Oz Politics Blog

Morgan’s poll of 1984 voters over the weekends of 3-4 and 10-11 December 2005 predicted a national two-party preferred vote of 54 per cent for Labor and 46 per cent for the Coalition. This would have seen a landslide to Labor.

The predicted primary votes for the parties were 38.5 per cent for the Coalition, 42 per cent for Labor, 2 per cent for the Australian Democrats, 10 per cent for the Greens, 2.5 per cent for Family First, 1 per cent for One Nation, and 4 per cent for other parties or independents.

Morgan’s explanation for this result was:

With Industrial Relations and Voluntary Student Unionism no longer such hot topics, primary support for the L-NP has increased (up 3% to 38.5%), and the ‘two-party’ preferred vote has levelled out with the ALP still ahead (ALP — 54%, L-NP — 46%).

In my view, the previous Morgan result was anomalous, and today’s reported movement was more a correction within that series than a significant shift in public opinion. It will be interesting to see what Newspoll and ACNielsen do next Tuesday.

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

You will note in the graphs the significant divergence between Newspoll and Morgan when it comes to their predicted primary vote for the Greens and minor parties. I would not be surprised if this divergence were an artefact of systemic bias in the approaches of the two polling companies. It is a useful reminder that polling results need to be interpreted.