The big news of the last week has been Labor’s publicising of comprehensive internal polling from the marginal seats of Albany, Kingsley, Riverton, Ocean Reef and Swan Hills. The figures show Labor trailing 34 per cent to 48 per cent on the primary vote, or 45-55 on two-party preferred. The trend line in the polling showed that just one week ago Labor was leading 52-48 on the back of a post-debate rally, restoring their fortunes after the much-touted 6 per cent swing picked up the previous week. I assume we’re talking about unadjusted results for the five specific seats, in which case they compare with a 2005 result of 51-49. It must be remembered that there are peculiarities to this particular collection of seats: Kingsley had a slightly anomalous result last time, local issues involving Leach Highway may be biting in Riverton, and Labor doesn’t have sitting members in its notionally held seats of Ocean Reef and Swan Hills. Against this is the fact that Labor can expect a better-than-average result in Albany, as they will be campaigning seriously in the newly added areas for the first time. On balance, the sample of seats used might be expected to add up to a slightly above average swing. If another 2 per cent can be accounted for by the margin of error and late efforts to scare waverers, Labor will still get its nose in front. Otherwise …
Labor is certainly behaving like a party with the smell of death in its nostrils, judging by the pitch of its scare campaigns on uranium mining and GM crops. However, The West Australian remains loftily dismissive of the message Labor is trying to send on polling, and indeed most other things. It should hope for vindication on this score, as last Thursday its front page proclaimed: “Forget talk of a tight race – Labor’s home, say WA’s two best political commentators”. Both of those commentators remain unmoved by the latest Labor figures. Paul Murray writes: “The pretty graphs shown fleetingly on television last night are not the detailed polling figures that are needed to examine Labor’s claims properly, as the ABC journalists who presented them know full well.” Such reliance on polling strategy is compared unfavourably with “Labor titans like John Curtin, Doc Evatt, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke”, who “bravely plotted their own political courses, according to their consciences, in their dealings with the electors.” You are invited to contemplate a Paul Murray transported in time to the early 1970s, turning out columns in praise of the brave and principled leadership of Gough the Titan.
Robert Taylor writes that Labor “only has to improve between 2 and 3 per cent by polling day and it wins”, which makes it sound so easy. Furthermore, “the poll produced by Labor yesterday wasn’t too much different from the way things were running in the last week of the 2005 election campaign when Geoff Gallop came from behind just a week out to record a comfortable victory” – though on that occasion Labor had the free kick of Colin Barnett’s costings debacle two days out from polling day. Great weight is given to the survey’s other findings: “24 per cent of those polled said they could remember something that appealed to them about a Barnett message while 38 per cent said they could remember and liked something the Premier had said”, while only 31 per cent thought the Liberals ready for government (which interestingly compares with low-20s figures being put around at the start of the campaign). Expectations of the result are much as they’ve always been: 61 per cent of voters believed Labor would win, compared with 18 per cent for the Liberals. The bookies too remain non-plussed, offering $1.25 on Labor and $3.50 on Liberal.
UPDATE: Super-size all that: today the bottom of the front page is headlined, “Speculation ALP back on track as new polling figures withheld”. This is based on Labor’s refusal to release its figures for a second day running. The West is also literally running free Liberal advertising.
Also:
• More on The West Australian: A mirthful Matt Birney told 6PR’s Simon Beaumont that the Liberals had “certainly been aided and abetted by the West Australian newspaper – and more power to them I say, good on you guys, keep it up”. The West responded to this embarrassing assessment by criticising the ABC. Inside Cover’s Neale Prior went so far as to provide a direct number for ABC news chief Kim Jordan, encouraging readers to call and annoy him (anyone got Prior’s number?). Prior noted that the paper had equally been slammed for Labor bias by no less an authority than Colleen Mortimer, a reader who had sent them an email.
• The front page of the Liberal site features the television ad which Labor’s pollsters blame for their apparent slump. I personally don’t find the ad so devastating that it explains a 7 per cent reversal, and find myself wondering if the furore over the TruthAboutTroy website might have crystallised doubts about Labor’s style.
• There’s also a seventh radio ad on the Liberal site, and it’s yet another Whingeing Wendy effort (this time with a male voiceover). Radio advertising has been a point of difference between the two campaigns, with Labor’s jocular style typified by a depiction of Barnett as a quiz show contestant struggling with questions about uranium mining. In an interesting parallel with the federal campaign, Labor’s ads seem tailored for FM whereas the Liberals sound like they made theirs with talkback in mind.
• Ian Taylor, who led the Opposition for a year between the departure of Carmen Lawrence in 1994 and the brief tenure of Jim McGinty, has been expelled from the ALP for endorsing independent Murchison-Eyre MP John Bowler in his campaign for Kalgoorlie. Bowler was one of the four ministers whose scalps were claimed by the Corruption and Crime Commission’s inquiries.
• The Western Australian Electoral Commission predictably dismissed a Liberal complaint against Labor ads attacking Barnett over “nuclear waste”, as its power lies only over material involving “the casting of the elector’s vote”. The complaint nonetheless succeeded in communicating the party’s grievance through news coverage.
• Labor’s big ticket campaign launch item of a rail line to Ellenbrook no doubt has a lot to recommend it on policy grounds, but it inevitably invites speculation as to the government’s electoral objectives. The line will serve the electorates of Midland, Morley, Bassendean, West Swan and Swan Hills. Notwithstanding the complicated state of play in Morley, the only one of the aforementioned which is on the electoral front line is the latter. The Liberals matched the promise in such short order that there was speculation Labor had locked in the policy to pre-empt them.
• Another interestingly targeted policy is Labor’s promise to change the public transport fare structure to make fares cheaper in the outer suburbs. This benefits a wide arc of marginal seats from Ocean Reef on the northern coast through Joondalup, Wanneroo and Swan Hills to Darling Range.
485 Comments
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Alan Carpenter on Radio National.
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/audio/200809/20080904-carpenter-rn.mp3
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/04/2355067.htm
VPL is quite right, political organizations and charities are exempt from the Spam and also the do not call register. Basically means they can put information into your letterbox even if it says “no spam” etc.
Barnett defends Buswell.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/audio/2008/09/04/2354947.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/audio/2008/09/04/2354944.htm
And I’ve just had a phone call from the Electoral Commission, THey’ve contacted the West, and are seeking out who placed the ad, and they will demand that they print a correction tomorrow
Score 1 FC The West & The Medicos Nil
#55 FC…….Well done Frank. Legend!
Once again the West live up to their code of ethics, ie “dont let the facts get in the way of a good story”, or in this case a “….good return from illegal advertising and a kick in the guts to the Govt”.
i would be very, very surprised to see a correction in the paper tomorrow.
Well, under the Act, the have to
If they refuse, they’ll probably be prosecuted.
And re the Fake ad, I asked the guy and he reckons they’ve haven’t breached the act because they’ve done it as part of a news story.
William
There’s an excellent article on the WA election and its ramifications in SA in the Tiser today which quotes you extensively. It’s not on the website though. Do you want it sent as a jpeg? One sample follows…
Mr Bowe says;
A me-centric abridged version of The Advertiser article:
Here’s me in a Geraldton ABC story. I did say the Liberals would win, but I guess the “close result” bit made better copy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/04/2355059.htm
dovif@36 re 52% of Liberal candidates would vote for themselves.
Sorry mate, utter B/S. Tell your friend to tell his friend to stop dreaming.
Didn’t happen.
As for that ad in the west today, I read it a couple of times and had trouble trying to work out what it was about. The average punter probably didn’t even notice it.
Skink @ 44, dead right,(was it Galbraith?), this dodgy polling and the selective release of it is starting to make astrology look like science. I suspect that fairly soon the only people who will look at it and take any notice of it will be people looking at sites like this.
William
I’m guessing you aren’t expecting any Christmas cards from either Labor or Liberal this year. The rest of the article was interesting as well, but obviously not up to the first half.
They quote Peter van Onselen saying that electorates are more volatile than they used to be and that votes could move more quickly. I’m not sure if that’s true but I’m sure Possum could tell us.
I heard the Carpenter piece on RN this morning. Whilst I thought he came across very well with regard to the substance of what he was saying, I do wish his style was not so much one of weary impatience.
Not that RN listeners are likely to be the voters who decide this election.
When you have to deal with inane questions from the likes of Fran Kelly, Simon Beaumont and his ilk, can you actually blame him
Dio- according to 23 years of polling they arent.
Possum
Are you saying that the Professor of Politics at the Edith Cowan University is wrong?
Is he just spruiking for more WA voters to change? Wouldn’t that be a partisan stance not commensurate with his exalted post?
Far be it from me to tell people they’re wrong – for all I know, he might be using something other than every Morgan, ACN and Newspoll since 1987 to arrive at his conclusions.
Well he was a former staffer for Tony Abbott
Make up your own mind on that
Whats Peter “self promotion” van Onselen’s election-prediction record like? Since he’s been a media megastar that is…. Does he have any proven prowess or runs on the board when it comes to predicting election outcomes???
Who cares i spose…he’s a media megastar, thats what counts!
Anyone willing to to call a winner and by how many seats?
Ok,
Labor to lose 7 seats (5 actual, 2 notional); the first eight up the pendulum except Collie-Preston.
How many seats can the ALP lose without losing their majority?
The media trot out PVO for just about anything. He’s always happy to share his political viewpoint and enormous experience as Howard’s biographer to anyone who’ll listen from what I can tell.
Will – you needn’t worry about publishing ‘electoral advertisements’ here so long as its just part of the general commentary (see the “Poll Bludger exception” s. 187B(2)).
As for the doctors – the question is, does it constitue an ‘electoral advertisement’ – if it does – they’re sunk.
According to the guy at the electoral Commission, it’s a cut and dried breach of the act
As they asking voters to consider the issue when voting.
Mail Report.
Both from Frank Alban
Two postcards, one saying Liberals Will Build a Rail Line to Ellenbrook.
Second a generic Liberal one
Will Scan both in.
re Frank @53
Barnett has been harping on about the Inpex deal for weeks
the preferred site is on the Meret Islands in the Kimberley, but that site is not popular with environmentalists, or indeed the local Nats candidate:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/28/2348775.htm
72 Darn – 8 seats.
I reckon Libs will win all their current ones, cept Blackwood Stirling, plus Kingsley, Darling Range, Collie-Preston, Ocean Reef, Riverton NorthWest, Swan Hills, Nedlands and Southern River. Won’t win Jandakot in a pink fit, and Alfred Cove looks unlikely. Biggest swing should be in Southern River.
Hmm, Just heard Bob Maumill say, after some wag suggested some songs to play for Carpenter (about losing) that “They’ll win on the weekend” (paraphrasing)
Frank’s Liberal ad scans:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/libswanhills040908-1.jpg
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/libswanhills040908-2.jpg
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/albanrail1.jpg
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/albanrail2.jpg
The Impex deal is a big one – we’re talking about a multi-billion dollar project (I think I heard 25???) that should be in WA but is probably going to go to NT instead. Someone should be raising merry-hell over it.
Oh – in a sad indictment on my attention span I saw the RPH doctor’s ad and skimmed straight over it – too wordy.
“Someone should be raising merry-hell over it.”
Wasn’t it the reason for the early NT election?
#75 FC….Those ad’s reek of “me-tooism”….. Look at me I came up with the same great idea as he did. Cant see how the punters wouldnt be cynical of that rubbish…he said it, now i’ll say it too.
And why aren’t the media raising it, oh I forgot, it’s the libs that are doing it and it’s ok – now if it was the ALP on the other hand….
Pots & Kettles.
the Impex deal is a huge huge deal, the libs can’t get any info on it though, impex doesn’t want to take sides.
84 Mr Orange the problem the Liberals have is their only experience is in being a prize rabble. The Liberals have a history of dividing the promises into “core” and “noncore” and the difficulty for them is being able to deliver on their promises to the electorate.
Here are the Seats to Watch according to Perth Now, and Swan Hills isn’t amongst them
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24293431-5017005,00.html
88 Interesting that in Morely they are tipping the independent to be in with a chance. What other independents are likely to sneak in on the night that might have escaped scrutiny before the event?
I just noticed something, The Libs are promising a Rail line to Ellenbrook, but there are no plans for extra railcars to run on it
No need for rail cars with noncore promises Frank.
The Liberals don’t believe in public transport
They blatantly copied Labors ellenbrook line plan and PerthNow has put it as the Libs top pledge in their promises guide
And this is how Perth Now have described the ALP Promise.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24293432-5017005,00.html
Oh and there is no policy document on the Rail line on the Liberal website.
But here is Labor’s
http://www.visionwa.org.au/policy/newdirectionpolicy310808.pdf
Obviously the Liberal railway line is more important & sooner, “before 2015″ whereas the Labor one is just “by 2015″.
But on the flyer there is no mention of a time frame and the cost is “up to $850 Million”
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/albanrail1.jpg
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/albanrail2.jpg
96 the cost is “up to $850 Million”
Big chance you will never see it at that price.
‘Midland to Ellenbrook’? I thought the Ellenbrook line was supposed to branch off at Bayswater?
But Labor has said it will cost $850 Million.
The 75km Mandurah line cost $1.3b
This 15km line will cost $850m, it appears increased costs have been factored in.
I can’t the believe the media are so stupid to believe the Libs rail claim, as frank pointed out, where is there policy document?? they dont have one becuase there isnt one!
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