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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Oh and I note only the Fairfax press are running with the Drug Trafficking ALP donor story as well, it is not on Perth Now, The ABC nor on The West’s website.
Don’t you mean The Libs at $3.40 ?
Frank – there may not be a coalition, but the Nats would still most likely let the Libs form a minority govt – just with a lot more bending them over the barrel than they ever did to Court. Unless you can imagine Grylls, Waldron, Woodhams and Redman all lining up behind Carpenter…
In fact – now that I think of it, it’ll be an interesting weekend to be a National. Embarrassing by-election thumping on one side of the country, balance of power on the other. I wonder what Grylls makes of it all?
sportingbet odds narrowing as well..
Full betting odds here.
http://www.way2bet.com.au/odds_comparison/20929/20930/44843/West+Australian+State+Election
Frank
If Carpenter forms a government with the National, I put the overs and unders for the coalition staying together at 3weeks
So the poor journos need help posting their blogs
It seems Grace over at the West is a busy little blogger, even posting today’s Nesblog on how you will vote.
http://blogs.thewest.com.au/news/news-blog-are-you-ready-to-vote/
have the newspoll figures come out yet
Nope, tonight, as well as Westpoll.
Omodei has a parting shot at the Nationals.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/05/2356045.htm
It will be funny if Newspoll has a swing back to Labor and Westpoll has a swing to the Liberals. They’ll have to get Galaxy to bring out a lunchtime one with a more accurate result.
The National Interest on Radio National will have a special on the WA election tonight. At 6pm eastern time.
Last week there was a discussion also http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2008/2350541.htm
And I just heard that Media Tart Van Onsolen talk up the Liberals on 6PR News by saying that the Libs have kept up the Momentum this week.
Carpenter & Barnett on 6PR taking calls on 6PR after 4pm
And Fairfax is gunning for a Liberal Victory.
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/showdown-in-boom-town-20080905-4a4o.html?page=-1
Hmm,
Perth Now/MissMaud Polls predict a Labor Victory.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24299207-5017005,00.html
Ha, so it wasn’t just my imagination last week. Alison Xamon’s looking the goods, and maybe the very boring Eric Ripper is about to get a nasty shock?
Have been offline for a bit
My 4 Inds are:
Constable – a shoo in and there is no Lib candidate
Woollard
Bowler
Stewart
betting odds still tightening
http://www.way2bet.com.au/odds_comparison/20929/20930/44843/West+Australian+State+Election
ABC says both parties’ polling has them “almost even”, but with the Liberals ahead in “key seats”.
Don’t you love how WA Today has twisted the Bean Poll result only posting the primary vote, compared to Perth Now who did a 2PP.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/the-beans-have-spoken-20080905-4ael.html
Are the liberals ahead in both parties polling ?
Oh and The Leaders on 6PR shortly.
The preference flows represent a bit of guesswork on the part of PerthNow. I don’t think that reporting the results of the poll itself is ‘twisting’ the result.
Who’s the dick interviewing Carpenter?
Centrebet tightened again
Lab now 1.30 Lib 3.25
Harvey Deegan
Would you expect Van Onsolen to be doing anything else other than backing the Liberals?
How many copies did his biography of the Rodent sell?
Odds now going back towards Labor on betfair lol this is a nerve wracking rollercoaster
Barnett is stumbling on Tax Cuts. – blaming Treasury for not giving an accurate figure.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/labors-cash-link-to-drug-trafficker-ahead-of-wa-election-20080905-4adz.html
The last thing Labor needs on the eve of an election lol!
‘The Western Australian Labor Party received $2000 four years ago from a Sydney businessman and property developer convicted of conspiring to supply over $100,000 worth of drugs – raising fresh questions about political donations.’
And the Mauds Coffee Bean poll has spoken with the Libs ahead by a nose!
Still One vote One value may upset the party in the end, a close race most likely for tomorrow. But with what a shambles the State ALP branches are in almost suffering defeat in the NT and having the Premier, Deputy Premier and Treasurer sacked or leaving politics altogether it is the last thing Carps needs on the eve of an election.
We could be on the verge of a Liberal State win the first for nearly a decade, hey when Big Kim says you’re doing it tough he’d probably be right.
Still its anybody’s guess…..
I’m sure there are a whole heap of people listening to 6PR this Friday afternoon.
Rivetting stuff, much better than being at the pub.
Glen, That is old news and has ONLY been published by Fairfax – No other media media outlet has published it.
Frank, anything this close to the election regardless of who’s reporting it could prove devastating. Plus considering how corrupt the State ALP is, it doesnt look good regardless.
Based on the 6pr performance, who could in any seriousness vote for Barnett!
6PR and WaToday are doing their best to prop up the Libs
And frankly Barnett was terrible, had no clue on house prces and was very shallow on Tax Cuts – fancy blaming lack of access to Treasury Moddelling for being unable to give an approximate figure.
Colin did a beaut job on 6pr, what are you talking about.
Carps looks and sounds as if he hates the job. Who could blame him!
Frank is obviously a signed and active member of a labor party branch – Colin would look bad if he had a halo and wings according to him.
Frank, Colin was forced to run a small target campaign because Carps wanted an election because the ACCC came out with the final report on how corrupt the WA ALP is. Had this been a proper campaign and not started during the Olympics, the Libs and all the other parties would have been able to run more comprehensive policy platforms.
The blatantly anti labor reporting in WA is so over the top this election that it is actually winning some voters over to labor. Birneys statements about the assistance given to the libs by the west help affirm labors underdog status and may well backfire on the west by delivering labor votes from voters who feel that their being treated unfairly.
6PR haven’t got that much clout with only 10.3% of the available market.
http://www.blackman.com.au/perth508.pdf
How can anybody vote for a political party any party that in government had 5 ministers resign for corruption? If it were a Liberal Government id be rooting for a change in Government.
You cannot reward any political party for corruption plain and simple and that is the major reason the Libs are in with a shot tomorrow.
Of Course I am – At least I’m upfront, unl ike the Conservatives
Why are Liberal ads still running on perthnow? I thought there was a media blackout?
Glen, this beat up is only exceeded in its inanity by the glee with which you report it.
How stupid do you really think WA people are that they would accept this crock coming as it does from the usual suspects?
A donation of a paltry $2000 made four years ago pales into insignificance with the killing the Liberals were hoping to rake in from the money stolen by Firepower and Tim Johnston from vulnerable Western Australian investors. Who was it that tried to cash in on that little scam on behalf of the Liberals?
Oh yes, WA’s very own Liberal Party deputy leader, Julie Bishop.
I think websites are exempt due to a loophole.
And the Liberal Cheersquad are ringing 6PR in droves.
I think the election will be a Lib win which makes me sad as they are so pathetically poor. The reality was a long election would have been better for Labor to show the Libs have no policies whatsoever other then sending people to jail.
Lets be clear Carps destroyed the political careers of those involved in the CCC stuff and it was Labor which brought the CCC in. The problem I think is Labors campaign has been very poor and has failed to show up how pathetic Barnett has been. Also the west is practically baying for Labors blood. I have never seen a paper act in the way it has during the election. There should be an investigation into it.
Ok I’ve stopped listening to 6PR, I just cant stand it
Anything negative in the last few days can hurt, even though we dont have a proper picture on whether it is authentic or not.
How about Rippers performance trying to pull a 2005 black hole in the Libs costings for 2008, not likely given Troy Buswell has a sniff of the Treasurership.
WA’s will probably vote on how they did in 2007, in the Libs favour, but the worst result would be giving the Nats the balance of power. I hope either the ALP or Libs can get a majority government.
Did you hear that woman go on about Kalamunda Hospital – ffs, Swan Districts is only about 10-20 minutes away. And the guy whinging about the Joondalup Special Events Station, I’m sure the PTA would’ve taken the number of passengers who would use it into account.
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