As Super Saturday nears, Labor gains poll lead in Braddon, but trails in Longman, while UK Tories slump

Five federal byelections will be held on July 28 – four in Labor-held seats and one held by the Centre Alliance. In the Western Australian seats of Perth and Fremantle, the Liberals are not contesting, and Labor is expected to easily retain. In the South Australian seat of Mayo, the Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie has a large poll lead over the Liberals’ Georgina Downer.

The contested seats are thus the Tasmanian seat of Braddon (Labor by 2.2%) and the Queensland seat of Longman (Labor by 0.8%). Polls close at 6pm Melbourne time in Braddon and Longman, 6:30pm in Mayo and 8pm in Perth and Fremantle.

In Braddon, the Labor candidate, Susan Keay, held the seat until she was forced out through the citizenship saga. The Liberal candidate, Brett Whiteley, was the member until the 2016 election, so there will be little advantage for Keay from being well-known. A similar situation applies in Longman.

As noted in the article below, seat polls are unreliable, and there could be large errors in either direction.

Read more: Poll wrap: Labor and LNP tied in Longman, Sharkie's massive lead in Mayo, but can we trust seat polls?

At the 2016 election, One Nation recommended preferences to Labor in Longman, and Labor won 56.5% of their preferences. At the byelection, One Nation is recommending preferences to the LNP — this could be crucial.

On July 17, The Courier Mail revealed that Longman LNP candidate Trevor Ruthenberg had a lesser military medal than he had claimed on his parliamentary website while a state MP. On July 19, the same paper revealed Ruthenberg had also claimed the higher medal on his personal website. Ruthenberg has apologised and said it was an honest mistake.

A Longman ReachTEL poll for The Courier Mail, conducted July 18 from an unknown sample, gave the LNP a 51-49 lead over Labor, unchanged since late June. Primary votes were 37.9% LNP (Ruthenberg) (up 2.4%), 35.8% Labor (Susan Lamb) (down 3.2%), 13.9% One Nation (down 0.8%), 4.2% Greens (up 0.9%), 4.3% for all Others and 3.9% undecided.

Labor’s weaker primary vote is being compensated by a stronger flow of respondent allocated preferences. 41% thought Ruthenberg’s medal error an honest mistake, 33% a deliberate error and 27% a careless mistake.

In Braddon, a ReachTEL poll for the Australian Forestry Products Association, conducted July 19 from an unknown sample, gave Labor a 52-48 lead over the Liberals, a 2.5-point gain for Labor since analyst Kevin Bonham’s estimate of a July 6 ReachTEL poll for the left-wing Australia Institute, and a six-point gain for Labor since a Sky News ReachTEL poll in late May.

Primary votes were 40.7% Liberal (Whiteley), 34.3% Labor (Keay), 8.9% for independent Craig Garland, 6.7% for the Greens and 4.6% undecided. 22% of undecided voters were leaning to Labor and just 11% to the Liberals. 67% of all non-major party preferences were going to Labor.

Garland supports a moratorium on salmon fishing expansion, and is recommending preferences to Labor ahead of the Liberals.

In the Australia Institute ReachTEL, 37% thought the company tax rate for businesses with over $50 million in turnover should be reduced, 37% kept the same and 20% increased. The question is better than previous Australian Institute questions on this topic, which gave examples of large businesses – banks, mining companies and supermarkets.

A total of 68% supported penalty rates for workers in the hospitality and retail industries, and just 23% were opposed.

I believe Labor’s biggest problem in Braddon is the March 2018 Tasmanian election, in which the Liberals won easily.

Read more: ReachTEL polls: Labor trailing in Longman and Braddon, and how Senate changes helped the Coalition

National Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

Last week’s Newspoll, conducted July 12-15 from a sample of 1,640, gave Labor a 51-49 lead, unchanged on three weeks ago. Primary votes were 38% Coalition (down one), 36% Labor (down one), 10% Greens (up one) and 7% One Nation (up one).

This was Malcolm Turnbull’s 36th successive Newspoll loss, six more than Tony Abbott, and three more than the previous record for a government. The total vote for left- vs right-of-centre parties was unchanged at 46-45 to the left.

41% were satisfied with Turnbull’s performance (down one), and 49% were dissatisfied (up one), for a net approval of -8, the first decline in Turnbull’s net approval since early April. Bill Shorten’s net approval was up one point to -24. Turnbull led Shorten by 48-29 as better PM (46-31 previously); this was Turnbull’s biggest lead since May 2016.

By 72-23, voters approved of the reduction in the number of immigrants to below 165,000 in the last year, down from an annual cap of 190,000.

By 40-34, voters thought Turnbull and the Coalition better at maintaining energy supply and keeping power prices lower than Shorten and Labor, a reversal of a 39-37 Labor lead in late May. 64% thought the government’s priority should be to keep energy prices down, 24% meet targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and 9% prevent blackouts.

By 58-32, Australians were dissatisfied with Donald Trump’s performance as US president, with One Nation voters giving Trump his best ratings (63-29 satisfied). This poll was taken before the controversial Helsinki summit.

The better PM statistic virtually always favours the incumbent PM given voting intentions, and it means very little at elections. The final pre-election 2016 Newspoll gave Turnbull a 48-31 better PM lead, yet the Coalition barely clung to a majority. The PM’s net approval correlates much better with voting intentions.

Essential: 51-49 to Labor

Last week’s Essential poll, conducted July 12-15 from a sample of 1,014, gave Labor a 51-49 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since three weeks ago. Primary votes were 40% Coalition (steady), 36% Labor (down one), 10% Greens (down one) and 6% One Nation (steady). Essential is still using 2016 preference flows, and this poll would probably be 50-50 by Newspoll’s new method.

There appears to have been a shift towards support for coal power. By 40-38, voters agreed that the government should fund up to $5 billion to build new coal-fired plants or extend the life of existing ones. By 47-24, they agreed that coal-fired power is cheaper than power generated by renewables.

38% (up one since April) thought the government should prioritise renewable energy, 16% (up three) thought they should prioritise coal and 34% (down one) thought both should be treated equally.

By 73-20, voters supported banning plastic bags in supermarkets. By 57-36, voters thought it would change their behaviour as a consumer. 46% both agreed and disagreed that the plastic bag ban was simply an attempt by supermarkets to reduce costs.

UK Conservatives lose support to UKIP after soft Brexit

On July 6, the UK cabinet agreed on a soft Brexit. On July 8-9, hard Brexit cabinet ministers David Davis and Boris Johnson resigned in protest. Despite the anger of hard Brexiteers, I believe PM Theresa May is likely to survive, as explained on my personal website.

Hard Brexiteers do not have the numbers to oust her within the parliamentary Conservatives, and there is little common ground between the Conservative right and Labour, so parliamentary cooperation between them will only happen occasionally.

In polls conducted since the resignations of Davis and Johnson, some of the Conservative vote has gone to the UK Independence Party (UKIP), giving Labour a 4-5 point lead in the last three polls. The Conservatives had adopted UKIP’s rhetoric on Brexit, but now that they have settled on a soft Brexit, natural UKIP support is returning.

In brief: Mexican election detailed results

At the Mexican election held on July 1, the left-wing presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, won a landslide with 53.2% of the vote. Left-wing parties won a majority in both chambers of the Mexican legislature. Details are on my personal website.