Oz Politics Blog

Morgan now has Labor ten points ahead in its national two-party preferred vote prediction, were an election held over the last two weekends.

According to the pollster,

“The ALP extended its two party preferred lead over the L-NP Coalition during an eventful and at times tragic fortnight. The deaths of prominent Australians — Steve Irwin and Peter Brock — as well as the Queensland Election, overshadowed Federal politics during early September.

“Primary support for the major parties was relatively steady, with the ALP gaining 0.5% to 43% while L-NP support fell 1% to 38%.

“If an election had been held during early September, the ALP would have won easily.”

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

The Australian Electoral Commission has finalised its redistribution of federal seats for New South Wales.

At first blush, it looks like Independent Peter Andren is the big loser from the redistribution. His current seat of Calare has been hacked in half. Bathurst, Oberon and Lithgow will move into the seat of Macquarie. The new Calare will extend west from Orange to Carrathool and north to Bourke and the Queensland border.

Andrew Leigh and Amy King have written a cracker of a paper on the benefits of being first on the ballot paper.

Their conclusion: Men gain 1.4 per cent of the total vote share when placed first on the ballot paper. Women gain no advantage. “About 1 in 70 voters will support the first candidate on the ballot paper, but only if that candidate is a man.”

Andrew’s blog on the paper is here.

Over the past week and a bit, there was little movement to report in the betting market for the next Federal election. The average of the four bookmakers suggested a 57.5 per cent probability of a Coalition government following the 2007 Federal election (up from 57.3 per cent on 4 September).

The more favourable odds for the Coalition at Centrebet are starting to look a little out of step with the other bookies.

• For a Coalition win Centrebet would pay $1.55 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.30. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 59.7 per cent (up from 58.9 per cent)
• For a Coalition win IASBet would pay $1.67 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.20. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 56.8 per cent (unchanged)
• SportingBet is paying $1.67 for a Coalition win and $2.15 for a Labor win. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 56.3 per cent (unchanged)
• SportsBet is paying $1.65 for a Coalition win and $2.20 for a Labor win (was $1.60 and $2.25). The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 57.1 per cent (unchanged)

Today’s interesting question: Why is the betting market out of step with the polls, which have been predicting a Labor win for the past six months?

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

Today’s Australian has the latest Newspoll results. The poll predicted that 53 per cent of the national two-party preferred (TPP) vote would flow to Labor and 47 per cent to the Coalition.

The primary vote predictions were 39 per cent for the Coalition (down five points on the previous Newspoll), 41 per cent for Labor (down one), 6 per cent for the Greens (up one), and 14 per cent for independents and others (up five).

In my view, the Coalition’s primary vote prediction looks anomalous. It is the old rule: a five-point jump between polls without an obvious explanation is more likely to be noise than signal. While Dennis Shanahan attributed the sudden movement to changes in Parliamentarian’s superannuation, I don’t buy that explanation. The primary vote jump also brings into question the scale of the TPP results for this fortnight, though not direction of those results.

One of the reasons I look at the moving average is to smooth out these sorts of anomalies. Like ACNielsen, using the preference flows from the last election, Nespoll has the predicted national two-party preferred vote hovering around 51 to 49 per cent in Labor’s favour. I suspect it is a more accurate reading of the electorate at the moment.

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