The Courier-Mail has published a Galaxy poll of 1009 respondents “conducted over the weekend” which shows Labor with a 52-48 lead on two-party preferred, the same as recorded in the snap poll of 800 respondents conducted on the day Julia Gillard assumed the leadership. However, Labor has lost ground on the primary vote to the Greens, down two points to 39 per cent with the Greens up three to 14 per cent. The Coalition is steady on 42 per cent. In spite of everything, two-thirds of respondents are said to support the plan on asylum seekers announced last week by Gillard, although “about six in 10” believe the measures “were not well thought out and were rushed”. The Fairfax broadsheets should come good with a Nielsen poll later this evening.
UPDATE: The Nielsen poll, conducted Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1400, concurs on every particular except the Greens vote, which is at 13 per cent rather than 14 per cent. The sting in the tail for the government here is that it comes off the back of a quirkily favourable 55-45 result from Nielsen immediately after the leadership change. The poll has Julia Gillard leading Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister 56-35, little different from her 55-34 lead previously. Approval ratings for Gillard have been gauged for the first time, and they have her at 54 per cent approve and 32 per cent disapprove. Reversing the last result, Tony Abbott is up on both approval (three points to 43 per cent) and disapproval (five points to 51 per cent), the latter shift probably reflecting an unfriendly sample last time.
A series of “best party to handle” questions turns up a surprise in giving the Coalition only a very slight 44-42 lead on asylum seekers, and when the Greens are included in the mix Labor’s score shows a six point improvement since the question was last asked in March. However, Labor would be alarmed to have slipped a further three points on the economy, with the Coalition opening up a dangerous 53-39 lead. Labor has taken four points off the Coalition as best party to handle health since March, now holding a commanding 57-33 lead that goes a fair way to explaining their latest television ad. Labor retains commanding leads on education (53-36), the environment (51-35) and industrial relations (58-34).
UPDATE 3: Essential Research has Labor up slightly from 54-46 to 55-45, although the primary votes suggest rounding has a fair bit to do with the improvement: both parties are down one on the primary vote, Labor to 41 per cent and Coalition to 38 per cent, with the Greens up two to 13 per cent. The supplementary questions are interesting: Julia Gillard’s mining tax changes have gone down well, supported by 50 per cent and opposed by 28 per cent, with 58 per cent rating Gillard’s handling of the issue “good” against 25 per cent “poor”. However, 41 per cent believed mining companies wielded “too much influence” in the process. The asylum seeker announcement slightly improved Labor’s position on the issue, which 56 per cent continue to think “too soft” (down 11 points) against 21 per cent for “taking the right approach” (up three), and the Coalition lead as best-party-to-handle has narrowed from 34-23 to 31-24. In spite of everything Gillard’s handling of the issue has 42 per cent approval and 33 per cent disapproval. Questions on the likelihood of WorkChoices being reintroduced under a Coalition government are little changed since the question was asked six weeks ago, with most believing they would and few happy about the prospect.
But if green voters or sort of green voters not rusted ons would they have more polcies to worry about than just AS they work and need good health etc
so workchoices and a health must become a factor in their voting eventually.
[I know abbott said that work choices is dead once again but i hope the unions and labor do not fall for that one]
Only the NAME WorkChoices is dead. Not the concept.
[Work choices back under new name..]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwIm5RoK8uI
My Say – the Greens will not win 15% Primary at the election.
Abbott will not bring WorkChoices, or anything resembling that, “back”. I’m not saying a Coalition Opposition/Government won’t bring it back one day, but Abbott will not.
[The obvious explanation is that the rising Green vote consists almost entirely of disaffected Labor voters, who make their protest by voting Green but still preference Labor.]
Agreed. I fully expect Labor to get the same rate of Greens preferences they always do, give or take a small amount if the Greens really do play tough with their HTV recommendations.
Antony Green @ 131
[It may be the case as some hypothosise that the rate of Green preferences flowing to Labor will decrease if the Green primary vote rises in 2010. However, this is the exact opposite of what has happened at every election from 1996 to 2007. As the Green vote has risen at every previous election, the rate of Green preferences to Labor has also increased.]
Thanks, Antony, for some informed analysis of this matter over which so many Greens and Conservatives have been using nothing more than wishful thinking.
I believe that the Green vote will top out at about 8%, maybe 9% maximum on election day. If the Greens poll 10% that will be a near miracle, but either way, the preferences will flow at about 80% back to Labor. If these current ‘soft’ Labor votes finding there way into the Green column in opinion polls go back to Labor (which is what this means if the Greens poll about 8% on election day, not the 10%+ in some polls) then what on heaven, or earth would make people think that these preferences would flow to the Coalition in larger numbers than about 20%?
It ain’t gonna happen.
[how the primary vote translates to seats e,g how many seats would we win with that primary vote or would it be similar to we have now or less or a couple more]
The primary vote is the No 1 vote that people cast on their ballot paper. So if you have a seat where the primary vote is Liberal 45%, Labor 40%, and Greens 15%, Labor will need two-thirds of the second preferences of the Green vote to win the seat. Seats are decided on the two-party vote, that is the vote after everyone’s preferences are distributed. So if the Green vote splits 12% to Labor and 3% to Liberal, then the final or two-party vote with be 52/48, and Labor will win. Does that help?
Psephos: a big difference between an honest mistake and rorting the system. That she won’t resign displays the integrity of her beliefs: if she resigned, then it would be deliberate wouldn’t it?
What the hell happened to good sportsmanship in politics anyway?
Pebbles: SHY brings youth and fresh thinking to the Senate but she doesn’t have the wealth of bear pit experience that Lee has. You get a thick skin dealing with Fred Nile, David Clarke and the Shooters.
rise.
[hmm. work choices ads were already run, will they work a second time or do people just ignore them if they’ve seen them.]
yes i saw them they really need to up date them with different actors or really effected people not actors. I think they may, these just may be a reminder.
I would think they will have abbott somewhere in the adds as with him its a new ball game
I think he would be worse than howard re work choices and everything else also.
abbotts workchoices worse than howards
may be the way to go.
sorry about no capital letters i never ever give a liberal a capital letter.
I think the ads were a bit of a furfey (furphey?), The keep repeating “work choices is dead” in the ad.
Really, if they’d done it properly they wouldn’t have let abbot repeat that line so many times, even if they did disagree with it.
[Psephos
Posted Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 11:38 pm | Permalink
how the primary vote translates to seats e,g how many seats would we win with that primary vote or would i]
yes thankyou for that but me the worry person would love to see another
5 percent on the primary vote the more seats we can win keeps us in gov longer perhaps as it hard for the liberals to gain to many seats each election may be.
Vote 1 LaRouche!
lol
It cant be too hard to become a CEC candidate. But you’d have to have a screw loose to pass off as a LaRouchie 😀
TTH
Is it “gut feel” that you think all of a sudden these traditional Conservative voters might think of voting Greens? Because a traditional Conservative view opposes climate change, or atleast oppose action on climate change. That’s not opinion or heresay, that’s just fact.
You don’t advertise the fact, then you turn the boats back.
If you advertise the fact than you are giving the crews time to prepare for such measures.
Labor has never turned a single boat back because they seem morally gutless on this subject. However Abbott may never get a chance if these people scutle their boats.
Watched channels 7 and 10 from 5-9.30 tonight and did not see the Anti-Abbott health add. I am in the Newcastle area. Did anybody see it tonight?
Would it be true that as the green vote has grown since 1996, the rate of green preferences to the Opposition has also increased (may be a protest vote)
Nielson 52-48 Labor
http://www.theage.com.au/national/labor-hangs-on-despite-poll-slip-20100711-105m1.html
[That she won’t resign displays the integrity of her beliefs:]
That she won’t resign shows she doesn’t understand the Constitution. However, to be fair, she has until the deadline of enrollment to do so, I think.
Sporting or not, the rules are strict there.
One thing that will pick up interest on PB when JG eventually does that drive to see the GG,is that the pollsters will move on to weekly polls again.
Should have something for everyone on them and comparisons and trends will be the order of the day.
Especially predicting them! 😉
Benji@164
Ch 7 Perth showed it just prior to the 6pm News
[or earth would make people think that these preferences would flow to the Coalition in larger numbers than about 20%? ]
you have people like hanson young say they dont care about who wins but i wonder about that statement sometimes. i have never met a green that would vote liberal
I wonder if Nick Mckim really wanted the liberals to call him regarding the Tasmanian election, i have always thought they would be happier with labor actually mcKim is turning out to be quite a thoughtful minister in the sense that he seems to be thinking things through, its amazing how you change when you actully have to put decisions in to policy that has to be acted on.
Identical primaries to Galaxy, Gillard’s first approval rating of 54-32
[Abbott will not bring WorkChoices, or anything resembling that, “back”]
If you believe that, you’re dreaming.
Individual contracts.
Abolish protection from Unfair Dismissal.
Shift and penalty rates under attack.
Sideline unions (thus hanging employees out to dry)
All the most menacing and destructive elements of SerfChoices are on Abbott’s agenda (plus a lot more, no doubt, that he has not told us).
[Agreed. I fully expect Labor to get the same rate of Greens preferences they always do, give or take a small amount if the Greens really do play tough with their HTV recommendations.]
Guess we’ll find out on election day.
I’ll put my head out and say the first 7% are 80% Labor preferences and the next 7% are split between Labor and Libs
Of all the factors in the Nielsen, this one is important: Abbott disapproval is up 5.
In theory you can win an election with 1% of the primary vote if everyone preferences you, provided you don’t come last. Henry Hewson won McMillan in 1972 with 17% of the primary vote. In theory that result could be replicated in 76 of the 150 seats, and that party would win the election with 8.5% of the national primary vote.
Oh look. Another poll, another spike in the Green vote. What a surprise. Not 🙂
Cuppa – Abbott won’t do it. They’ll hold it off.
Anyway, he won’t get the chance.
Definitely time for an election campaign. 52-48 is not great, but it’s certainly better than 47-53 or whatever the last one said.
I am confident with those numbers. We’re ready.
[You don’t advertise the fact, then you turn the boats back.]
In other words you have no clue, and this slogan is just crap. You can’t “turn back the boats” unless you’re prepared to kill people, but you’re too gutless to admit this.
[The poll has seen Green voters who went to Ms Gillard swing back again – the Greens rose from 8 to 13 per cent.]
i think this is bit with some people who do not like the policy re timor but as i said
‘
and i am no expert i would think when things start to be discussed re health education and workchoices that most of these greens or so called will come back because they would not risk their livlihood or health etc re abbott.
what do others think
Greens voters find it extremely difficult to preference the liberals. Even when you despise Labor it is very tough to bring yourself to do it, because the liberals are always worse.
My hand hovered over the ballot for quite some time at the recent SA state election – I kept telling myself that Labor had to pay for Atkinson and Rann and all the lies and the arrogance and populism, that they needed to be taught that they couldn’t take intelligent progressives for granted – but in the end I preferenced labor ahead of the liberals. Because the liberals were (and always are) the greater of the two evils.
Maybe if the Libs get their act together and elect a moderate leader and marginalise the hard right faction (rather than the other way around) things might be different. But it doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon.
So Labor is probably right to think it can ignore the disaffected left and that even if they vote greens the votes will return via preferences. The only downside to this strategy is that the inner city “safe” seats will be put in increasing danger. The Greens are almost certain to win at least one inner city seat from Labor at both the Victorian and NSW state elections coming up. And the Federal seat of Melbourne might go in August too. This is a cancer that will spread for Labor once started, not contract.
[Queensland, with 10 Labor marginal seats, is by far the worst ALP state, where it trails 45-55 in two-party terms.]
If Abbott wanted a SERIOUS deterrent to boat arrivals, as opposed to a lazy slogan, he’d say that no-one coming to Australia by boat would ever get an Australian visa, and that those who do arrive by boat will stay at Xmas I, or at Leonora, or anywhere, until they agree to go home. If he had the guts to say that, I’d have some respect for him. But he doesn’t.
Suggested ad to kill the Green vote.
Labor’s ETS could have passed with Green support, now the chance has passed.
The problem with idealists is situations are rarely ideal.
Vote for an effective Green policy {insert something like Liberals for Forests}
Publius
[The only downside to this strategy is that the inner city “safe” seats will be put in increasing danger.]
Just look at Adelaide earlier this year.
[My hand hovered over the ballot for quite some time at the recent SA state election – I kept telling myself that Labor had to pay for Atkinson and Rann and all the lies and the arrogance and populism, that they needed to be taught that they couldn’t take intelligent progressives for granted – but in the end I preferenced labor ahead of the liberals. Because the liberals were (and always are) the greater of the two evils.]
I know exactly where you’re coming from. But unfortunately, you’ll find that some people on here will read this and treat you as if you were a Liberal…
[Queensland, with 10 Labor marginal seats, is by far the worst ALP state, where it trails 45-55 in two-party terms.]
With some targetted campaigning, that will improve for Labor a little. It must be remembered that, although a Queenslander was leading the party, the ALP only just got above 50% in the statewide 2PP.
[Suggested ad to kill the Green vote.]
At the moment, it’s not the Greens we need to turn voters off of.
Gloryconsequence,
Who’s the self-confessed biggest fan of John Howard?
What was Howard’s dearest policy objective?
Answer: Abbott & WorkChoices.
Howard in the 1980s talked about abolishing the minimum wage. It’s speculated (and I believe the speculation) that if he’d won the 2007 election he’d have taken that as a green light and used his control of the Senate to do exactly that.
Remember, Abbott sees it as his mission to continue Howard’s work(choices).
Herald Sun, 25 February 2008:
[Howard had harsher IR
John Howard wanted to limit unfair dismissal laws to businesses with more than 200 employees and abolish all minimum wage classifications.]
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23270048-662,00.html
Please don’t underestimate the determination of these extremists to: 1) erode workers’ standard of living (to punish them because they tend to be Labor and Greens’ supporters), and 2) to destroy unions, thus cutting off a primary funding stream from the Labor Party.
HTT you have a high regard for Galaxy. How do you like these figures? To quote William –
[In spite of everything, two-thirds of respondents are said to support the plan on asylum seekers announced last week by Gillard]
[As officials prepare for talks in Dili this week about Ms Gillard’s proposal for a regional processing centre in East Timor, the poll shows the Coalition holds only a narrow lead (44-42) over Labor as best party for handling asylum seeker policy – one of its big election pitches.
When people were then asked which of the three parties had the best asylum seeker policy, the Coalition led on 34 per cent (down 1 point from last month). But in a sign the government seems to be gaining on the issue, the ALP has improved from 19 per cent to 25 per cent, with the Greens on 20 per cent. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith will hold talks on the plan in Jakarta this week.]
The message for the Libs is clear but will they listen?
[In the Nielsen poll’s first measure of her approval, Ms Gillard rates 54 per cent; her disapproval is 32 per cent. Mr Abbott’s approval is up 3 points to 43 per cent, but his disapproval is up 5 points to 51 per cent. Ms Gillard has a net approval of 22 per cent, while Mr Abbott’s net approval is minus 8 per cent.]
Abbott is electoral poison.
Nielson 52-48 Labor seems then to be about the number. One of the lies put about early to justify JGillard’s deposing of the Australian Prime Minister was that he might lose (we know that was a lie), and Rudd has improving figures on the back of the dispute with the miners (being able to at last cut through the media campaign against him).
At best JGillard has maintained the status quo, but actually seems she has cost Labor some. So the net effect of pointlessly wasting a PM for personal aspirations has been nix so far.
And I wonder if she is seen as the incumbent so close to an election. People may have the feeling that this is contest between two aspirants to the PM.
It is however early days as yet and still time for the honeymoon effect to take place as Gillard gets free advertising in various magazines.
But JGillard better watch out with her CC policy. She wont want to make the same mess of it she did with her truly amateurish effort on the AS issue. Otherwise people will be doubting more than her politically leanings, they will be wondering if she is competent.
A little bit of disappoint at Labor and a little bit of egg on their faces too.
[Galaxy, Gillard’s first approval rating of 54-32]
I still think that the poll showing that a large percentage of woman will vote for Julia
will rise that lift out segment in the woman’s weekly which i never buy ( my daughter gave it to me for a keep sake) is just beautiful Julia looks so glamorous.
and so intelligent as well and the photo’s with her and Tim just so perfect for each other.
such a romantic story, if you have an oh or work colleague buy it for them
so so pretty and feminine how could any one ( even truthy) vote for any one else.
If you have a business put it front and center for your customer s to read.
Cuppa
I’m not suggesting Abbott isn’t an extremist on this issue. I’m not suggesting he doesn’t WANT to re-introduce draconian workplace laws. I am saying that he will not, as Prime Minister, do so. Big difference. The Libs have learned their lesson there. At least for now.
Still playing the victim bob numbers. Geez that must get tiring.
[I am saying that he will not, as Prime Minister, do so.]
How can you possibly know that?
[At best JGillard has maintained the status quo, but actually seems she has cost Labor some.]
Perhaps you’d like to try and marshall some evidence for this ridiculous proposition.
[In other words you have no clue, and this slogan is just crap. You can’t “turn back the boats” unless you’re prepared to kill people, but you’re too gutless to admit this.]
Okay so these people try and come here, you “turn back their boat” as Howard did on several occassions without the crew trying to scuttle the boat, and you have success.
No killing people required. It’s really not a hard objective when you think about it, the key is to not allow the crews time to prepare to scuttle the boats in OUR waters.
[At best JGillard has maintained the status quo, but actually seems she has cost Labor some. So the net effect of pointlessly wasting a PM for personal aspirations has been nix so far.]
Let’s talk straight for a second – Gillard hasn’t exactly had a dream start. You can’t compare then to now, different dynamics at play.