Morgan: 53 to 47 in Labor’s favour
The Morgan poll from the last two weekends is out. The poll of 2006 voters was conducted over the weekends of 2-3 and 9-10 April.
The headline result continues the downward trend for Prime Minister Howard in recent polls. If the preferences of the minor parties were allocated as they were at the 2004 Federal election the two-party preferred vote would be 53 per cent for Labor, and the Coalition on 47 per cent. This would deliver a landslide win for Labor.
Since the last Morgan poll, primary vote support for Labor rose by 4 percentage points to 43 per cent. Support for the Coalition fell 3.5 points to 40.5 percent. This is 5.9 percentage points below the Coalition result at the 2004 Federal election.
The spin from the pollster was:
“The latest results must be of concern to the L-NP, and Mr Howard in particular.
“Even before the latest back flip - changing the Medicare ‘Safety Net’ - was announced, there was concern in the electorate about broken promises and the Government not delivering on promises.
“There is also a continued undercurrent of ‘dishonesty’ and ‘lies’ emerging throughout the qualitative research, especially associated with John Howard.
“However, the real concern for the L-NP must be interest rates. Support for the L-NP is driven predominantly by their perceived strength as better economic managers and their ability to keep interest rates low.
“The electorate remains concerned about interest rates, despite the Reserve Bank deciding to hold interest rates in April.
“Continued discussion about the sale of WMC Resources to BHP Billiton and the undercurrent of concerns over overseas control and uranium issues is just another thing for the Howard L-NP Government to deal with at this time.”
Morgan has estimated the primary vote for Labor at a higher rate, and the primary vote for the Coalition as a lower rate, when compared with the other pollsters. This suggests some caution should be exercised with these latest results. Nonetheless, it appears that the post election honeymoon for the Coalition is definitely over.
Click here for my opinion poll graphs, which have been updated will be updated shortly.