Oz Politics Blog

Yesterday, the Coalition announced its tough on drugs policy.

Labor announced support for the world game, its commitment to lift school standards, and its plan to reduce violence against women and children.

Morgan: Morgan released a phone poll of 1670 voters on 15-17 November. The sample was weighted to marginal seats, with 1,025 electors in 22 key L-NP marginal seats. (I gather the other 128 seats were estimated with a sample of 645 voters) . The headline prediction was Labor on 55.5 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. The Coalition got 44.5 per cent. As can be seen from the next graph, this series has been pretty much a flat line during the election period. Note that I graphed how voters said they would vote, rather than the TPP figure based on preference flows in 2004, to maintain consistency with earlier Morgan phone polls.

I do not have enough data to confirm a house bias with the Morgan phone poll; nonetheless, it appears to track to the left of ACNielsen and Newspoll (see next graph). House bias effects should be taken into account when using a poll series to estimate the final national TPP outcome.

Other polls: In today’s SMH and Age, we have an ACNielsen poll for the seat of Wentworth. The headline result was 52-48 in Labor’s favour.

The SMH reported a Patterson poll of Eden-Monaro, which had Labor ahead 53 to 47 per cent.

Mumble has the latest demographic breakdown from ACNielsen.

Yesterday, there were no new policies on Labor’s website.

The Coalition had no new policies listed on its website.

Betting market: Being a Sunday, it is time to look at the betting markets (perhaps for the last time). Last Sunday, the average probability of a Coalition win from the five bookmakers I am tracking was 30.6 per cent. This morning it was 20.9 per cent.

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

Galaxy marginal seat poll: Galaxy polled 4000 voters in twenty marginal seats between 11 and 15 November. The Poll Bludger has a graphic of the results here. If you extrapolate the marginal seat results to the state (not exactly kosher) and drop them into Antony’s calculator, it yields 83 seats for Labor. This result is more conservative than yesterday’s Newspoll of marginal seats, which gave us a prediction of 90 seats.

ERMS poll: in today’s Sunday Examiner suggests Labor will pick-up all five Tasmanian seats.

Taverner poll of mortgage holders: The SMH and Age reported on a Taverner poll of mortgage payers which found them split 57-43 in Labor’s favour. Apparently, 34 per cent of households are mortgage payers. According to the papers, this result is a reversal of a similar poll before the 2004 election.

PM Rudd’s first steps: The SMH reported that the first steps of Prime Minister Rudd would be,

1. Ratify the Kyoto Protocol. “We need to make sure we are around the negotiating table immediately … for the next round of commitments on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.”
2. Start immediately to negotiate with the states on reform of hospital practices. “That is of crucial importance - we’ve got $2.5billion on the table but we’ll need to frame a co-operative agreement around performance measures.”
3. Begin the roll-out of the high-speed broadband network, along with connections to schools. In tandem, open up tenders for the $1 billion school computer program.
4. “Hit the ground running” with the implementation of the $2.5 billion program to upgrade trades training centres in secondary schools. “I went back to C block [the technical faculty] at [his old school] Nambour High the other day - it hadn’t changed since I was there. It was like walking into a museum.”
5. Begin negotiations with the Americans and Iraqis for the staged withdrawal by mid next year of Australian combat troops. “I have been very blunt with President Bush … I have a no-surprises policy when it comes to these things.”

One week from today the nation will elect a new Parliament.

Yesterday, the Coalition had no new policies listed on its website.

Labor announced policies on early childhood, radiotherapy in Lismore, a GP Super Clinic for Wallan, Sisters Of Charity Outreach In Devonport, Forward with Fairness for Australia’s Young Workers, the Central West Queensland Growth Corridor, Northern Territory Roads, NT Remote Airstrips and WA Infrastructure.

Go on, test yourself: with the updated, LDP, 10 question Australian Political Quiz. The Oz Politics test is here. The News Limited test is here.

Newspoll: Today’s Australian reported a Newspoll of 3615 voters in 18 key marginal seats over the period 12-15 November. The headline prediction was 54 to 46 in Labor’s favour. Sol Lebovic’s analysis is worth reading.

Morgan: The latest Morgan poll is out. It has returned from its stratospheric prediction of a fortnight ago — 62 per cent for Labor (judged an anomaly by many) — to 56.5 per cent to 43.5 per cent in Labor’s favour last weekend. Nonetheless, of the most recent projections for the six polling streams, it remains the most favourable for Labor.

If we take the middle four projections, they range from 54 to 56 per cent for Labor, with an implied seats haul in the range from 87 to 96 seats.

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.

Predictions: Possum has built a regression model that predicts Labor will win 55.15 per cent of the national two party preferred vote. According to Antony’s calculator, this translates to 94 seats. This is just a touch up on Possum’s earlier prediction of 54.9 per cent, but it is not as high as Geoff Lambert on 55.5 per cent.

Critics of the model in Possum’s comments suggest it is over parameterised. The model has nine variable terms and 13 input variables. While the model shows an impressive fit and it has accurately predicted Labor’s two-party preferred vote over the past three elections to 0.1 per cent, the critics believe it is an example of line-fitting rather than a predictive model. One wag gave a paraphrase of John von Neumann’s, “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk”.

Worth a read: Adam Carr’s twelve seats that will decide the election.

What the … On ebay there is a John Howard pinata. The current bid is $405. Suggested use is for an election night party.

Another trend. This time I have averaged the latest ACNielsen, Galaxy and Newspoll phone polls each week. I have then applied a 13 term Henderson filter to get rid of the lumps and bumps in the series.

If we project the phone poll trend out until the election date, it looks like a national two party preferred vote of (around) 54 per cent for Labor. Drop that guesstimate into Antony’s calculator, and we get a prediction of 87 seats for Labor.

Yesterday was the 32nd day in the election campaign.

There were no new policies on Labor’s website.

The Coalition had a new policy on public hospitals and health care.

ACNielsen: An ACNielsen poll was released in today’s Age and SMH. The headline prediction was a national two-party preferred vote share of 54 per cent for Labor and 46 per cent for the Coalition.

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.

Newspoll: Another cumulative Newspoll, sliced and diced by gender, age, state and urbanity, can be found in the Australian. There are some big movements here that are a little difficult to explain — SA went from Labor on 58 to 53; Victoria went from 55 to 59.

Chris Pyne: The normally safe Liberal seat of Sturt, held by Minister Chris Pyne, is down to a 51-49 knife edge (albeit in Pyne’s favour) according to the Adelaide Advertiser.

Not the report the government wanted one week before the election: The Australian National Audit Office has published its audit into the Regional Partnerships Program. Michelle Grattan said “the Howard Government’s $328 million regional projects fund has reignited claims that the scheme has been blatantly used by the Government for pork-barrelling in Coalition electorates. The report … found the scheme had been plagued by political interference, disregard for rules and guidelines and a lack of transparency.” Peter Martin said the report “paints a picture of ministers keen to approve projects in Coalition electorates regardless of the advice of their officials and so sloppy in the way they went about it that they often didn’t even bother to record the basis of their decisions. It paints their behaviour as venal, lazy, and verging on unlawful.”

The Newhouse saga: The Australian reported that Labor’s Wentworth candidate, George Newhouse, has legal advice. Apparently NSW law states that that the office of any member of the tribunal becomes automatically vacant if he or she nominates for a federal seat. As a consequence, “NSW law is enough to remove any misconception that Mr Newhouse held constitutionally prohibited NSW statutory offices at any time subsequent to his nomination for Wentworth… The Newhouse resignation saga therefore is both inaccurate as to facts and of no significance at law.”

Feedback: Peter sent this comment on yesterday’s blog.

You mention in your blog today (Day 31) that there is a saying in Australian politics that “when the swing is on, the swing is on”. Actually, I believe (although I can’t immediately put my finger on a source for this) that the former (and well-known) Labor Minister (Whitlam Govt) Fred Daly once put it, in a typically colourful way, “When she’s on, she’s on”, meaning a big swing. If you say it with a sharp Ocker accent in your voice, Freddie Daly’s point comes across nicely. There’s only one poll that counts, of course, but the current indications are that on November 24, as Fred Daly would have said (Ocker accent needed again), “She’s gonna be a big one.” But let’s see.