Economy
It’s odds-on Abbott as Rudd, Tassie Labor teeter, and Wilkie looks certain. The Bonham analysis
Tony Abbott is on track to become the nation’s 29th prime minister as support for Labor crumbles and the Opposition Leader draws almost level with Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister.
With only a fortnight to go in the five-week election campaign, the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll shows Mr Abbott’s Liberal-Nationals Coalition extending its lead over Labor, to be 53-47 on a two-party-preferred basis.
It was 52-48 in the same survey in early August, shortly after the election was called.
While both leaders have lost some skin in the campaign, Mr Abbott has retained a 7-point lead as the more trusted leader, with a rating of 43 per cent to Mr Rudd on a career low of 36 per cent.
Labor’s primary vote has dropped to 35 per cent compared with the Coalition on 47, with the Greens steady on 10.
On the question of preferred prime minister, Mr Rudd’s commanding 14-point lead of 55-41 in July has been reduced to a statistically insignificant 3 points on 48-45.
The clear trend suggests voters across the nation are considering just the seventh switch of a governing party at national level since World War II.
A separate Newspoll, published on Saturday, shows Mr Rudd is at risk of losing his own Brisbane seat in a possible election rout. The Coalition candidate in the Prime Minister’s seat of Griffith, Bill Glasson, leads Mr Rudd on a two-party preferred basis by 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
Mr Glasson’s primary vote support has surged 12 percentage points since the 2010 election, according to Newspoll.
The Fairfax-Nielsen poll found an overwhelming 70 per cent of voters now believe the Coalition will win on September 7, compared with just 20 per cent who tip Labor to come from behind. Voters have answered that question correctly in the Fairfax-Nielsen poll before every election since 1998.
The poll of 2545 respondents taken between August 18 and 22 surveyed 980 voters in NSW and 972 in Victoria.
In NSW, where Labor had hoped to keep losses to one or two seats in western Sydney, offset by expected gains in Queensland, Labor’s primary vote is down to 34 per cent – a drop of some 5 points since the election was called.
On a two-party-preferred basis, Labor’s share of the vote in NSW has slumped to 44 per cent to the Coalition’s 56, putting a swag of Labor seats in peril including: Greenway (0.9 per cent); Robertson (1 per cent); Lindsay (1.1 per cent); Banks (1.5 per cent); Reid (2.7 per cent); Parramatta (4.4 per cent) and Kingsford-Smith (5.2 per cent).
In the Labor stronghold of Victoria, ALP support has fallen by 4 points since 2010, although that decline is off a very high base of 55.3 per cent.
The result …
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/abbott-set-for-triumph-as-rudds-seat-at-risk-20130823-2sha7.html#ixzz2cqLJgdXn
…
Two weeks out from the election, the poll numbers point to a new prime minister and a Liberal government, mirroring a nationwide swing towards the Liberals.
ReachTEL polling shows some improvement for the Labor Party in Tasmania since the last poll on June 14.
But Liberal candidates maintain a healthy lead.
The ReachTEL poll of 2785 electors across Tasmania shows:
SUPPORT for Labor member Geoff Lyons in Bass has increased from 24.2 per cent to 29.9 per cent, but Liberal Andrew Nikolic still enjoys 51.8 per cent support.
BRADDON’S sitting ALP member Sid Sidebottom has lifted from 24.2 per cent support to 35.8 per cent, but Liberal Brett Whiteley is the first choice of 50.6 per cent of those polled.
SUPPORT for Lyons Liberal candidate Eric Hutchinson has softened from 50 per cent to 47.4 per cent, although he remains ahead of the ALP’s Dick Adams, who has firmed from 25.4 per cent to 29.8 per cent.
Mr Wilkie has leapt from 36.9 per cent of the primary vote to 43.7 per cent.
Preferences should see him elected comfortably.
Ms Collins is the first choice of 29.7 per cent of those polled in Franklin, sharing a near-five percentage point decline with her Liberal opponent Bernadette Black.
Support for the Greens’ Rosalie Woodruff has surged from 9.9 per cent to 16.4 per cent support, although 10 per cent of the electorate remains undecided.
The return of Mr Rudd as Labor leader has failed to resonate with voters in the way the party may have hoped
…
• Dr Kevin Bonham: ReachTEL Says Tas Labor Still Losing Three
REACHTEL: Bass Liberal 58.4:41.6, Braddon Liberal 56.6:43.4, Lyons Liberal 55.8:44.2, Franklin Labor 50.6:49.4, Denison Wilkie 45.5, Lib 24, ALP 18.7
Approx State 2PP 52:48 to Coalition
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There are two things that can overturn this picture. The first is a major turnaround in the national situation to a position in which Labor wins the election – which looks highly unlikely. The second is that ReachTEL federal polling in one or more of the seats is consistently faulty – a view for which there is no convincing public evidence, but we must remember that this company has not been tested at a federal election before.
The third some might suggest – the margin of error of small seat samples: well, it’s time to forget about that one. The ReachTEL results from Tasmania this year have been so consistent that if the polling method is reasonably accurate, and the national 2PP does not improve sharply for Labor, Labor will almost certainly lose all three of Bass, Braddon and Lyons. I will cover the key question of whether ReachTEL is accurate later in this article.
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However, while ReachTEL’s methods have at least been tested against state election results elsewhere, Morgan’s new multi-mode method has not been tested against any election at all. My concern is that Morgan’s methods are more likely to be prone to local glitches in the recruitment of an online panel. Even if we assume the Tasmanian picture is midway between the two pollsters as adjusted for apparent national house effects (say, 52:48 to ALP) that is still a situation in which Labor would lose two seats and could lose three.
Read more, comment here:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/reachtel-says-tas-labor-still-losing.html
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