Oz Politics Blog

Before reviewing yesterday’s happenings, let’s start with the latest Newspoll from the weekend, based on an expanded survey of more than 1700 voters. Newspoll’s headline prediction was a national two-party preferred vote share of 58 per cent for Labor and 42 per cent for the Coalition. That is a two point improvement for Labor on the previous Newspoll, and a two point decline for the Coalition. The Australian’s Dennis Shanahan is here. (You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graph).

Last week the movement to the Coalition in the ACNielsen and Galaxy polls gave rise to the possibility of a Coalition recovery. For many, I suspect today’s poll would cast some doubt on that prospect. Simon Jackman argued that the difference between the earlier polls and today’s Newspoll was Labor’s matching of the Coalition tax plan.

Bottom line: public opinion on Friday-Sunday (when both tax proposals were before the voters), was more friendly to Labor than it was Monday-Wednesday, when the Coalition’s tax announcement had yet to draw a response from Labor. Having scored the week as a win for the Coalition, I’d have to revise that to a draw in light of the Newspoll numbers. And the kicker is that the Newspoll numbers are pre-debate.

Yesterday, saw three new policies on the Coalition’s website: from Sunday was the Climate Change fund, and announced yesterday were a dental workforce for Northern Australia and better cancer care and support for women.

Over at the Labor website, we have the first two official election policies: a work and family policy document and an affordable childcare policy document.

If you don’t have high speed broadband, you may not be able to read the Coalition’s policy documents from home as three of the five policy statements on its website are some 2.5 megabytes in length. At around 362 and 154 kilobytes in length, Labor’s policy documents are around 10 percent the size of the Coalition’s policy documents. I am intrigued by the Coalition’s strategy of having high quality cover page images in their policy documents but at the cost of making the documents less accessible over the Internet to mum and dad voters. The Coalition took a similar approach to the size of electronic policy documents in the 2004 election.

Andrew Norton noted that the worm was stratospheric when Kevin Rudd claimed that people are feeling worse off due to rising costs. Norton explored whether this is a case of the objective statistics not capturing the subjective experience of the Australian electorate. He concluded, “Whatever Kevin Rudd says, whatever the worm says, these are good times. The typical family may want more, but they are not worse off than before.” Norton’s discussion reminded me of the effectiveness with which John Howard used the phase “five minutes of economic sunshine” to combat Keating in the 1996 election. It also reminded me of the maxim: perception is reality.

Yesterday, brought to a close the first full week of the campaign.

The highlight was last night’s election debate, broadcast by the ABC and Channel Nine (with a worm). The worm was very favourable to Kevin Rudd. The final outcome from the select Channel Nine audience was 65 to 29 in Rudd’s favour. Today’s media also scored it a win for Rudd. The Poll Bludger has a comprehensive survey of media statements on last night’s debate.

The worm proved controversial and it was claimed that Nine’s feed for the debate was cut because it used the worm in breach of the agreed rules for the debate. For the record, a worm win is no guarantee of electoral success. According to Annabel Crabb, “It awarded the debates of 1998 and 2001 to Kim Beazley by big margins, and the 2004 debate to Mark Latham. In each case the Worm thrived in the campaign but ate dirt on election day.”

John Howard used the debate to announce elements of the Coalition’s climate change policy including a commitment to a new international agreement that includes China and the United States, and a fund to help those on low incomes pay their energy bills after they have been inflated by a carbon tax. However, there was no detail on the Coalition’s website this morning.

While there is nothing on the ALP website this morning, the media reported that Labor would increase the Child Care Tax Rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent.

The Coalition calculated that it’s fnal (ie in six years time) tax policy would be better for people with annual incomes between $38,000 and $100,000. Andrew Leigh completed a distributional analysis of the Coalition and ALP tax proposals.

If you have not tried it already, go to the Whack a Poll election predictor.

It’s a couple of days old now, but the Courier Mail has sampled the good, the bad and the ugly from YouTube in the first week of the campaign.

Update: In my numerous discussions today about the debate, two consistent messages emerged. First, while the consensus was that Rudd won the debate, it was a pretty close call. It was no slam-dunk win for Rudd, and the win was more for style than content. Second, the worm was overly favourable to Rudd and did not adequately assess the merits or content of the debate. When Rudd was speaking, but before he had said anything much, the worm was often half way into positive territory. With Howard, it often started below the zero axis. The worm was variously described by most people in the following contradictory terms: addictive, captivating, annoying and wrong. Nonetheless, while the worm may not have reflected accurately the content of the debate, it may have reflected the perceptions that have seen Rudd ahead of Howard in the opinion polls in 2007.

Yesterday, neither side announced new policies.

Shane Guley resigned as the ALP candidate for Maranoa after allegations of unruly past union behaviour. (For the next hour or two you might be able to visit the Shane Guley page on the ALP website).

Things got a bit rowdy at yesterday’s Eastwood granny smith apple festival when it was swamped by supporters of Prime Minister John Howard and Labor challenger Maxine McKew.

Peter Martin has constructed a spendometer for the first week of campaigning. His finding (including promises before the campaign): the Coalition has committed $43.718 billion and Labor $48.764 billion.

According to the Poll Bludger, a Westpoll of three Perth marginal seats “has the Liberals holding firm in … Stirling and Hasluck and set to win Cowan from Labor with a 5 per cent swing”. The PB went on to say, “this is the second electorate-level poll Westpoll has conducted, and both have shown the Liberals travelling much better in these three seats than Westpoll’s regular statewide polling would suggest”.

The betting market over the first week of campaigning has staged a remarkable recovery for the Coalition. (You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest chart).

Today, the Poll Bludger analysed post federal election debates and discovered the incumbent only won two out of nine.

I suspect both leaders are bunkered down in preparation for tonight’s election debate. Possum Pollytics has some thoughts on the debating strategy that will be adopted tonight. Upper House also has thoughts on how to make the worm rise.

Yesterday, The big announcement was Labor’s tax package. The packaged included an Education Tax Refund for all families receiving Family Tax Benefit A with children at school and the reduction of elective surgery waiting lists. There is loads of media analysis, including: Matthew Franklin, Dennis Shanahan, Michael Madigan, Annabel Crabb, Misha Schubert, Tim Colebatch, etc.

The Coalition released a policy on water safety.

Sportingbet Australia, shortened the Coalition’s odds of winning the Federal Election from $2.65 into $2.35, which is the shortest odds since the 7th of August.

Morgan released two poll results: a face-to-face poll of 850 electors on 13-14 October 2007, and a telephone poll of 598 electors on 17-18 October 2007. Last weekend’s face-to-face result was 57 per cent to 43 per cent in Labor’s favour. The Wednesday-Thursday phone poll result was 55.5 per cent to 44.5 per cent in Labor’s favour

Updated link for the video clip, Rappin’ Rudd v Hip-hop Howard.

Yesterday, Morgan released two poll results: a face-to-face poll of 850 electors on 13-14 October 2007, and a telephone poll of 598 electors on 17-18 October 2007. Last weekend’s face-to-face result was 57 per cent to 43 per cent in Labor’s favour. The Wednesday-Thursday phone poll result was 55.5 per cent to 44.5 per cent in Labor’s favour.

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.