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. problem with delaying the release of your tax policy is that it might get trumped by bigger news like “Charges against Cousins dropped”

  3. From Morgan:

    During the period:

    • Prime Minister John Howard called the election on late Sunday, announcing November 24 as the date Australians will go to the polls;
    • The Coalition announced $34 billion worth of tax cuts if re-elected;
    • Australian Trooper David Pearce was killed during a roadside bomb attack just outside the Australian base in Afghanistan;
    • Prime Minister John Howard promised a referendum on recognising Indigenous Australians in the constitution if he is re-elected; and
    • The Australian unemployment rate fell 0.1% to 4.2% — the lowest level in 33 years.

    I think that just about sums it up. Rudd and Labor have done pretty much nothing recently.

  4. 345
    passthepopcorn Says:
    October 19th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
    ooh, apologies, julie!

    No worries passthepopcorn :):) …. Judy is in the Adelaide area and I don’t know if she has a dog but she certainly shares in our left wing thoughts :):)

  5. GG,
    good advice wasn’t it – given the make-up of the coalition frontbench, it’s advice the electorate would do well to heed.
    I’m just not sure which category Tony Abbott falls into; animal or small child?

  6. Morgan shows that Coalition primary vote has not changed. Labor has lost primaries to the minors – the opposite of ACN. I wonder who is correct?

    Still a comfortable win. 🙂

  7. When is Sky News going to start promoting the Rudd news conference in the same way they promoted Costellos news conference, which turned out to be a release of a bloody negative ad campaign?

  11. Looking at the tables a bit more … L/NP primary is unchanged from
    the previous F2F poll (39.5%) … so the 4.5% drop in ALP primary has gone entirely to minor parties.

    Morgan has stated that preferences were distributed according to the 2004 election. However, if you use the table of 2nd preferences that Morgan publishes (last updated on the Oct 13/14 F@F poll) and derive the TPP vote from these figures, then the ALP TPP vote rises to 56.2%.

    An amazing 95.5% of Greens voters said they would preference the ALP ahead of L-NP. Given that their primary vote has risen to 9% … their votes could be valuable in deciding a few close seats on polling night.

    Let us not discount the grossly underestimated Nats vote however, eh Glen? 🙂

  12. 320
    Chris B Says:
    October 19th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
    Just so no one is confused, I am waiting with a baseball bat for the Prime Minister. Someone has got to do it.

    I’m saving mine for a number of the MSM, way overdue. They have and 11 year debt to pay off.

  13. Eden-Monaro definite gain for Rudd – so says my mum!

    She’s an aged care worker on the NSW south coast (Bateman’s Bay to Merimbula, and primarily with privately-run facilities too) – the retirement coast – and speaks with many older, welded-on Liberals every day. She reports all – repeat, ALL, – the oldies she has spoken to are now voting for Rudd.

    Reasons vary – lies, tax cuts but no services, health and hospital system, worried about their kids future, the environment and, get this, many say union-bashing!

    Many Liberal oldies, she reports, still believe in the unions, not for themselves so much, but for their grandkids. With workchoices and no support for unions, they feel like they wasted their votes over recent years. (more deathbed conversions?)

    The South Coast is LNP and One Nation territory normally, which, along with Cooma region, balances Queanbeyan out a bit for Eden-Monaro. But if they’re moving to Rudd along the retirement coast in this demographic then the LNP are no hope in this electorate. NONE!

    Boss at work who frequents north NSW coast says similar pattern is there too. Things looking real good in NSW!

    What do you bet there’ll be a nice little sweetener in Rudd’s tax policy response and then a bigger boost later to aged care/health care for aged?

  15. 55.5/45.5 is what all the pundits have been saying is about right. Morgan may well have picked the movement early as they claim, but they’re a bit all over the shop at the moment, and that isn’t likely to alter.

  16. Lionel that would be great! It seems every seat I move into turns Labor.

    Pity I didn’t stay in Curtin long enough.

  18. Labor’s primary of 45 on the Morgan phone poll is the lowest since Rudd was elected leader.

    It seems undeniable that there has been a shift away from Labor in the past week or two. That’s because they haven’t really done anything to catch the media’s attention for the past 2-3 weeks, whilst Howard has hit the headlines several times.

  19. Pancho @ 278

    Skynews makes audio podcasts available and selected recorded video via streaming.

    Go to www2.skynews.com.au/podcast/

    I can’t see any live broadcasting via the net.

  22. Kina,
    can i join you in that? You can have Ackerman, Bolt and Albrechtsen if i can have Henderson, Shanahan and Chris Mitchell.
    We’ll wait until they’re all sobbing and huggin each other as they bemoan the political death of their conservative messiah and then we’ll clunk all their heads together like the three stooges (of course in this case, there’s six of em).

  25. An amazing 95.5% of Greens voters said they would preference the ALP ahead of L-NP. Given that their primary vote has risen to 9% … their votes could be valuable in deciding a few close seats on polling night.

    Not the least of which will be Wentworth 😉 ….. Anyone know if Peter will campaign for the Labor candidate in Wentworth? 🙂

  26. My brother says that Tony Abbott looks like the F.A cup. “Of course”, he says, “I don’t mean the Football Association Cup, I mean the F*$#%ng Ars#$*le Cup.”
    He’s a subtle fellow, my brother.

  28. Gecko,
    I’m waiting for Milne to slink off and work as Press Sec. for opposition leader Costello. That’s when the time is right to ping the poison dwarf. Besides, did you see Insiders on Sunday – I would never hit a man wearing ladies glasses. I believe Milne’s specs come from the Gloria Vanderbuilt collection (obscure Seinfeld reference for anyone who’s interested.)

  29. Ashley @365
    45 primary is not the lowest recorded for labor by a Morgan phone poll this year. Laboor got 43.5 in a phone poll in june

  30. Ashley…….the assumption with some is to view polls like a sports game where points gained somehow cannot be lost. Its better to think of them as metres gained within a game of football…..they are transitory since they can be lost and the other side easily win them back.

    Of course the libs have got a small bounce out of the cash give away of the last week….who would have thought otherwise given that a good proportion of the swingers who influence polls are hip pocket nerve driven. The 48 primary voters holding onto Labor now are there for the long run and won’t be lost easily. A high proportion of the recently departed swingers will return when Labor counter – at the moment they’ve barely left the dressing room. I still think that a 12 point TPP result going into the election will be not far off….

  31. The myth of Liberal economic genius

    I agree with the comments of others that the poll results are really quite good for Labour. Howard has gained a mere 2% in the polls since the big tax announcement where he is giving us some of our own money back, and not according to who needs it or who earned it. But there is still a lot of room to undermine the myth that he is a good economic manager. He has just been lucky. The world economy has been having a “good” decade, and Australia has benefitted from the foresight of BHP and Rio Tinto, who have cashed in on a resources boom and given the Commonwealth enough surplus revenue for Howard to potentially buy his reelection. Afterall, if they are such great economic managers, how come they wound up with so much more revenue than expected? Were the budget forecasts wrong?

    There is a story in the current on-line edition of the Economist that proves the point. It has an excellent graph of world inflation (averaged for 13 industrialised countries) since 1971. Notice two things: world inflation was high when Australia had 17% inflation, while world inflation is now very low – Australian inflation is now amoungst the highest (i.e. we are doing poorly on inflation).
    http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9972381

    So what is the bottom line? Economically, things in the world now are about as good as they are going to get. It may not last. If Howard spends all the surplus on tax cuts and pork, how much higher will interest rates go, and how do we manage in a bust?

  32. Mikem, I can’t see that in their list of poll results (on the latest poll page). But I do see a 43.5 primary vote in January that I missed.

  34. Interestingly in that Morgan poll (small sample and all) – corresponding with the riase in belief that the coalition will win is a drop in the % who think Australia is “heading in the right direction”.
    I thought that Australia was moving about 2 cemtimetres per year north towards Papua NG – is that the direction they’re talking about? 🙂

  38. I think Morgan may be irrelevant during a campaign except to confuse people.

    Yes it is quite interesting that the LNP primary was stuck low. Interesting to see the ALP vote probably strong – simply switching between Greens.

    It does show a strong flow of Labor primary to the Greens. A movement from ALP to Green.

    So then does it mean in this Neilsen the cause of the Labor’s primary increase is not from the Greens [against the flow] but might be 1% from the LNP? AND the Green lost 2% (Dr wives?) back to the LNP.

    But this is a Morgan.

  40. Sean @ 380

    Ashley…….the assumption with some is to view polls like a sports game where points gained somehow cannot be lost.

    Well that would be a bit silly, because in that case Labor would already have won. In fact, if nobody was allowed to go backwards then the polls would never move at all.

    I think it’s more common for people to read statistical noise as a significant poll movement. In this case though, there are now three polls indicating a movement towards the government. I’m not saying that this will continue, or cannot be reversed, but it’s not a great start for Rudd. But it is only to be expected given he has disappeared from the headlines for the past few weeks.

  44. What a bizarre Morgan Poll. According to the latest, ALP primary down to 45% primary – but LNP unchanged, completely static, unmoved on 39.5%.

    There’s something strange about it. Minor parties benefit from election announcement?? Am i reading it right?

  45. If Pay TV are not going to be fair in their coverage of the election I’m going to stop paying for it.

    In fact the whole media are a joke. Why bother having an opposition if they are not going to get a fair go. Why should someone enter politics if they are not going to get a fair go.

    Why have an opposition? Why have an election? This is becoming as sickening as 98 & 01.

    At WORST Keating should have lost in a photo finish and Beazley should have won BOTH times for sure.

  48. Rudd will have to win in the face of a generally hostile media. They’ve been pretty hostile throughout most of the year, but are really increasing the intensity of late.

    Notice how the so called debate is stacked with Howard sycophants.

  49. The ABC at least should be broadcasting Rudd’s news conference …. just outrageous!
    What has happened to OUR broadcaster and “A Fair Go’?

  50. Howard’s attack on the Chaser boys was classic and it could win some votes too…

    He seriously smacked them down big time….”You blokes are a lot funnier when you pick on someone who’s alive!”…

    Centre you should be happy you have ABC who regularly support the ALP but lets face it we all hate any bit of criticism of ‘our’ side its just the way we are…and Rudd has had a golden run with the Media it doesnt matter how much he stuffs up they are there to blow it over and forgive him so i wouldnt be complaining one of the main reasons Labor is so far ahead is because the media have given KR a dream run plain and simple…that’s what happens when you dont have any scrutiny of the opposition.

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