Polls

Typically, leadership contests have that nagging chicken-or-egg feel about them.

They usually involve a period of intense public speculation with various insiders anonymously cited as backing this option or that.

It is a process which can leave voters suspicious of motives if only because change, division, and conflict, make great news copy.

Continue reading "Julia Gillard is on the highway to the danger zone" »

It was a common question over the break: “What’s going to happen in Canberra this coming year - will there be an election?’‘

Politics has always been a rough game but in recent times it’s become a virtual blood-sport with a constant sense that there’s another big event around every corner.

It matters less whether it’s an early election or perhaps a leadership contest on one or both sides. This “what’s-gonna-happen” fascination goes not merely to whether Tony Abbott can maintain the pressure on Julia Gillard he so relentlessly applied in 2011, but also to whether her own colleagues will hold fast or do the unthinkable.

Continue reading "2012: Julia Gillard’s year of living precariously" »

The latest Nielsen poll shows Prime Minister Julia Gillard closing the gap on Tony Abbott. Here’s what the Opposition environment spokesperson Greg Hunt thinks about that.

While Craig Emerson and the ALP are popping the champagne corks about a 30 per cent primary vote and a 45 per cent share of the two-party vote there is need for some historical perspective. The previous ACNielsen Poll would have delivered Labor the worst result since the preferential system was introduced in its modern form in 1949.

Of 25 elections held over that period, none had ever seen a major party slip below 43.1 per cent. By comparison, yesterday’s results, much trumpeted by Trade Minister Craig Emerson in Pollyanna mode, would bring the third worst electoral result since the preferential system was introduced.

Continue reading "Punch: The polls still show that no one trusts Labor" »

Mixing with the great and powerful on the international stage does not always give Australian prime ministers a boost in their domestic standing.

Hosting President George W. Bush and a string of other world leaders at the APEC summit just before the 2007 election did nothing to help John Howard with Australian voters.

But Labor strategists are pretty confident that next week’s visit by Barack Obama will be a positive for Julia Gillard.

Continue reading "Obama will help Gillard look positively prime ministerial" »

According to Confucius, the three things necessary for government are weapons, food and trust. If a ruler can’t hold onto all three, Confucius told his disciple Tsze-kung, he should give up the weapons first and the food next. Trust must be jealously guarded for “without trust we cannot stand.”

Although written over two thousand years ago in a vastly different culture to the modern west, the advice remains pertinent. More than any other system of government, democracy is built on a broad consensus of values and duties, without which the rights of individuals are endangered.

Central amongst these values is trust. Without it, the consent of the governed is frayed or destroyed as a culture of suspicion and distrust develops.

Continue reading "Confucius say: no trust woman with hair of rust" »

Just as it sinks in here that an election is two full years away, the political circus that is American politics is sending in the clowns and pegging out its big-top for another round of primary races.

As it does so, one sobering factoid for the Obama administration is that no president in the modern era has been re-elected with an unemployment rate above 7.5 per cent. Which is just another way of saying Bill Clinton famous maxim, “it’s the economy stupid’‘.

Yet here in Australia, it ain’t just the economy.

Continue reading "Obama and Gillard defy the theory of voternomics" »

Hurrying along a Parliament House corridor this week, I was pulled aside by a Canberra insider with strong links to Labor.

“I want to let you in on a secret,” he said sotto voce, theatrically hamming up a non-existent threat of eavesdroppers.

“This government is just not very good.”

Continue reading "The worst-kept secret: This Government’s just no good" »

Political leaders, be they premiers or prime ministers, need protection - especially during the tough times when the polls look sick, and the backbench can get nervy.

‘Twas ever thus. Bob Hawke could rely on the dominance and iron discipline of the Right faction. Factional heavyweights like Graham Richardson and Robert Ray controlled the numbers ensuring nothing untoward occurred.

It was a highly effective arrangement with only one major weakness. When some of those closest to him swapped sides it was game over. That’s politics. The King is dead, long live the King.

Continue reading "Keep voters close, and your political allies even closer" »

As a social researcher, you always try to keep your mind open and your ears alert to any slightly change in public sentiment.

While it’s rare to hear anything new when you are listening to voters talk about politics, you have to allow yourself the opportunity to be surprised.

The week after Labor secured the necessary support to form government, we were in field conducting research for our bi-annual Mind & Mood report.

Continue reading "The mood altering effect of the new paradigm" »

Australia really needs to do something about its addiction to opinion polls.

The week following the election, just like the weeks that led up to it, was dominated by polls.

First came the local ones in the rural Independents’ electorates, which some interpreted as a new set of riding instructions to Messrs Katter, Windsor and Oakeshott.

Continue reading "We need to get over our poll addiction" »

When I was in my first year of university I consented to attending some forum where politicians talk to young people about politics and spirituality. This was achieved through a combination of hassling by my parents, and an idea that I may be able to pick up some attractive young female leader type impressed with my attendance at such a deep thinking event.

Having entered the room and scanned through the earnest polar fleeced mini-lawyers, I quickly realised this was an asexual event more concerned with signing up for the Liberal or the Labor Right, and as such, planned to quietly head back down to the bar where the demarcation between male and female was more obvious and less sober. Unfortunately I was spotted by a friendly tutor who was happy one of his students had turned up, so I stuck around and we were introduced to that week’s guest speaker: Tony Abbott MP.

I can’t remember much of what was said, except for the fact that afterwards at dinner Tony and I got into an argument about the prospect of an Australian republic.

Continue reading "Admitting that you may be a monarchist is tough" »

OK Punchers, it’s crystal ball time. Below I’ve listed five reasons why this election is such a squeaker. The video below involving a severed arm being buried on a beach and spat upon to look into the future might be as good a way as any to help predict what’s going to happen on Saturday. But we’re looking for you to have a go at it anyway in the comments. Who will win, and by how many seats?

Punch editor David Penberthy wrote this week why he thinks the Coalition will win. The prevailing view from commentators is that Julia Gillard and the Labor party will win but lose some skin on the way through - maybe a dozen seats, but not enough to be totally turfed out. ALP campaign spokesman Chris Bowen said this morning he believed it would go down to the wire. Here are five reasons why there is so much talk about the balls being still up in the air.

1. A lot of people are yet to make up their minds. There are hundreds of thousands of voters who will make their decision in the next 48 hours, and some who will only decide in the polling booth. At the second people’s forum in Brisbane last night, dozens of people in the audience kept their hands in their laps when asked at the end of the night if they had made a decision. And they had spent an hour listening in person to the two party leaders. If these kinds of late deciders break heavily for either party it will be pivotal.

Continue reading "Election 2010: Make your predictions" »

I am a huge fan of political truisms. Love them. Let me take you through a few.

Red tape is always a bad thing. No matter that a lack of appropriate regulation caused the global financial crisis. Red tape is bad and must be disposed of. On the other hand, frontline services are always a good thing. Regardless of inefficiency or incompetence we simply can’t cut frontline staff.

A further example of unambiguous evil in the political realm is “polls”.

Continue reading "In defence of the pollsters" »

Our Prime Minister has joined the bandwagon complaining that this is a focus group- driven election - but isn¹t this the way of the Wiki? After all, books have been written about how the wisdom of the masses provide a more compelling truth than the voice of authority.

In an era when communications is moving from the broadcast model of a central voice of authority to the interconnectedness of Facebook, surely focus groups and polls are a legitimate driver of public policy.

It seems that with its group of 150 to guide the nation on climate change Labor is about to put the theory to the test, while the Coalition has long aligned its bearings to the fears and prejudices of the focus group room.

Continue reading "Gillard dumps focus groups, focus groups will like that" »

With the major parties flexing their muscles on border protection, the Australian public has sent Canberra a message that it is the protection of Australian jobs that is the real security issue for them.

In what looms as the sleeper issue for the 2010 election campaign, a quarter of all voters placed “Australian jobs and the protection of local industries” as key election issue, behind only economic management and health.

As the latest Essential Report shows that economic protectionism towers over headline-grabbing issues like climate change, asylum seekers, housing affordability, industrial laws and population growth as a priority election issue.

Continue reading "Even with a strong economy, jobs are a top concern" »

Labor and Julia Gillard would have been buoyed by the first rush of positive opinion polls over the weekend, just two days after she took over as Prime Minister.

But before the Government is tempted to call a snap election in this suggested honeymoon period, it might want to read the views of people submitting online comments to news sites, providing a finger-on-the-pulse gauge to public opinion.

Official opinion polling is closely followed by both political sides, but it is not always totally effective in exposing the mood of the nation. Late last year, I started noticing a rising tsunami of anger in comments to online news sites against Kevin Rudd over the proposed emissions trading scheme and a perceived failure by the Government to connect with the Australian people.

Continue reading "According to readers Gillard is still in virgin territory" »

Two weeks ago an edict went out from the Opposition Leader’s office to Coalition frontbenchers: don’t say Rudd Government, say Rudd / Gillard Government.

Just days before, a Neilsen poll in Fairfax newspapers had confirmed a trend in several Newspolls showing the Labor vote tanking to just 35 per cent. In fact the Neilsen poll put it at 33 per cent. Conservatives everyhwhere couldn’t believe their luck.

The Government’s support base was crumbling before their eyes. But wiser Liberals became nervous. As one told me at the time, things were going ``too well.’’

Continue reading "Early poll shows Gillard is Libs nightmare scenario" »

Australian voter confidence in Kevin Rudd’s statements has slumped to such a low that he may as well have set up shop on Sydney’s Parramatta Road selling used cars.

There may be a small consolation for the Prime Minister in taking a drive down there to see that they still manage to do business.

Polling of thousands of voters shows trust in the nation’s leader has practically evaporated. Despite the sustained Labor attack on the credibility of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, it is Rudd who is seen by the electorate as the bigger fake, and by a wide margin.

Continue reading "Survey shows voters’ loss of trust in Kevin Rudd" »

From the polls and the newspapers over the weekend it’s clear the Rudd Government is in trouble. The polls Prime Minister conceded today he had to “work harder into the future” and conceded if today’s polls were replicated in an election Tony Abbott would be Prime Minister.

But there is still some way to go before an election. The polls indicate that voters aren’t all that impressed with either Rudd or Abbott. You’d be a fool to betting the farm at this point that Kevin Rudd will be ousted. Yes, federal Labor is going through a diabolically bad period but it will still have strong messages on the economy, health, and education to take to the campaign. Plus there are plenty of questions hanging over Tony Abbott and the Coalition’s readiness for office.

So here’s an exercise. Imagine you are a Labor strategist thinking about re-election. In the comments, offer a traditional SWOT analysis - list the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to the current government. (To keep it tight we won’t post any comments that don’t stick to the formula or are blatantly partisan.) We’ll then collate and summarise the results in another post.

Continue reading "Punch SWOT analysis: the Rudd Government" »

Believe the polls and something almost mystical has happened over the past few months – our Prime Minister has changed from being an affable and competent leader to a human disaster area.

This week’s Essential Report builds on a growing sum of polling evidence that Labor is facing a tough fight for re-election and that a large part of the problem appears to be the Prime Minister himself.

Take a look at the shift in the ratings of the PM’s character attributes – a decline that has him nearly as unpopular as his opponent Tony Abbott – and you would be forgiven for thinking the PM has undergone some sort of radical personality therapy which has gone horribly wrong.

Continue reading "We need to talk about Kevin" »

“If you had asked me seven months ago if Rudd could lose, I would have asked you how much you’d had to drink,” says 65-year-old electrical engineer Robert Brown of North Ryde. “But now it is a real possibility.”

So it is. The assessment of Mr Brown is in keeping with the majority of the people we spoke to in our Punch street survey of voter sentiment going into this Federal Budget week. It’s a worrying trend for the PM, one which was born out by last week’s Newspoll, and today’s Nielsen poll in the Fairfax papers.

After looking set to coast to second term victory, Mr Rudd has taken a hammering in the polls. The disturbing thing for the PM is that many of the voters we met have a keen grasp of his backflips on the ETS, the insulation scheme, the school stimulus projects, and are now parrotting the Tony Abbott line that he is “all talk and no action.”

Continue reading "Punch street survey: broken promises, backflips belt PM" »

It’s a political phenomenon as inevitable as a Troy Buswell indiscretion. Mention tax and people smell a rat.

As the Rudd Government prepares to release the Henry Tax Review, new polling from Essential Research shows what a tough time our leaders face when they want to review the nation’s revenue base.

Sixty one percent of Australians say they pay too much tax while just four per cent say they way too little. And even when you offer to the fix the problems that people want fixed, the majority would rather have the dour status quo than pay more moolah.

Continue reading "Tax is still a four-letter word" »

Spare a thought for Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner as they ferret away on Labor’s pre-election budget. At a time when they should be doling out the goodies, the public is telling them it’s time to stop spending our money.

The last few years have been a good time to be in control of the Treasury coffers – after all a successful economic rescue plan based on giving people money while interest rates remained low was sure to meet with public acclaim.

But now the party is coming to an end and the pressure is on to rein spending without causing an uproar in core Labor constituencies. As this week’s Essential Report

As elections in two states loom it is becoming absolutely clear that voters are in the process of switching off the Labor Party.

What this means is that Australia will have a changed political landscape post March 20 - no matter what the outcome of the polls.

And the aftershocks from these elections could have profound implications for federal Labor, which will seek re-election with two crippled state divisions providing distractions and baggage.

Continue reading "The state elections could be an albatross for Rudd’s neck" »

The head of the UN’s climate change panel (the IPCC) Rajendra Pachauri has released a novel that combines lessons on climate change with sexy story lines.

The protagonist in Pachauri’s book is eerily similar to Pachauri himself: an environmentalist and former engineer who inexplicably has a lot of sex with women (I can’t say whether the last part as any basis in reality). According to The Times the book: “mingles lectures on climate change with descriptions of Sanjay’s sexual encounters, including frequent references to “voluptuous breasts”.

Following last week’s visit from the Skeptic Dark Lord Mockton (who looks and sounds like an evil mastermind from a new climate themed Bond film) I can’t help but wonder if some of the increasing confusion about climate change stems from the eccentric oddballs who we’re told to believe.

Continue reading "No wonder we’re confused about climate change . . ." »

If you are already sure who you are going to vote for at this year’s federal election then consider yourself a member of a minority group: the ‘rusted-on voter’.

As this week’s Essential Report illustrates, we have become a Nation of Softies, voters who can be wooed and repelled by our politicians all the way up to voting day.

It is a change in our political culture from previous generations who inherited a party from their parents and stuck with it through thick and thin.

Continue reading "Election 2010: It’s the year of the softie" »

Ordinarily the first parliamentary sitting week for a new opposition leader is a chance to redefine themselves, introduce new ideas to the public, perhaps break the shackles of received wisdom about their view of the world.

But like John Howard when took the Liberal leadership (again) in 1995, Tony Abbott makes his first parliamentary charge as Opposition Leader this week as a relatively well-known political quantity. So do the cliches about him match the perceptions of people in the street? Being the new leader, and seeing as we did the same number on the Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull last year, we decided to ask people some simple questions about what they thought of the Member for Warringah.

So was there a surprise, like in the Rudd survey when people said they perceived the Prime Minister as somehow physically small? Nup; respondents described Abbott almost as a caricature of how he’s caricatured: a straight-talking conservative bruiser, hated by some for his views on social issues, known for them by all.

Continue reading "The alternative" »

Here’s a heads up. If you really want to know what Aussies in 2010 think about our country becoming a republic just flip a coin.

According to the odds, there’s a 50-50 chance of turning up the head of Queen Elizabeth.

Eleven years since a referendum was held to settle the republic debate, Australians seem just as divided about cutting their ties to a monarch living on the other side of the world.

Continue reading "Well at least it’s clear we like talking about a republic" »

GetUp’s latest poll has found the public are hoping Tony Abbott will take the party down a progressive path.

It’s a big year for the Liberal Party of Australia. One hundred years ago, the Protectionist and Free Trade parties combined to offer voters an alternative to the Labor party.

Oppositions can be great force within our democracy. They can be the drivers of accountability and transparency, of new thinking and ambitious policy. And in a democracy where our major parties fight over just a small subset of the population (swinging voters), their power in influencing the Government of the day is certainly present.

Continue reading "Abbott’s challenge now is to renew the Liberal Party" »

After a week when the Liberals took decisive action to reduce their political footprint Joe Hockey is sitting snugly between ‘Someone Else’ and ‘Don’t Know’ as the preferred Liberal leader.

If politics really is Hollywood for ugly people, then this week’s Essential Report shows Joe is about to slip on the political swimsuit and start strutting his stuff by default.

The polling confirms what we all supected – the nation is over Malcolm Turnbull, it can’t abide Tony Abbott and it doesn’t really know who Julie Bishop or Andrew Robb are. As for Kevin Andrews, like his own party, we didn’t bother to ask. This leaves just three credible options for the Liberals: Don’t Know, Someone Else and Joe Hockey.

Continue reading "The only beauty contest that Joe Hockey will ever win" »

I am wiping the egg off my face this morning. Last week I happily wrote off Newspoll’s recent findings of a drop in support for Rudd as a blip and then along comes this week’s Essential Report showing there is, indeed, something going on.

The fall we have picked up may not be as spectacular as Newspoll’s but we are beginning to see movement away from Labor, especially among older Australians.

A four-point fall in two party preferred vote is beyond margin for error and could mean one of three things: (i) Newspoll was right all along (albeit a little over-cooked);  (ii) Newspoll was wrong but the world has caught up with their error; or (iii) we have a blip to match Newspoll’s.

Continue reading "I love the taste of egg in the morning" »

Evidence is now mounting that last week’s Newspoll poll showing a seven point drop in Labor support was a rogue result, with Essential Research’s weekly tracking showing no movement in the two-party preferred vote.

The Essential Report, that has Labor comfortably ahead 59-41, follows on the heels of Monday’s Herald/Nielson poll that was also steady.

Beneath the headline figures there are some intriguing sub-plots, with the public going close to welcoming the increase in interest rates, while continuing to rate the Prime Minister down on his handling of the asylum seeker issue.

Continue reading "It’s a blip – Rudd maintains lead with interest" »

Whatever the reason, Kevin Rudd can take no comfort from today’s Newspoll showing a seven-point turnaround in the standing of Labor and the Coalition in the past fortnight. The poll comes as political strategist and Punch regular Peter Lewis writes today that a majority of Australians thinks Rudd is weak on border protection, according to the latest Essential Media findings.

The PM’s nightmare scenario is that there are three factors at play - disapproval at his “tough but fair” line on asylum seekers, disquiet over his economic management ahead of today’s dead-cert interest rate hike, and a sign that some voters are growing tired of the hitherto unassailable Teflon Kevin.

Unless the Newspoll is a blip, Labor is facing the almost unbelievable prospect of a nail-biter election with a two-party preferred lead of 52 to 48 over the Coalition. We’ll throw the commentary to you - what’s your take on it?

Anyone wondering why Kevin Rudd continues to defy political gravity could do well to consider the latest Essential Report that drills down into the issues of importance to Australian voters.

Like a human pogo stick, Rudd just keeps bouncing back: it doesn’t seem to matter what he’s hit with – global financial meltdown, environmental destruction, even an influx of asylum seekers.

No matter the political issue – and we have tested 13 of them – Rudd has the Opposition covered – even the traditional Liberal strong points of economic management and interest rates can not deliver Turnbull a win.

Continue reading "Our beloved Kevin Rudd is a human pogo stick" »

It was refreshing to hear something new in the public debate on climate change today. Liberal frontbencher Chris Pyne told Sky News: “If a modern political party wants to be taken seriously it cannot be a climate change sceptic party”.

Is there any issue which draws more predictable responses from people than climate change? The mere mention of it sparks a round of boring twaddle as folks argue from fixed positions over whether the latest news shows climate change is caused by people or even real - or, most hilariously, a massive conspiracy cooked up by an evil network of thousands of scientists with a twisted sense of humour.

But there’s one thing surely everyone agrees on. If sea levels rise and rain stops falling, we are all totally and utterly screwed. So we should probably deal with it.

Continue reading "People haven’t stopped caring about climate change" »

I’ve never been one for obsessing about The Australian. They have an editorial slant to the right, but they also have some very high quality journos who I like to read. As a result I buy and read their paper every day and filter out their leanings. I’m sure plenty of others do the same.

Yesterday, their front page (“Rudd loses ground in his homeland state and the bush”) blew up the filter.  It’s one thing to take a news angle on one part of a poll at the expense of a more complex message.  It’s another to ignore what should be, for one side of politics, an enormous, wailing emergency siren with big flashing red lights on top in order to substantiate a headline like that.

In their article, Matthew Franklin and Samantha Maiden claim “public support for Labor has plunged in regional Australia and fallen in Kevin Rudd’s home state of Queensland” as well as “a big jump in support for the Coalition among voters living outside the capital cities.” While no questions on the ETS were in the poll, the ETS was inserted as a possible cause.

Continue reading "The one conclusion from Newspoll: Turnbull is cactus" »

The polls on climate change are in and Australia is speaking as one, in a consistent and unwavering voice, sending the government a clear message it ignores at its own peril. That message? “We don’t know”.

Over the past few months ‘Don’t Know’ has emerged from the pack to be the most popular answer to a series of questions around climate change posed in the weekly Essential Report. Where once we were clear on the need for decisive action to stop global warming, now we are all at (rising?) sea. And the source of our confusion can be summed up in the ugly little acronym, ETS. Here’s a snapshot from recent polls:

June 29: Should the Opposition vote in favour or against the Government’s ETS legislation? - 40 per cent Don’t Know
June 22: Is the Government’s ETS strong enough? – 47 per cent Don’t Know
June 15: Should the Greens support the ETS in the Senate? – 37 per cent Don’t Know

This collective confusion represents a victory for the climate change deniers, notably the industry groups who have created their own doomsday scenarios around job losses in carbon-reliant industries.

Continue reading "“Don’t knows” rising faster than the polar ice caps" »

There is a national consensus that Malcolm Turnbull had a shocker last week, but dig below the surface and the story is even grimmer.

While a string of opinion polls have chronicled the fall in support for the Opposition leader, Essential Research has conducted detailed character research into the two leaders to find his leadership entering the terminal phase.

In 14 out of 15 categories, we find Kevin Rudd enjoying advantages on the positives and disadvantages on the negatives. And the one category where Turnbull has a better rating - ‘demanding’ - may well be the one that bought him undone last week.

Continue reading "15 Reasons Why Malcolm Turnbull Will Never Be PM" »

Forget Malcolm Turnbull. The biggest casualty of the Utegate debacle might not be the individual but the organisation, with the federal Liberals now looking like the hapless state oppositions in NSW, SA, Victoria and Queensland which dutifully turn up every few years on polling day for some ritualised humiliation.

Turnbull has pulled off an unprecedented and unenviable hat-trick in the polls this morning. He’s copped it in the neck in Newspoll, his approval rating falling an unprecedented 19 per cent, the biggest single drop in Newspoll’s 25-year history, with the party vote dropping three points to give Labor a thumping 56 to 44 lead, two-party preferred. He’s been flogged by Nielsen, his disapproval rocketing up 13 points to a whopping 60 per cent. And he’s been caned by Galaxy, with more than half the voters saying he was at best deceitful over the Utegate affair.

Whether Turnbull is safe or not may no longer be the question. The bigger questions is whether the party itself can survive the horrors of the past seven days.

Continue reading "Liberals teetering on the brink of irrelevance" »