rid of trade unions altogether if re-elected.

    Speaking on ABC radio this morning, Mr Hockey said: “The days of unions are essentially over.”

    The Howard Government has already cut workers’ protection from unfair dismissal and allowed penalty rates, overtime, and redundancy pay to be reduced. Now they plan to get rid of all protections for working people, including unions.

    Listen to Mr Hockey’s admission on our website here: http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/campaigns/theywillgofurther

    A Government document already shows that John Howard wants to push an extra 1.5 million workers onto AWAs. Peter Costello has previously admitted he wants to further cut workers’ protection from unfair dismissal.

    You can view the leaked documents and the quotes from Mr Costello here:
    http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/campaigns/theywillgofurther

    Now Mr Hockey has revealed the Government wants to get rid of Australians’ right to be represented by unions altogether if it is re-elected. This is a stunning admission of the Liberal Party’s future agenda on industrial relations.

    You’ll recall Liberal Finance Minister said in a leaked recording last year that the Government intended to undertake a “new wave” of extreme industrial relations changes if elected.

    The stakes for working Australians have never been higher. We must make sure that the Howard Government is not re-elected. Please take every opportunity to inform everyone you know about these facts.

    Many thanks,

    The Rights at Work campaign team

  5. Timbo at 10 says
    Enough Mr nice guy, Rudd needs to start throwing some punches…

    No. He needs to start landing some. And when he gets him on the ground, apply the Redfern fair go. That is, put the boot in.

  7. SJP @ 251

    The ACTU isn’t ignoring Team Rodents attack here is their response that they emailed to all their Rights at Work suppoerts last night :

    Yes but that’s of limited effectiveness isn’t it?

    The unions best form of defence (and attack) is TV ads. But they’ve been more or less silent on ads for months now, ever since they winded down their very successful anti-workchoices campaign.

    I’m sure they’re going to fire it up again, but I would have liked them to have done it by now. How long are they prepared to wait while the government slags them off?

  8. So it is not quite correct to say you have to get 90% right BTL.

    You have to number 90% of the boxes, but can make at most three* mistakes, bearing in mind that your vote exhausts at the first mistake (or is informal if you make a mistake with the 1.)

    * two in the unlikely event that there are 9 or fewer candiudates on the paper.

  9. Actually the last 5 days campaigning reminds me of a lot of the minnows .v. majors match-ups that took place in the Rugby World Cup pool stages.

    The smaller team would throw everything at their opponents for the first 20-25 minutes and appear to match the bigger boys, though usually without making appreciable progress towards their try line. Then, in the shadows of half-time, as the smaller and less conditioned minnows became tired or ran out of inspiration, the bigger team would quickly run in 2-3 tries and the score would blow out.

    In the lead-up to the election being called there was lots of talk of the Libs struggling to find donors, hence their reliance of taxpayer-funded ads.
    In contrast, the ALP and the ACTU are both sitting on a large pile of $ – not a single cent of that will be left unspent in their quest to knock off Howard. After firing their biggest shot in the locker (and really, after 11.5 years, do we really expect Howard to do anything which will surprise us, apart from every higher levels of profligacy?), Howard and co. will have trouble trying to make their voices heard above the cacophony I expect the ALP to launch from, say, Week 3.

  10. Below the line votes make a big difference in Tasmania, where a large percentage of voters vote below the line.

    Thereby overcoming the pond sum preference deals Adam is so fond of. Thank goodness some Another Liberal Party supporters have a brain cell or two.

  11. Adam (233)

    A senate below the line vote will be valid if:

    1. There is a number 1, and
    2. At least 90% of the boxes have numbers in them, and
    3. No more than three errors have been made in the numerical sequence.

    This was part of a range of electoral reforms introduced by the Hawke government back in 1984.

    I have conducted the senate count over many elections now and I can assure you they are the rules. It’s just that they are not widely promoted to the public. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to put all that on the ballot paper and expect the average punter to understand it?

  12. Adrian @ 202 “Adam, you should be suspicious. David Griggs was on ABC radio this morning spruiking his latest poll, and claiming that it was a great result. The fact that he didn’t even bother to add ‘for the coalition…’ combined with his other partisan comments shows that the man is not to be trusted.”

    I picked up on that too, Adrian, and emailed Virginia Triole on the point as part of her talkback. She didn’t read it out, however.

  13. I think from a labor perspective things are Ok but you wouldn’t want them to perform the same way that they’ve performed this week throughout the campaign. The presidential thing is not going to work. I’ve noticed lately that Labor, probably cos of not wanting to do anything to risk their lead, are essentially reverting to party line mantras in all interviews. Rudd can be terrible in this regard, but even good performers like Penny Wong and Julia Gillard are doing the same. Mantras of course are important but they shoudln’t mean that Labor just lie down in the face of liberal mudslinging. They need to show a bit of passion and take on the libs. That includes mudslinging of their own. God knows theres plenty of material. I fear the dead hand of Gartrell in their approach.

    George M in the OZ yesterday made a reasonable point re labors tax response. While its understandable that they not immediately announce their policy, Rudds reaction on the day smacked of someone who didn’t have an idea. He didnt criticise any facet of the coalition plan. He just lamely said he’d go and ‘study it’. Surely if Labor had a solid policy or broad notion of what they were going to do re Tax Rudd could have offered some critical analyse of Howards plan(inflationary, geared to the top end of town, etc) Instead he played dead.

    There seems to be a pattern emerging where Labor – like a team thats winning by 50 points in the last quarter – are concentrating soley on not making mistakes. The problem is that in doing so they’re opening the door to the rodent.

  14. 235 steve
    As I discussed with ESJ yesterday (and never received an adequate reply) the view from Peter Martin stacks up, or rather, there are logical failings in the negative insinuations attached to the word ‘union’.
    If everyone had their thinking cap on, I’d agree, it won’t be effective. But alas I fear it will have an effect.
    It’s taken the best part of 2-3 years for there to be a mass appreciation that the ‘record low interest rates’ was never, and never could be, an honest logical proposition.
    It’s possible that the ALP has failed to inoculate against this point (most likely), that they expected it and know there’s no response that has a net positive outcome (take the hit – it’s better than two hits), or that they have a more complex response:
    The phoney campaign certainly had a degree of subtlety that I haven’t seen previously – there’s a lot of leading the horse to water rather than just forcing him to drink happening. Part of the reason for Rudd’s stratospherically high numbers is, I believe, a genuine belief by the majority that they’ve come to see Rudd positively ‘on their own’.
    Three’s no need to jamb down peoples throats that they voted incorrectly in 2004 and before, and in fact this is likely to lead to a reactionary negative (pride) response.
    Maybe all this game theory and subtlety is beyond the electorate.
    At some point the ALP will be hoping that the negative connotation of ‘union’ ends. Logically I think it’s false, but if the Australian public believe it’s their idea, then it will become a less and less powerful theme into the future, particularly of Shorten and Combet perform well post positive result.

  15. A little OT, but any tips for the Rugby final on Sat night – a change from second-guessing poll numbers is as good as a holiday!

    Since the Wallabies aren’t in it a lot of people here might say “so what”, but I think the final will be enthralling. Unlike a lot of rugby commentators in Aus I enjoy the bullocking style of the English, Argentinian and Springbok teams. If I wanted to see thrilling runs and lots of passing & ball in hand, then I would stick with my first love, AFL. What’s turned me onto rugby is the sight of 2 bunches of big boofy blokes going at each other hammer and tongs!

    (Please refrain from gratuitous remarks about my presumed recreational pursuits or taste in cinema 🙂 )

  16. Labor will target their campaigning exactly as analysed, planned and required. They are not certainly not simpletons sitting around waiting for ‘Home and Away’ to finish before they do something. How do you think they managed to keep Labor so high for so long and almost caused Howard’s demise on a few occasions?

    It was inevitable that the Govt’s Tax Cut was going to be big news and run by the MSM whenever they released it, unavoidable – as it was I don’t think they got the best play they could have since the union ad dispute and ben cousins distracted attention. AND according to the Neilsen poll the Tax Cut was a non-event anyway. The event that seems to have been the major cause of whatever shift there has been [yet to be confirmed] is the calling of the election.

    AND I do think that Rudd’s anti-anti-union ad has taken the sting out of future LNP ads and, it has cause Hockey to make a mistake, the aftermath further weakening the bite of an anti-union fear campaign. Even Howard had to come out and support the existence of unions.

    So the ALP have done the strategically right thing with the union ads and it has helped distract from 1. the Tax Cuts 2. the LNP pressure on ALP for a tax policy release.

    The problem I am seeing is a fairly bias level of airplay against ALP and the amount of pejorative language they use with Labor but not the LNP. Labor has much of the MSM tilted against it at the moment.

  17. Lomandra, the morning show on 702 is coming across as thinly disguised government propaganda at the moment. Trioli even attempted to turn the latest report from Iraq into an attack on Labor.

    I have e-mailed her as well, but have not received a response. Anyway, it is clear how she deals with criticism by listening to her treatment of those who call in and don’t toe the party line.

  18. Patience guys, patience.

    Howard fired his biggest and only real shot straight away with his brainless tax cuts. So he went straight to the front in the campaign. Rudd has kept him in check, then will put the pressure on, put his nose in front midway through and win the election.

    Remember, when it will come to the crunch, people like him more than Costello and Howard is the old.

  20. Adam (176)

    Your suspicion of Galaxy polls is well placed. It has been obvious for some time that Briggs is a cheer leader for the government.

  21. LTEP @ 236 said – The NSW ballot is so huge it makes it almost impossible…

    I have voted in one NSW election in my life (one before last). I spent around 45 minutes in the booth voting below the line – unforgettable 🙂

  22. 212
    Martin B Says:
    October 19th, 2007 at 11:37 am
    On the day, nearly everyone takes a HTV and follows it.

    Except for those well-meaning-idealistic-tertiary-educated-feral-DSP-infiltrated-naive-extreme-leftists who vote for the Greens of course

    Or well educated well meaning leftists who vote for Labor and hate being told what to do by anyone. I will vote my own mind and if it works out being the same as Labors HTV card, so be it 🙂

  24. The reality is, even if the ALP’s tax policy is properly costed Howard and Co will still claim they’ve done the maths wrong and find a “hole”, just for the sake of it.

  25. If the Galaxy/Nielsen poll average of 53.5% represents the Australia-wide TPP, then this in turn represents an approx fall of 1% per day. This is nearly one thousand times the average rate of change during all campaign periods for the elections of 1946-2004 and is about 6 times the largers than the fastest rate of fall in ALP TPP ever recorded.

  26. For an Oppoistion to have a tax policy they first need to get their heads round the myefo. The latest it larger than usual.

    Rudd gave the proper response.

    The government’s policy was obviously done by Treasury and the mefoe was released much earlier then usual.

    If I was Rudd I wouldn’t release his policy until 5.30 on Sunday.
    He gets the News Headlines and can show up his policy re howard’s in the Q&A. howard would not have time to get acroos the ALP policy.

  27. the letters to the editor in todays print copy of the Avertiser’s most talked about were ALL lauding the unions,i honestly can’t see the anti union smear taking effect, yesterdays most talked about was the tax cuts and again they were all wanting infrastructure rather than cuts, i think the poll’s change are because the union ads hav’nt been running yet and Rudd is trying too much to be Mr. nice guy and running a positive campaign, he needs to start rolling out a couple of big policies every now and again to make them sit up and take notice and where are the anti nuclear plants ads?

  29. Centaur_007 @ 220,

    “Never above the line for me again, not after it helped elect FF. as far as i understand when you vote below the line you can stop after the first 10 or so is that right, ie exhausting my ticket and preferencing only parties I support.”

    This is my first federal election and I wanted to make sure I got it right when I went into the polling booth. So I went to the AEC website and checked out the information on voting for HOR and Senate. HOR is straight forward as you probably know. Since you are talking about above the line, you are referring to the Senate. For the Senate, it is (according to the AEC site to make a valid vote) *EITHER* (1) a ‘1’ above the line in one box OR (2) number all the boxes below the line. I remember reading somewhere about a “margin” of error for mistakes if you do it below the line BUT if you carefully make sure you number ALL boxes you will be fine.

    IF you put more than ONE number above the line it is an informal vote.

    If you want party ‘A’ on top and party ‘E’ on the bottom, number all of ‘A’s people 1 to whatever, then go onto ‘B’,’C’ etc. and so on until you get to the party you wanted last. Number them with whatever remaining numbers you have left.

    http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_vote/Voting_HOR.htm
    http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_vote/Voting_Senate.htm

  31. The analogy of a term which is trailing by 50 points at the start of the last quarter is a very good one. If they kick the first goal of the last quarter, their cheer squad goes rah rah rah and Stan Alves says “I tell ya what, they’re coming back! There’s no doubt about that, they’re coming back!” Everyone likes a close finish, and it’s the job of commentators to beat up a close finish so people keep listening. But usually they don’t come back. Nearly always the team which is 50 points down at three-quarter time loses. (Unless the coach of the team which is 50 points up is really dumb and goes into a panic after the first goal. But in this case said coach is not really dumb.)

    Back after half time.

  32. 251
    SJP Says:
    October 19th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
    The ACTU isn’t ignoring Team Rodents attack here is their response that they emailed to all their Rights at Work suppoerts last night :

    Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey has today confirmed the Howard Government’s intention to go further on industrial relations and get rid of trade unions altogether if re-elected.

    Oh I hope that Bailey is all over this this afternoon (debate with Hockey at 4:15pm on Sky) :):)

  33. Abbot applies the weasel technique to back away from something the focus groups don’t like. I find it astounding that they didn’t test it first.
    On a similar note – as the $10bn water plan wasn’t agrees to by all states – what’s the bet that money is back on the table for redistribution too?
    The Chaser was pretty harsh on Wednesday and Clarke and Dawe didn’t tread lightly last night either – sucked me in, had me sitting on the edge of the seat and then WHAM – smacked me right across the chops wit the blindingly obvious.
    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/
    The link to the specific segment on the right is incorrect – it links to last week – try the links at the top to stream the whole program and go to 27min40s

  34. I hope Labor don’t release their tax policy before the debate. That would give Kevin Rudd good reason to push John Howard on air for a second one when he does.

  36. I pray this Labor tax policy is water tight and doesn’t start leaking.
    I think Rudd needs to start playing to Labor’s strengths: anti Workchoices, Education, Health etc.
    As for Gavin O’Connor, shame on him for handing the Liberals amunition. What a bitter old fool! He hasn’t got a hope in hell of winning Corio. He should have gracefully retired.

  37. One major disadvantage to Team Howard approach is the fact that you have to let the team memebrs speak.

    Check out this beauty from the Abbot (This guy’s on fire)

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22613194-5013946,00.html

    I love hearing Abbott, Hockey Stick and Darth Minchin talk. Makes my day

    Rudd should have went harder on this plan and he hit the nail on the ehad when he described that every Hospital waa to get a board of at least 10. But then he dropped it???? That 750 hospitals and 7, 500 more administrators. Always looks good to punters (not). Another free kick squandared.

    Now the Mad Monk is on to it and is trying to fix it up. C’mon fellas this was an easy one and it was let go to the keeper (I’m loving the analogies 🙂 )

  38. Just a point on Galaxy and MOE (from a long time lurker, first time poster) in the fine print of every Galaxy poll prior to this one (I haven’t been able to find it this time) they say somthing like ‘this poll was conducted on a sample of x voters and weighted to reflect yada, yada’. However, there is a key word missing here and that word is ‘random’. If the sample used by Galaxy is not a random sample (and all the other pollsters are very clear that they use random samples) then you cannot quantify the error. A margin of error (which is actually the sampling error) can only be calculated on a random sample. So all of you who are dubious about the robustness of Galaxy are right – a non-randomised poll is rubbish.

  39. 279 Julie Says: October 19th, 2007 at 12:38 pm

    This is my first federal election and I wanted to make sure I got it right

    Never use the box above the line (and we are talking about the senate), fill in every box. That way you KNOW where your vote is going.

    Senate for me will be…
    ALP (number every box)
    Green (number every box)
    Democrats (number every box)
    …
    … (all the other ones that make up the numbers)
    …
    Nationals (number every box)
    Liberals (number every box)
    Family First (number every box)
    Hanson (number every box)

    Usually there’s a total of about 70 nominations.

    I understand that a lot of people will choose similar to what I’ve done, except reverse the Greens and the ALP.

  42. [ 275 Geoff Lambert Says:
    October 19th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
    …the fastest rate of fall in ALP TPP ever recorded. ]
    .
    .
    Now we have childish mathematical games trying to pose as serious comments. Give me a break.

  44. Paul K,

    Whats happened ? Have you been hitting the partisan juice again? Your posts have become very belligerent (for you) in the last week. Everything alright?

  45. Well the problem with the Coalition hospital plan is one of numbers:
    10 ppl on each hospital board… and they would require at least 5-10 ppl as admin support (maybe much more depending on the size of the hospital). So I think you can safely say that it’d be adding an extra bureaucratic layer 0f 15,000.

    Further, I’m living in a decently sized country town… and I can tell you it takes about 3 weeks to get a good bead on who the town likelies are… As soon as the Coalition mentioned their hospital plan, I thought of around half a dozen ppl who would be standing with their hands up, yelling ‘me, me, me!’. No doubt, worthies the lot of them… but the local real-estate agent who has dreams of becoming mayor in 2-3 years doesn’t know much about hospital admin. I wouldn’t feel more secure with him being on the board. It’s a crazy plan. Health is too important to leave up to enthusiastic amateurs.

  49. no labor bureaucrats… non-partisan the public service … oh! damn! that’s right, John Howard was elected… he changed all that didn’t he!

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