Polls and speculation heat up

13

Speculation is intensifying about the possibility of an August election being called in the next week or two.

Next Monday is the deadline to call an election for August 24, and a week later will be the deadline for August 31.

The ALP’s caucus will be meeting in Balmain next Monday to consider Kevin Rudd’s proposals for party reform. A scenario has been painted where Rudd would go straight from a successful meeting to call an August 24 election, but Antony Green has pointed out this would be technically difficult.

An August election is certainly a serious possibility – although it would contradict the theory that Kevin Rudd is aiming to build up his presence as an incumbent Prime Minister in the way that Julia Gillard failed to do in 2010, if he was to call the election relatively early in the same way as his predecessor.

Peter Brent at Mumble has long been pushing a theory that Julia Gillard’s prime ministership was damaged from early on by decisions that eschewed her role as an incumbent Prime Minister: not moving into the Lodge and calling a relatively early election. It’s become conventional wisdom (not without basis) that Kevin Rudd will benefit from more time to act as an incumbent Prime Minister and build up authority before going to an election.

An election called in September or October would give Kevin Rudd more time to remind people of his incumbency and his experience as Prime Minister and cast him in a favourable light compared to Tony Abbott.

While I think there’s a strong theory that would explain Kevin Rudd waiting to call the election, I can’t deny the significant amount of speculation in favour of an August election. Catherine King, the minister responsible for the Local Government referendum, today stoked more speculation about an early election date by raising the prospect of holding the referendum on a different date to the election.

We’ll keep a close eye over the next two weeks to see if the election is called – my daily posting of electorates will conclude on August 11, and I plan to do some other blogging about the shape of the campaign.

We have now received a full cycle of polling from the major pollsters since Kevin Rudd replaced Julia Gillard as Prime Minister. William Bowe’s BludgerTrack polling average now has the two-party-preferred vote as an effective tie, with the Coalition leading on 50.1%.

On such a vote it’s entirely possible that either party could win a majority, or that another hung Parliament could be elected. Some state-based polling suggests that the ALP is on track to do better on a tied vote due to a stronger vote in Queensland.

The polling average also hints at a lower Greens vote – with BludgerTrack putting the Greens on 7.3%.

It’s difficult to predict how this would affect the Greens without more consistent state-based polling – some state-based polling suggests the Greens are still on track to get close to a quota in some states, while they will need more preferences in others.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. I think a late August general election is a likely date too.

    The local government referendum will fail and fail even more if it it is held on a different date to that of the general election. Local government is a states issue not a federal one

  2. disagree – Local government referendum is likely to have a better chance, though even then only a small one if it is held separately from a general election.

    Rudd has abetter chance I think if he goes to an election in October than August.

  3. While the general rule is that governments don’t go to elections during the football finals, I have a feeling that if Kevin Rudd wants to wait for an election, a mid-late October election could be possible, effectively eliminating the first half of the campaign (as this will overlap with the football finals and fewer people will be paying attention) and starving Tony Abbott of media oxygen.

    He could then race home in what’s effectively a short campaign. If he waits until November, it’ll appear desperate.

  4. As of this morning, the ALP Australia wide are still 20 candidates short of a full field of 150. Most importantly, among those 20 Seats include the 5 (Rankin, Hotham, Lalor, Kingsford-Smith and Charlton) which all became vacant in the days after Kevin Rudd won back the leadership. In contrast, the Coalition finalised their final pre-selection last weekend. The other one that I didn’t mention was Bennelong, which the ALP disendorsed their candidate. Technically, therefore we cannot go to the polls yet.

    So may I suggest that unless we hear something significant over the weekend, its highly unlikely that we will be voting in August full stop. The earlist most likely date would be September 21 or possibily the most likely will be either October 12 or October 19, which will really play into the hands of Tony Abbott and the Coalition. With 20 Seats short, I know where I would want to put my money on.

  5. Adrian and Doug,

    I be interested to hear your respective rationales for why a local gov’t referendum would or would not do better if held separately.

  6. Its a dud issue for a referendum. Similar local govt referendums have failed previously. If it was run separately voters would resent being required to vote twice in one year.

  7. I’m not an election date speculator, but I think the longer Rudd goes, the greater the chance the Liberals will switch to Turnbull or Hockey. If that happens Rudd Labor cannot win the election. The Liberals are desperate not to be in opposition in the next Parliament and generally the electorate want a change of Government; just not with Abbott as PM.

  8. DB, perhaps you missed Albanese’s comments about Turnbull speculation within the party. I mention it because it’s a clever tactic on his part.

    On the one hand, it adds to the “Labor’s not the only party with internal disagreement” angle, reducing the strength of the argument that Labor shouldn’t be in government because they can’t even keep their own house in order.

    On the other hand, it also actually reduces the Liberals’ likelihood of switching to Turnbull. Coming under attack for this speculation, their natural response is going to be to defend against it, by emphasising a need to all get fully behind Abbott. Thereby keeping Rudd’s preferred opposition in place.

    Note that the Liberals were using the exact same tactic a few months ago, in the hopes of preventing Labor from switching from Gillard to Rudd. That’s why Abbott started talking so much about it – to keep Gillard in place, as his preferred opponent going into an election.

  9. The problem with running a referendum during an election campaign is that it tends to get lost in rough and tumble of the campaign. No one from the major parties will put any energy into the referendum as it takes attention and energy away from the effort to retain or gain government. It simply drops out of view even if it has bipartisan support – the major parties will not draw attention to this as it takes the edge off their concern to distinguish themselves from each other.

  10. On the issue of the date for the election the need for the ALp to work through a local process to nominate some candidates for key electorates is pretty convincing.

  11. The closer the election between the two major parties the less likely they will be interested in the referendum as they want to win government.

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