Morgan: 51.5-48.5 to Coalition phone poll, 56-44 face-to-face

Roy Morgan has released two sets of poll results, one from its regular weekend face-to-face polling with 856 respondents, the other conducted on Wednesday and Thursday from only 525 respondents, but using far more reliable phone polling methodology. Bearing in mind that the latter has a margin of error approaching 4.5 per cent, it’s the best result Labor has had in a phone poll since May: their primary vote is at 34 per cent with the Coalition on 45 per cent and the Greens on 12.5 per cent. Applying Morgan’s headline two-party figure derived by asking minor party and independent voters how they would direct their preferences, the Coalition holds a modest lead of 51.5-48.5: however, the more reliable method of allocating preferences as per the result of the previous election has it at 52.5-47.5.

The phone poll was also used to gauge opinion on the Qantas dispute and Australian involvement in Afghanistan. The former is the first polling to emerge on this issue since the events of last weekend, and it finds respondents more inclined to blame management (56 per cent) than unions (42 per cent) for the shutdown, with 61 per cent disapproving of the decision to do so against 35 per cent who approve. However, 64 per cent are willing to sign on to the idea that “the federal government should have acted sooner”, whatever the ambiguities involved with such an assertion, an idea opposed by 32 per cent. The figures on Afghanistan show a remarkable reversal since Morgan last asked the question in early May, support for withdrawal going from 40 per cent 72 per cent with opposition down from 54 per cent to 21 per cent. However, the earlier result was at odds with the findings of an Essential Research poll conducted at the same time which had 56 per cent supporting withdrawal. Essential Research has had support for withdrawal progressing from 47 per cent last October to 56 per cent in May to 64 per cent in late August.

The results of the face-to-face poll have Labor on 34 per cent (down one on the previous week), the Coalition on 46.5 per cent (down three) and the Greens recording their highest rating in nearly a year with 13.5 per cent (up three). The two-party results present the usual confused picture: on respondent-allocated preferences the Coalition leads 56-44 (56.5-43.5 in the previous week), with minor party and independent preferences splitting about 50-50 – typical of recent Morgan face-to-face polling, but quite unlike any election result of recent history. The Coalition’s lead on the previous election’s preferences are a much more modest 53-47, compared with 54.5-45.5 last time.

UPDATE: The latest weekly Essential Research poll has Labor up a point to 35 per cent, the Coalition down one to 46 per cent and the Greens down one to 9 per cent. Two-party preferred has also edged a point in Labor’s favour, from 55-45 to 54-46. This is Labor’s best result on two-party since June 14, and on the primary vote since May 16. It exactly replicates Morgan in finding 35 per cent approving of Qantas’s shutdown, but disapproval is 53 per cent rather than 61 per cent. A question on who is to blame substitutes “workers” for ”unions” and includes a “both equally” option: the results are 41 per cent management, 20 per cent workers and 31 per cent both. Respondents were also asked whether they approved or disapproved of various parties’ handling of the matter, with pretty much equally bad results for the government, opposition, management, workers (although here the “strongly disapprove” rating was relatively low), Alan Joyce and “union leaders”. Julia Gillard and the government recorded 30 per cent approval and 59 per cent disapproval, against 27 per cent and 45 per cent for Tony Abbott and the opposition. The one party that emerged favourably was Fair Work Australia, with 55 per cent and 21 per cent. There are also questions on media usage which point to an increasing use of the internet as a news source, but not to the extent that respondents would be willing to pay for the content (9 per cent say likely, 88 per cent unlikely).

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.

2,846 comments on “Morgan: 51.5-48.5 to Coalition phone poll, 56-44 face-to-face”

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  1. daretoread,

    The beginnings of Nazi Germany was not socialist, The thugs who went around Italy inventing Fascism were far from socialist… but much more like the Cronulla middle class we saw on display a few years back.

  2. [By the way, I must temper your enthusiasm for the government ‘achievements’. The policies you mention – apart from the NBN which I think either major party would have gone with (forget opposition no-ism) because it’s esssential economically – remember that the carbon thingie is only happening this term, and only as wonderfully, because of the non-Labor elements of the minority government; the ‘school halls’ funding is an indescriminate obscenity merely increasing the wealth of the private against the public schools, a Howard rort which Labor has been too timid to address (Gillard’s major policy failure).]

    And thus we return to JV ‘everything JG does is bad, everything good is because of the indies/Greens’ status quo, woo.

  3. [rishane

    Posted Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 1:46 am | Permalink

    By the way, I must temper your enthusiasm for the government ‘achievements’. The policies you mention – apart from the NBN which I think either major party would have gone with (forget opposition no-ism) because it’s esssential economically – remember that the carbon thingie is only happening this term, and only as wonderfully, because of the non-Labor elements of the minority government; the ‘school halls’ funding is an indescriminate obscenity merely increasing the wealth of the private against the public schools, a Howard rort which Labor has been too timid to address (Gillard’s major policy failure).

    And thus we return to JV ‘everything JG does is bad, everything good is because of the indies/Greens’ status quo, woo.
    ‘]

    Do you expect anything less – it seems he doesn’t Labor being successful – especially under a WOMAN !

  4. [I think you would have found many a German who sincerely believed that Jewish people were sent to Auschwitz for their own safety.]

    Nah. Some claimed ignorance, some agreed with the deportations (awful as it sounds), a few condemned them, but virtually nobody would have said it was done for the Jews’ own safety. And the Nazi Party was deeply anti-Semitic from the start, even with the slightly more ‘socialist’ elements early on. Check their 25 points from 1920—it already features rants about Jewish influence.

  5. To be

    Not really so – at least at first. There was a strong socialist element to the NAZIs originally although it was well and truly gone by the time Hitler cam to power. Remember in the early 1920 socialism was popular with many. WWI was seen as world changing any may from all spectrum wanted more equality. However the shift from socialism to fascism is a fairly easy leap, for all those whose commitment is based on emotion rather than a philosophical commitment to a particular form of governance. This is why so many revolutions morph into totalitarian states.

  6. daretoread

    A very good post as a general reflection on racism.

    I have never had a serious answer on PB from any of the Rightariat as to whether the policy of rendition to Malaysia or Nauru or Manus Island should apply to, say, boatloads in total of around 2000 per year of white South African or Zimbabwean accountants, bank managers and farmers with their wives and children in exactly the same desperate circumstances as those from Afghanistan or Iraq, who managed to pay someone for a boat, and who caught the Roaring 40s to arrive on our shores after political murder and pillage, torture and loss of everything.

    We just need think for a moment. Even the focus groups in Lindsay would say let them in. Put them in the community while they are processed like air arrivals. So why the difference? Of course the UN Human Rights Commissioner is correct. Our asylum seeker policy panders to racists.

  7. [Not really so – at least at first. There was a strong socialist element to the NAZIs originally although it was well and truly gone by the time Hitler cam to power. Remember in the early 1920 socialism was popular with many. WWI was seen as world changing any may from all spectrum wanted more equality. However the shift from socialism to fascism is a fairly easy leap, for all those whose commitment is based on emotion rather than a philosophical commitment to a particular form of governance. This is why so many revolutions morph into totalitarian states.]

    Just to back up my point about the Nazi Party even in its early days, this is part of its ’25 points’:

    [4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.

    5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be under the authority of legislation for foreigners.

    6. The right to determine matters concerning administration and law belongs only to the citizen. Therefore we demand that every public office, of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the county or municipality, be filled only by citizens. We combat the corrupting parliamentary economy, office-holding only according to party inclinations without consideration of character or abilities.

    7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.

    8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since the 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich.

    …

    23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that: a. All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race: b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the State to be published. They may not be printed in the German language: c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications, or any influence on them, and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the above made demands.

    24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.

    25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. The forming of state and profession chambers for the execution of the laws made by the Reich within the various states of the confederation. The leaders of the Party promise, if necessary by sacrificing their own lives, to support by the execution of the points set forth above without consideration.]

  8. rishane
    [Nah. Some claimed ignorance, some agreed with the deportations (awful as it sounds), a few condemned them, but virtually nobody would have said it was done for the Jews’ own safety.]
    Ironic then, that here we are, with a government trying to deport boat AS arrivals (only) to Malaysia on the legally established false grounds it is for their own safety, even though the risk of death on boats is a relatively low 4% compared with their chances at home.

  10. rishane

    Much of Europe was deeply anti Semitic – the French were bad and the Poles worse.

    In part the hostility came from the same wealth distribution views that gave rise to communism/socialism. However the NAZIs decided to make Jewish people their scape goats.

    I agree that the Nazis were born of the same sort of sentiment that fueled the Cronulla riots and underpins the “Lindsay” test, however the origins also had some “socialist” sentiment. Think how the Eureka flag is now the symbol of racist in Australia. Originally it was revolutionary and anti establishment but it has morphed into a racist symbol. The Nazis had a similar trajectory.

  11. rishane
    [And thus we return to JV ‘everything JG does is bad, everything good is because of the indies/Greens’ status quo, woo.]
    I was merely correcting the ‘record’, as stated by someone else. If the record wasn’t warped, such corrections would not be required.
    As they say in the classics: “The first step toward good policy is to cease self-delusion”.

  12. daretoread,

    Socialism has been popular many times in history and I agree many Fascists started as socialists. As long as we agree Fascism is the most fundamentally Right Wing as you can be. To take your argument further, at the end of WW2 socialism was even more popular and we saw the English embrace public health care

  16. [I was merely correcting the ‘record’, as stated by someone else. If the record wasn’t warped, such corrections would not be required.
    As they say in the classics: “The first step toward good policy is to cease self-delusion”.]

    But its not a correction, its another warping in the other direction. But hey, we can agree to disagree. I know its territory we’ve already covered.

  17. [Ironic then, that here we are, with a government trying to deport boat AS arrivals (only) to Malaysia on the legally established false grounds it is for their own safety, even though the risk of death on boats is a relatively low 4% compared with their chances at home.]

    Also, key word there is ‘trying’. Unless serious changes happen, we have onshore processing. I know you’d rather it be done with a grand speech about morality, but hey, its still onshore processing.

  20. And just to clarify my point above at 166, as I’ve said before, I’m glad we have a minority government, I think its helped. But at the same time, it still takes a good politician to keep it operating and achieving things, and I think the talk of JG as some Thatcherite is just a caricature.

  21. deblonay
    Nice to know there are eleven – yes a whole eleven – other countries taking the same anti-Palestine/ pro-Israel position as we are under the likes of Gillard and Danby. Good on Doug Cameron. It really is outrageous. There should be more Labor members speaking out against this. Where are they? In the conga line of suckholes, I guess.

  22. [rishane

    Thanks

    I will have to do some research – but not tonight as I am drooping]

    No problem. I can probably plug a book or two if you’re interested in the subject too. Have a good night.

  24. rishane
    I will support Gillard supporting the outcome of the minority government against those ‘pea hearted’ blokes around her that Tingle spoke about today. I agree the minority government is the best thing ever. I just get annoyed when the Rightariat try to subsume some level of progressive initiative to the government, which remains at heart a pragmatic hollow band, kicking and screaming into policy they do not want. For example, where is the passionate ministry persuading on every corner on carbon? Simply absent.

  26. Without getting into the Rudd/Gillard BS, I agree that it’s a horrid stance to take. Especially, as I keep saying, Israel is one of the biggest flashpoints in the world. The promise of a two state solution is what is keeping things stable there for the time being. If the 2SS seems to be a fake promise, not only will Palestine leave the table but most of the Arab world will probably be drawn in this time and we could see total war.

    The US is an important ally and a great nation (and I would prefer it to China as a superpower) but if we are its friends, we should be willing to speak up when it’s doing something stupid and/or self destructive, much like a friend who speaks up when another has a substance problem or is burning bridges etc.

  27. [She’s scored again, ladies and gentlemen. A round of applause for our Prime Minister…]

    But, but…. she doesn’t care about foreign policy and nobody likes her and stuff? Seriously though, she’s had a great week.

  28. Thanks rishane. Your post reminded me of when I visited the online holocaust museum a few years back. It spawned all sorts of wierd and interesting web surfing tangents.

  30. Re Gillard and Palestine
    ___________________
    I doubt anyone but the near-blind would think Gillard has had a good week

    Her support for the Israeli occupiers will cost her many votes in the large middle eastern communities especially in Western Sydney..and will kill Rudd’s UN SC project dead in the water
    I hear that the Canberra gossips say they have had a raging disagreement ,as Rudd wanted to follow about 40 nations and abstain from voting.

    I was at a meeting of Arab/Islamic and community groups and friends this week, and the feeling was electric..in a community usually on the left…real anger against Gillard,and a desire to do something to strike back at her

    They plan a campaign against Gillard and to wage an international campaign to make overseas communities aware of Gillard’s hardline Zionist sympathies,which will kill Rudd’s efforts to gain support for the UN SC position…against Finland and Luxumberg
    both of which voted to seat Palestine in UNESCO
    So following the Israeli demands was pointless…but that’s Gillard I suspect..Israel is always her favourite
    She didn’t even condemn the attacks on Gaza…or on the Turkish ships

  32. [deblonay

    Posted Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 2:40 am | Permalink

    Re Gillard and Palestine
    ___________________
    I doubt anyone but the near-blind would think Gillard has had a good week
    ]

    Total and utter Bullshit.

  33. Breaking News

    …. Two vessels from Turkey,with an international crew of activists carrying medical supplies to blockaded Gaza have been boarded by Israeli Warships and they are under arrest
    This will trigger more anger in Turkey
    __________________

  34. Are you joking deblonay?

    you failed preaching Fascism = socialism… so now Gillard has to fix Israel and Palestine?

    There is obviously no bar too high. At what point do you think “jumping the shark” will work, because it just sounds shrill

  38. [185

    deblonay

    Posted Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 2:49 am | Permalink

    Frank Calebreze 182
    _____________
    True to your usual Stalinist tone
    ]

    As opposed to your total and utter ramblings that no-one actually cares about.

  40. Tobe 184
    ___________
    Your are quite wrong
    Tell me where I equated socialism with fascism then apologise.,because you cannot…
    I haven’t written anything tonight re socialism and fascism…I think you are confusing me with somebody else
    Have the decency to apologize

    Fascism was always a reactionary doctrine which after WWI..in the revolutionary ferment after the Russian Revolution,and as in Italy under Mussolini…a former right-wing socialist…it was a weapon the ruling classes used to hold down the Italian people.and Mussolini was their accomplice.German fascism had it start in 1919 in a similar way…the military and big business created it,then Hitler came along …
    I taught European history for many and know what I am saying
    Read Edmond Taylor’s book “The Fall of the Dynasty’s” for a clear view of this .
    But I have not written anything here tonight and I EXPECT YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT

  45. Tobe 193
    _____________
    You are simply being dishonest…and you’re wrong !
    Check your source !!!

    I NEVER said “the shift from socialism to fascism is a fairly easy leap”
    It must have been some other poster…but it wasn’t me …you are wrong wrong wrong

    Have the simple decency to admit your error
    and don’t try hide your error behind smart-arsed comments and glib untruths

  47. Tobe 196
    __________
    Thank you for admitting your error
    DO try to be more careful in the future or you’ll finish up like Frank
    ______________________________________________________
    By the way…that statement of Dare to tread,has some relevance in Australian terms.
    There was no more rabid mad-dog warmonger than Billy Hughes…the man who took the ALP leadership in 1915 from Andrew Fisher when he retired for health reasons

    Fisher,decent and a man who hated the war was a physical wreck in 1915 but he suspected that when Hughes suceeded him in 1915 as PM ,that he would destroy the Labor Govt,… and very nearly the ALP

    The support of Hughes for conscription led to a historic struggle which the Labor Movement won…but Hughes went on to be a quasi-fascist warmonger and friend of every wealthy reactionary in Australia,and a man who hated the Labor movement…and he had been one of it’s founders…as Mussolini had been in Italy of the Socialist Party pre-WW1
    Hughes and Mussolini would have got on quite well
    It is a pity Hughes wasn’t hung up by his heels in some public place like Mussolini was in Milan in 1945

  48. deblonay,

    I quite like Frank, and I’m glad you accepted my apology, but like daretoread you are confusing the movement of political opportunists with the fundamental philosophy of Socialism and Fascism.

  49. One more thing about Hughes
    ________________________
    Hughes had the great good fortune to gain the friendship and services of Keith Murdoch…father of the notorious Rupert…and every bit as devious and political and
    power hungry
    Keith M created a legend around”The Little Digger” as he dubbed Hughes…digger hat and all !!!
    Hughes played that game for the rest of his long life…and was grateful to Murdoch…who was later knighted(Sir Keith ) a fate that has eluded Rupert… they say because The Queen loathes him,,and she prevented Thatcher… who was a great friend and admirer of Rupert …from giving him a Peerage
    Good work Ma’am

  50. Tobe 198
    __________
    I never confused socialism with fascism,..as I said !!!!!It was Daretotread whom you quoted
    …AS YOU’ SEE FROM MY COMMENTS ABOVE…and I to understand the role of individuals like Hughes and Mussolini

    Fascism and Naziism were always aimed at destroying the Left…Socialist or Communist in Europe after 1919

    Hitler called his party the NAZI Party..as you will know..The National Socialist Party(from which the NAZI is derived..and tried to deceive many Germans into thinking he was actually a socialist of sorts

    Initially he called his movement in Munich in 1919..The German Labor Party..but changed it to” National Zocialist Arbeiters Partie” from which the initials were then derived… NAZI
    “Arbeiters” is simply the German word for workers

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