Oz Politics Blog

Yesterday, The Coalition made released its policy on employment and workplace relations.

Labor made policy statements on fair prices for farmers and the Adelaide growth corridor.

Interest rates: The Reserve Bank increased the cash rate by 25 basis points. (You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graph).

Betting markets: the latest media release from Sportingbet said, “In an unexpected shift, punters have flocked to the Coalition since this morning’s rate rise with 96% of money bet with Australia’s biggest bookmaker, Sportingbet Australia, going to the Coalition since the Reserve Bank’s announcement was made.”

Polls: The Australian has released another cumulative Newspoll sliced and diced by age, gender, state and city - this time for 26-28 October and 2-4 November.

ERMS has released its latest polling in Tasmanian seats. Since August, “the gap between the 2 parties has narrowed in all electorates except Denison.” The Poll Bludger has a discussion forum on this poll.

Reuters released its latest Poll Trend. It includes the latest Galaxy poll results for the first time.

The latest Reuters Poll Trend just arrived in my inbox.

The poll trend included the following analysis from Reuters:

The Poll Trend shows the government began to slowly claw back support after the May budget, pegging Labor’s lead back to 8.9 percent by early August. But Howard’s comeback stalled in August, when the central bank increased interest rates.

The Reuters Poll Trend is not a poll; it is an analysis of the three main polls — Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper, ACNielsen, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers, and the Morgan Poll, published on line. The Trend aims to summarise the polls by compiling them and removing their volatility. It starts by rolling the published data from the major polls into a fortnightly three-poll average, weighting them equally and the smoothing volatility by using a five-term Henderson moving average. The Henderson process dampens short-term up-and-down movement but aims to leave untouched the underlying drift in the data.

The latest Reuters Poll Trend just arrived in my inbox. The TPP trends are 57.4 to 42.6 per cent in Labor’s favour. The primary vote trends are 48.4 to 37.9 per cent in Labor’s favour.

According to Reuters …

Australia’s conservative government has fallen further behind the centre-left Labor Party opposition as Prime Minister John Howard considers when to call national elections and whether he should remain leader, the latest Reuters Poll Trend has found.

Howard can call an election any time from Wednesday after hosting the weekend Asia-Pacific leaders summit and hosting Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper on a state visit on Tuesday.

But after 11 years in office, Howard’s government trailed Labor by 14.7 points in September on a two-party basis, where minority votes are distributed to the two main parties to decide an election.

Liberal/National Party coalition government support was down by three points over the month to 42.6 percent, compared with 57.4 percent for Labor, up three points.

If the result was carried through to polling day, the government would overwhelmingly lose office and Howard and several ministers could lose their seats.

The results came as Howard, 68, promised to stay leader to fight the election, despite growing concern from his lawmakers that he should contemplate retirement and hand power to his deputy and Treasurer, Peter Costello, 50.

Howard has won four consecutive elections since 1996. He must call the election before mid November. Labor needs to win 16 more seats to win power.

The Reuters Poll Trend is not a poll; it is an analysis of the three main polls — Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper, ACNielsen, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers, and the Morgan Poll, published on line. The Trend aims to summarise the polls by compiling them and removing their volatility. It starts by rolling the published data from the major polls into a fortnightly three-poll average, weighting them equally and the smoothing volatility by using a five-term Henderson moving average. The Henderson process dampens short-term up-and-down movement but aims to leave untouched the underlying drift in the data.

The latest Reuters Poll Trend shows John Howard is slowly clawing back support in the lead up to national elections, although his government still trails the Labor Party Opposition.

After 11 years in office, Howard’s government trails Labor by 9.8 points in August on a two-party basis, where minority votes are distributed to the two main parties to decide an election.

Liberal/National Party coalition government support was 45.1 percent compared to 54.9 percent for Labor.

The government has slowly reduced Labor’s poll lead since mid-March, when the government trailed by 19.2 points. August’s result is the first time the government has reduced the gap to less than 10 points since Labor elected Kevin Rudd as leader in December 2006.

The results came after Australia’s central bank increased interest rates in early August to a decade high of 6.5 percent, and before new reports of leadership tension between Howard and his Treasurer Peter Costello.

The Reuters Poll Trend is not a poll; it is an analysis of the three main polls — Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper, ACNielsen, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers, and the Morgan Poll, published on line. The Trend aims to summarise the polls by compiling them and removing their volatility. It starts by rolling the published data from the major polls into a fortnightly three-poll average, weighting them equally and the smoothing volatility by using a five-term Henderson moving average. The Henderson process dampens short-term up-and-down movement but aims to leave untouched the underlying drift in the data.

The latest Reuters Poll Trend points to a slowing in the government’s recovery momentum since its March 2007 nadir. The Trend also suggests a landslide Labor win were an election held earlier this year.

The Reuters Poll Trend is not a poll; it is an analysis of the three main polls — Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper, ACNielsen, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers, and the Morgan Poll, published on line. The Trend aims to summarise the polls by compiling them and removing their volatility. It starts by rolling the published data from the major polls into a fortnightly three-poll average, weighting them equally and the smoothing volatility by using a five-term Henderson moving average. The Henderson process dampens short-term up-and-down movement but aims to leave untouched the underlying drift in the data.