Oz Politics Blog

Morgan polled 1997 voters over the weekends of 6-7 and 13-14 January. That polling predicted a 57.5 per cent two-party preferred vote for Labor.

More details when I return from holidays.

I will be off for a while.

Should be back in February.

See you soon.

The last fortnight has seen some bookies move to the Government and some away. The average of the five bookmakers suggested a 57.4 per cent probability of a Coalition government following the 2007 Federal election. (It was 57.6 per cent on 1 January 2007).

• For a Coalition win Centrebet would pay $1.66 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.10. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 55.9 per cent (was 57.7 per cent)
• For a Coalition win IASBet would pay $1.68 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.15. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 56.1 per cent (unchanged)
• SportingBet is paying $1.57 for a Coalition win and $2.30 for a Labor win. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 59.4 per cent (unchanged)
• SportsBet is paying $1.58 for a Coalition win and $2.30 for a Labor win. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 59.3 per cent (was 56.3 per cent)
• For a Coalition win SportsAcumen would pay $1.66 and for a Labor win it would pay $2.12. The implied probability of a Coalition win at the next election is 56.1 per cent (was 58.4 per cent)

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

Steve Lewis in today’s Australia has another bubble and squeak snippet from the December Newspoll. Today Lewis revealed Newspoll asked a question that is normally the bailiwick of Morgan: Who do you think will win the next election?

Newspoll’s finding — 40 per cent thought Labor would win — reflected the post Rudd polls from Morgan on the same question.

However Newspoll’s finding that 42 per cent thought the Coalition would win was lower than Morgan, Morgan predicted 46 per cent.

More interesting was the break down by voter preference.

Labor voters are more optimistic of winning office than they were in the lead-up to the 2004 poll, with 39 per cent believing Mr Rudd can succeed after being leader for one month since replacing Kim Beazley.

A little more than 60 per cent of Labor supporters believe Mr Rudd can defeat the Prime Minister, while 67 per cent of Coalition backers expect Mr Howard to win a fifth term…

Under Mark Latham, voters were less optimistic about Labor’s chances in the lead-up to the 2004 poll. The Opposition’s best result was 30 per cent expectation of a win, a month out from the election.

In the end, voters turned on Mr Latham, with Labor recording its lowest primary vote in 70 years.

Update 8 January: Another story that may have been written last year,

Today’s Australian (editorial and Steve Lewis article) contains undated polling from Newspoll in respect of an unspecified sample size. The ’special’ poll was focused on industrial relations. The reported findings were:

• 34 per cent of voters thought the Work Choices changes good for the Australian economy, while 47 per cent thought they would be bad for the economy
• 48 per cent of voters did not think that Work Choices’ would effect them personally, 14 per cent thought themselves better off, and 33 per cent thought they were worse off
• 45 per cent of voters believe Work Choices will be bad for creating jobs and 33 per cent believe the changes will be good for creating jobs
• 9 per cent of Coalition voters think Work Choices is “very bad” and just 6 per cent think it is “very bad” for them personally

The Australian argued that Work Choices should not have a significant effect in the 2007 election as most of its ill-effects are over-stated (half the population is unaffected) and the majority of those adversely affected are Labor voters. It is a view I have some sympathy for (as I blogged back in November). Mumble also thinks Work Choices is not a huge vote winner for Rudd. However, if just six per cent of Coalition voters think that Work Choices is “very bad” for them personally, and a further unspecified number consider it “bad”, this could well reduce the Coalition’s margin at the next election. Hip pocket nerve issues are often vote changers.

Nonetheless, it is difficult to take such poll reports too seriously. If it was recent polling from the new year’s eve weekend, I would have questions about the representativeness of the sample frame, and if it old polling you would have to ask why the Australian was serving up bubble and squeak. Without an indication of the sample frame and size, it could be a poll of just twenty people on a Bondi bus on Saturday night. Steve Lewis should take a note from Michelle Grattan in the Age. Grattan almost always reports the time of the poll, the sample size and the sample frame.

Update 7 January: Andrew Norton has a take on this poll.