As the campaign for a July 2 double dissolution election officially begins, three big polling guns have sounded:
• In The Australian, Newspoll records a 51-49 lead to Labor, unchanged on the last result three weeks ago, from primary votes of Coalition 41% (steady), Labor 37% (up one) and Greens 11% (steady). Malcolm Turnbull is on 38% approval (up two) and 49% disapproval (steady), with Bill Shorten respectively on 33% (up two) and 52% (steady). Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is 49-27, little changed on the 47-28 result last time. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of about 1739. Hat tip: James J in comments.
• In the Fairfax papers, Ipsos goes the other way, with a 51-49 lead to the Coalition after a 50-50 result three weeks ago. The Coalition is up two on the primary vote to 44%, with Labor and the Greens steady on 33% and 14%. Despite that, there’s been a big improvement in Bill Shorten’s personal ratings, his approval up five to 38% and disapproval down six to 49%. Turnbull’s ratings, which have been markedly better from Ipsos than Newspoll, have him down three on approval to 48%, and up two on disapproval to 40%. The poll also found the budget to be deemed fair by 37% and unfair by 43%, which compares with 52% and 33% after last year’s budget, and 33% and 63% after the disaster the year before (when the series was conducted by Nielsen rather than Ipsos). Fifty-three per cent of respondents expected the Coalition would win the election, compared with 24% for Labor.
• News Corp’s Sunday tabloids also had a Galaxy poll overnight that had the result at 50-50, from primary votes of Coalition 42%, Labor 36% and Greens 11%. While the Newspoll and Galaxy result both come from the same firm and involved a combination of online and phone polling, the phone polling for the Galaxy result was, I believe, live interview rather than automated. The Galaxy also found low recognition of Scott Morrison as Treasurer (48%) and Chris Bowen as Shadow Treasurer (18%), and had a few attidinal questions whose wording Labor wouldn’t have minded: “Do you consider it fair or unfair that only workers earning more than $80,000 a year got a tax cut in the budget?”, recording 28% for fair and 62% for unfair, and “do you support or oppose Labor’s plan to leave the deficit levy in place so that workers earning over $180,000 a year pay more tax?”, which got 63% for support and 21% for oppose. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Friday from a sample of 1270.
I’ll be running all that through the Bludgermator a little later to produce BludgerTrack projections, so watch this space.
UPDATE: BludgerTrack has had a feel of the four new opinion polls and found them to be, if not exactly budget bouncy, then tending to ameliorate what was probably an excessively favourable reading for Labor last week. The Coalition is now credited with having its nose in front on two-party preferred, assisted by a ReachTEL result that was better for them than the headline figure of 50-50 made it appear. That was based on respondent-allocated preferences, but on 2013 election preferences it comes out as 51.6-48.4. I don’t have any state data from the latest round of polls, so the state relativities are unchanged from last week’s result. The seat projection has the Coalition clearly back in majority government territory after making one gain apiece in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania. Note that primary vote and two-party charts are now featured below going back to the start of the year, with a further two-party chart continuing to show progress since the start of the term. Three polls have provided new leadership ratings, including the Morgan poll together with Newspoll and Ipsos. The trend results suggest Malcolm Turnbull’s downward plunge might at least be levelling off, but an improvement for Bill Shorten that can be traced back to the start of the year is, if anything, gaining momentum.
My point is, TPOF, that people don’t have to be committed to the right wing to still have stuck in their heads long-held ideas that are injurious to Labor. There’s a lot of people who basically say they don’t like what they see, but are worried about returning to Labor. Again, Murdoch might be receding in power, but a lot of the damage has already been done.
Cud @ 50
The Murdoch ’empire’ has never had less influence on Australian voters than it does today. In fact all mainstream media has never had less influence.
That’s true, but the damage has been done and Labor hasn’t made the efforts to correct the record.
There was a bit of talk earlier about negative campaign ads, but if you want to see a REALLY deadly, devastating ad, check out this anti-Romney one from the US presidential election of 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVqi8fuPDs.
Votecompass puts me roughly between the Greens and ALP, which I think is where I stand anyway.
b.c. @ #44 Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 10:57 pm
I fail to see how that makes you ‘economic centre’ as I agree with most of that myself. But you have not mentioned any of the distributional issues which IMHO are the key ones.
I have an aversion to ‘centre’ positions as they smack of indecision or rotten compromises.
I think Labor should publish a little book pointing out salient points about the nonsense propogated by the LNP (and the MSM) regarding the economic, social and environmental failure of the LNP. A book of facts. send it everywhere. make it hard for the MSM and their uneducated journos to shirk their duty.
e.g. I heard an ignorant ABC reporter (increasingly and sadly is there any other sort?) saying the ALP/Shorten had a “tax and spend” programme.
I mean all governments tax and spend. It is what governments do.
I think the LNP may have to tax a bit to fund their $50Billion subs.
jameshancockABC: The ABC’s The Killing Season about Rudd/ Gillard years wins Most Outstanding Public Affairs Report at #Logies2016 @abcnews @ABCNews24
Cud at 11.09pm
That’s correct. But we have 55 days (20 more than we usually have) in which uncommitted voters will start thinking very seriously about their vote. And every time I look I see more and more reason for those whose expectations were raised by Turnbull to be disappointed. Today, for example, he never even mentioned climate change in his election launch speech – even to defend the existing position of the government. At the same time, Bill Shorten and Labor have that time to satisfy people that Labor has put the ructions of the past behind it and is actually a viable alternative to a government that has done nothing led by someone whose authority and leadership is shrivelling before their eyes.
Pedant:
Yikes that’s pretty powerful.
guytaur @ #58 Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:14 pm
Well deserved too. It shed some light in dark corners.
bemused
I don’t think Keynesian and Neoliberism “tricle-down economics” are on the opposite sides of the economics spectrum. They’re vastly different from each other but within each school of thought there are aspects of them that vary within the spectrum.
Trickle-down economics in practice seems to be more about subsidising the big players than actual free market laissez-faire economics.
Pedant
Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:13 pm
There was a bit of talk earlier about negative campaign ads, but if you want to see a REALLY deadly, devastating ad, check out this anti-Romney one from the US presidential election of 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVqi8fuPDs.
perfect – now that’s a negative ad – wish they could do it on turnbull ——- not just opinion or politics something real
If there was any little modicum that suggested Turnbull will be better at campaigning than governing I might be worried.
swamprat @ #57 Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:14 pm
Agree on the mindset. The conservatives and the media have sold that “ALP bad with money / Libs are good fiscal managers” line very well despite the events of the last 3 years.
$50B subs not helped by a $48B company tax cut and a $4B revenue loss on the $80k tax bracket adjustment.
While ensuring that no light went anywhere near any other corners that might have upset the narrative being spun if a little light had made its way there.
question @ #64 Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:24 pm
On the basis of what I’ve seen to date, I expect he will be much, much, much worse. And as Simon Banks pointed out today, election campaigning is physically gruelling. Shorten has shown he is up to it, mentally and physically. Turnbull is not up to it mentally and, I strongly suspect, physically.
TPOF,
YES, but! You won’t get anywhere correcting those deeply held ideas and miss-truths in an election campaign of 55 days or 100 days, if all the voters get are sound bites, confused and deliberately misleading reporting, and 30 second ads full of fluff.
To combat what’s wrong here means spending months or years determinedly putting the record straight on many things (like educating people that fibre is inevitable). Labor hasn’t done this.
Case in point. Shorten said he’d build a proper NBN. But many people still don’t understand the basic fact that fibre is inevitable and anything you build that isn’t fibre is money wasted. Why can’t Labor run ads to that effect? Even now? Lots of people are still stuck with the notion that you pay for speed. That’s bullshit in so many ways, but its the idea stuck in their heads because of the Liberals a few years ago and the media selling it that way and Labor (Conroy included) not arguing the real story.
bemused Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:13 pm
Then again, maybe I’m all over the place.
As for trickle down economics, money doesn’t tickle down, it flows up.
[- perfect – now that’s a negative ad – wish they could do it on turnbull ——- not just opinion or politics something real]
It can be done on the BigEnd/ LNP .. the Bankers, the finance industry, 7/11, big polluters, private colleges etc etc …….Rorts, rorts, rorts as far as the eye can see…that’s crony capitalism…. but does the ALP have the balls?
swamprat @ #70 Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:29 pm
Sell Bronnie’s helicopter rides, unlimited claims on luxuries, Brandis’ book shelves, Abbott’s bike ride,etc. And then there’s branch stacking but it might be a sticking point if seen wrongly.
Good night
>Question
>Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:24 pm
>If there was any little modicum that suggested Turnbull will be better at campaigning >than governing I might be worried.
The thing about Malcolm is that he’s great when he doesn’t have to tow a party line or show any responsibility himself. When he can get on Q&A and say all the nice things that aren’t LNP policy people love him. Now that he’s a party leader he’s looking far less appealing.
Keynesianism and neoliberalism are “opposite” in the way that climate change and climate change denialism are “opposite”.
Neoliberalism is a fundamentally a moral ideology before it is an economic one, whereas Keynesianism is profoundly a form of economics as opposed to an ideology. This can be be most easily understood in the way conservatives remain committed to neoliberalism despite the fact that it doesn’t work, and that conservatives resort to Keynesian economics when they are desperate to avoid economic collapse.
Neoliberalism glorifies and fetishises big business and the wealthy – it says that if you are wealthy you are morally good – i.e. a hard-working job-creator, and therefore deserve government reward and largesse. This is why neoliberals are perfectly happy to subsidise big business and the wealthy, as they are “efficient”, “innovative”, “agile” etc, whereas the poor and middle classes are just “greedy” and “lazy”.
raaraa
[Sell Bronnie’s helicopter rides, unlimited claims on luxuries, Brandis’ book shelves, Abbott’s bike ride,etc. And then there’s branch stacking but it might be a sticking point if seen wrongly.]
Surely it’s better to quite correctly point out the connection between the LNP and the crony capitalists and their rorts facilitated by the LNP.
I mean the LNP did it quite effectively with making the ALP Government responsible for Employers’ breach of work and safety rules in the pink batts fiasco.
Cud @ 11.28pm
I learnt long ago that a politician who wants to communicate cannot do it with long and complex expositions. Most people simply do not have the time, interest and energy to listen. But a lot do when an election is almost on them. People are increasingly wary of how the media filters their news – which is why they rely increasingly on social media and watch leadership debates.
The other thing is that sometimes direct explanations of complex things (and most things are complex) leaves people more confused. That is one of Turnbull’s big mistakes. He tries to sell complex things by speechifying instead of keeping things simple.
Labor is keeping things simple. For example, Labor cannot win the NBN debate by explaining the superiority of Fibre to the Premises. People know it’s superior, but were sold the idea that it was ‘Rolls Royce’, unaffordable, and would take too long to deliver. Labor’s most potent weapon is to point out that Turnbull’s plan was more expensive and taking just as long as Labor’s original plan – for an inferior system. It goes to smashing the myth of Coalition competence and money management.
Spoke to three people today
1st i have always voted Liberal and will continue to do so
2nd I will vote Liberal because Labour gives too much money to dole bludgers
3rd I will vote independent Don’t like the big parties, all the same (did vote for Abbott last time)
Very Very depressing
Swamprat @ 11.29 pm
Note that that ad was not an official Obama ad, but a superpac ad. The equivalent would be some of the union ads we are seeing with the catchphrase ‘Turnbull made choices; he just didn’t choose you’.
Furthermore, perfectly free markets do not work as government property right enforcement is essential to free markets – and it’s not hard to keep following that conclusion until you get to mixed market economies.
This reminds me of Stephen Colbert’s joke at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least, and by this standard we have done an excellent job in Iraq.”
As someone said the other day, he’s hopeless in interviews where he has to be accountable for decisions taken. He’d much prefer those interviews he did as a backbencher where he could be a jocular, shooting-the-breeze kinda guy with his leather jacket and progressive tendencies on full display.
Not so good when he has to own the shit his party is shoveling at voters.
WEP @ 11.38pm
Remember that even in a thrashing the Liberals will get 40% or more of the vote. People should never be disheartened because rusted on Coalition voters continue to use any excuse to keep doing it. The third guy was interesting. It’s a 1st preference lost to the Coalition. Where will it finish up after preferences are distributed?
Thanks JD.
Hmm I usually thought the ideal “free market” world that the Neoliberalists dream of is one of complete freedom of economic activity, in the sense that it is the opposite of socialism, where the government controls virtually all aspect of the economy to the point of running it themselves.
The funny thing I speculate about is that if left completely unregulated, the economy tends to form an over-arcing monopoly, and this monopoly tends to have a big influence on the government to the point that it is inseparable. So you get a situation where you are same-same but different to a communistic government that controls the economy.
Waleed gets GOLD!!!
Waleed 4 PM! Fully Sik bro!
My pious hope is that the folks who gave their votes to the likes of PUP particularly in Fairfax the last time around will have a good hard look at themselves and actually think about what they are doing.
I shall be voting 1 to 12 BTL in the Senate and allocating prefs all over the place and I will be strongly advocating others do that too after spending at least some time checking the credentials of the candidates.
In Qld for example Glen Lazarus might be worth a 6 or 7 preference. Likewise Ricky Muir in Vic who also seems to have grown into the job might be a 5 or 6. Not so sure about the Accidental Senator in NSW who seems to be increasingly off the planet. The one conservative who I will be allocating an early preference to John Williams who seems refreshingly honest, and keen on a Bank RoyCom to boot.
Anyway this is going to be a fun election.
WEP, Newspoll spoke to 1739 people…
TPOF
it was going to independent Andrew Wilkie
TPOF,
That makes my point though. You can’t sell complex ideas quickly. It needs an ongoing effort, not just at election times. And yes I do believe that you could sell the NBN even, in the 55 days remaining.
Its very simple. You run a series of ads that make the very obvious point that in the rest fo the world, everyone is abandoning copper and building fibre. You state very simply “if we continue to use copper, it’s dead money. It will be replaced with fibre”. Case made.
What people don’t understand, fundamentally is that fibre is inevitable. They are sold, even if subliminally, on the idea that we can make do. That fraudband is not only cheaper, but a permanent alternative – which is not. All people need to know is the very simple fact – anything that isn’t fibre is temporary and therefore a waste.
I’m sick and tired of Labor giving up on selling the NBN. Its not that complicated. Teaching people why fibre is future proof and why it physically will last longer is technical. But showing people that its the only possible future with reference to what the rest of the world is doing, is pretty simple, and would fit in a series of TV ads. If I had a spare million, I would do this myself.
walter e plinge @ #77 Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:38 pm
Had an internet discussion with a friend about the spending on the subs, but somehow the friend has a hard time differentiating state and federal politics, banging on about how Labor are bad economic managers, and then I reminded this friend that the state is in surplus so the argument is moot, and we should go back to actually discussing federal politics.
Somehow he wanted to drag it back to the CMFEU and “union thugs”, but not being a Labor person myself I chose not to go further as I’ve stayed out of all the rumours surrounding unions (and therefore know little about it). At that point, I gave up because I prefer to discuss federal policy rather than heresay and mud-slinging.
Goodnight.
Albert,
The problem with just voting 1-12 in the Senate is that unless one of your preferences lands on a Senate candidate who will actually have a strong chance of being elected, your vote will eventually exhaust. Its a feel good exercise.
Bloody hell.
I see the MSM already have in place their simplistic narrative they’re going to twist everything to suit: “Growth vs fairness”, “jobs vs services”, etc. Variations on that have been popping up everywhere. As if it’s one or the other.
Raaraa – it is probably most accurate to say that big business and the wealthy favour complete freedom of economic activity for themselves – free markets that are closed to new entrants – hence fossil fuels attacking renewable energy, Telstra abusing it’s monopoly, among other examples. The markets they most favour are the ones that are natural monopolies, as they can extract maximum return for minimal effort – hence their love for privatisation of government assets, even though privatisation usually (but not always) leads to inferior results.
The efforts of big business and the wealthy to undermine the social democratic state in order to accrue a greater share of income and wealth to themselves will actually harm them in the long-run, as it undermines the post-war Western compromise/consensus between democratic socialists and capitalists that prevented wholesale Socialism in the West.
[The problem with just voting 1-12 in the Senate is that unless one of your preferences lands on a Senate candidate who will actually have a strong chance of being elected, your vote will eventually exhaust. Its a feel good exercise.]
Ah yes the great ‘reform’ con of OPV, ensuring your vote doesn’t count unless you vote right …
Labor need to strongly reject this either-or crap.
I’m not sure that will last long DN. Shorten was pretty out there today with the message of growth that is fair, and the “jobs vs services” is and easy one to counter. We’ll see where the campaign goes, But, the ALP seem pretty much on top of things as far as message goes if their behavior over the last few weeks of the “campaign we weren’t having” is any indication.
And one thing i found interesting was the tone of the media today questioning the Leaders after their initial set pieces. I thought they were quite hostile to Turnbull, and not so much to Shorten. Turnbull looked worried, hunted and i think the press pack smelled it. Shorten was relaxed and confident.
Mal and Bill @ Rooty Hill? Bring it on.
“Hung parliaments” are often over predicted. But if the protest/nutter vote goes to NXT rather than PUP, they might actually win some seats in SA from both sides, which makes it very hard for Labor to get a majority, but at the same time, puts the Coalition majority at risk…
Labor needs to get Newspoll or Essential’s result — 50.1 or so won’t cut it, I fear.
[Waleed gets GOLD!!!
Waleed 4 PM! Fully Sik bro!]
Oh god — and I didn’t think his ego could get any bigger!
walter e plinge @ #86 Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 11:48 pm
Better than the Liberals then. At least Wilkie doesn’t vote against Labor out of sheer spite and political game playing.
If the LNP keep on saying they have a plan for jobs and growth some people are going to believe them despite all the evidence to the contrary.
On the NBN the argument has to be about ROI. The MTM will be almost as expensive but will be worthless when it is finished. Fibre will pay for itself many times over.
Raaraa
Someone who uses that terminology is a committed conservative voter. It’s not a vote that Labor would ever win.