Oz Election Thread #4 - Gillard's Labor

Am I misogynist if I think Niki Savva is mired in her own biases to the detriment of her profession?

Gillard's stocks continue to rise
October 22, 2012
Michelle Grattan/the AGE



LABOR'S two-party vote has risen for the fourth consecutive month and Julia Gillard's approval has leapt 5 points in an Age/Nielsen poll carrying bad news for Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd.

Ms Gillard has opened a 10-point margin over Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister - she is up 3 points to 50 per cent, while he has fallen 4 points to 40 per cent. This is her biggest lead since February 2011.

The Coalition is still ahead of Labor on the two-party vote but has fallen a point in five weeks to 52 per cent; the government is up 1 point to 48 per cent.

The two-party gap has closed dramatically since June - from 16 points to 4 points. The Coalition would now win an election on a 2 per cent swing, compared with an 8 per cent swing in June.


Labor's primary vote is steady on 34 per cent, while the Coalition's has fallen 2 points to 43 per cent; the Greens are up a point to 11 per cent in the poll of 1400 taken from Thursday to Saturday.

The results will shore up Ms Gillard's leadership in the face of increasing activity by Mr Rudd and fresh debate about her role in the 2010 coup against him.

The renewed debate has been sparked by former MP Maxine McKew, whose new book claims Ms Gillard was involved in the intrigue rather than being drafted at the last moment, as the PM has maintained.

While the Gillard forces sought to discredit McKew, Mr Rudd rejected a suggestion he had ghosted the book as verging on sexism but refused to be drawn on the leadership issue.

Disapproval of Ms Gillard is down 5 points to 48 per cent, giving her a net approval (approval minus disapproval) of minus 1. Her 47 per cent approval rating is her best since March 2011. Her improvement continues a four-month trend. In contrast, Mr Abbott's disapproval is up a point to 60 per cent, a new personal record high.

His approval is up 1 point to 37 per cent. His net approval is steady at minus 23 per cent, equalling his personal record low.

Pollster John Stirton said Ms Gillard and the government appeared to have entered a post-carbon tax phase, with their numbers back where they were before the tax was announced.

The poll is likely to cause further soul searching within the Liberals about how to pitch their appeal now the edge has gone off the carbon tax issue.

Ms Gillard's improvement has also come after her controversial parliamentary speech accusing Mr Abbott of ''misogyny'', which received some criticism but also garnered praise for its strength and went viral on the internet.

Labor's long-term attempt to portray Mr Abbott as sexist seems to be biting: 42 per cent agreed with this description, compared with 17 per cent who said that of Ms Gillard.

The Liberals received a boost at the weekend from a two-party swing of more than 6 per cent in the Australian Capital Territory election, but Labor, previously in a minority, looks certain to cling to power with the support of the Greens, who, however, have had their seats cut from four to two.

The Age poll shows both leaders have lost ground on most attributes since 2010, but the falls for Ms Gillard tended to be greater than for Mr Abbott.

Ms Gillard's biggest single fall was on ''has the confidence of her party'' - she went from 63 per cent to 47 per cent. Both lost ground on trustworthiness: the PM went from 48 per cent to 39 per cent, and Mr Abbott from 46 per cent to 41 per cent.

Ms Gillard's highest scores were for being competent (63 per cent) and open to ideas (62 per cent). Her biggest single gain was on ''has a firm grasp of foreign policy'' - she rose 17 points to 56 per cent. Mr Abbott's highest scores were ''has the confidence of his party'' (64 per cent) and competent (58 per cent).

As preferred prime minister, Ms Gillard has a 15-point lead among women and a 6-point margin among men.

With the election due within a year, people are more inclined to favour Labor going full term; 57 per cent (up 9 points since February) want a full term, while 42 per cent (down 8 points) want an election as soon as possible. Seven out of 10 Coalition voters want a quick poll, but only 13 per cent of Labor supporters.

Most voters (56 per cent) expect the Coalition to win the election; 32 per cent predict a Labor win. More than eight in 10 Coalition supporters say that the opposition will win, but only one-third of Labor Party voters. Victoria is bad for the Coalition - it trails Labor 46-54 per cent on the two-party vote. Queensland is Labor's worst state: the Coalition is ahead 59-41 per cent.

Mr Abbott, upstaged at a Sydney Chinese function when Mr Rudd made an appearance and spoke Mandarin, said Labor was ''at war with itself''. ''What the Labor Party has got to do is resolve its leadership tensions quickly,'' he told reporters.

This trend suggests that, while today’s headlines will be about the Prime Minister, the much more important story is about Tony Abbott. And not in a good way.

The signs are that the electorate’s anger over the carbon tax is now ­abating and, perhaps, also the angst over minority government. A majority of voters now want the government to serve its full term.

We can now start to assess the effectiveness and costs of the ­campaign run by Abbott against the ­carbon tax.

One compelling measure of the campaign’s impact is to look at the leaders’ approval figures before the carbon price announcement and now. The Prime Minister’s approval rating has fallen from 52 per cent in 2010 and early 2011 to 47 per cent.

The good news for Gillard is the 47 per cent figure is part of a four-month improving trend.

The Opposition Leader’s approval rating, by comparison, has slumped from 50 per cent to 37 per cent in the same period and is not improving.

It is hard not to come to the conclusion that the political cost of the carbon tax for Gillard has not been anywhere near as high as the cost to Abbott of attacking it, and through it, the Prime Minister.

The Coalition has tended to regard the Opposition Leader’s poor personal standing as collateral damage necessary to help bring down the government. But today’s figures show that a turning point really has been reached on this.

The Coalition now has all the collateral damage but confronts a Prime Minister whose personal approval ratings are now back to where they were before the whole carbon tax episode began.

More importantly, leaders’ personal approval ratings tend to be a lead indicator for party votes.

Labor’s primary vote remains at the lower edge of what some of its strategists call a “politically habitable” space.

That is, the primary vote is only at a level to allow Labor to think it might be heading towards being in contention at the next poll but is not there yet.

But voters, it seems, have moved on from the carbon tax.

The Nielsen poll suggests voters are starting to seriously assess both leaders, and the hostility to the Prime Minister is fading.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has revealed cuts to baby bonus payments and the private health insurance rebate to protect his promised budget surplus.

Today's mid-year economic update shows lower commodity prices and falling tax receipts trimming the projected 2012-13 budget surplus to just $1.1 billion, down from the $1.5 billion predicted in May.


There has also been a further write down in tax revenue over the forward estimates of almost $22 billion, including $4 billion in the current financial year.

As a result, Mr Swan has revealed spending cuts and extra charges worth $16 billion over four years, including:

Limiting increases in the private health insurance rebate to inflation, saving $710 million over four years.

A jump in the visa application fee that is forecast to raise $520 million over four years.

The baby bonus payment for the second and subsequent children will be reduced to $3,000, saving $505 million over forward estimates.

Delaying funds for Labor's trades training centres program, saving $305 million. ... <cont>