Comments on: Essential Report – October 7

By: onimod

onimod — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:32:56 +0000

To borrow a bit of US terminology – Turnbull needs a ‘game changer’ at this point, because despite the world coming down around us it’s having apparently little of no effect politically. I don’t think he’s got it in him – even the usually meek 7:30 report called his intellectual bluff last night – first Mark Bannerman effectively laughed at him to his face and Alan Kohler doubled up with “He’s just saying something political, really, it’s not particularly sensible thing to say…”

History says that popularity is linked to economic prosperity. Either something’s happened to history, or the turmoil is actually driving voters to labour. I just can’t imagine that there isn’t a set of electors who voted Rudd, but are now running back to JWH’s skirts. I wonder if somehow Turnbull isn’t actually innoculating The LP against this historically typical return?

I wouldn’t mind seeing that graph with the adjusted methodology applied to the pre-July numbers (if that’s possible) because the consistency is pretty amazing really.
Maybe I just find it amazing because it’s so starkly in contrast with ‘the narrative’(TM).

By: Possum

Possum — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:46:15 +0000

Onimod,

As you could imagine, pollsters are pretty secret squirrel when it comes to their methodology, but I can confirm that The Essential Report improved and refined the mechanics of their sampling frame and it’s population distribution around the end of June, which appears to have resulted in that substantial reduction in variance.

I haven’t really been following any Australian betting markets lately – but it’s a good question!

By: onimod

onimod — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:06:41 +0000

Hmmm – any chance that Essential Research are fine tuning their weightings – hence the reducing amplitude of the first two graphs?
Otherwise the electorate has either switched off, or grown pretty comfortable with ‘Kev from Queensland who’s here to help’.

Is there a betting market on Turnbull reaching the next election?

I’m a bit struck by the responses to the maternity leave questions – we really are out of step with the developed world there, and I’m not sure what the drivers really are – is it really just envy that someone’s getting something (for nothing!!)?

By: Cuppa

Cuppa — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:14:52 +0000

Not a bad set of numbers all round!

The total disapprove figures for Kevin Rudd (31%) are lower than the Coalition primary vote of 36%, indicating that there are some Coalition supporters who approve of the job Kev is doing. If an election were held this week, that situation would be very helpful indeed.

The figures of support for climate change action look encouraging as well. Labor appears to be playing the politics on this quite successfully.

If the fallout from the economic crisis continues all the the way into 2010, the anticipated ETS commencement year, the governemnt will have to juggle most energetically to keep all balls in the air at once. I’m confident they can do it; I just hope Kev and Co don’t burn out in the meantime.