RESULTS OF WAVE 14 – ELECTION WEEKLY SURVEY 4

What a difference it makes when you give voters the actual candidates in their seats rather than just party names.

1098 respondents are included in this week’s numbers, including 109 who voted last week, and 137 who pre-poll or postal voted this week. There was a significant amount of change, with the less engaged voters realising their preferred party wasn’t on the ballot, or conversely, realising a better party was. Additionally, all those disendorsed candidates played havoc with vote intention in the affected seats. Give Clive a clap though, UAP’s made it on to the board (largely from people realising they couldn’t vote for Pauline or Fraser).

Labor’s primary and 2PP are down from last week by the same amount – 1.9%. However, note the change in method: this isn’t the usual 2PPH6, because participants were not given the usual hypothetical 6 candidates – this is actual vote preferences plus indicated preferences from a list of actual candidates. Far more accurate (and difficult, but it’s been triple checked) than any other 2PP numbers.

So where’s that movement from? All over the place, but a notable shift in what you might call true swinging voters – i.e. people who only really vote for major parties, and when they switch sides they completely shift to the other major party, as distinct from protest voters – moving from the ALP to the Coalition.

Remember, to read the vote retention heat map, read across the row to see where a party has gained votes since the last survey, down the column to see where they have lost votes to. The percentage is the proportion of last week’s vote lost, the diagonal line is how much of last week’s vote each party retained.

I’m also going to show the vote movement map – looks the same, but essentially the above calculation is about how much of their vote a party has retained, and a really good way to see how stable or unstable a party’s vote is. Below on the vote movement map you can see the actual points that moved. And usually it’s all figures close to zero so not very interesting – this week it is. Particularly the number I’ve circled – a full 2.8% shift from the ALP to the Coalition.

Campaign momentum is literally called the pollster’s unicorn – impossible to capture. This may be a blip (like the one we saw from Labor to Greens in week 2) or it may be the beginning of the last week shift I’ve been predicting for weeks now. Why the big shift? Franking Credits.

All.

Want to vote Labor but only now realising the details about franking credits.

About.

I think they should’ve proposed marginal tax rates superannuation portfolios in pension mode. E.g. first $80k/yr is tax free, next $20k/yr at 15%, next $40k/yr at 20%, next $60k/yr at 25%, everything over $200k/yr at 30%. I think that’s more fair. Then they could leave the franking credits policy alone.

Franking.

I’m concerned about the Labor policy on high retirement income earners.

Credits.

No suitable independent candidates available and won’t vote for Labor due to the huge money splurge that we taxpayers will have to fund, plus Labor wanting to rip of pensioners retirement funds.

If it’s not about franking credits, then the main consideration at the point seems to be candidate quality, and whether they can find out anything about their candidates – and that’s across all parties and seats. It’s particularly noticeable in the Independent voters: for example, Parkes voters who had been wanting to vote independent have declared their independent candidate a dud and policy free zone, and switched. More interesting is the independent candidates on the rise.

Yes, Zali Steggall has Warringah tied up in a bow, and Rob Oakeshott has a decent chance in Cowper, as does Kevin Mack in Farrer. but here’s a few you haven’t heard of that have enjoyed a steady surge in the last week or two:

• Hamish McFarlane in Lingiari, pulling votes from both left and right
• Mark Tyndall in Lindsay – I’ve mentioned him before – and he continues to impress those who read his website
• Tim Bohn in Canberra – not pulling a great deal of first preferences, but our entire Canberra sample has him at 2 or 3
• Louise Stewart in Curtin – hasn’t had a great campaign, but is profiting nicely off the franking credits issue

The biggest shock was Independent candidate in Tangney, Jillian Horton. Who? Where? Yeah exactly, I had to google too. Ms Horton is a veteran councillor in the area (which for those about to look up a map is the south side of the Perth river, inland from Fremantle), and I don’t know if it’s her soothing counsellors voice, the missing in action Liberal member Ben Morton taking the seat for granted and not campaigning, or her simple and direct centrist platform, but she is turning heads of local voters. Crucially, in addition to a sizeable chunk of first preference votes, Horton is getting good preference flows from everyone, and what really got my attention was Greens voters are putting her ahead of the ALP.

The multiple candidate forums have also served Adam Blakester well, with a surge just this week. We have a decent sample in New England, and in January Barnaby Joyce was at 50% of the first preference vote. Alas, and I do apologise to all those who want Barnaby gone, Blakester’s impressive 33% vote has come from undecideds, Labor and Green voters. Barnaby will need a couple of preferences this time, but he’ll get home without a sweat, yielding most of the preferences from the CDP, UAP (they’re not excluded, no one in the sample was voting for Cindy Duncan) and the conservative flank of Rob Taber’s vote.

Special thanks to all our short survey participants in New England who came back for this survey to boost the New England sample so we could give some numbers. This is 129 New England voters – so it has a big error margin if you want to look at it like a stand alone poll of 8% – however, we have been tracking New England closely and Barnaby’s support level has never waivered since it stabilised around 50% primary last July. I do expect Rob Taber to do a little better than 2% because he is so well known, and because he’s very well liked by conservatives. At least these numbers are better than the February 2018 numbers which have been circulated on social media over the past fortnight as though they were ‘new’, or the forum exit polls.

That’s probably enough for one post, so we’ll do more on franking credits, Captain GetUp, the Paladin Affair, and Menindee Lakes Fish Kills separately. Thanks as always to all our participants.