They’re not listening, Julia

Roy Morgan released its new multi-mode poll (phone, face to face and SMS) last night and although nobody reports their stuff, the news will not please Labor strategists breathing a sigh of relief after yesterday’s Newspoll:

In mid-March the Morgan Poll shows support for the L-NP is 57.5% (up 3% since February 28-March 3, 2013) cf. ALP 42.5% (down 3%) on a two-party preferred basis.

The L-NP primary vote is 47% (up 2%) clearly ahead of the ALP 31.5% (down 1.5%). Among the minor parties Greens support is 11% (up 0.5%) and Independents/ Others are 10.5% (down 1%).

If a Federal election were held today the L-NP would easily win the election according to today’s multi-mode Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention conducted over the last few days, March 7-10, 2013 with an Australia-wide cross-section of 4,626 Australian electors aged 18+.

The result flies in the face of the recent bottoming of Julia’s slide seen in other polls. But it is worth noting that our friendly MB psephologist, Mark the Ballot, estimates Morgan phone polls to be one of the least biased:

Of course, one poll is neither here nor there. But there was another dimension to Morgan’s polling that will confirm my suspicions (and those of many MB readers) that the polity has stopped listening to the Gillard government. It was good news on the economy:

The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating is now at 104pts (up 7pts in a week) with 43% (up 2.5%) saying Australia is ‘heading in the right direction,’ compared to 39% (down 4.5%) saying Australia is ‘heading in the wrong direction’ – mirroring this week’s rise in Consumer Confidence (up 1.4pts to 121.0).

This is a fatal combination in my view. When a government can’t get a lift from improving economic sentiment it says one thing only: the polity has decided the government itself is a problem and times are good enough to risk change. It’s the same basic combination that killed John Howard in 2007.