When I did the chart this morning for the betting market on the year of John Howard’s departure, it was much the same as it has been for some time. However, an hour or two after I did the graph, it became clear John Howard was staying to fight the next election. Fourteen or so hours after this morning’s graph, the betting market has adjusted.
You may need to hit the refresh button on your browser to see the latest chart.
The latest ACNielsen poll of 1416 voters, taken from last Thursday to Saturday, was published in today’s Fairfax press (here and here).
The headline result is a national two-party preferred vote predication of 52 per cent for Labor (up one on the previous month) and 48 per cent for the Coalition (down 1).
The primary vote predictions are: Labor would get 41 per cent (up 5), the Coalition on 43 per cent (up 2), Greens on 10 per cent (down 1), Democrats on 2 per cent (unchanged), independents on 3 per cent (down 3), One Nation on 1 per cent (unchanged), and other on 2 per cent (down 1).
As is sometimes the case with ACNielsen, these results add to 102 per cent because of rounding. unfortunately, this makes it difficult to to fully analyse the ACNielsen results, and as a consequence, some of my graphs may be a little out.
What does it all mean? Well not a lot. First it was poll taken over school holidays (always suspect). Second, I think ACNielsen’s June primary vote prediction for Labor was unusually down. Today’s result is only up one on May’s result for Labor. Third, perhaps it is as Howard’s supporters spun it last week: the Liberal Party leadership spat had little impact beyond the rarefied reaches of Canberra.
Nonetheless, the government is behind in the polls. And the preferred prime minister results suggest that Beazley is back in the game. Howard got 53 per cent (down 1), and Beazley got 38 per cent (up 5). Beazley has steadily climbed a total of 11 points since his low of 27 per cent in March.
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.
While it has been reported that ACNielsen found that more people believed Costello’s claims than Howard’s denial, it is difficult to discern from the reporting the actual question asked. For example, the Age reported:
Forty-six per cent believed Mr Costello’s claim last week that Mr Howard gave him an undertaking 12 years ago that he would serve 1½ terms as prime minister and then hand him the leadership. Just 35 per cent accepted Mr Howard’s version that there was no deal.
From the SMH we had:
But the Prime Minister fared poorly when respondents were asked whose version of leadership talks 12 years ago they believed. Asked if they backed Mr Costello’s version - that Mr Howard undertook to serve 1½ terms as prime minister before handing over to him - or Mr Howard’s denial of such a deal, 46 per cent said they believed Mr Costello and 35 per cent Mr Howard.
If the question was written as reported in the SMH, I don’t know how I would answer it. Clearly, Howard said to Costello he intended to serve one and a half terms as prime minister. Howard has not denied that the conversation took place; he has merely denied that it was an undertaking or deal.
When a survey question garbles the facts (in this case, what has and has not been denied), it is typically an example of poor question design. Perhaps, the poor question design contributed to the partisan result. According to the Age, “Mr Costello is believed by two-thirds of Labor voters but just a quarter of Coalition supporters; more than half of Coalition voters believe Mr Howard while less than a quarter of ALP voters do”
The SMH reported, “The number of voters who believe Mr Howard will serve a full term has risen to a record 76 per cent from 44 per cent just before the last election, in October 2004.”
Following Glenn Milne’s revelations, Centrebet reopened two books this week.
The first allowed punters to bet on the year in which Howard’s reign, as Prime Minister, would end. Surprisingly, the odds in this market do not appear particularly affected by the recent spat.
The second allowed punters to bet on who would lead the Coalition to the next election. In this market, Howard has firmed as the favourite, with Costello running a long way behind in second place. But perhaps more interestingly, Abbott and Downer are no longer viewed as having any chance at all. Defence Minister Brendan Nelsen is sitting in third place. And the Parliamentary Secretary for Water, Malcolm Turnbull, is in fourth place.
Discuss.
Morgan: 53.5 to 46.5 in Labor’s favour
Morgan’s poll results are out from 1991 electors over the weekends of 1-2 and 8-9 July. The headline message is a national two-party preferred prediction of 53.5 per cent of the vote for Labor and 46.5 per cent for the Coalition.
The primary vote predictions are 39 per cent for the Coalition (down 3 per cent on the previous poll), 42.5 per cent for Labor (up 2), and 8.5 per cent for the Greens (unchanged).
According to the pollster, “Before the revelation of the Howard/Costello leadership deal, the ALP held a commanding 7% on a two-party preferred basis.â€
There are no graphs while I am travelling around.
Morgan also looked at the Liberal Party leadership.
Prime Minister John Howard is preferred by 43% (up 7% since March) of all electors to be the Coalition Leader at the next Federal Election, 17% (unchanged) prefer Peter Costello, 8% (down 1%) Alexander Downer and 6% for both Tony Abbott (unchanged) and Malcolm Turnbull (down 4%). Of L-NP voters, a substantial 70% prefer Mr Howard as Liberal Leader, while only 12% prefer Mr Costello according to a special telephone Morgan Poll over the last two nights.
In addition, a higher proportion of electors (48%) say Opposition Leader Kim Beazley would make a better Prime Minister than Peter Costello (41%), while 11% can’t say. This should be of concern to Mr Costello supporters as 61% (unchanged since March 2006) of electors believe John Howard is a better PM than Mr Beazley (34%) would be while 5% can’t say.
Centrebet has a range of odds out this morning.
Update at 4.45pm: it looks like the punters reckon Costello has got Buckley’s chances of getting the top job before the next election.
Also, I just noticed that Gerard Daffy from Centrebet had this to say (dated today, but presumably posted this morning),
The heavyweight showdown between Prime Minister John Howard and Peter Costello has been looming for a while and after three days of intense battle; we have the PM ahead on points.
There may well be a long way to go with this one, so we thought it timely to resurrect a couple of our markets. The one on who will lead the Coalition at the next election has proven the most topical.
John Howard was 1.65 a few months ago with Costello at 3.00, but the PM was cut to 1.33 when we reassessed it this week. We have pushed Peter Costello out to 4.00 with Brendan Nelson the big mover, into 7.50 from 17.00.
The rationale behind that is, if Peter Costello thought he had the numbers to challenge, he would have. It is clear that the PM isn’t overly keen on handing over the reigns to Peter Costello as he would have said so, which leaves Nelson, as the likely candidate if there is to be a change. There hasn’t been a lot of action since betting reopened but one punter did place $150 on Costello.
The next election winner has also reopened with some changes to the market. The Coalition has drifted from 1.57 out to 1.65 and Labor has been cut to 2.10.