Oz Politics Blog

Glenn Milne in today’s Daily Telegraph reported on a Galaxy poll in the Prime Minister’s seat of Benelong.

The Prime Minister is now facing a seven per cent swing in Bennelong. That puts Ms McKew in a commanding position with 53 per cent of the vote after distribution of preferences. The seat only needs a four per cent two-party preferred swing to change hands.

It’s understood the Galaxy poll is also in line with internal ALP research in Bennelong. Labor needs a uniform national swing of five per cent and a net gain of 16 seats to put Mr Rudd in The Lodge…

The Sunday Telegraph/SBS Insight Galaxy Poll was conducted on the evenings of August 8 and 9, based on a large sample of 800 voters. Primary support for John Howard is at 44 per cent, unchanged since May and down around six points since the last election.

In contrast, support for Ms McKew is now 47 per cent - little changed since May but a huge 19 points higher than the vote achieved by the ALP candidate at the last federal election.

The latest Galaxy poll is out in the Murdoch press. The healdline two-party preferred result had Labor on 54 per cent and the Coalition on 46 per cent. The primary vote shares were: Labor 44 per cent, Coalition 41 per cent, Greens 10 per cent and others 5 per cent.

Today’s Galaxy poll is consistent with the prevailing, post-March 2007, polling grand meta-narratives. Labor is currently well ahead. But the gap is closing as the Coalition claws its way back into the game for a tight election contest in November or December 2007.

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.

A number of Murdoch papers carry the latest Galaxy poll (CM, DT, HS, AA). The headline prediction is that were an election held last weekend, Labor would have won 55 per cent of the two party preferred vote and the Coalition 45 per cent. This would have seen a landslide win for Labor, were the election held last weekend.

Almost universally, this has been reported as a two point backlash against the government. The previous Galaxy poll had the Coalition on 47 per cent, and Labor on 53 per cent.

I have maintained for some time that you cannot interpret an opinion poll simply by reference to the previous poll in the sequence. Today’s Galaxy poll is an example of where that approach is misleading. I would not be alone in suggesting the previous Galaxy poll was perhaps a little too favourable to the government. As a consequence, the previous poll did not provide a good base-line for assessing the current poll.

In my view, today’s Galaxy poll is consistent with a medium term trend back to the government. This post March 2007 trend is evident across all pollsters. It is evident in both the moving averages (which smooth out the odd rogue poll) and and the linear trend lines (which also smooth out the odd rogue poll).

For me the big questions are whether this post March 2007 trend will continue, and continue at the same rate, and whether the trend will be sufficient or not for Howard to win government by the end of the year. Unfortunately today’s trend lines and moving averages cannot answer these questions.

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.

Today’s Australian reported on a Galaxy Senate poll of 1,100 people. The poll predicted that the Coalition’s vote in the Senate is down from 45 to 34 per cent. Labor’s vote has risen by three percentage points to 38 per cent. The Greens have jumped to 13 per cent. The Australian Democrats got just 1 per cent.

GetUp!, a left-leaning political campaign organisation, commissioned the poll. GetUp! is launching a campaign to reclaim the Senate by encouraging voters to place the Coalition last on their ballot papers.

GetUp’s campaign, while national, will focus its resources in the ACT, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, the states and territories in which expert psephologists say control of the Senate will be decided.

It is not clear when the GetUp! poll was conducted (although the PB said it was the weekend before last). It is also unclear what questions were asked, and in what order. For example, were the Senate questions part of last week’s Galaxy/GetUp! poll announcement on same sex relationships? It is also worth noting that the sample appears to include 16 and 17 year olds, who do not vote.

Thanks to Dan for the tip.

Today’s Courier Mail, Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph reported a Queensland-wide Galaxy poll of 800 voters last Wednesday and Thursday evening. The detailed poll results are here.

The predicted state-wide two-party preferred vote shares, were an election held last week, were 52 per cent for Labor and 48 per cent for the Coalition. That represents a 3 point movement from the February state-wide poll result of 55 to 45 per cent in Labor’s favour. But it is almost nine percentage points off the mark set at the previous election: 57.1 to 42.9 in the Coalition’s favour.

Update: Darryl Rosin identified an error in the 2004 results from the CM. I have corrected the 2004 election results above to reflect those on the AEC web site. Previously, I had used the figures from the Courier Mail