Oz Politics Blog

Steve Lewis has taken to calling Peter Costello the putative prime minister (examples here and here).

Putative is an interesting term. According to the online Cambridge dictionary, it is an adjective meaning,

generally thought to be or to exist, whether or not this is really true:

The putative leader of the terrorist organization was arrested by police in Birmingham yesterday.

Of course, no one believes Peter Costello is the prime minister (well perhaps other than Peter Costello and Glenn Milne). Nor is putative a synonym for heir apparent or aspirational.

Consequently, I am left wondering. I am not quite sure whether Lewis is using the term sarcastically or incorrectly.

Newspoll’s weekend poll resulted in a national two-party preferred vote prediction of 51 per cent for Labor and 49 per cent for the Coalition (compared with 54 to 46 per cent at the last Newspoll). Newspoll predicted 41 per cent for the Coalition on primary votes (up three), and 39 per cent for Labor (down three).

ACNielsen (also here and here) polled 1423 voters over the weekend. Its headline prediction is a national two-party preferred vote of 55 per cent for Labor to 45 per cent for the Coalition (compared with 58 to 42 at the last ACNielsen poll).

In part ACNielsen’s two-party preferred result is because Labor drew 78 per cent of the non-Labor-non-Coalition preferences, compared with 61 per cent at the last election. If preferences were to flow as they did at the last election, the national two-party preferred prediction would have been 52.5 per cent for Labor and 47.5 per cent for the Coalition. (For its two-party preferred vote prediction, Newspoll allocated preferences at the same rate they flowed at the last election).

ACNielsen’s national prediction for the primary votes is 39 per cent each for Labor (down four) and the Coalition (up two).

Of note:

The ALP’s strongest support base remains people aged between 18 and 24, with 51 per cent of voters in that bracket intending to vote Labor, while the Coalition’s strongest support is among those over 55.

Perhaps I was a little hasty last week when I said the movement detected by the most recent Morgan poll did not reflect a movement in the electorate. All three polls suggest some retreat on the recent high levels of support for Labor, typically attribted to public concern with the Government’s reforms in industrial relations.

In the wake of the Cronulla riots, ACNielsen also asked a number of questions around the issues of immigration and multiculturalism, which the SMH and Age have captured with these graphics.

Update: I have updated some all of the usual graphs. As always, you may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

Update: thanks to Euan Robertson at ACNielsen for pointing me in the right direction for the latest poll results.

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.

The last time I blogged on this, Centrebet had closed its book on the leader of the Federal Liberal party at the next election after a run on Costello. Now that Costello has run away, Centrebet has reopened its book.

Today’s odds have a couple of surprises. First, with Costello’s baton safely back in his knapsack, I would have thought the probability of Howard leading the party would have been higher than 53.6 per cent. Perhaps, some think there is still a Kirribilli agreement in place (or at least a prime ministerial retirement plan). It is interesting to see that which was described in the media as Costello’s white flag a couple of days ago is now being described as a six month ceasefire.

The second surprise is the rise and rise of Malcolm Turnbull, who with a probability of 4.9 per cent now shares equal fourth place with Tony Abbott. Whatever you might think of him, I would give Abbott a better chance than Turnbull of being the leader at the time of the next election.

Elsewhere, as noted in comments, Centrebet has the Coalition and Labor on the same odds of winning the next election, paying a $1.85 each for a win.

Dennis Shanahan in today’s Oz reported the Newspoll findings from last weekend. The headline message is unchanged from the previous Newspoll: a predicted national two-party preferred vote of 54 per cent for Labor compared with 46 per cent for the Coalition — a landslide to Labor.

THE Coalition continues to be battered by its industrial relations changes, with support from voters well down and Labor retaining its election-winning position.

The national primary vote predications, had an election been held last weekend, were Labor on 42 per cent and the Coalition on 38 per cent.

In the attitudinal polling, the big change was Beazley’s dissatisfaction rate, which fell from 51 per cent to 44 per cent over the fortnight. Last weekend, Beazley’s dissatisfaction rate was lower than Howard’s at 48 per cent. This was the first time Beazley was lower than Howard for over 5 months.

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