Oz Politics Blog

Morgan has released the last poll results for 2005. On the weekend of 17-18 December 2005 they polled 887 voters. Its headline predication was a national two-party preferred vote of 52 per cent for Labor and 48 per cent for the Coalition. Such a national vote would translate to a comfortable Labor win.

The primary vote predictions were as follows:

• The Coalition — 39.5 per cent (up 1 on the previous Morgan poll)
• Labor — 39.5 per cent (down 2)
• Australian Democrats — 1.5 per cent (down 0.5)
• The Greens — 10.5 per cent (up 0.5)
• Family First — 3 per cent (up 0.5)
• One Nation — 1.5 (up 0.5)
• Independent/Other — 4.5 per cent (up 0.5)

The pollster’s interpretation:

“Support for the Labor Party, continues to drop now that the Senate has passed the Government’s electorally unpalatable Industrial Relations and Voluntary Student Unionism legislation.

“In a period dominated by the race riots in Sydney, support for the Coalition rose slightly to 39.5%. However this is still well below the 2004 Federal election result. If an election were held today the ALP would win and Kim Beazley would be the Australian Prime Minister.”

No arguments from me this time, although I suspect the Voluntary Student Unionism legislation had little impact either way on many of those polled.

We are also starting to see the bounce in the most recent polls show up in the aggregated monthly polling.

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

The big question: If 2005 could be characterised as a new hope for Labor, will we see the empire strike back in 2006? Will 2007 see the return of Jedi Master Beazley?