Oz Politics Blog

The latest Morgan poll has the Coalition on 51 per cent of the national two party preferred vote.

The primary vote predictions are as follows:

• The Coalition — 43.5 per cent (up 5 on the previous poll)
• Labor — 38 per cent (down 5)
• Australian Democrats — 1.5 per cent (unchanged)
• The Greens — 9 per cent (down 0.5)
• Family First — 2 per cent (unchanged)
• One Nation — nil (down 1)
• Independent/Other — 6 per cent (up 1.5)

Is this an example of the value of incumbency? Has the government managed a negative with the electorate (amendments to the industrial relations system) under the cover of its electoral strength (new anti-terrorism legislation and the arrests of alleged terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne). Morgan seems to think so.

“The introduction of anti-terrorism laws and the subsequent terrorism-related arrests across Australia have overshadowed the continued controversy surrounding the Government’s proposed Industrial Relations reforms.

“The latest Morgan Poll taken after the terrorist arrests showed the L-NP would have won a close Federal Election.”

My suspicion is that the swing to the Coalition in this poll may be more of a statistical artefact than an accurate measurement of community intentions. Those of you who follow this blog closely will know I am always suspicious of large swings between polls.

In this case, I am particularly suspicious as the headline results were taken from last weekend, and the comparison is the weekend before that. Morgan’s usual practice is to publish a single poll result for the two weekends, with the comparison being the previous fortnight.

I will be surprised if the next fortnightly Morgan poll has this degree of support for the Coalition.

The usual graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

In yesterday’s Weekend Oz, Dennis Shanahan accused Labor Candidates of being out of step with their electorates. His evidence was the Australian Candidate Study 2004. Leaving aside some of Shanahan’s questionable analysis, I was intrigued and decided to have a look at the study using Nesstar (go to ASSDA -> Australian Studies -> Politics -> Election and Campaign Studies).

The first thing I discovered was the sample size for each party was quite small. For the Coalition it was 81 respondents. Labor had 87. The Democrats had 92, the Greens 122. Family First, One Nation and the Citizen’s Electoral Council each had around 50. With the non-responders, the sample sizes for individual questions are even smaller. So take the results with a pinch of salt.

The first cross-tab I did, picked at random, absolutely floored me. The question was, ‘How proud are you to be an Australian?’ While 96 per cent of Coalition candidates were very proud to be an Australian almost two thirds of the Green’s candidates were either not very proud or not proud at all. It provides an interesting context for Howard’s use of the dog-whistle term, ‘un-Australian’.

Another huge divide between Coalition candidates and the candidates for other parties was their level of respect for individual freedom in respect of the question “How much respect is there for individual freedom and human rights nowadays in Australia?”

How about whether there is more or less racial prejudice in Australia today than five years ago or whether asylum seekers are political refugees.

The same-sex relationships and abortion questions brought the Family First candidates out in droves.

National service was an issue for One Nation. As was law and order, the death penalty, engagement with Asia and Indigenous affairs. No surprises there!

Also unremarkable was the 91 per cent of the Greens candidates who wanted stronger measures against pollution; however, I was intrigued by the almost 7 per cent who did not.

And I would like to meet the five Family First candidates who thought there was not enough nudity and sex in films and magazines. I want to ask them why and why they joined Family First.

Seriously, these last two results suggest some of the candidates may have had difficulty completing the survey forms! (Alternatively, political parties might not do a good job at screening candidates).

Still, all very interesting. It might provide a more empirical base for a party preference tool than my current test.

The critical issue at the heart of The Dismissal was money. Since the Glorious Revolution of 1689, the Crown has required the consent of Parliament to raise taxes and spend money. This requirement is a foundation of the Australian Constitution.

In October 1975, the Senate refused to pass the Government’s budget. It resolved in respect of each of the budget bills,

… this Bill be not further proceeded with until the Government agrees to submit itself to the judgment of the people, the Senate being of the opinion that the Prime Minister and his Government no longer have the trust and confidence of the Australian people …

The month long standoff between the Prime Minister and the Senate was resolved on 11 November 1975 when the Governor-General unilaterally dismissed the Prime Minister and appointed the Leader of the Opposition as a caretaker Prime Minister. The new Prime Minister saw the Budget passed. The Governor-General immediately dissolved both houses of Parliament, and an election was held on 13 December 1975. The Whitlam Government was soundly defeated at the poll.

Could it happen again? Absolutely! For example, it is entirely plausible that Labor could win the next election, while the Coalition retains sufficient numbers to block Budget bills in the Senate. If this happened, the fundamentals are in place for the Senate to refuse supply to the Government.

Is it likely? It depends on what you mean.

If you were asking whether it is likely that a hostile Senate would refuse supply in the future — I would say yes. However, an opposition controlled Senate is only likely to continue blocking supply if it judged the mood of the electorate was in its favour and against the government of the day.

If you were asking whether it is likely that the Governor-General would intervene unilaterally as Kerr did — I think this is less likely.

First, there is now an acceptance in Australia that the Westminster doctrine of responsible government includes the accountability to both houses of parliament for Budget bills. Implied in this is the acceptance that while a Prime Minister does not have to resign or advise an election at the point when supply is first delayed, ultimately he or she must resign or call an election if the Senate continues to block supply.

Second, having seen the opprobrium that John Kerr suffered following the dismissal of 1975, future Governors-General would only take unilateral action to dismiss the Prime Minister as a last resort. Future Governors-General are much more likely to urge a political solution to a political problem.

Third, the budget cycle has changed since 1975. Budget bills are now passed over 6 weeks between mid May and 30 June, rather than over 14 weeks between mid August and 30 November. This means that a supply crisis would more quickly come to a head. It would also quickly overtake the constitutionally required minimum of 33 days to hold an election.

Fourth, and most importantly, Whitlam was ambushed by an innovation he and others were not expecting. This innovation has since been studied and a number of weaknesses have emerged.

• If had acted quickly, Whitlam could have had the House of Representatives rescind its support for the Budget Bills. This would have denied Fraser the ability to secure supply for the Crown, and Fraser would have had to resign. If that had happened, Kerr would have been required to reappoint Whitlam as Prime Minister. Very messy.
• Whitlam could also have kept the House of Representatives in session, as it cannot be dissolved while it is in session. The House adjourned so that the Speaker could communicate with the Governor-General. While it was adjourned, it was dissolved.

Because Kerr’s innovation is not a guaranteed failsafe mechanism to resolve a supply crisis, I believe it is highly unlikely to be used in the future.

Today’s Australian has the results from the Newspoll conducted last weekend.

The headline result was a predicted national two-party preferred vote of 51 per cent for Labor compared with 49 per cent for the Coalition, had an election had been held last weekend. This was a significant improvement for the Coalition over the previous Newspoll (54 to 46 per cent in Labor’s favour), but a slight decline over recent months. The latest poll combined with the longer term trend suggests the previous Newspoll was anomalous.

The predicted primary votes were 41 per cent for the Coalition and 39 per cent for Labor. The Australian did not report the primary votes for the Greens or other minor parties on its web site.

The big story from the poll was the jump in Howard’s dissatisfaction rating, up from 45 to 50 per cent over the last fortnight. However, this movement came from the ‘undecideds’: Howard’s satisfaction rating at 44 per cent was up one point from the previous Newspoll. The Australian noted that Howard’s dissatisfaction rating was much higher when he was pushing through the GST legislation in 2000.

Howard’s slump in the attitudinal polling was not a fillip for Beazley. Beazley’s satisfaction rating was 32 per cent (up one point); while his dissatisfaction rating was 53 per cent (up three points). This is a poorer performance than Howard in both.

According to the Australian, ‘The number of voters who believe that Mr Beazley would make a better prime minister rose from 26 per cent to 28 per cent, up five points on a month ago, while Mr Howard was steady on 50 per cent.’

Perhaps the funniest piece was Dennis Shanahan’s, which linked Howard’s poll slump to the poll slumps that Blair and Bush are experiencing, These slumps are somehow connected to their collective engagement in Iraq, or perhaps because each is in their last term in office, or maybe they are the result of unrelated domestic factors. Who said three random factoids do not make a story?

The usual graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

I missed the first of the month, but today:

• IASBet’s odds are a touch in the Coalition’s favour from 1 October 2005. For a Coalition win, IASBet would pay $1.63 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.25. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 58.0 per cent.
• At Centrebet, Labor has improved a touch to $2.37. The Coalition has lengthened a touch to $1.53. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 60.8 per cent. Update: at 2:30am on 8 November the odds had lengthened for Labor — $2.40 to $1.50 for the Coalition. This is an implied win probability for the Coalition of 61.5 per cent.

It seems that the betting market is not particularly moved by either the industrial relations reforms or the anti-terrorism legislation.

The usual graphs are here.