Nielsen: 52-48 to Labor in Victoria
A Nielsen poll of state voting intention in Victoria has Labor in the lead, but doesn’t suggest last week’s turmoil has changed things much.
The Age has taking advantage of the Victorian Liberals’ turmoil to sent Nielsen out into the field for a state poll, something it used to do regularly but cut back amid organisational cutbacks over recent years. The poll goes somewhat closer to script than the ReachTEL poll of a few days ago, having Labor in the lead 52-48 on two-party preferred. That’s all GhostWhoVotes has for us so far, but there will surely be more to follow.
UPDATE: The primary votes are 41% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor and 13% for the Greens. Suggestions of a honeymoon effect for Denis Napthine are provided by a 40-38 lead as preferred premier against Daniel Andrews and a 45-37 lead over Ted Baillieu, which with extra options provided becomes 31% Napthine, 28% Baillieu, 10% Mary Wooldridge, 6% Matthew Guy and 4% Michael O’Brien.
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#Nielsen Poll VIC State Primary Votes: L/NP 41 ALP 37 GRN 13 #springst #auspol
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#Nielsen Poll VIC Preferred Premier: Napthine 40 Andrews 38 #springst #auspol
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#Nielsen Poll VIC Preferred LIB Leader: Napthine 31 Baillieu 28 Wooldridge 10 Guy 6 O’Brien 4 #springst #auspol
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#Nielsen Poll VIC Preferred LIB Leader (Napthine or Baillieu): Napthine 45 Baillieu 37 #springst #auspol
Matthew Guy with 6%. The only way to respond to that is with hysterical laughter.
Leading Andrews by only 2 points is not a good sign. Neptunium needs to establish himself as a credible Premier ASAP. If he doesn’t, then the next election will be Labor’s to lose.
Full disclosure: almost a week ago, I dismissed a Victorian poll as pointless and that Baillieu would still have a good chance of re-election. I made that post before learning of last week’s saga (I was completely flat out and had no time for news) and admit I was wrong but I also protest the claims made by some hacks that I was calling the next election for Baillieu – I just said it was too early for victory celebrations from Labor.
Have to say that given the pain the Libs went through last week that polling is better than I expected.
@Carey Moore
Agreed, local knowledge of Neptunium would probably help as to why he isn’t given the ‘rise’ of honeymoon period compared to others.
Although it could be a delayed reaction, guess it’s better to wait for another poll or two just to be sure.
CM,
I can’t recall you making the comment, but the general impression I’ve got from comments here is that its too early to call. That’s because it is, the Liberals face greater challenges than a few polls, there’s the overdue redistribution which is likely not to be in their favour. There is the Upper House Liberals who don’t really want Baillieu or Napthine, however their preferred option is either unknown or disliked, its a bit hard to tell from this poll.
One thing you could take from the poll is that hard line conservative Liberals aren’t liked here, hence the better showing for the old guard liberals like Napthine, Baillieu and Wooldridge. Guy could also be tainted by being a radical Planning Minister with a Kennett-esque vision. Or no one cares.
Oh, and the election is over two years away. That’s the major thing to take out of the “too early to tell”.
Unless the incompetent, unstable, wasteful, disorganised, chaotic, soap-opera government with its very, very tiny control over Parliament, manages to stuff up that control.
(Sorry, just wanted to feel what the boot felt like on the other foot).
lol @ the reachtel polls getting contradicted
I will say it again the opinion polling are nothing but farcicals
Bugler “Oh, and the election is over two years away.”
The next election is 29 November 2014 which by my reckoning is just over 20 months.
zoidlord,
I think you’re right there. It’s my feeling that it won’t take long for Victorian voters to give the thumbs down to Napthine.
He’s already flagged “asset” sales. It’s my belief that voters had a gut full of that after Kennett’s fire sales.
People who’ve had a gutful of asset sales need to stop voting economic “rationalists” into office then.
Re my comment @ 16, that goes for economic rationalists from both sides of politics.
Arrnea,
True, to an extent. But at least Labor “rationalists” are rational.
What polls are farcical, Meguire? They’re accurate, within a margin of error (usually small), at the time they were taken. Newspoll in WA was almost spot on.
Napthine has the ‘anyone but Baillieu’ bump but it’s pretty small.
William, are you doing the group subscription again this year?
No, they’re just not always rusted onto the Austrian economics and sometimes realise that a little Keynesian economics would do a world of good (eg. the stimulus spending to keep Australia out of recession).
It’s all Tony Abbott’s fault – he’s just not liked.
You’d prefer irrationalists, I take it?
No, I’d prefer people who see the sense of Keynes to people who kowtow to finance capital and blindly follow the likes of Hayek and Friedman.
Trickle-down economics is a joke.
https://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/an-faq-for-mainstreamneoclassical-economists/
The above may be helpful.
There’s no-one in Labor who would disagree with that, so to talk about “Labor economic reationalists” is bunk. But since Labor has abandoned the failed doctrines of socialism, and accepted the existence of the capitalist system, Labor supporters have to acknowledge that the laws of capitalist economics can’t be simply ignored. If governments rack up unsustainable debt through social spending, or if they tax the productive sections of the economy to death, then the result will be bankruptcy a la Grecque. Keynes himself was no socialist, and was very firm about this in advising the postwar British Labour government.
Where in my posts have you seen me advocating socialism? I’m fully aware that Keynes is no socialist – he’s simply a capitalist who figured out how to work the capitalist system to the best advantage of the public, instead of to the advantage of the very wealthy.
My criticism of Labor on this is aimed at mostly Labor Right figures who think privatisation is a good idea, or that the private sector is in any way more suitable for providing essential public services than the public sector.
Such is either a failure to recognise the fundamental difference between how a private business operates (to turn a profit) or a disingenious, self-interested desire to trick other people into failing to recognise this (for the interests of the very wealthy that I mentioned before). This shift *is* the problem with Labor – they’re trying to gain Liberal voters by appealing to them with economic rationalism – and Labor’s been doing it since Hawke.
Keeping debt under control *is* important – but keeping people in work is *more* important, because if unemployment climbs, you have a corresponding drop in government revenues from taxation and also the amount of money flowing through the private sector in the form of consumer demand, which just leads to even more unemployment – a la Spain and Greece.
I guess that most of those polled were too embarrassed to tell the pollsters that they had not heard of Napthine and instead approved of him by default.