A reasonably happy result for Rudd. From primary support of 35, 40 and 15.
Main tables here. Also perceived standard of living here.
In defence of two party preferred
Some people say: forget the estimated opinion poll two party preferred support, Labor can’t win with 35 percent primary vote. They have a point: it’s hard to imagine a Labor victory with such a vote.
But it is even harder to imagine the Coalition winning with 40 percent if Labor gets 35 and the Greens 15.
People are also a bit right when they reckon estimating 2pp from such low major party primaries is a tad unreliable.
But in the end, respondents who tell pollsters they support a minor party/independent are either going to move back to a major party or give their preferences to them. We need some idea of two party preferred. In each seat, it’s what wins.
If the pollsters didn’t give us 2pps we’d have to do it ourselves from the primaries.
The worst argument against 2pp is that apparatchiks in the PM’s office or somewhere don’t believe in them, that when they phone thay say “mate, just give me the primary votes and who has best haircut/nicest personality etc rating.”
We are supposed to defer to these institutionalised, spotty youths who probably had political strategy drummed into them by someone like Wayne “keep it simple mate and stay on message – never mind the personality” Swan?
I think not! I’ll remain a 2pp man, thanks.
Update: Peter (not me) in comments makes the point that if you assume the Green flow to Labor is as low as 2/3 (instead of 4/5 as at last election), and that “others” slightly favour the Coalition as they did in 2007, you end up with the opposition a little ahead on 2pp – say 51 to 49.
But these are of course just assumptions as well.
It would be great if someone did a huge survey of current Green voters and asked them which party came from and where their preferences are likely to go.
Good post, nice one Peter
.
Everything I wrote on the previous thread rings true. A terrible result for both sides of politics.
The ALP’s primary vote of just 35% is dreadful, but the coalition primary vote since the last Newspoll has actually fallen. The media have been ripping into the PM and there appears to be community concern about his performance but there is absolutely no enthusiasm for the alternative.
It appears to me that some disaffected ALP voters and moderate Liberals are parking a vote with the Greens or others. Where will they go? I suspect they will eventually go home when they cast a compulsory preferential vote, except in the odd seat where the Greens have a chance of out polling the Liberals.
I agree with Peter, an election sooner rather than later. Late August, before footy finals and state election campaigns.
Nice poll for Rudd against the grain of the Nielsen. Although Labor primaries have not moved, coaltion have come down.
I guess tomorrow the OZ will focus on the preferred prime minister result which is getting closer to spin some positives for Abbot.
As Peter said the 2PP is what counts at the ned of the day.
Also if the WA vote has gone down a lot for the ALP as indicated in Westpoll, this must mean the the ALP vote has increased in other states to compensate. Would this mean that NSW and QLD (and SA) are not as bad for Rudd as the OZ has been saying?
Just to remind everyone that since he became leader in 2006 Rudd has only lost 1 Newspoll (49/51). That must be close to 100 Newspolls he has won or tied. Not bad for a leader soon to be dropped. How many Newspolls had Howard lost after 3.5 years as leader?
well despite all the spin, the venom and the selling of the narrative the miners wanted and the Oz and Shanahan , Milne,. BOlt et al- it seems 1. people were not listening.
2. people thought for themselves.
3 the media is not as important as it thinks it is.
4 Billonaire protests and designer demo’s don’t get a lot of support.
As a West Australian I have to say- where are the benefits of mining in my community? Water up, elctricity up, gas up. More pain to follow with more price increases..
A newspaper that is so liberal its cockeyed..
So anyone care to tell me what did mining do for the community apart for those directly involved in it?
And well done to Mr Rudd for keeping his cool after the insulting questioninbg by Tara Brown on 60 Minutes.
Ben, you were exactly right — from a 52-48 ALP TPP, the headline in the Oz was…
ABBOTT NARROWS GAP ON RUDD
Hilarious. I moved to the US two years ago and have been trying to keep up with what’s going on in Australian politics as best I can. It’s almost funny to read The Australian these days. It’s pure theatre from one side of the aisle.
“It’s almost funny to read The Australian these days.”
Unfortunately for the government it isn’t just the Oz now. I heard ABC’s yoof network news running the exact same line – and failing to mention the 2pp results at all in the story.
Seems like the narrative has been set &, absent any dramatically out of script issue arising, everything will continue to be filtered through the same prism.
This result is not what the OZ and Shanahan wanted. They were ready to wage a major campaign against Rudd based on a Nielsen-like result. Of course the campaign will continue but even more irrationally than usual.
Some are saying that Labor cannot win with a primary vote of 35%. Possibly. It depends on preferences. But Peter observes that it is hard to see the Coalition winning with 40%. It needs a primary vote much higher that the 2007 result [42.1%] to have a good win. There is no Greens-like back-up for them.
For Labor, it is all about the ETS and credibility or the lack of it. If it wants to improve its primary vote, it has to do something about placing a price on carbon. Rudd has to trust his own judgement on this and not the NSW right.
The Australian has been predicting a liberal win since 2006.
They have very low influence on public opinion. People make vote based on economics and policy, and Kevin Rudd dealt much better with the economy than the libs owuld have, and he actually has policy, which the Oppn. does not.
He will in the election with an increased margin.
Spot on, Peter. “If the pollsters didn’t give us 2pps we’d have to do it ourselves from the primaries.” Every pundit should have that line tattooed on their forearm or at least placed somewhere prominent where they can’t forget it.
Interesting that Catalyst is suddenly so keen to accept a poll at face value. No attempts to second guess, “look deeper”, or “read between the lines” like before, Catalyst???
You won’t read this narrative in The Australian, of course, but if we look at Newspoll on 30 April and compare it to the current one, movement in voting intention looks like this:
Primary: Government unchanged; Coalition down 3%; Greens up 5%
Two Party Preferred: Government up 3%; Coalition down 3%.
Rather spoils the ‘mining tax disaster’ discourse doesn’t it?
This is off-topic but I’m bored of marking.
Online ‘polls’ ought avoid blatant questions like ‘voting intention’, unless they are keen to demonstrate how easily and quickly such ‘polls’ are rigged by partisans.
This ‘poll’ from the Courier-Mail website today:
Which party will you vote for at the next election?
Labor 10.33% (367 votes)
Liberal 76.28% (2711 votes)
Greens 7.06% (251 votes)
Other 6.33% (225 votes)
Total votes: 3554
Phil,
And if you take the one from the fortnight before you get Labor down 8% on primaries and 2% on TPP.
Itereesting, but 35% is still a disaster. Possum Comitatus over at Crikey! has shown that there is a declining support for the view that Green preferences will flow to the ALP at the 80% rate figured by Newspoll. In fact, PC indicated that the level is heading toward 66%.
Under that arrangement, with the scenario posted above, it gives the following Libs 45%, Labor 45% with only the minor Right-wing parties to figure in the count. No guesses where they will go…
Actually given all the media hype it was a good result- I am still convnced that without all the negatives it should have been higher with the paid parental leave scheme being passed.
Something that families have waited decades for-
The poll actually had not moved so much, but given the huge importance placed on it- it had more significance that it should have.
No I do not trust the MSM – they wree never as negative under Howard- but then he courted them.
I still say if I wanted to I could run a poll to give me close to the result I wanted – poll certain area codes,ring at times more suited to one demogaphic than another, poll RSL clubs and nursing homes,ask for age specific groups etc..And I have never worked for a pollster or know anything about their methods.
Have just looked at the primary vote on Newspoll for the past six months since Abbott took over as leader and the Coaltion’s primary has ranged from 38 in December 2009 to 40 in today’s Newspoll. It was higher in the past month at 43 so perhaps the story is Abbott is ‘failing’ and Abbot is ‘not cutting thorugh’? No of course not as it does not fit the narrative the media wants to run.
It the Australian Democrats hadn’t trashed their brand with the GST concession and infighting then they could have dominated the Senate over this next decade.
EQ
60 minutes Rudd interview again shows Rudd is comitted to CC , and has NOT backflipped Rudd believes its obvious that Liberals & Greens Senate rejected an ETS and not he
So Rudd corectly feels he has simply delayed his ETS Bill because it is now obvously a politcaly academic polisy that will always be rejected by th Liberal & Greens
In Rudd’s “nerd polisy theory” mind , its quite logical to defer ETS Bill and 60 minutes interview showed this
In politcal practice it creates a disasterous polisy vacuum , and a false back flip perseption of no conviction resulting in 35% POV….meaning election may be decided by luck as to where votes fall in a host of now ‘new marginal seats’ One can not now forcast result from curent Newspoll Headline 2 PPT’s
Two bits of info from today’s Essential that should dispell any thought of a 1/3 Green’s preference flow to the libs!
79% of Greens voters … thought the Liberal Party should change their leader.
Greens voters preferred Kevin Rudd 64% to 9%.
So it mnakes last weeks’ Neilson poll with a headline win for the Libs fairly odd?
It doesn’t really.
They could all be right within margin of error. Say the “true” position was 50-50, with a MoE of 3.5% (which I think is what is the accepted value), all of the recent Newspolls, Essentials, Nielsen and even Morgans would be correct.
MDMConnell -
It doesn’t alter the fact that since the mining tax was announced on 2 May the Government vote has gone up and the Opposition vote has gone down on Newspoll. I repeat: it rather spoils the preferred OZ discourse doesn’t it? I don’t know what the real picture is in voter land and neither do you. My point is about the use of the data by The Australian.
There seems to be an abnormal amount of relief here at a poll that says one major party is pulling 35% of the primary vote. Considering there is’nt much change in the primaries or 2PP, I think the oz is probably right in commenting in the only thing of real note, the change in preferred PM. Most of the articles in said paper were certainly fairly benign today.
As badm0f0 mentions above, its not just the obviously “bias” Oz nowadays. Local FM radio station, usually as left as left can be only spoke of the change in preferred PM as well. They certainly beat it up far more than the Oz did.
If only the media had thought to scrutinise Rudd as much 2 years ago, maybe he’d have paid more attention to policy implementation instead of popularity.
Badmofo
“Seems like the narrative has been set &, absent any dramatically out of script issue arising, everything will continue to be filtered through the same prism.”
The media is obviously pursuing the narrative that Abbott will take over as Prime Minister, capatalising on widespread dissatisfaction in the populace with Rudd. The only question is, what magical event will they point to in the election campaign as the moment Abbott ‘lost’ the election? I wait in anticipation.
(Many here will remember such defining moments [sic] as the Latham handshake, the Tasmanian loggers, the troops home for Christmas, or, to leave Latham for a minute, the Candles on the Cake)
I suggest that there should be an annual Award for the most blatantly biased and inacurate comment on a poll.
The first winner of the ( Pravda ?) Prize would be Shanahan in the OZ..and the Oz would scoop the pool !
Brian Mac, get it right, according to some on here the actual polls themselves are biased unless the indicate a positive result for Labor:)
lindswiggo: strawman, much? Name one person and provide their quote.
Ask politly next time and I might
I’ll take that as an admission of guilt.