Archive for the 'Polls' Category

Newspoll: Labor 55-45

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Media and Polls
. 7 Comments

After a break last Monday for the NSW long weekend, Newspoll is out with a steady 2PP lead for Labor and a jump in Kevin Rudd’s overall standing. Apparently the Preferred Prime Minister measure, which was so crucial in talking down Brendan Nelson’s leadership, is no longer important. At any rate it’s not been reported in the early story in The Australian, which talks up Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating. It might be more to the point to note that Turnbull has had a negligible leadership effect by any historical measure on the Opposition’s voting intention numbers.

Elsewhere: The Poll Bludger.

Update: Possum. OzPolitics notes the large jump in The Greens’ primary vote.

Obama McCain debate open thread

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Blogging, Foreign Elections and Polls
. 43 Comments

Here they go again! Televised, streamed, etc. in all the usual places. Comment and link as you will. Recycling of partisan talking points strongly discouraged.

A couple of discussion starters - Nate Silver:

Are John McCain’s negative attacks succeeding in eating into some of Barack Obama’s support? They certainly aren’t yet. In fact, Barack Obama has had perhaps his strongest individual polling day of the year.

And my favourite blogger evah (well, up there anyway!), Michael Bérubé:

Continue reading ‘Obama McCain debate open thread’

Essential Research Labor 58-42; Interest rates cut by 100 basis points

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Economics, Markets, Media and Polls
. 10 Comments

As a bit of an update to my post last night, the Essential Research poll is now out, basically showing no change from last time. Possum has more on all the other questions asked. So, we can now be more confident about suggesting that Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has yet to really shift any of the trends that were evident under Nelson - this also highlights the vast over-inflation of the importance of Preferred PM and Opposition Leader approval ratings in most of the punditariat’s commentary. It will be very interesting to see what the delayed Newspoll says - since this is apparently the only poll the punditariat focus on. Where to now for the famous “media narrative”?

Peter Martin has all the wonky stuff worth reading on the Reserve Bank’s 1% rates cut, which a number of banks and lending institutions have indicated will lead to a .8% cut in their variable mortgage rates. Dennis Atkins, writing at Party Games, thinks that the Reserve has given the Rudd government political breathing space.

No early Newspoll; interest rates to be cut

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Economics, Markets, Media and Polls
. 17 Comments

I wonder if no Newspoll is bad news for the pollsters and those who own them. This must be the first Monday in living memory (well, since anyone started paying attention to this stuff before last year’s campaign) when there hasn’t been an early release of selected Newspoll numbers. It couldn’t possibly be because the numbers don’t show any leadership bounce for Malcolm Turnbull, could it? [Update: Or could it be because NSW had a public holiday yesterday?] After all, last week’s Morgan face to face poll showed a straight swap of primary vote from the Coalition to Labor - 1.5%, with Labor on 57.5% 2PP. And ACNielsen and Newspoll a fortnight ago showed a very poor bounce by historical standards for the Opposition.

No doubt we’ll find out.

Malcolm Turnbull has been playing a dangerous game on interest rates. Continue reading ‘No early Newspoll; interest rates to be cut’

The state of Rudd Nation

Published
by
Mark
2 months ago
in Climate change, Economics, Education, Federal Elections, Policy, Polls and Water
. 29 Comments

This time last year, we were all feverishly anticipating the calling of the federal election, which was less than a fortnight away. Now, courtesy of the quarterly Newspoll geographical and demographic analysis we can track where and with whom the Rudd government has been travelling well and less well from January to September 2008 and compare the poll numbers with the election result in November 2007.

Possum has all the spiffy graphs.

As The Poll Bludger notes, there are two really interesting trends in the aggregate poll. First, the Rudd honeymoon is still very much alive for the 18-34 demographic (and it will be intriguing to see some good data on how Turnbull’s elevation shifts this - if at all - down the track.) Secondly, Labor is still doing poorly in the West, and has gone a fair way backward in South Australia. (Incidentally, the data supports the point Kim made here the other day about Labor trending upwards in Queensland federally while Anna Bligh’s state regime goes into a slump - albeit a slump which is still of election winning dimensions even if it’s not a Beattie style landslide. And federal Labor hasn’t been hurt in New South Wales by the implosion of the Iemma government.)

A lot of folks are attributing Labor’s performance in South Australia to the Murray-Darling basin issue. Again, it’s worth noting that Labor still has a primary lead of 3 points over the Coalition, but it is no doubt significant to see eight points knocked off its lead so quickly in the last quarter, after having been stable at 49% more or less since the election. I’d be interested to hear from South Australian LP-ers about what they think is going on.

If it is the Murray-Darling, this might say something interesting about the Rudd government’s ability to deal with relatively intractable problems through its preferred mode of governance. Continue reading ‘The state of Rudd Nation’

Left right hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing

Published
by
Kim
2 months ago
in Federal Elections, Media, Polls, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 5 Comments

The other day I pointed to ludicrously misreported Galaxy polling showing federal Labor improving its vote in Queensland. Yesterday, the other bit of the Galaxy Poll was published in the Courier-Mail showing state Labor going backwards in Queensland. (Although actually, it only shows this if the comparison is with February - the last three polls show the 2PP bouncing around 52% for Labor and the margin of error isn’t stated. But as usual all the focus is on preferred Premier - where, of course, Anna Bligh is still ahead - but not by so much.)

Richard Farmer has pinged what the national News Limited polling pundits haven’t noticed - the movement in inconsistent directions (although the trend in both cases is weak) shows that their current narrative of “balancing” Labor’s federal dominance by turning on state Labor.

Incidentally, Lawrence Springborg shouldn’t get cocky (heh! bad pun!) about all the good news from the meejah. Continue reading ‘Left right hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing’

Lowy Poll 06 Redux?

Published
by
dk.au
2 months ago
in Climate change, Howardia, Media, Policy and Polls
. 4 Comments

Social scientists can be a weird lot sometimes. The latest round of weirdness comes from the Lowy Institute, whose 2008 poll was released today, 8 weeks after the polling concluded. The official line on the climate change questions is that, “Economic considerations overtook tackling climate change as the most important foreign policy goal, but climate-related issues topped the list of threats to Australia”.

But you’d have to be employed at the Opposition Organ to take that kind of analysis at face value Continue reading ‘Lowy Poll 06 Redux?’

Polls mean whatever journalists want them to mean

Published
by
Kim
2 months ago
in Media, Polls and Queensland
. 8 Comments

The Courier-Mail trumpets a Galaxy poll of Queenslanders on federal voting intentions:

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull a hit in Queensland

If you look at the tables, Labor is in a (slightly) better position on the two party preferred than it was in the federal election, on 51-49 in the state (the ALP’s 2PP in Queensland in November was 50.4%). And the Coalition’s primary vote has fallen by .5%.

But:

The fact that Labor’s advantage in the home state of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan could be eroded so quickly is likely to send shockwaves through the Federal Government.

Hardly.

All this is based on some improvement in the ratings on economic management (but with the Coalition still behind Labor). Last year, the Coalition had better poll numbers on economic management - and lost the election.

[Via Oz Politics]

Can politicians walk and chew gum at the same time?

Published
by
Mark
2 months ago
in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, International, Media and Polls
. 5 Comments

The obvious retort to John McCain’s faux suspension of his campaign last week was that Presidents should be able to deal with more than one issue at the same time. That’s obviously true, but it’s also a truism which disguises something - politicians think that the public want their focus predominantly on the crucial issue of the moment (and the media reinforces this with its “narrative” obsession).

It might not have escaped folks’ attention that Kevin Rudd minimised his focus on climate change at the UN in favour of the plan he and Gordon Brown cooked up for saving the world’s finances. Rudd himself mentioned that it would be difficult to concentrate world leaders’ attention on climate change. This rhetoric also provided him with some convenient cover for disguising the switch in focus for the justification of his trip as it came under opposition attack. But it does raise the broader question of which way Kevin Rudd will jump on climate change and emissions trading - perhaps more in terms of the international negotiations (which however can’t be separated from the domestic politics, with the whole question of the significance and timing of Australia’s ETS being crucial to the “argy bargy”).

The Lowy Institute Poll being released today might pose some dangers ahead. Continue reading ‘Can politicians walk and chew gum at the same time?’

Labor takes a hit in the polls in Queensland and South Australia

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 1 week ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, Polls, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 23 Comments

I’m planning at some stage in the reasonably near future to write a longish post about Anna Bligh’s prospects (and I wouldn’t comment on Mike Rann’s, not being a resident of South Australia, and thus I don’t think able to assess them with any authority). But there’s a bit of an indicator of the trend from Newspoll which finds a dead heat in South Australia (50-50 down from 54-46 in the last quarterly poll) and only a slight advantage to Labor in Queensland (51-49 down from 55-45).

However, I don’t buy the whole “balancing state and federal governments” argument. States have political cycles of their own which are substantially independent of federal swings of the pendulum. In Queensland, changes of government are very rare, with only six since 1915. That might give you some idea of why Peter Beattie hung on in 2006 when by rights (and he knew it) he should have lost. And the LNP is still looking quite messy. Aside from the internal shenanigans associated with the Nats takeover, Lawrence Springborg has made a couple of big mistakes by not following up on his teaser campaign with any substantial policy in areas such as infrastructure, health and education and by going relatively silent since his great conservative union was kinda consummated. The Borg is now back in a no policy, carping oppo leader zone - with internal rumblings. So I think 2009 in Queensland is still Labor’s to lose.

Continue reading ‘Labor takes a hit in the polls in Queensland and South Australia’

Government moving too slowly on IR; Essential Research 57-43

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 1 week ago
in Industrial Relations and Polls
. 16 Comments

…45% of Australians think so, according to this fortnight’s Essential Research poll. As a bit of an addendum to my earlier post about Julia Gillard’s speech last week to the National Press Club on the detail of the Forward with Fairness bills which will shortly be introduced into parliament, I should also note that many Labor MPs have been concerned by reports they’re receiving from constituents about continuing abuses of workplace power. This is more the everyday bastardry that WorkChoices encouraged, rather than the headline anti-union moves of big corporations like Telstra. A lot of voters assumed that WorkChoices had already been “torn up”, and there’s significant pressure on Gillard to bring forward some of the implementation dates for aspects of the new legislation.

The whole “keep business satisfied” implementation agenda might have seemed like a good idea last year. It’s not looking so flash now, particularly as the ACTU finally wakes up to the fact that they’ve effectively been locked out of the policy making process.

Elsewhere: More discussion of the poll at The Poll Bludger. Also interesting is the comparison with ratings of attributes between Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd (with the proviso that the data on Rudd dates from June). Turnbull will be worried at the 47% “out of touch” figure. How do you actually turn that around? Brendan Nelson didn’t do so by emoting and going trucking.

Turnbull poll bounce? ACNielsen 52-48, Newspoll 55-45

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 1 week ago
in Media and Polls
. 39 Comments

ACNielsen has Labor behind the Liberals on primaries 42-41, the first time the Libs have been ahead of Labor in the Nielsen poll since September 2006. Labor leads in the 2PP 52-48, and Kevin Rudd leads Malcolm Turnbull on PPM 56-33. Rudd led Brendan Nelson 65-19 in the August poll.

The Liberals have gained 3% on the primary vote and 3% on the 2PP since the August Nielsen poll.

I observed the other day that Possum had calculated opposition leader change bounce averages. It’s for Newspoll, but here it is for purposes of comparison:

…the average Coalition bounce from a leadership change was 5.7% on the primary and 6% on the TPP.

Speaking of Newspoll, The Poll Bludger reports rumours of an early release for the one that normally appears first on Lateline tomorrow night. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, as otherwise the OO will be reduced to writing their new narrative on the basis of a story in The Age. So get in quickly for Possum’s guess the Newspoll bounce competition.

Update: That was quick. Dennis gets to write his story on the basis of the poll he owns. Newspoll has the primaries favouring Labor 42-38 (down 2 and up 1 respectively, and within the MOE as Shanahan notes). The 2PP is 55-45 in Labor’s favour. It was 56-44 last time. Without mentioning the ACNielsen poll, Shanahan has actually written a story that would fit its findings better than Newspoll’s, having to construct his narrative out of the frippery of the PPM where Rudd leads Turnbull 54-24. As The Poll Bludger observes, this matches the Galaxy Poll in the News Limited tabloids on the weekend.

So if we do the comparison with Possum’s calculations, the Turnbull bounce is almost non-existent. Heh.

In reality, we should wait before passing judgement, but it’s fair to say that the previous trend is still very much apparent. Rudd’s losing some of his shine, but Labor’s vote is holding up well.

Continue reading ‘Turnbull poll bounce? ACNielsen 52-48, Newspoll 55-45′

B… b… bounce?

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Media and Polls
. 18 Comments

Oks, there’s got to be some way to work this into a drinking game. Just to prove that political tragics are rooly cool like the kidz on West Wing and not strange nerds really.

Possum has enabled a feature on his blog where you can guess the size of any Newspoll bounce that might occur now that Malcolm Turnbull is Oppo Leader. Wisdom of crowds and all that. No mention of any prizes (hint! hint!*) - at least you can make a buck from the betting markets…

So saying, the average Coalition bounce from a leadership change was 5.7% on the primary and 6% on the TPP. This compares to Labor’s average leadership change bounce of 3.6% on the primary and 1.7% on the TPP. The total average leadership change bounce was 4.6% on the primary and 3.8% on the TPP across the 6 historical examples we have available.

And I’ve got my own idea for a bit of crowd sourced political commentary. Let’s pretend we’re the press gallery and set a % which, if not met, will be decried as a setback, or completely unrelated and probably because of the current position of the moon in the lunar cycle, depending on what mood Dennis Shanahan et al are in. And then we can set a % sufficient to ensure the production of headlines like “Australian politics has fundamentally changed”, “the honeymoon is now over”, “Turnbull reinvigorates Coalition” etc, etc.

Be your own press gallery. Write your own political narrative.

Ps: If Turnbull can’t get 5% on the 2PP, he’s toast. Peter Costello is willing to be drafted. ;)

*Update: Now there’s a prize!

The heroism of Malcolm Turnbull

Published
by
Paul Norton
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Authoritarianism, History, Politics and Polls
. 69 Comments

The OO, without the slightest hint of self-parody, has indulged itself in an orgy of hagiography for new Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, including the following offering from Paul Kelly:

Malcolm Turnbull is a natural leader: bold, clever and visionary… Turnbull fought a heroic campaign to win the republic. In the end he was damned by many republicans, none of whom made anything approaching Turnbull’s contribution and who made the absurd claim that Turnbull had been the architect of defeat (unlike those who actually supported the monarchy).

Students of 20th century history know that it is in the nature of personality cults to rewrite history. However, I cannot allow Kelly’s attempt to exonerate Turnbull’s misleadership of the Australian Republican Movement (admittedly, an organisation chockfull of followers eager to be misled) to go unanswered, not least because Turnbull’s “heroism” included, in November 1997, a gratuitous smear in the national media of a 19 year old Brisbane university student who had the temerity to run for election to the 1998 Constitutional Convention on an alternative republican ticket.
Continue reading ‘The heroism of Malcolm Turnbull’

The Canadian election: Puffin edition

Published
by
Phil
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, Foreign Elections, International, Politics and Polls
. 6 Comments

Yes just like everywhere else Canada is now in the throes of election fever with the polls set for October 14, so as a lapsed Canadian I do take a cursory interest in the goings on in the Great White North.

We’re a week in but the early gaffe must go to the Conservatives for the above political ad of a Puffin crapping on the opposition leader, Stéphane Dion, a priceless moment in political advertising history and another sign that Canadians really are different to their American cousins - political attack ads are clearly not their forte.

Continue reading ‘The Canadian election: Puffin edition’