KORE Poll 5: Job approval, RATS and Djokovic

So if you were a government and you wanted to find a way to turn off the most loyal and rusted on voters and get them to stop voting for you, here’s a great way to do it:

  1. Create an arguably avoidable emergency
  2. Tell people that in order to deal with emergency they need a thing
  3. Tell them the only way to get that thing is to buy it at whatever price the market demands
  4. Wait until lots of them have ordered that thing at hugely inflated prices
  5. Then take all the things away, leaving people without their things or their money

These comments are just a tiny sample of responses to the question asking if people had been able to buy a rapid antigen test.

Bought a kit, but delayed at customs/stolen by Fed gov’t
56-44 year old female voter in Wright, Qld

My order was cancelled due to LNP requisitioning
45-54 year old female voter in Deakin, Vic

Ordered online but it’s delayed thanks to the Gov
45-54 year old female voter in Bonner, Qld

I ordered them and the online provider has advised that my order has been taken by the federal government.
18-24 year old female voter in Groom, Qld

I paid for online RAT, which have been delayed for an unknown time as these were purchased by the Government.
65-74 year old female voter in Kennedy, Qld

I ordered 10 but supplier said the government recalled for their use. Thanks Prime Minister.
35-44 year old female voter in Hughes, NSW

You’ll note that these comments all are from women in east coast conservative electorates; otherwise known as the demographic that swung to keep Morrison in the job in 2019. Some of these respondents describe themselves as long time Liberal voters, and all are intending to vote Labor or Independent. This is the proverbial straw that broke them, they’re done, see ya Scotty.

But we’ll get to that, let’s start at the top.

KORE Poll 5
Collection Dates Jan 12-17, 2022
FormatOnline
Sources KORE Panel, River (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn push), Email, Snowball
Total sample6645
Weighting Raking method: age, gender, state
Effective sample after weighting 5557
Confidence/Margin of error95% / 1.2
Effective Vote PredictionLabor win
Incumbent v Challenger PredictionToo close to call – favours Labor

I felt the above insight into the rapid antigen test issue was an important pre-amble, as people are furious. And that fury resulted in a much larger than usual sample from all recruitment channels. Total attempts at the survey were 7612, after removing incomplete or otherwise unable to be analysed responses it came back to 6821. We then removed a further 176 responses that were abusive or invalid to reach a final sample of 6645. After weighting, the effective sample was 5557, and with a confidence rate of 95% that gives a Margin of Error of 1.2%. We have some extra notes right at the end of the post for those who are interested in such things, but it’s a very solid sample and we hope to see these kinds of numbers again next month.

And, as is always the case, the real value in our polls is our fused quant/qual method – all those open text questions that allow people to have a good vent – as they tell us the why, not just the what, and temper the numbers with understanding. In other words, if you’re new to the KORE Poll, please read the commentary not just the numbers.

First Preferences

The big swing in first preferences is a bit reactionary to the intense level of WTF?! during the poll window (12-17 January, right through the peak of the Djokovic nonsense). So, take these numbers with a grain of salt and understanding that there will be a correction (assuming Morrison doesn’t find some new low of the low to go for), and indeed may be a significant rebound if the Liberal Party does needs to be done and finds themselves a new leader to save the furniture (other than Dutton, who would also make it worse). Also, vote intention figures are always volatile between about now and when candidates are announced, and things usually swing back in the favour of incumbents as election day nears.

Question text: As things stand now, who do you think you will vote for (give your number 1 preference to) in the House of Representatives in the upcoming federal election?

The vote for Independents is surging month on month, it is largely in those seats with declared ‘voices of’ candidates, and it is very soft elsewhere… most people don’t know if they have a decent independent candidate to vote for, and there’s still a lot of major party candidates to be announced. From the comments it is clear that some people are annoyed they don’t yet know who the candidates are and want to assess the individual candidates. Now. Hurry up. C’mon.

PHON continue to hold, which is interesting given the level of UAP advertising (UAP have dropped to 1.3% and thus are relegated to the ‘others’ – see Momentum Tracker figures below). The unrelenting Clive advertising was a significant turn off factor for many voters last election, especially the text messaging, so perhaps it is again? As I’ve noted often before, that minor right wing anti-establishment vote is fickle… although I don’t expect any of their lower house candidates to actually win anything, it’s important to track as they mostly (but not uniformly) preference the Coalition.

Effective Vote

We have a lot of new people this month so I’m going to include a bit more information than usual. The KORE Poll does not do a 2PP as it is a misleading figure that misrepresents what is actually going on in the electorate, and in the last election was, as you know, very wrong. We do two alternatives – an Effective Vote (EV) number, and Incumbent versus Challenger (IvC), both of which are still in a beta phase of testing. For the record, the IvC was the basis on which I started saying from January 2019 that Labor was not going to win the last election, and the one I trust the most, even though it often runs counter to the dominant narrative in media and commentary.

To get the EV figures we ask respondents to rank 6 hypothetical candidates – Coalition, Labor, Green, Minor Left or Centre, Minor Right, and a moderate Independent. We then effect a preference count for their electorate, based on the final two candidate preference count in 2019 (except for Hughes and Goldstein – see notes below). And then we translate that EV into a projection for the breakdown of 151 seats. So, you can think of the EV numbers as 2PP without putting your head in the sand and pretending the crossbench doesn’t exist, derived by actually asking people their preferences rather than an algorithm deciding for them.

The non-classic seats, that have a major v other count instead of Labor v Coalition, are as follows:

SeatIncumbentChallenger
ClarkIndependentLabor
CooperLaborGreens
CowperNationalsIndependent
FarrerLiberalIndependent
Goldstein*LiberalIndependent
GrayndlerLaborGreens
Hughes**UAP (Liberal)Labor
IndiIndependentLiberal
KennedyKatter’s Australia PartyLNP
KooyongLiberalGreens
MaranoaLNPOne Nation
MayoCentre AllianceLiberal
MelbourneGreensLiberal
New EnglandNationalsIndependent
WarringahIndependentChallenger
WentworthLiberalIndependent
WillsLaborGreens

*The preference flow in Goldstein was our main driver in doing some deeper polling in some key seats this month, recruiting an additional sample in North Sydney, Warringah, Wentworth and Goldstein. We have little doubt it will be a Tim Wilson v Zoe Daniel 2CP count, so have made that change in the effective vote calculations.

**Hughes is a problem as obviously Craig Kelly was elected as a Liberal, but is now UAP. We have precisely zero voters in this very large sample voting for him – and lots of emotional comments about how bad he is, so we’ve made a calculated guess that it will end up being a Liberal v Independent 2CP count (that is, Craig won’t be in the final 2, soz mate). However, this too is complex – as there are multiple independents, and it isn’t clear which way the preference flow will go (or if indeed some will drop out) but we’re assuming that if there are multiple independent their preferences will flow to each other ahead of Labor or Liberal. Messy, but we’ll keep an eye on it.

Incumbent v Challenger

Once we have the EV coded for each respondent, we then code whether that effective vote is for or against the incumbent MP, to get the Incumbent versus Challenger (IvC) number. This has typically been very close, like the 2PP is very close, but you read it slightly differently. If the Incumbent number is over 50%, there will likely be no change in Government (there may be a hung parliament, but people aren’t voting for change). This cannot be equated into a certain number of seats, only likely outcome – Challenger means likely change of Government, Incumbent no change in Government.

Incumbetn versus challenger graph showing Challenger on 50.9% and Incumbent on 49.1%

This is the first time ever, including in all the Voter Choice Project analysis from the last election, this number has been higher for challengers. And it’s pretty close to dead even, so don’t get excited – this is no Labor landslide and may still be a hung parliament. Essentially this confirms other indicators and qualitative analysis that the increase in Labor vote is mostly happening in Labor held seats – the anti-Liberal voter is currently homeless, often equally unimpressed with Labor, and looking for something else. In most seats it really isn’t clear where that very angry mob of voters will wind up.

Or to quote one undecided voter:

“I can’t see myself ever voting Liberal again, while the Labor doesn’t’ seem to have the strength required to govern effectively and get control.”
55-64 year old Male voter in Canning

Momentum Tracker

The Momentum Tracker is part of our efforts to better understand the movement or volatility in the electorate. Momentum is generally considered the pollster’s unicorn – impossible to capture. This is very nerdy stuff, you may want to just scroll past to the Job Approval numbers.

The way it works is we calculate a score of how committed each respondent is to their declared vote intention, based on a series of interlocking vote validation questions. That score puts them in one of these 5 ranges:

  • Uncommitted – the uncommitted voter is either so uninterested or unimpressed by the election there is a very high likelihood they will change their vote or not vote at all
  • Soft – this voter may need a reason or catalyst to change their vote, but are actively looking to switch.
  • Medium – if some significant reason presented itself they’d consider switching their vote.
  • Firm – a near-certain vote. The voters may switch if the party or candidate they were intending to vote for did something stupid, unlikely to be swayed by another candidate or party.
  • Hard – a locked-in vote. Nothing will budge it.

We then cross tab that with First Preference, Effective and IvC to get the below grid. The theory is that the parties with more firm voters than soft voters, and an increasing hard vote poll on poll, have the momentum in the election, and as long as your firm or hard vote is growing more than your soft vote then things are headed in the right direction. As the election nears, all lines should be getting firmer, so you can just look at the firm and hard totals to see what’s going on at a more granular level.

The effective vote lines are the most illuminative, where you can clearly see the ALP vote hardening while the Coalition vote disintegrates.

State by State

The size of the sample makes it possible for us to to do state breakdowns. And, like Morgan, we found the swing is on… including in Queensland.

FIRST PREFERENCES

NSWVICQLDWASATASACTNT
ALP40.0%45.0%35.0%42.0%33.0%38.0%50.0%28.0%
LNP24.0%15.0%27.0%31.0%28.0%12.0%10.0%46.0%
Ind16.0%15.0%9.0%9.0%16.0%26.0%13.0%7.0%
GRN7.0%10.0%10.0%10.0%10.0%13.0%15.0%3.0%
PHON5.0%4.0%9.0%1.0%5.0%3.0%1.0%5.0%
Other 4.0%3.0%4.0%3.0%4.0%0.0%1.0%6.0%
Und5.0%7.0%7.0%4.0%4.0%7.0%10.0%5.0%

EFFECTIVE VOTE

NSWVICQLDWASATASACTNT
ALP50.8%54.6%52.1%61.9%56.1%58.2%77.3%43.1%
LNP36.2%32.3%46.6%38.1%33.3%30.3%22.3%56.1%
Other13.1%13.0%1.4%10.6%11.6%0.4%0.8%

INCUMBENT v CHALLENGER

NSWVICQLDWASATASACTNT
Incumb48.1%48.2%47.7%51.7%49.7%54.5%68.2%35.5%
Challen51.9%51.8%52.3%48.3%50.3%45.5%31.8%64.5%

An important note is that WA may be a different world right now. The whole RAT issue? They were only made legal in the state during the polling window, none of them have even tried. It will be interesting to see how that changes as the sneaky Omicron weasels its way into the fortress, but at the moment they’re all having a very different conversation.

As for the Northern Territory, the Mayor of Alice Springs Damien Ryan is running for Lingiari for the Country Liberals – Warren Snowden has represented the seat well for the ALP, but is retiring. All of that swing is personal, not partisan, and likely a bit of a bubble that will dissipate as the election nears. I personally think Labor’s selection of Marion Scrymgour is an excellent one, so it might be a seat to watch.

Job Approval

We last asked about Job Approval in October and it’s our intention to do it every three months. Scott Morrison’s disapproval numbers were already high, but somehow found an extra 15 points of unhappy since October. Albanese finally got his approval numbers into the majority – but only just… and these aren’t good enough to carry the party to a win.

Question text: Do you approve or disapprove of the job Scott Morrison is doing as Prime Minister/Anthony Albanese is doing as opposition leader/your local member is doing in representing your area?

Note: While only 21% approve or strongly approve of Morrison, 27% prefer him as PM, and another 9% are not sure… so there’s an election deciding sized group of people who are unimpressed by both leaders.

Question text: Which of the two current major party leaders, the Liberal Party’s Scott Morrison and the Labor Party’s Anthony Albanese, would you prefer as Prime Minister?

Qualitative Insights

The KORE Poll’s real strength is the qualitative questions mixed in with the quant, allowing us to understand what is going on. The hatred for Scott Morrison is real and growing, including from within Liberal party supporters:

I voted for the Liberals last election and I’m embarrassed. I feel like an absolute idiot. My local Liberal member has been missing for the past 3 years and the Federal government is an incompetent rabble of corrupt grifters. Scott Morrison is completely out of his depth and has shown himself to be a liar. Three years ago I never imagined that I’d be voting Labor at this election, but here I am!
45-54 year old Male voter in Banks, NSW

I am disgusted and embarrassed that we have such a corrupt, incompetent and downright revolting federal government. I can’t wait to see them lose the election. I want them investigated and put into prison for their lack of governance and care of the Australian public. They are blood guilty, all these COVID deaths are their fault!   I will never ever vote Liberal again!!
35-44 year old Female voter in Swan, WA

I have voted Liberal all my life until now. Morrison is a disreputable embarrassing disgrace with no leadership qualities.
45-54 Male voter in Makin, SA

I have voted liberal all my life, but not this election. Scott Morrison & the federal liberal party have done an appalling job managing the country over the last 3 years.
35-44 year old female voter in Solomon, NT

I have voted liberal all my life, but will have to vote against the hard working Michelle Landry because of the stupidity of Morrison.
65-74 year old male voter in Capricornia, QLD

Lots of comments that Morrison is the ‘worst ever’:

I never thought we would have a Prime minister ever again that was more incompetent than Tony Abbott. But Scott Morrison has proved me wrong.
45-54 year old male voter in Ryan, Qld

I think Scott Morrison is far and away the worst PM we have ever had.
55-64 year old female voter in Eden-Monaro, NSW

I’ve never known a more corrupt, callous, deceitful government…and I’ve seen a few! The current Prime Minister is the worst we’ve ever had. I can see why he was sacked from his previous positions.
55-64 year old female voter in Bonner, Qld

I’m currently up to PM number 9 now. The incumbent would have to be the worst performing PM I can recall. Both at home and abroad he has brought the prestige of the nation to new lows. Not a legacy to be proud of.
45-54 year old male voter in Ballarat, Vic

In my opinion, Scott Morrison is the worst PM in Australia’s history. He has destroyed our international standing, destroyed our economy by insulting and provoking China, formerly our largest trading partner. He has made an absolute stuff-up of Australia’s response to COVID. He is a liar and an incompetent.
65-74 year old female voter in Bass, Tas

Morrison has disgraced our country.  He is the worst PM of my life time.  I have voted Liberal more often than not as well.
65-74 year old male voter in Grey, SA

There’s several hundred more like that but you get the idea – it’s a widespread sentiment from all ages, genders, parts of the country and voting backgrounds. That said, the ‘meh’ response to Albanese isn’t budging, especially in NSW where many desperately want him to step up:

Albanese is still too much on a script and never seems to seize the initiative – even though Morrison gives lots of opportunity.
65-74 year old female voter from Wentworth, NSW

Albanese really needs to step up as an alternative leader.  Morrison is the most corrupt and dangerous leader this country has ever had, another 3 years would destroy our democracy.
65-74 year old female voter from Cowper, NSW

Albanese uninspiring and lacking ambition but Labor are decent and competent in comparison to the trainwreck Morrison government
18-24 year old male voter in Bradfield, NSW

Albanese needs to define what he really stands for and stop walking both sides of the street!
55-64 year old male voter in Parramatta, NSW

Scott Morrison is appalling and Anthony Albanese is probably a nice man but boring +++
75 + female voter in North Sydney, NSW

Screen shot of the many responses talking about local members as being invisible.

Discussion of local members invokes a wide range of reactions, but many are described as ‘invisible’ or ‘missing’. This is a pretty big concern for both sides of politics (and if you ask me, their own bloody fault for not allowing MPs and candidates to engage) as local candidate qualities will likely decide an election where both leaders are unpopular.

COVID-19 related questions

We asked about three aspects of COVID-19 management in this poll: RATs, the Djokovic issue, and general pandemic management. None of the results are particularly surprising. Almost half of respondents had tried and failed to get a rapid antigen test. Many of those who hadn’t tried were in WA, many of those who said Yes said it was very difficult, expensive, or they were bought before Christmas. An overwhelming majority think the tests should be free and the who debacle is the fault of the Federal Government.

The Djokovic issue was a very intense storm in a tea cup, and not at all what we expected when we put the questions in the poll. It was actually very interesting to watch the progression of the opinions on the issue as the saga unfolded… from the furious assertions that he must not be allowed in, to the Government have stuffed this, to being embarrassed about how the issue was playing out after the first court case, to people no longer caring after the second case.

Here’s the numbers, but a caution not to just look at the first one and think the right thing was done… this is what is known as a poisoned chalice issue, with a similar response pattern to when we ask about refugees who come by boat. Asked the simple yes/no ‘should they be allowed’, the answer is always an emphatic no. But, just as people are ok with refugees coming they just don’t want them to die at sea, people were fine with Djokovic coming to Australia if he quarantined and was proven to be free of COVID-19. And just as people see the torture of refugees as reprehensible and shameful to the nation, most people – even those strongly opposed to Djokovic coming here – were more opposed to Morrison’s actions than the tennis player’s presence.

The tone went from furious to mostly scared and sad when we asked about general COVID-19 management. Most are strongly disapproving of the current management, although it should be noted that a substantial number of respondents said they strong disapproved of the federal performance, but strongly approved their state’s handling of the issue. There is strong but wary support for a lockdown to get Omicron under control.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the many chronically ill people who commented about being terrified.

I am in self-isolation because I have underlying health conditions and I’m terrified of what will happen if I get COVID.
45-54 year old female voter in Ryan, Qld

I’m terrified returning to work as a teacher with asthma and immune disorder
35-44 year old female voter in Grayndler, NSW

We are a high risk household too scared to go anywhere
55-64 year old female voter in Page, NSW

As someone else in that situation, I thought I was a minority; your comments made me realise there are so many of us all feeling the same things, and doing everything we can to not become a statistic whose death is dismissed as ok because of ‘underlying conditions’. Please stay in touch with the world as much as you can from Iso and be active in looking after your mental as well as your physical health while we get through this.

It’s the vibe…

The main take away from this poll wasn’t in the response to any particular question, it was the overall tone of responses and comments. People are furious. They’re done. They want the election now, and Morrison gone now. They want effective leadership and proper management of the pandemic. They are very sick of being lied to.

There was a very high level of expletives in the comments – and lots of people apologising for the expletives! Shitshow, bullshit, shit fight, clusterfuck, fuckwits, fucked up, fucked over, and just so fucking angry… we’re glad we helped you vent a little, swearing is always fine with us.

In amongst the swearing and fury was also some fairly deep emotional trauma as Liberal voters wrangled with their identity as a Liberal Party supporter and not wanting Morrison to stay, some of whom are quoted above. Thank you for sharing your feelings with us, letting us see how difficult it is for you. We acknowledge many of you feel ashamed or embarrassed, although you aren’t responsible for Morrison’s actions (or lack thereof). We’d love to hear from more Coalition voters as you try and reconcile your loyalty and support for the ideology with not being able to support the person, or indeed if you do still support the person, we’d love to hear that too – please join the KORE Panel to take part in future polls.


Big sample – big bias?

Every sample for every survey ever done has an element of bias. It is the pollster’s job to correct for it as much as they can, without biasing the data more in the opposite direction. In the KORE Poll we do this through weighting (specifically a method called raking) by age, gender and state of residence. It’s essentially a calculation of how many responses we should have had in that group based on census data, and then a figure is allocated to even out the groups. Women under 35 are the only demographic group that needed to be significantly weighted up (not unusual for our polls, or indeed most political polls), 45 to 64 year olds were over-represented (which is also normal and expected) so they get weighted down. There was a slight difference in the state breakdown – usually it is so on the money it’s barely worth doing the maths… but in this survey, WA was under-represented and thus have been weighted up.

We also use a house weight as most pollsters do to correct for the usual biases they get in their surveys – for example, like most online surveys including big ones like Vote Compass, we always get significantly more Greens and ALP voters than Coalition voters, so they are weighted accordingly. With such an unusually (and very unexpectedly) large sample the house weights are put to the test. House weights are very closely guarded secrets, but for the record, we have opted to stick to the same house weight formula as all of the polls from last year. And we specifically tested the sample from our standing panel of respondents against the social media sourced sample to make sure there wasn’t an unusual bias in the fresh sample.

All 151 electorates have been represented, and so evenly it’s a thing of beauty with most seats having between 30 and 100 responses. The seats below 30 respondents are those with high levels of people that don’t speak English and routinely don’t respond well to any poll, like Fowler and Blaxland.

All weights are within acceptable limits, the spread is good, the sample is solid.

On the last two days of the window we did additional snowball and email targeted recruitment in the electorates of Warringah, Wentworth, North Sydney, and Goldstein because I wanted to see if the Independent numbers being reported in those seats was being misrepresented. That is why those electorates, and only those electorates, were given to Aaron Patrick at the AFR during the week. The additional sample of these seats was not included in the main sample so as not bias the deck.

And yeah, we are aware some absolute ill-informed idiots were sharing the poll and telling people that Morrison was using it to tell him what to do about Djokovic. Let’s set aside the obvious ‘that’s not right’ flags (like it was a public poll – those being done for such purposes never are; we conduct the KORE Poll every month and it’s never for any client; the repeated posts by us that it wasn’t for Morrison or anyone else; we announced the poll would ask about Djokovic before Morrison stuck his finger in it; the poll was clearly advertised as not closing until after 3 days after such decision was made) and just say this: we’re happy you had a good vent. All responses that in any way indicated the respondent believed the poll was being done for Morrison, or that this was a way they could communicate directly with Morrison, were excluded as invalid responses. If you wish to send Morrison a message, try using the form on his website.

Also this: there will be lots of misinformation online this election. In the interests of the health of our democracy and, quite frankly, the sanity of all of us just trying to get through the day, if you cannot verify the information, please do not share the information. Whether you believe it or not is up to you, but don’t share it.

Verify doesn’t mean you saw it on both Twitter and Facebook – the super spreaders of misinformation often post on both. It means a reputable news source (e.g. ABC, 7, 9, Guardian, AFR, SMH etc), or a person or official organisation account involved in the thing (e.g. such as politicians themselves, except Craig Kelly – treat everything he says as a work of fiction), or original source evidence (such as the text of legislation, or court documents, or in our case the KORE CSR website, social media posts or the very text of the start screen on the survey itself).

To the journos that actually contacted us to ask if we were doing the poll for Morrison to tell him what to do about Djokovic – we’re gonna assume you were having a bad day, or the surreal, crazier than fiction environment that Morrison has created is making you chase unicorns, and either way respectfully beg your bosses to give you a week off before the election is called. We need you at your best for this one; our lives, quite literally, depend on it.
~RKC

8 thoughts on “KORE Poll 5: Job approval, RATS and Djokovic

  1. Erica Parker says:

    Thank you really enjoyed the in depth analysis. Gave me a better idea as to why Bill Shorten lost.

    As an Independent voter, I really believe Australia would be better served without a Federal Parliament. ( think of the money saved!) decisions made at a community level often work best.
    Sure we need a foreign minister but that role can be chosen by the States.
    This should be good for a survey!

    Regards

  2. Linda Dillon says:

    Fascinating breakdown – and although I am disappointed it doesn’t appear there will be a landside victory for Labor – I LIVE IN HOPE….!!
    As a Western Australian, I am very happy that Mr McGowan has changed his mind on opening up our state border on 05 Feb…….to those sneering and ignorant drongs in the Eastern States, he HASN’T had “2 years to get organised” – his Opening Up date was based on the Delta Variant, and whilst some here are devastated, the majority of us are heaving a sigh of relief. To see the absolute Shitshow wreaked by Perrottet (an unelected zealot) in just one month since 15 Dec has been terrifying…..he “Let it Rip” purely for his donors and “the NSW economy” – and then let it spread to every other state except ours.
    Our Premier has ALWAYs put US first re Covid (hence the mega-landslide win at our state election last March) and once his Emergency Team remodeled their Covid response for Omicron, it was clear we couldn’t open up on 05 Feb without destroying our economy or our health…. We’ve been mostly Covid free for around 22 months all up – living free from masks until quite recently when an outsider bought Delta in late Dec and another returnee in early Jan had Omicron – which is expanding quietly……OUR contact tracers are doing a great job as always, so we are pragmatically cautious that it “might” be kept under control.
    Re the other Premiers, all except Berejiklian and Perrottet did their jobs well, UNTIL the 15th December last year – they and their constituents have my deepest sympathy at being the victims of Morrison’s and Perrottet’s moronic assumption that “living with Covid” would “set the economy free” — instead, both have Blood on their Hands for deliberately putting millions of peoples lives, jobs and health at risk – and to their eternal shame, they simply don’t care………that simple, brutal fact is what has ENRAGED us – and we VOTE!

  3. Vyonne says:

    Thanks Doc, so glad to see Aussies are finally seeing through the haze. I still can’t believe lnp voters think stuntmo is a better financial manager with all the very public rorting, but hopefully the blinkers are coming off and we will do a “WA” on them and I live in WA! Can’t wait to see if this trend continues.

  4. George Finlay says:

    Refreshing to see a different approach.

    I’ll preface the following comments with the fact I need to analyze your results far more closely than I have so far.

    Your poll seems to have Anthony Albanese’s approval much higher than other polls and much higher than Scott Morrison’s ratings both in how well he’s doing his job as opposition leader, and how he’s rated as preferred PM. Why do you think that is?

    And why don’t you think that helps assure electoral success for Labor? This is what you had to say : “Albanese finally got his approval numbers into the majority – but only just… and these aren’t good enough to carry the party to a win.” Why do you say that?

    I felt leadership was a problem for Labor at the last election but it didn’t change my vote. However it might at this election.

    But I did feel leadership perceptions possibly helped explain why Labor lost even though it had a two party preferred vote lead. You predicted the outcome of the last election so what’s your view on that?

    Did you see Labor’s eventual defeat ( given that it lead on two party preferred) at the last election as being increasing its vote where it didn’t count rather than perceptions of Labor’s leadership?

    Your poll, including the qualitative comments, does seem to confirm the small target approach of Anthony Albanese. A very high number neither approve nor disapprove of his performance. Whereas that figure is far more lower for Scott Morrison.

    I see this as a potentially large negative for Labor. How do you see it?

    1. korecsr says:

      The answer to your first two questions is the same: the polling window. The Djokovic mess and the related outrage (in all its complexities, links to refugees, links to general lack of uncertainty in government communication, and so on) completely covered the polling window. The end result is a more significant anti-Morrison sentiment, and thus a higher pro-Albanese sentiment, than if the poll was done a week later or a week sooner. It will correct in the next poll (if Morrison doesn’t do something else), and the truer tone is in the qualitative analysis.

      Ignore the 2PP. It’s meaningless. Especially when there is no national trend and lots of local fights, as it was in 2019 and will be again this election.

      1. George Finlay says:

        Thanks for taking the trouble to get back to me.

  5. Neil Flanagan says:

    Interesting polling and appreciate you taking a different road as to the methodology. I think most polling, on any matter, is too sterile and fails to get inside the mind of the responder (if that is indeed possible).

    Two things that I will be looking for on election night are:
    1. How well the high profile independents fare. 1 or possibly 2 may get over the line, but it will certainty put the fear of God into the LNP strategist on the night and going forward.
    2. What, if any, will be the impact of rising housing costs on people living outside the major metropolitan areas (i.e. tree / sea change localities). Do they see this as a positive or negative and do they now have some buyer’s regret given the policies Labor had at the last election, which have now been consigned to the history bin. Don’t know if you can work that one into your next poll (for the appropriate electorates of course).

    I don’t know if you have any views, but Queensland still looks like a bit of an outlier. You said the change is on, even in Queensland, but I am sensing the PHONP may pick up an extra seat on the night. On a few other polls they seem to be polling much stronger in QLD than their national figures. People like Christensen and Canavan may also be sensing this and this could be driving their reactions thus far.

    Overall, I am not feeling the “vibe” for change, but that has no scientific basis, just me reading between the lines on different matters. Personally, I think Morrison will get back in, but he may wish that he didn’t win. He might find himself with a motley cast of different odds and ends that he will need to win over if he is to govern; and quite frankly he is not a consensus sort of guy, which might make it hard for him to do the negotiations or maintain his position if the party wants to maintain power.

    1. korecsr says:

      An extra Senate seat for PHON? Pauline herself is on the ballot, she has pretty long coat tails, but whether it’s enough to get someone else there is always a bit hard to predict. Yes, they do generally poll stronger in Queensland, but they aren’t polling as high as 2016. I can’t see them getting a house seat anywhere.

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