Newspoll marginals poll: NSW, Queensland, Victoria

Newspoll has targeted 17 marginal seats in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, with results that are heartening for Labor: a manageable 1.3 per cent swing in NSW, a surviveable 3.4 per cent in Queensland and, remarkably, a 6.2 per cent swing in their favour in Victoria. We are told of a 4.6 per cent drop in the Labor primary vote in the six NSW seats, an 8.1 per cent drop in the eight Queensland seats and a 1 per cent increase in three Victorian seats. The Coalition are respectively up two to 47 per cent and 1.7 per cent in Queensland, but down 5.3 per cent in Victoria.

UPDATE: PDF here. The seats covered were Bennelong, Eden-Monaro, Gilmore, Macarthur, Macquarie and Robertson in New South Wales, Brisbane, Dawson, Dickson, Flynn, Forde, Herbert, Leichhardt and Longman in Queensland, and Dunkley, La Trobe and McEwen in Victoria.

Note also this evening’s Galaxy marginals poll and Nielsen national poll covered in the previous post.

Other matters of note:

• Stephen Lunn of The Australian reports that Antony Green, Newspoll’s Martin O’Shannessy and Bob Brown’s chief-of-staff Ben Oquist all agree that Greens preferences will run 80-20 to Labor as usual. This is contrary to much talk around the place from such as Dennis Shanahan, who spoke of Labor two-party results bloated by “heroic assumptions“ about Greens preferences. The Nielsen poll released earlier this evening gave Labor 86 per cent of respondent-allocated Greens preferences.

• An article on the Liberal campaign by Simon Canning and Patricia Karvelas of The Australian is interesting both for its content, and in providing the first hint of pre-emptive recriminations in the Liberal camp. “Senior Coalition frontbenchers” have complained the Liberal camapign director, Brian Loughnane, had “left Tony Abbott vulnerable with an overly safe advertising campaign”. John Singleton is quoted in the article saying it had been “the worst campaign the Liberal Party has ever run”. Many of the specific criticisms proffered ring false to these ears, but it has indeed been notable that Liberal advertising has failed to target “Kevin Rudd’s execution and re-emergence, and the constant distraction provided by former leader Mark Latham”.

• Michael Kroger in The Australian optimistically rates the week a “draw”, and appears to believe the decisive seats so far as a Labor majority is concerned will be Bass, Corangamite, Forde and Solomon. He also offers that “a Labor loss in the seat of Melbourne now seems likely”.

• Emma Chalmers of the Courier-Mail notes the Australian Electoral Commission’s statistics on postal vote applications show Labor has lodged three times as many as the Liberal National Party in a “a clutch of key Queensland marginal seats”. Labor is said to have learned its lesson after being slow off the mark with its postal vote campaign at last year’s state election.

• The Age reports the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party is likely to disendorse its candidate for Lingiari, Leo Abbott, for failing to inform the party he had breached a domestic violence order.

• GetUp! have had another win, this time in their challenge against the Australian Electoral Commission’s refusal to admit enrolment applications signed with a digital pen and submitted through their website. One observer who declined to join in the congratulations was Possum, who argued it would strengthen the “potential fraud” argument the Howard government used to justify its franchise-curtailment measures in 2006.

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.

1,072 comments on “Newspoll marginals poll: NSW, Queensland, Victoria”

Comments Page 20 of 22
1 … 19 20 21 22

  1. [scarpat
    We had a wonderful, wonderful post retirement year in Paris. Swapped our house with a Paris family. Worked wonderfully well. I imagine that the dominant sound in the canyons of the 13ieme Arrondissement, as we write, are the cries of the swifts as they hurtle to and fro…]

    Boerwar,

    Lived in the 13th for while in the late 1970s but on the fringe of the 14th (i.e. closer to Montparnasse) so not in the canyons. We did however have our squadron of swifts also.

  5. [marktwain
    Posted Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 6:29 pm | Permalink
    M]

    i wondered where you have been and no my english has not improved lol

  6. If Labor does win, a lot of credit must go to the Ruddster. It was Rudd who was able to provide Labor with the right attcking direction when he joined the campaign. Ruddie should be given any portfolio he chooses in my view. Foreign Affairs would be perfect!

    I hope Mesma leads the Libs at the next election. Julia v Julie. Forget about the cost of an election. They should have it out in a mud wrestling ring 😈

  8. Scarpat
    5 storey canyons, so human-scale ones. Lucky you to be over near Montparnasse. BTW,the swifts are in a spot of bother because everyone is plugging up all their nesting sites… for reasons of energy efficiency.

  10. [brisoz
    Posted Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 6:14 pm | Permalink
    6.8% swing isn’t bad (in QLD), I was thinking more.

    Considering Anna Blight Government.]\

    can you explain how this is worked out, so if we have seats that have a bigger margin than 6.8 they are safe? but there would not be many of those would there be

  12. [And given the election coverage should start at around 10am local time(?), a good time to work through a few bottles of France’s best]

    Laocoon,

    The jeroboams are loaded and ready to go 🙂

  14. “Ruddie should be given any portfolio he chooses in my view”. I agree. He has shown pure class and professionalism to jump behind the ALP after they manner in which they dumped him.

  17. 4000 is a huge sample, Galaxy are probably using previous polls and extracting figures. They would not be able to poll 4000 people in a couple of days and get a reliable sample, in fact there is no reason to do it as the moe is not greatly reduced.

  22. [Wasn’t Kev behind in the marginals last election according to the polls?

    No]
    So no pollster predicted Kev would only win 2 extra seats in Qld?

  25. Socrates @932, Bravo! As an engineer myself, it is very frustrating to see this happen. Heck, even my local council can’t get its act together fixing a drainage issue that was man made and has been going on for decades despite an obvious fix that would cost less than a tenth of the sports field that they built next door to it. Infrastructure just doesn’t get a fair go in hearts and minds.

  26. Have read some great posts on the blogs. My vote for the best ones go to Bushfire Bill for his long rant 4 or 5 days back where he says that Gillard should ‘gut’ the media after winning, and to Boerwar for all his hilarious adventures of Bluey the octopus.

    There’s also an EXTRAORDINARY POST on grog gamut’s blog on aug 12 by ‘anonymous’ concerning the rooty hill fiasco (The ‘Shaggers Ridge Showdown’). It’s quite a long post, but anyone who reads it will surely agree it speaks for us all. It’s an absolutely MUST READ.

    https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8434369190746987531&postID=4208670425424731815

  29. my say @ 962

    Now, now, chin up! That’s the advice you gave me when I was feeling a bit wobbly with the polls. It’ll come good in the end. Did you manage to see that you tube I posted you with some more lovely Verdi music. It’s uplifting.

  30. [The ALP (51%, down 6.5% since the Face-to-Face Morgan Poll conducted on the weekend of August 7/8, 2010) holds a slim Two-Party preferred lead over the L-NP (49%, up 6.5%) as the last week of campaigning before next Saturday’s Federal Election begins according to today’s special telephone Morgan Poll – conducted this Saturday (August 14, 2010).]
    Let me be blunt. Does anyone really believe this shit?

  31. I’m treating the Tele result quoted on Nine’s news with a grain of salt. 4000 is a very large sample to take, and would be quite expensive to run. I can’t recall any single poll in Australia ever being that big before. It would have a MoE of a bit more than 1.5%. I have a suspicion that it may be based on the re-examination of polls taken over several weeks, in which case it probably includes better results for the Coalition than current polling would give.

    Another key question is which seats and what were the results for those seats at the last election?

  32. Jesus, calm the hell down. Of course the marginals are going to be tough fights. They’re marginals for God’s sake. It seems many here want this to be a walk when it never was gonna be one.

    All I can say is that we have the momentum here and the ALP are looking like winners (but aren’t falling for the mistake of declaring themselves so.) It is gonna be a tough week but that’s what the final week is always like.

    I can remember the tears that fellow Laborites were shedding in the last few days of the 2007 election, as the polls began to sharply narrow. They heard commentators say the marginals may win it for Howard and that the momentum was going back to him. In the end he was slaughtered. I don’t even want to go into what some of my friends were like on the eve of the 2010 SA state election…

    It’s gonna be close, don’t take victory for granted. However, I can say we are in the better seat than the opposition right now.

  38. [The ALP (51%, down 6.5% since the Face-to-Face Morgan Poll conducted on the weekend of August 7/8, 2010)]

    What a horribly convoluted spin. Everybody acknowledged the FtF as a rogue. Even so, they’re normally not even counted because of how much they favour the ALP. The fact is, we have gone UP from 50-50 in the last phone poll. This is just desperate spinning.

  39. %[. I have a suspicion that it may be based on the re-examination of polls taken over several weeks, in which case it probably includes better results for the Coalition than current polling would give.

    Another key question is which seats and what were the results for those seats at the last election?]

    why do they do this then, they should be made tell us exactly how this is arrived at no wonder i hate tv and the news

  40. [I have a suspicion that it may be based on the re-examination of polls taken over several weeks, in which case it probably includes better results for the Coalition than current polling would give.]

    This. I very much doubt it’s a single poll (the Galaxy), it’s a collection of the last couple of weeks and therefore meaningless. Nothing to see here folks.

  41. Pebbles

    The last election was when I first discovered Poll Bludger but I was too shy to post so just lurked around. I must say the opinions did wobble all over the place (and often scared the hell out of me) but there was always a cool head giving comments such as you have just said. It’s very reassuring and thanks.

  42. [987 To Speak of Pebbles
    Posted Saturday, August 14, 2010 ]

    you know when that very large morgan poll came out that was like it was to high/
    someone said o yes and then they will say when it drops down etc.
    so is that what has happened it was a face to face now a phone poll
    is that correct is that what you are saying

  43. I wonder where we would be today if:
    1. The pink batts scheme went smoothly.
    2. The BER was implemented with hardly any waste.
    3. The mining tax was introduced with greater consultation with the industry.
    4. Rudd was still PM.

    The Libs only form of attack would have been to stop the boats.

    Damn, it would have been a record win for Labor!

  45. [Individual polls mean little. It is the trend that matters and the trend is clear the ALP have their nose in front.]

    As Poss keeps reminding us… hence his combined pollytrend.

  46. [i think this is the most important election in the country ever]

    Mysay,

    Well, up there in the top 3 or 4, anyway.

    1972 rates #1, for mine, with huge changes at stake: Medicare, immediate withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, cutting legal ties with the UK, replace “God Save the Queen” with “Advance Aust. Fair” and Knighthoods with OZ gongs, university fees abolished, beginnings of reconciliation with Indigenous Australians and embracing multi-culturalism etc. etc. etc. And just the sheer euphoria ending nearly 1/4 of a century under Coalition’s stifling reign. 😀

  47. Socrates @932

    Great post!

    If you haven’t seen the Dilbert cartoon series, I suggest you give it a look. Just reinforce your sides prior!

    “The Knack” is my favorite episode.

  48. You’re right Pebbles. The Morgan phone poll is more reliable and the ‘real’ result is probably somewhere around 51.5/48.5 at the moment. Things are still close and neither side is in an unbeatable position.

  49. @dedalus 975

    Good call. Captured my reaction to the Rooty Hill “showdown” exactly …

    [Harsh lighting, a lone figure on an empty stage, not even the decency to have had a glass of water provided to her on a table beside her – this was the bride stripped bare and a politico-psychological media assault of the highest order. But she just hit you all out of the park for six with grace and bon-homie …]

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 20 of 22
1 … 19 20 21 22