Oz Politics Blog

Today’s Australian has the latest Newspoll and commentary from Dennis Shannahan.

The headline result was a two-party preferred vote share prediction of 56 per cent for Labor and 44 per cent for the Coalition. If the election were held last weekend, Newspoll predicted a landslide Labor win. Arguably, Newspoll has hovered around this 56 to 44 result for two or so months now. For the two or so months before that it was hovering around 58 to 42.

The Newspoll trend back to the government since March (of around a percentage point a month) can be seen in the purple trend-line in the next graph. This rate of return is not sufficient for the Coalition to be in a comfortable winning position come a December 2007 election.

If we assume the post-March Coalition improvement continues at its current rate, only Galaxy has the Coalition on track for a comfortable win in 2007. Newspoll and Morgan are pointing to a close electoral contest, with Labor slightly ahead. ACNielsen is pointing to an easy Labor win. This set of predictions is consistent with the betting market, which currently gives Labor around six chances in ten of winning the next election and the Coalition around four chances in ten of winning.

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.

All of the bookmakers I am tracking took another step away from the government in the past week and one bookmaker has broken through the 40 per cent floor. Today the average probability for a Coalition win at the 2007 election is 41.0 per cent. Last Sunday it was 42.8 per cent. The Sunday before that it was 44.3.

What do today’s probabilities mean? If the same 2007 Federal election were repeated 20 times, the most likely outcome would see John Howard win 8 elections and Kevin Rudd win 12. Two weeks ago it was 9 and 11 respectively. Five weeks ago it was 10 and 10.

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

If you don’t want to risk any of your well earned, you can place a tip on the 2007 election here

Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett’s thoughts on politicians betting on themselves.

According to Brad Norington in today’s Australian, anonymous mainstream media critics think this site often confuses fact with opinion, and bases its opinion on ignorance and prejudice.

Websites with names such as Mumble (www.mumble.com.au), Oz Politics, Possums Pollytics, Poll Bludger, Psephos, the Piping Shrike, New Matilda, Righthinker and Blogspot run commentary that mainstream-media critics say often confuses fact with opinion, and base opinion on ignorance and prejudice. All the while they feed off the commercial media, particularly The Australian.

I won’t comment on the journalistic standards that allowed such a sweeping generalisation.

For the record, I aim to keep this site analytical and non-partisan, and I try not to write anything based on ignorance and prejudice. Please contact me if you think I fail this standard.

Update: Thank you everyone who sent me emails of support.

Update #2: Larvatus Prodeo and Road to Surfdom have had something to say on this matter.

To get a sense of the underlying movements in the polls, I aggregate the four main polls out each month: the Morgan face-to-face series, ACNielsen, Newspoll and Galaxy. Around 9300 people were polled in July.

The weighted aggregation yielded primary vote predictions for July of 47 per cent for Labor, 40.1 per cent for the Coalition, 6.4 per cent for the Greens and 6.5 per cent for others. The aggregated two-party preferred vote predictions for July were 55.5 per cent for Labor and 44.5 per cent for the Coalition. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

Aggregated, the polling data tells three stories.

First, Labor is currently well ahead and would win in a landslide if an election were called now.

Second, the gap is closing as the Coalition claws its way back for a possibly tight election contest in November or December 2007. Since Howard’s nadir in March 2007, the Coalition’s primary vote has improved 5.2 percentage points, the Labor primary vote is down 3.0 points and the Coalition’s TPP prediction is up 4.5 points. However, a couple of caveats are needed on this second story. There is no guarantee that the Coalition’s March to July trend will maintain its current pace until the end of the year. And for Howard to continue the trend, he will need to wind back the Labor primary vote, which has been remarkably resilient to date.

Third, the Greens and the minor parties are suffering a big squeeze. Since November 2006, the “anyone else” primary vote has dropped from almost 20 per cent to 13 per cent. If it continues to drop at the current rate, it will be around 12 per cent come the election. This drift in the “anyone else” primary vote means the Coalition and Labor require higher primary vote thresholds if they are to win government. The Coalition would need at least 45 per cent of the primary vote and Labor at least 42 per cent if it were to win government (assuming a 60-40 split in preference vote flows in Labor’s favour).

Note: for aggregation purposes I typically place a poll in the month for the last day of polling. However, because Morgan typically polls over two weekends, I seek to place its results in the month with the most days polled. I included the Morgan poll for 23, 24 and 30 June and 1 July in the June period.

The usual opinion poll graphs are here.

The latest Morgan is out.

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.