The Australian reports that Labor’s lead in this fortnight’s Newspoll is down slightly from 57-43 to 56-44. Kevin Rudd is down three points as preferred leader to 65 per cent while Brendan Nelson is up two to 14 per cent.
The latest weekly Essential Research survey shows no change in Labor’s long-standing 58-42 lead. Also featured is a national-level question on state voting intention which suggests collective primary vote support for the state Labor governments is 7 per cent lower than for federal Labor (40 per cent compared with 47 per cent), although Coalition support is only 3 per cent higher (38 per cent compared with 35 per cent). Further questions involve federal Labor’s performance on various individual issues, and attitudes to the balance of power in the Senate.
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Sorry, the most livable municipality in the state. It is the most livable in the country among only those with median house prices below $1 million.
‘And it’s with those post-Rudd-election converts that the Liberal Party is in danger over.’
but alot of that is a mirage , unrealistic to think 56/44 would be a result , alot of pro Labor & anti Liberal factors there , 54/46 would be an unbelievable achievement to get (and massive win) This is 2.5 years from an electon & public ar content
Possum,
As we all know, the pre poll tpp figures were 56 and the election day tpp were 53. The latest polls show the same 56 numbers. Now, do we beleive the polls or do we believe the election? Don’t know.
Utterly respect how you get in to the quantitive aspect. Personal gut feel is that Kevin is travelling alright down here in Melbourne.
Chris,
Banyule rate about 30% less than Nillumbik?
Absolutely ron. The MSM and opposition (do I really need to separate them… the message seems to be the same) are never the less trying to spread the story of a government in trouble, for whatever reason seems convenient at the time. The evidence just isn’t there.
yep Dario , 54/46 spread would be a rout & its looking good , MSN seem ‘lost’ what to do as they’ve had exero efect
Actually Greeny (303), the pre-poll election figures were spot on for Newspoll, Morgan and Galaxy (with only Nielsen having a bout of systemic bias that election).
The public polls from what I’ve seen and heard pretty much tracked the party polling (with a bit of MoE difference at the fringes but not the last polls before election day).
People *DID* move in the last 3 weeks, and the undecideds and people that usually refuse to answer polls *DID* break to the government in the last week. Those anti-union adds were apparently pretty effective – especially in constraining the size of the ALP margins in outer-metro seats (and they saved Duttons skin in Dixon), but a chunk of the affluent Libs ran back to the Coalition as well over the same period. I don’t think anyone has really figured out why the latter group did that yet but, as you could imagine, theories abound and most probably arent worth a pinch of shit.
But since then, those hesitants, those incumbent breakers and the chunk of affluent wet libs that were pretending to be moving to Labor have, post-election, come back.
The big questions I suppose are whether the affluent wet-libs are still pretending (as they did in 07, as well as in North Sydney in 04 during Latham’s peak) to be ALP voters but will vote Coalition when push comes to shove, whether the Libs being in Opposition will be a barrier to getting them back if Rudd governs in even a mediocre fashion, and whether those outer suburban groups than broke toward the Coalition off the back of those anti-union ads will come back to an Opposition (which I dont think they will – that last group are incumbent sticklers).
Bring into that the dying of the Coalitions strongest demographic (today the 65+ group), the abysmal youth vote for the Coalition and Rudd doing, as you say, the seamless transition – poor leadership like Nelson could be structurally damaging the Liberal vote.
Possum,
Do not disagree with your analysis. The question is how accurate the current polls, given they can change significanly in the last week or so.
The answer is always the trend. However, you gotta ask how accurate the quantum.
My recollection & don’t hav figures at moment is Newspoll, Morgan and Nielsen showed big labor leads Sat before electon , with Galaxy at around 4 points diff
Ar we saying those polls were only wrong because there calcs of ‘undecided’ were wrong and most undecided instead went to Libs or swing happened in last week as reported by one MSN of internal Liberla & Labor polling (that said swing got stopped dead with pamphlet disclosure)
and GG , abit cheeky thinking top4 , not just settling for th 8
Ron,
Best talented side for Carlton since early eighties.
Ready to cause carnage.
better than 95
I’m with you there Greeny – I actually think the polls were accurate and that it was the people that moved in the last few weeks, especially the last week, and (I suppose, importantly here for poll tragics) that the polls merely measured the last minute change in public opinion.
Last minute changes are easy to explain in terms of people breaking to what they know, returning to the bosom of incumbency and familiarity so to speak, but the danger now is that without incumbency, the Coalition is naked when it comes to getting those folks back.
Which poses a dilemma; if its usually incumbency that causes Teh Narrowing when it occurs – what happens if it’s not the incumbent that’s behind?
I think Nelson needs to be surgically removed from the leadership ASAP – I fear that keeping him will, if it hasn’t already, cause structural damage to the Liberal vote and make them a eunuch Opposition of the kind that cannot hold a government accountable.
And that ain’t good for anybody.
Ron,
95 great side of champion players who were mostly well establised. 79-82 three premiersships in 4 years. They came, they saw and conquered.
But, Love em all.
Possum
Life would be better without the customers?
GG , thought you’d say that re 79 to 82
Leaving aside get out of jail excuse of MOE , this Poll ‘explanation’ th Pollsters ar NOW giving out I do not buy You’ve got statisticaly 6 consecutaive months of all 4 pollsters showing a big Labor lead right up to Sat before electon
So in absolute and trend terms for 6 months th 4 pollsets agreed Labor had a big lead , Gallaxy brroke ranks only on Sat befor eleton with a ‘narrowing’
Now these 4 Pollsters ar saying , lets forget all those 6 months of polling , er er , th ‘error’ was in our calcs of ‘undecided’ , and that error was there for 6 months by all 4 , and we never detected it , and they broke when ? , last week ?…some may say what was use of those 6 months polls or alternitively factors did occur in last week
RON,
Totally agree.
Trend is your friend in any poll or survey series. But, the problem is that the political polls all show labor at about 56%. This is the same in all the polls prior to the last federal election, apart from the week of the election.
Perhaps polls are totally reliable up until the moment you want to apply them.
Ron – you’re misconstruing what polls are.
Polls measure public opinion, and while, say, 90% of public opinion in any given week may be static, 10% isnt – and never really has been.
Galaxy, Morgan and Newspoll all came in at 52’s and 53’s as their last poll because that’s where the public opinion they were measuring shifted to.
We knew Labor were going to win because their trend was high enough to withstand any usual shift we could expect to see in opinion from that group of flitty voters in the last week.
The pollster weren’t saying “let’s forget those 6 months of polls”, they were saying “opinion shifted, and we measured it”
And we now know from the parties why some of that group moved in the last week – the Lib ads were effective, very effective in a certain demographic.
Opinion shifts at the margins quite rapidly – it’s what makes polling hard get a handle on, and why, for the tragics among us, you can never really have enough analysis to try and get to the bottom of it. It’s why we need big samples, it’s why we need to measure the trends, it’s why we need to break down demographics.
th figures you quoted were polls done in middle of last week
But up to Sat before electon & for 6 months before they were consistent & a big margin , and they ar th figures , which reasonably would conclude they were of little benefit except to say Labor would win irrespective
But polls also measure a margin , so it does not explain preceding 6 months by all 4 nor calcs on undecided vs final electon result ….except ‘events’ occuring in last week , pollsters can not hav it both ways …produce 6 months worth and then say they wwere reely right when they were out ..except as I suggest ‘events’ occuring in last week
and my argument supports State polling at min vs National , because cost factor cann’t be used as an argement against this if by keeping costs down you produce 6 months of grossly inflated margin leads
Ron – it does explain the 6 months previous to the election because some people simply changed their mind.
That happens.
Polls do nothing more than measure opinion at a given point in time. If opinion changes, the polls change with it.
And that’s what happened at the margins.
Hence 54-56 went down to 52.7
If opinion changes, the polls change with it.
Opinion change had to in th last week , unlike previous 6 months is only reasonable conclusion IF IF polls of prior 6 months ar to retain credibility …then one needs to find out why , and if it can be future ‘partly’ factored
Another reason for the late move in the polls may have been the anti-landslide factor. Some voters knew Howard was gone but didn’t want the ALP to win too big, so a they decided to put in a spoiling vote and not follow the masses.
Ron, the polls changed over the last 3 weeks, with the largest change being the final week.
Why? Because people changed their minds, and changed them at different times.
Polls didn’t require the election result to be the same as the polls had measured for 11 months previously to retain credibility – people changed their minds, they’re allowed to, they do it all the time.
That’s the ENTIRE POINT of election campaigns.
To get a few people (and a few people was all it ever was, and is all it ever usually is as a percent) to change their minds.
As to why they changed their minds, final week and post election party polling seems to have found out about half the reason, especially in the outer metro seats which we’ve mentioned earlier – the rest, as always, will remain a mystery.
And on that, I’m off to my tree – night all.
Dario thats a fair point , and also my sense Libs scare adds on Labor messing economy/messing interst rates in last week were harsher than prior
My ‘variance’ with Enemy Marsupial is 4 Pollster’s 6 months polls of huge Labor leads , can NOT hav credibility vs final result….unless
1// acceptance that movement happened in LAST week yet my friend is still saying last 3 weeks which is why I challenged , it had to be last week to make last 6 months Polls STILL credible , and
2/ a reasonable explanations given why in last week th Polls & result so dramaticaly happened , and you’ve given one possible reason , changing there mind is sort of one , libs better scare adds may be another , and may be other reasons like there method of allocating ’soft’ voting intentions may all get lumped into firm voing intentions without appropriate weightings
(otherwise we may as well ignore all Polls to middle of election week in 2010 because people might change there minds so am unpoersuaded with tht argument as an explanation !! IF i’m going to continue to treat poll trends well , except broadly to know if Labor is ‘winning’ , would better than that )
“And on that, I’m off to my tree – night all.”
I’m off to my barbarian tent
I’m off too. That’s why the wife is holding her nose. Nite all.
Voters want results not vision
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24251895-7583,00.html
Possum,
I think you’re right, Nelson’s leadership is probably doing long-lasting damage to the Liberal Party.
Notwithstanding the “anyone but Turnbull” sentiment that seems to be keeping him there, I’d be amazed if he’s still leader at the end of this year.
Turnbull is the next generation, isn’t he?
I can see Rudd deciding that he’s going to break this “Labor is captive of the unions” thing once and for all. Maybe next time the wet Libs won’t break back to the Coalition inthe last week.
Was pleased to see Leigh Sales ask Julia to compare Rudd’s speech with Hilary’s. I’d studiously avoided American election hoopla, primaries etc. until yesterday when I decided to check out Hilary’s speech as I had the TV on anyway. So this was the first speech of hers I’d seen pretty much in full. I thought it was magnificent.
This morning on the radio, reports said she’d saved the best till last, that it was a great speech. So I guess I tuned in at the right time. It was worth comparing to Rudd’s pedestrian effort yesterday. Both were made at critical times. However, Julia’s answer to the criticism was that the two speeches were made under different conditions: one a mid-term roundup, the other a pre-election oration to the troops.
Despite this Rudd’s effort should have been more exciting. We’re being assaulted by bad news on almost every front. Day-in, day-out the news and current affairs programs compete with each other to be more miserable than the other guy. We need some good news, some indication of just where we’re headed, or could be headed if we get of our collective butts and have a go. Hilary’s speech did this. Rudd’s did not.
There seems to be an attitude here that modern politics has too many glossy orations like Hilary’s and too few workmanlike gigs like Rudd’s. I can’t agree. I think we’ve elevated the workmanlike into the default position because that’s all we’re ever going to get from Rudd, so why not make a virtue out of the necessity?
Rudd’s speech: full of details, dire threats against teachers and principals, filling out forms, totting up columns of figures to reveal effectiveness of schooling, hard road ahead, starting almost from stratch, shoulders to the wheel.
Hilary’s: light on details, big on ideas and aspirations, take the high ground back, let’s be great again for all the right reasons. We’re smart and clever and democratic, free, we already know we can do it, let’s do it again.
The classic contrast between architect and tradesman. Both are needed to get the building up, with the emphasis on “both”. We’re not getting the inspiration from Rudd. He’s too scared of appearing to be flighty or insubstantial, and I think it’s in his nature anyway to plod along. It’s going to be a long, dreary road, and by definition there’s never an end in sight.
Thank God the other side is even worse.
Pearson says Feds are tougher than his truancy regime.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/28/2348540.htm?section=justin
WOW! However bad the Iemma government is, the Liberal opposition has just demonstrated how intellectually and economically bankrupt they are!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24253236-601,00.html
I’m kinda glad electricity privatization might not go ahead.
1. It was against the party platform.
2. Against public opinion.
3. It means they might hesitate to bulldoze the lovely bush near my home to put up a ventilation complex (size of a football field in the middle of virgin forest) for the North-West Metro if they don’t get the funds.
“3″ above is of course quite selfish and personal, but the process of approval for this facility had been secretive and deliberately misleading by the government, and that’s not right when people’s homes, neighbourhood amenity and property values are at stake.
That’ll teach me to live in a Lib-voting electorate.
Nobody comes out of this mess in N.S.W looking good!
Iemma’s leadership is terminal, and O’Farrell has demonstrated he’s little more than a shameless, political opportunist, and a short term one at that(rather like his boss in Canberra). So, in the run up to 2011, we have a government in paralysis, and an opposition with no policies or practical solutions to fix the problems in this state!
Bushfire Bill
330
“It’s going to be a long, dreary road, and by definition there’s never an end in sight.”
I watched the speech yesterday too and thought the delivery pedestrian and the content profoundly disappointing.
I think tough action against parents letting their kids habitually truant is needed!
In the 80s I built a couple timber frame houses with business partner. One set of tenants pushed their kids out the house at 9.00am and didn’t let them back in till 5.00pm! The kids did a lot of damage trying to get into the house.
One time we drove up and I noticed the rubbish bin had fallen over so I righted it and put the rubbish that had fallen out back in the bin and noticed one bit was a school report card–a wave of nausea swept through me that they could just throw it away! I am 61 and bet old Mum could find my Grade 1 report card in a few minutes!
I opened the report card and at the bottom the teacher had written “. . .needs more attention” and I knew the kid was never ever going to get that!
So some parents need to be belted with a 2 by 4 to ensure kids in school, do homework etc etc.
Also know in many houses 2-3 TVs would all be on, how the kids could concentrate on homework is something that beats me! Maybe the schools should allow kids that wanted to or needed it to do homework at school after school closed?
There are some real arseholes out there!
Bushfire Bill: I think I’m in the same electorate as you(Epping). And we’ve got a dickhead for a local member! Andrew Tink was a genius compared to that clown Greg Smith. Yep, it’s the price we Laborites pay for living in blue ribbon Liberal land.
Iemma has no plan B, that’s pretty much it for him and Costa! Who the hell replaces him, I don’t know! Nathan Rees? LMAO.
Watkins would be probably the most experienced of the alternatives, but the public transport thing is a millstone around his neck!
On the other side: Big Bad Barry is proved to be little more than a lightweight.
Where are his policies?
And will the business community stop donating to the Liberals? Probably not!
Jovial Monk
336
Problem is how does it help the children if they have nothing to eat for 13 weeks because their parents are being penalised for not sending them to school?
What utter tripe. One was made to a football stadium full of cheering one-eyed supporters a few months before an election on arguably the biggest television audience you get for political speeches. The other was made a year into the term of a new government to a room full of journalists with barely a busload full of television viewers. If you’re going to compare like with like then compare it to Rudd’s ALP election launch speech for goodness sake.
In news that hardly needs reporting, Senator Nick Xenephon has said in his maiden speech that his vote is not for sale:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/28/2348615.htm
Of course its not! After all that would be unlawful, and Nick is a lawyer, not some media-stunt driven self-publicist. You almost wonder why he even needed to make the statement? Maiden speeches are normally for saying what you stand for not what you won’t do. Nick made clear that he wanted to find a solution for the river Murray, ban poker machines, and maintain funding for the CSIRO. Only everything else would be negotiable. ROTFL
Well the Senate (opposition) has gone into full spin mode already. Opposition Senator Eric Abetz confirmed that the coalition would oppose the luxury car tax because the Senate committee report said it was inflationary.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/28/2348799.htm?section=justin
Only trouble is, the report says that the tax will be useful for FIGHTING inflation, with higher income earners havign received large tax cuts and currency movements mean that the prices of these cars have come down a lot:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/economics_ctte/tlab_luxurycars_08/report/report.pdf
Courageous of Eric to fight for the rights of a wealthy person to buy an expensive (invariably foreign made) vehicle? Has anyone pointed out that almost every single one of these cars is imported? Noticed job losse in the car industry lately? I hope they (Labor) pursue them over this nonsense.
Dario, I was only paraphrasing what Julia said. In fact what you wrote seems to be a pretty good summation of what I wrote too: one was a pre-election rah-rah speech and the other was a mid-term (or middish-term) report with some stuff about COAG and sacking teachers.
Just would have liked to see Kevi open up a little. I know he has it in him. I wonder why he doesn’t let go sometimes and put the fools in the Opposition to shame for their grubby pedestrianism.
I get sick and tired of hearing bad news. We need a little geeing up every now and again. For Gillard to describe Rudd’s speech as outlining his vision for Australia was plain wrong. It outlined his vision for a subset of the Education portfolio.
For example, he didn’t say why education was important; what can be done by a well-educated population; what it can achieve that it’s not achieveing now. It just seems to be sort-of assumed that an educated nation is a “good thing” and that the benefits are self-evident.
After listening to the speech I was left with visions of assessment forms, P&C meetings to protest school closures and poor teaching performance, public servants in Canberra and the state capitals filling out forms, writing letters to each other and so on. All very necessary stuff as the policy is implemented, but hardly much to excite the imagination as a “vision”. In fact, more the opposite, I’d venture.
Judging by the new truancy policy there are also many parents who don’t see the self-evident benefits of education for their kids, and clearly many of the kids don’t either.
{#
338
Grace Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Jovial Monk
336
Problem is how does it help the children if they have nothing to eat for 13 weeks because their parents are being penalised for not sending them to school?}
Because the parents like to eat/drive etc so they will ensure junior gets to school.
I would expect that Michael Costa will pull the pin shortly.
I also expect Costa to blast the ALP, trade unions, the Liberal Party and humanity in general for his failure to sell off NSW electricity assests.
BB, you said ‘It was worth comparing to Rudd’s pedestrian effort yesterday’, and I don’t think it was at all. While you may want us to go all american with the hoopla and hollywood rubbish they have, I’d wager the the vast majority of this country certainly wouldn’t. The last thing we need is to see Australian politicans giving speeches like their US counterparts, so they just shouldn’t ever be put side by side for comparison.
Fagin Says:
I would expect that Michael Costa will pull the pin shortly.
Good riddance.
Jovial Monk, maybe Ruddster could hire people a Nanny, like he hired for his own kids on the public purse.
345 Dario – spot on.
What is showing up in polls (and I use the polls because they’re the only measuring stick we have to measuring public opinion on politics) that suggests Rudd is not performing well? Surely if it aint broke you don’t set about fixing it.
Dario, you miss my point. I’m not saying that Rudd should be all hoopla, but every now and again he should filp the switch and get into the inspiration thing.
The recitation of dreary outcomes, dire warnings, future COAG agendas, process-based outcomes and public service double-speak has its place, but in my opinion we need to be told – in competely unequivocal terms – where it is all taking us; why it’s going to be worth it.
The racing car driver can meander on about how he’s going to adjust the injector, crank up the drive shaft, polish the valves (or whatever). That has its place. But occasionally he needs to get up in front of his team and say “Just to remind you all… We’re gonna win no matter what. We’re gonna take the prize and we’re gonna succeed where others have failed. That’s really what we’re about and where all this pain and process is going to get us.” Same with any sportsman or business person, and I suggest politician: they should lead, and do it by showing us the goal, and they should make that goal attractive, even exciting to get the people following to want to achieve that goal.
I can’t imagine anyone hearing Rudd’s speech and wanting to get straight out, then and there, and start the process. More likely they would graon, “Oh Jesus… more late nights.”
On the other hand, speeches like Hilary’s and those of other great orators can energize a population and make them enthusiastic about the most daunting tasks.
In trying to be the anti-hoopla Prime Minister, I think Rudd has gone too far the other way.
GB, Kevin’s position in the polls has a lot to do with the Libs’ poor performance.
Would you rather do well in relative terms, or in absolute terms? Would you rather our leaders were a little better than their opponents, or great and good in themselves?
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