While the campaign has been fiercely fought, there hasn’t seemed to be much for myself to add in terms of blog posts on the front page.
The conversation has been continuing fiercely on the previous election thread and on each seat’s discussions. Almost 2500 comments have been posted throughout August.
Please use this thread to continue discussing the election campaign over this last weekend of the campaign.
RichR – supposedly, what happens is that, until they officially launch their campaigns, they’re able to travel the country on regular government funds rather than campaign funds, so they put off the official campaign launch until the last week or two. I don’t know if it’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. If it IS true, I’d love to see laws passed that say that government-funded travel is limited to activities exclusively done on government business once the caretaker period has been entered… but of course the people who are elected have no motivation to change the law since it benefits them.
Just to make sure it’s clear: I don’t know if the law does say what rumours suggest, or if it’s any relation to why the campaigns launch so late. My comment is based on the supposition that it’s true, and thus not applicable if it’s false.
I’d say it’s more like Rudd getting smashed. He’s down 4pp on approval (32%) and up 6pp (58%) on disapproval for a netsat of -26. BPM shows moves of 3pp for against Rudd and for Abbott for a switch from last week to Abbott up by 2 on 43/41. All this from GhostWhoVotes
Glen, I hope that’s not the case.
Just remember that Newspoll isn’t the most reliable. It generally always understates labors primary and is polling for the Australian. I’d say its probably at 52.5-53 for the libs
And Morgan has the Coalition leading 52-48% with their multi-mode (3 times as big a sample as Newspoll) ALP 34%, Coalition 43%, Greens 11% and Others at 12%.
Reportedly, the rise of 2.5% in Others is mainly due to PUP rising to 4% Nationally and 7.5% in QLD. Looking interesting if that holds……….
The Morgan link, http://www.roymorgan.com/~/media/Files/Findings%20PDF/2013/August/5151-Fed-Vote-September-2-2013.pdf
Hi Glen,
MPs are only representatives of the people. Although they don’t mention it much, MPs are bound to represent the people’s “will” in parliament even if they don’t like it. But people need to write (polite) “my will” letters to express their “will” clearly. That overcomes polititcal motivation (or lack of it).
Morgan has to be understating both Coaltion and ALP primary support as it usually does. Not a fan of Morgan. Usually gets it wrong.
Newspoll is historically the best polling agency. I think that poll understates Labor’s support with the high ‘others’.
I suspect if things stay the way they are for the remainder of the week the LNP will get a primary of 47% or so, Labor 35% or so, Greens probably around 8.5-9% and the remainder being others. I also suspect the Coalition will get more preferences from others in this election as KAP is preferencing the LNP in all seats except 5 and PUP are preferencing Coalition ahead of Labor in all 150 seats. You will more likely see a preference distribution from others to the Coalition in this election of about 65%.
The risk for Labor is in the Senate. The LNP are potentially well placed to control the Senate with persons from other parties excluding the Greens.
I’m going to stick my neck out and say I don’t believe it is as bad for Rudd as it currently seems. (Although they both deserve to loose seats to Independents 😉
Why: Rudd smiles.
Some interesting stats from the AEC regarding prepolls and postal votes. Prepolls are up 60% compared to this stage in 2010 (717K vs 447K). Postal votes applications are up 42% compared to this stage in 2010 (1290K vs 905K). We could be looking at an extra 1 million votes having been lodged before election day in 2013 compared to 2010.
Bear, that would be of major concern to the ALP I would have thought.
DB – I agree. Whilst we have no exit polls for prepolls or postals which are reliable, I hypothesize that the LNP percentage of “early votes” is significantly higher than in 2007 or 2010.
#Essential Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 48 (-2) L/NP 52 (+2) #ausvotes
#Essential Poll Primary Votes: ALP 35 (-3) L/NP 44 (+1) GRN 11 (0)
This is a two-week rolling average and has been 50/50 for the last two weeks. This could point to a significant deterioration in the last week.
Bear Necessities,
As I’ve been on the campaign trail, I think this trend will continue, lots of people have said they have already voted. It’s an area that I have missed out on unfortunately because the big parties have the mindshare. To Glen’s comment earlier, this trend (if it is one) could play right into the hands of the current government. I see them doing a lot more (tax-payer funded) promotion next time before the election is announced then promoting pre-polling/postal as a strategy.
Does anyone have historical stats on postal /pre-polling? I looked at Menzies and a couple of neighbouring electorates there are significant differences in postal results. My feeling is that pre-polling /postal would favour the majors and even the current government if played right. http://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefsByVoteType-15508-229.htm
Oh well, at least there can be no more talk of “confusion” in the polls with this result…..
Ramon – pre-voting has typically had stronger results for minor parties, rather than major parties. Postal voting tends to favour the Coalition. You can view this here:
http://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseStateFirstPrefsByPartyByVoteType-15508-NAT.htm
Apparently Essential have unrolled their numbers for this week only. 53/47 to the Coalition.
So I have in the last 6 days:
ReachTel: 53/47
Galaxy: 53/47
Morgan: 52.5/47.5
Newspoll: 54/46
Essential: 53/47.
Nielsen to come I suppose.
Pretty much every form of media is covered there.
So on a straight line, you are looking at about 11 seats to the Coalition plus New England, Lyne and Fisher. This is 86, but I suspect it might be a bit worse as NSW has 11 of the 21 most marginal Labor seats and NSW appears to be the State (except Tas) that is going to swing the most.
90 odd is certainly not out of the question based on current polling.
WineD and Glen – I think it is a bit hard to judge someone before they are PM to be honest. Give him a go and see how he performs before we cast judgment. From my perpective, my main criticism of this Government has been is so called, ‘progressive’ wealth redistribution policies. It is one of the major reasons why they face defeat. Most Australians are aspirational and to implement wealth redistribution measures is not taken well, even those on lower incomes who hope to do better for themselves in the future. You shouldn’t seek to take monies from companies or people who are making it and transfer it to those who don’t have it as this Government has done. You need to grow the revenue pie and then provide the benefits to the lowly paid if that is what you want to do. This Government have taken benefits or increased taxes (admittedly, probably shouldn’t have had them in the first place) from upper middle income earners and large companies and then provided a substantial tax cut to those on lower incomes. That doesn’t meet my fairness test in my book I’m sorry. It might seem harsh, but it probably underlies why we are what we are (great country but lacking innovation and get up and go) and the US are what they are (even despite their GFC).
Labor’s problem is that they mistook a mandate for repealing WorkChoices as a mandate to redistribute wealth, wage cultural, class and gender wars, and make fundamental changes to the nation in an attempt to change us into a European style welfare state.
Wow…didn’t think this forum doubled as mouthpiece for the IPA.
Abbott on 7.30 report. No cake questions like 1993….. Looking PM material… In the wash up labor will probably be relieved to give up government. Got too hard for them really…..
DB – what you have basically just done is say that Labor has been bad because they follow Labor values rather than Liberal values. Personally, I’m a big believer that properly-done welfare actually helps to boost the economy, thus growing the pie and reducing the negative impact experienced by those bigger companies, etc. I don’t think Labor has it quite right, but I think they had it closer than Howard had it.
As for judging him before he’s PM… that’s kind of what the people of Australia have to do. They need to make the judgement as to whether Abbott would be better or worse than Rudd as PM, whether the government that he would lead would be more beneficial or more detrimental. And my judgement is that he would be worse, and that his government would be more detrimental, based on the points I made in the Dobell comments.
By the way, there’s a question I want somebody, at some point, to ask Tony Abbott. Given that he keeps on referring to this election as a “referendum on the Carbon Tax”, does that mean that, should Abbott lose (and I don’t care about the likelihood of it for the purposes of this question), he and the Liberals will start voting in favour of the Carbon Tax? Somehow, I don’t think so.
On my calculations, DB’s prediction of 35/47/9/9 with 65% of Other preferences going to the Coalition works out to (assuming Greens’ preferences stay the same) 54.8% on TPP. Without the change in Other preferences, I have 54.1%.
Abbotts adress to the national press club was absurd. It was a bit of a waste of time, would have been more useful to break his 1110 day absence on QandA, now Rudd gets a free kick. He sounded like he was reading a childrens book and shouldn’ thave reverted back to his old ways on the carbon tax, its not a strong issue anymore. And as for his history cirriculem, I found it absolutely going too far. As much as the Andrew Bolts might disagree with me, the ciriculum states facts and doesn’t show any bias towards either party
I am watching Rudd on Q&A now and he is not doing very well.
Adrian, are you watching the same Q&A I am? He seems to be answering most of the questions fairly well, and with some of the real enthusiasm for Labor values that has been absent throughout the campaign.
I’m fairly certain you’re a strong Liberal supporter, or at least that you lean well to the right. What Rudd is doing is appealing to the people on the left, finally. His answers aren’t going to make you happy, that’s why you think he’s not doing well. Try to step back and see it from the perspective of someone who holds Labor values, rather than Liberal values. You might just be surprised.
Glen – yes he is doing a lot better now but he started of poorly when I posted my first comment. His answer to the equal marriage question from the “pastor” was very good
Yes, it was, Adrian. And fair enough – he did take a question or two to get his momentum and energy up.
On that equal-marriage question, it harkens back so perfectly to a scene from The West Wing, where President Jed Bartlett completely shuts down a conservative talk-radio host who is at the white house for an event.
I’m really very hopeful that Mr Rudd’s political reawakening hasn’t come just a little too late. If the rest of this week sees him with that level of energy, conviction, and passion, he might just achieve that “miracle” the media has been saying he needs.
Hey, DB – you’re one of the ones who made the assertion that where Rudd is campaigning is indicative of Labor’s chances. How do you explain him campaigning in Longman? Is Wyatt Roy at risk, now?
OK james the reason i say it is weak. Abbott has stated he won’t change his ministry so lets take his word for it. You have Bronwyn Bishop and Kevin Andrews, dead wood has beens on the frontbench. Pyne would be a good deputy leader but hasn’t been able to wow anyone in education policy of the libs (If there is any). Julie Bishop will probably do most international trips instead of Abbott so she will probably be overworked. I’m not going into all members but I’d probably say there is very few who have amazed the public and most people dont even know half the cabinet. In 07, labor used ads with their then shadow ministers so people would know who they are which is why most people knew Plibersek and Roxon from the beginning.
In regards to your labor cabinet position, yes a number of people did leave. People who were targets of the libs (Swan, Conroy, Emerson, Garrett). There were promotions to the talents such as Cameron and Husic to secs, and King, Collins to cabinet. Bowen has served in financial portfolio’s in the early days of the Rudd government so has qualifications. What woould be your requirements for treasurer?
BTW 2007-2010 contradicts your statement about liberal changing leaders
Also worth noting, regarding Chris Bowen, is that he has a degree in Economics from the University of Sydney, showing he knows finance and the economy, and was the president of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, meaning he has experience in running things.
For comparison, Peter Costello was a lawyer, not an economist, while Wayne Swan was in politics from the beginning. So of the three most recent Treasurers, Chris Bowen is the only one who could be said to have had the requisite experience prior to becoming Treasurer.
“So I have in the last 6 days:
ReachTel: 53/47
Galaxy: 53/47
Morgan: 52.5/47.5
Newspoll: 54/46
Essential: 53/47.
Nielsen to come I suppose.”
Very consistent numbers with Essential finally reflecting the others. Still expect a few surprises, perhaps Indi, a Qld regional seat etc but it would be nice to see some more specific seat polling.
A sense of a Coalition landslide might even mean more people look at other alternatives such as an Indie, KAP & PUP which might throw up some interesting results in a bunch of seats.
That is exactly what is happening in the more labor natured electorates Yappo and its preventing the libs from being able to claim the seats
DB: “The risk for Labor is in the Senate. The LNP are potentially well placed to control the Senate with persons from other parties excluding the Greens.”
Not sure that it would be ‘control’ if the likes of Hanson, KAP and FF, Xen, DLP have the balance at the loss of 3 Coalition seats! I wouldn’t want to be the Senate leader negotiating bills – they might begin to understand what it waht like for the ALp in the reps with the last parliament.
Imagine a scenario where Pauline is the deciding vote! After a few months a new Senate with that sort of make up the Coalition might actually prefer that the Greens had the balance!
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/abbott-faces-chaos-in-senate-20130831-2sxqz.html
Observer
I’ll reply to your 5 points
1/There is some deadwood, true. Andrews is a failed minister, true. Bronny is a fossil, but she is the minister for fossils, so there is a sense to that.
33 -5 shadows = 28 ministries. FACT. Of course there will be no reshuffle – yeah right…
Sinodinos is in no danger. Brough was a commissioned officer in the best army in the world. He was a highly successful assistant treasurer, & had the horrific task of the the intervention. Some hack. GET A GRIP MATE.
2/ Your memory is selective. Anyone on the medicare safety net would have a better memory. You and the ALP have a distressing habit of believing your own bullshit.
Abbott was given the health ministry because his predecessor Kay Patterson had totally stuffed it up. Abbott was given a virtual blank cheque by Howard, & told to silence it. Consequently he had a budget no labor health minister could ever dream of. The myth that he administered cuts is labor propaganda, & ridiculous mendacity. Gillard was the greatest education minister in a similar sense, in that she did things to the teachers union in particular that no liberal minister ever could. The reality that she “betrayed “so called labor values for political outcome. same thing isn’t it ??
3/ the howard govt achieved nothing in 11 years in govt ??. IF you are incapable of appreciating historical fact , you are a fool.
4/ Video’s proving intelligence, or capability??. Please you are pathetic. This is pitiful
5/ It is so easy to inspire, & motivate people, by having them despise you like Kevin manages. Helps with team building, & leadership. ARE YOU SERIOUS ????.
Glen
Sorry i’ll have leave it till tomorrow. 3 of the godsons succeeded in distracting me with a 92 Grange. Then we started a”peer ” review. Wolf Blass Black Label, McWilliams 1877, Orlando J.C limited release , etc.
Yappo – it’s likely that the Greens will provide the Coalition with an alternate path in balance of power, should the Coalition win the House (I simply refuse to assume it’s going to happen until it has happened – in the meantime, it’s merely “likely”). The Greens should have 6-10 senate seats, while Xenophon and the minor parties should make up only 5-7 seats.
Not to mention that the Coalition can always try to get Labor support.
The LNP trying to control “right wing” maverick senators in the senate will be interesting to watch. I imagine it would be like being the coach of an U6 football team. You pay attention to one misbehaving boy but the others are giving you the finger behind your back. Interesting times ahead.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2013/09/03/nielsen-53-47-to-coalition-in-queensland/
This article reinforces a suspicion that I’ve had for a while – Labor’s decision to go on the attack rather than selling itself to the people has helped to keep Abbott from gaining a significant number of votes, at least in Queensland, but is driving people to the KAP and PUP (and possibly Greens, although they probably went there in 2010 already). This is supported by the fact that 62% of people planning to vote PUP and 55% of those planning to vote KAP would put Labor ahead of the Liberals on preferences.
It may not work out that way because of HTV cards, but what it does reveal is that Labor is losing its primary vote to KAP and PUP moreso than it was originally expected – these people are moving away from Labor but not moving to the Liberals at all.
And as the article points out, KAP and PUP throw a spanner in the “past preference flow” approach to polling, although HTV cards still throw a spanner in respondent-assigned preferences. This means that we can’t truly know how preferences are going to end up flowing.
Greens vote seems to have actually increased during the campaign, which is the opposite of usual.
William Bowe in Pollbludger has put forward some great analysis on the two QLD polls today completed by Newspoll and Nielson. The main summaries are:
– Newspoll shows a swing to the Coalition of 4.7% in 7 of the 8 seats held by Labor (excluding Griffith – Rudd’s seat). This would result in 5 seats going to the Coalition (on the pendulum) but it appears to be based on preferencing from the last election (i.e. about 60% of others to the Coalition).
– Nielsen has a state based poll of 1014 constituents in QLD showing a 53/47 split to the Coalition based on respondent allocated preferences, not based on normal splits from previous elections. Notably, LNP is polling at 45% (down 1.5% on 2010), ALP 31% (down 3.6%), PUP was polling 8%, Greens 8% (down from 11%) and KAP only 4%.
The difficultly in determining past election preferences in QLD is that KAP and PUP weren’t there. Therefore, it seems that Nielsen have based the 2PP outcome on respondent allocated preferences. The weakness with this is that voters are notoriously not interested in politics. Generally, a large portion follow how to vote cards. From my scrutineering days, I’d put this at about 70%, which somewhat equates to what the Greens end up preferencing Labor in the House of Representatives based on a how to vote which puts Labor ahead of the Coalition in all seats.
PUP is preferencing the Coalition ahead of Labor in every one of the 150 House of Representatives seats on their how to vote cards. I find it inconceivable that voters putting ‘1’ in the PUP bucket will only provide 38% of preferences to the LNP. It just won’t happen. Why? Because as I said, a good portion of voters (and I’d suggest over 50%) are just going to vote in accordance with the how to vote card. That pre-supposes something else however; that in all booths, there are PUP how to vote cards available (and I’d suggest that is not going to be the case, but it might be in the seats where PUP are expected to do well or get 80% of their entire vote).
Based on the usual split of preferences i.e. 70% of Greens to Labor and 60% of others to the Coalition (including PUP and KAP), I get the Nielsen to be 57/43 to the Coalition. I think that is more likely based on the polling done, particularly given that PUP are putting the LNP ahead of the ALP in every seat and KAP are putting the LNP ahead of Labor in about 85-90% of seats.
Overall, it would be reasonable to argue that the Nielsen respondent allocated preferences are flawed given voter ambivalence and the how to vote cards which place the Coalition at a strong advantage. On a more balanced measure, one could argue to split the difference i.e the 53/47 calculated by Nielsen on respondent allocated preferences as against the 57/43 I calculate based on past methodologies, to demonstrate a picture that is not that dissimilar to the last election in QLD overall in 2PP terms.
In conclusion, it may well be the seats closer to the city perform worse for Labor given PUP and KAP won’t poll as high there and perhaps that is where the Coaltiion may gain some seats from Labor (such as Moreton) instead of regional seats (such as Capricornia). And perhaps Labor may pick up a seat or two in northern QLD, if those preference distributions by Nielsen prove to be accurate.
Finally, I don’t believe it is possible for Labor to poll at 47% with a primary vote of 31% in QLD. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this, but if they do, they would be breaking all records on preference distributions; records which have stood now for well over 20 years. Thererfore, I now believe the ALP will do materially worse in QLD than the Nielsen poll suggests, if the primary votes are as Nielsen indicate.
I’m having similar thoughts to you DB. I’m feeling like the LNP is doing relatively well in Brisbane, but I can definitely see Labor holding Capricornia, maybe Blair and possibly even taking Herbert.
The interesting thing I found out of the Nielson poll is that they have PUP at 8% and KAP at 4%, when basically everyone I’ve talked to thought it would be the other way around. Seems like Lazarus seems more likely to go to the Senate than Blundell.
I thought Lazarus was running for PUP in the senate so he could improve his profile in Qld for future promotions or media work. If he does get elected then he could very well retire and Clive could take his place. Silly things happen in Qld politics.
I thought Katter would get 8% of the vote roughly and Palmer 4% in Queensland. I based this off the state election vote for Katter and Palmer appealing to some city voters who won’t go for Katter. I also factored in some Katter voters returning to the major parties.
Polling shows that rough total seems right but I didn’t pick which party would get the higher vote.
I put it down to Katter not doing any advertising and Palmer doing heaps of advertising.
The proportion of voters that follow HTV cards appears to be wildly different depending on which party they support. Major party voters, and Liberal voters in particular, are reputed to follow the HTV far more often than Greens voters. For example, here’s an analysis of the 2010 results showing that the difference between seats where the Greens ran a HTV preferencing Labour versus seats where the Greens didn’t recommend preferences was a measly 2.71%.
I don’t think anyone really knows how KAT and PUP preferences are going to flow until the votes come in on Saturday.
I would like to hear some people’s thoughts on the seats of Denison and Melbourne with respect to a liberal taking Denison and the Greens keeping Melbourne (Currently Wilkie is favoured to keep Denison and the ALP favoured to win Melbourne).
There is limited individual seat polling for these two seats, so if anyone has seen any internal party polling that would shed some light on these seats it would be appreciated.
kme – I got the sense from Mumbles article today that he felt up to 30% would not follow the how to vote card. That would be a big win for the Coalition if in fact these votes are coming off the ALP primarily.
It certainly would. My sense though is that the average “leakage” will be more like 50% – but it will surely vary wildy between electorates and between PUP and KAT. I freely admit that this is pure guesswork, though.
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