UPDATE: Morgan’s poll release informs us that this is one of those occasions where Morgan also unloads a mid-week poll conducted on the back of an unrelated survey. This one has Labor’s lead at just 52-48 – but the sample is only 573. The sample size of the face-to-face poll turns out to have been 874.

UPDATE 2: Jamie Walker and Lenore Taylor of The Weekend Australian inform us of a Newspoll survey of 1847 voters conducted this week across six Queensland marginal seats: “the Brisbane-based Liberal seats of Bowman and Dickson, Labor-held Longman to the north of the capital, Flynn and Dawson in central Queensland, also with the ALP, and the Liberal electorate of Herbert, centred on Townsville”. What we really need here is a table, but between them the reports inform us that:

• Support for Labor “has lifted 2.9 per cent since Mr Rudd was elected two years ago, against 6.2 per cent Australia-wide”.

• Two-party support for Labor in Dawson in Flynn has increased almost 3 per cent since the election, despite hostility in those electorates towards emissions trading.

• Satisfaction with Kevin Rudd’s performance as Prime Minister ranged between 46 per cent in Flynn and 61 per cent in Herbert, and averaged 54 per cent.

• “Mr Turnbull’s best results were in Bowman, in Brisbane’s east, and Herbert, where he scored 38 per cent approval; his worst was 27 per cent in Longman, lost to Labor at the last election by former Howard government minister Mal Brough. Satisfaction with the Opposition Leader averaged out at 34 per cent.”

• Preferred prime minister reflected the national situation, with Rudd leading 63-22.

• Overall, “only 26 per cent of voters across the electorates like what (Rudd) is doing with Telstra, only 27 per cent think he is doing a good job with asylum-seekers and 56 per cent think he’s being too soft on them”; however, “sixty-one per cent of voters in the six electorates thought Labor was doing a good job in handling interest rates”.

Other news:

• The Mercury reports former state Labor MP Kathryn Hay has pulled out of her comeback bid in Bass citing health problems. However, her media statement has made a point of telling us she “did not rule out” standing for Labor again, prompting suggestions she might yet seek to replace Jodie Campbell in the federal seat. Alison Andrews of the Launceston Examiner says Hay’s exit “provides the opportunity for newly elected Launceston City Council alderman Rob Soward to rethink trying for state politics”, after he failed to win one of the six positions in the recent preselection vote. For what it’s worth, a commenter on the Mercury article said he had it “on very good authority that Lisa Singh is also looking to jump the sinking Bartlett ship with an eye on Duncan Kerr’s Federal Denison seat”.

• Peter van Onselen in The Australian reports that Labor’s preselection politburo wishes to install social worker Louise Durack as its candidate against Liberal front-bencher Michael Keenan in the Perth seat of Stirling, which has a notional margin of 1.3 per cent after minor redistribution adjustments. Durack failed to carry the highly marginal new seat of Ocean Reef at the September 2008 state election. Another aspirant, Balcatta Senior High School chairwoman Janet Pettigrew, is reportedly being pressured to withdraw.

• James Massola of the Canberra Times reports the ACT Greens are likely to preselect Sue Ellerman for Canberra and Indra Esguerra for Fraser on Monday, but the more interesting question of their Senate candidate will not be resolved for a few more weeks.

• George Megalogenis of The Australian observes that “safe Liberal electorates have borne the brunt of the Rudd government’s clampdown on family payments”. All of the 15 electorates identified as most heavily affected are Liberal seats, including Wentworth, Curtin, North Sydney and Warringah.

• Andrew Crook of Crikey reports the Prime Minister is weighing up whether to stick with Belinda Neal in Robertson or “install a political cleanskin untainted by the saga surrounding the notorious events at Iguana Joe’s”. The opinion of local branch members is unlikely to have much to do with it.

UPDATE: Roy Morgan has joined in on the action with a small sample (546) phone poll including questions on leadership approval, which Morgan doesn’t normally do. It finds Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating down to 25 per cent from 43 per cent in May, with his disapproval up a breathtaking 33.5 per cent to 62.5 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating on 63 per cent, up from 57.5 per cent in May, with his disapproval rating down from 33.5 per cent to 29 per cent. Labor holds leads of 56-44 on two-party preferred and 46 per cent to 39 per cent on the primary vote, which is actually quite mild by Morgan standards. Newspoll has also published its quarterly geographic and demographic breakdowns of recent polling by state, age, sex, and capitals/non-capitals.

Apart from that:

• Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports that Labor preselections for some highly winnable Liberal-held seats in Perth appear to be ”stitched up”. In the only two seats in the country which the Coalition gained from Labor in 2007, Cowan and Swan, those respectively named are Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly and Slater & Gordon lawyer Tim Hammond. Kelly is interesting, as he ran as an independent against state Labor MP Margaret Quirk in Girrawheen at the 2005 election after a split in the Right faction. In Stirling, where decorated Iraq war veteran Peter Tinley failed to unseat current Shadow Workplace Relations Minister Michael Keenan in 2007, the nod is apparently set to be given to Karen Brown, former deputy editor of The West Australian and current chief-of-staff to Eric Ripper. Brown famously failed to win the new notionally Labor seat of Mount Lawley at the state election last September after suffering an 8 per cent swing, which many blamed on Alan Carpenter’s insistence that local member Bob Kucera make way for Brown. Peter Tinley is said to be holding out for a safe seat or a Senate position, and the unlikelihood of either suggests he will not be a starter at the next election. In Hasluck, which Sharryn Jackson recovered for Labor in 2007 after a term in the wilderness, Liberals are said by Taylor to be “working behind the scenes” to secure the endorsement of Mike Dean, who last week stepped down from his high-profile position as president of the Police Union.

• The ABC reports that Kathryn Hay will seek Labor preselection for Bass at next year’s state election. Hay is a former Miss Tasmania who became Tasmania’s first Aboriginal MP when elected at the age of 27 in 2002. After surprising everybody by dropping out at the 2006 election, Hay ran as an independent against Ivan Dean in the upper house seat of Windermere in May, and did very well to finish within 5 per cent of victory on the final count. With incumbent Jim Cox retiring, Michelle O’Byrne a sure bet for re-election, and Labor looking certain to win a second seat but very unlikely to pick up a third, the battle for the second seat is looking like a tussle between Hay, Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb, CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean (who famously came out in support of John Howard at the 2004 federal election) and Winnaleah school principal Brian Wightman, with only the latter looking an obvious also-ran.

• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that George Seitz, western Melbourne Labor Right potentate and state Keilor MP, proposes to publish a “warts and all” account of his career in politics. Seitz is being forced out after nearly three decades in parliament due to a Victorian Ombudsman’s report which probed into the involvement of various state MPs in goings-on at Brimbank City Council. The aforementioned Wallace article is worth reading for a broader overview of the episode’s far-reaching impact on the Victorian ALP.

• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that the closure of nominations has brought no challenges to sitting federal Liberal MPs in Victoria – including Kevin Andrews in Menzies, who was believed to be under threat from former Peter Reith staffer Ian Hanke.

• Nick in comments informs us that according to a Channel Nine news report, Labor polling has it trailing the Coalition 57-43 on NSW state voting intention.