Close poll may be good for Labor discipline

THE biggest threat to Labor's chances at the next election is not its rhetoric about asylum-seekers. It is the danger of complacency creeping into its ranks on the back of consistently dominant results in opinion polls.

That, at least, is what senior Labor strategists would like you to believe. Privately, those in Labor's inner circle are pleased with Tuesday's Newspoll, which showed the two-party vote has narrowed to 52 per cent for Labor and 48 per cent for the Coalition. The closer than expected result could improve discipline in Labor's ranks as well as force voters to take seriously who they support, avoiding a protest vote against a government so far out in front it can't be beaten.

That's a nice narrative, if you believe it. However, some inside Labor take the opposite view. They worry a narrowing of the polls could threaten discipline. Kevin Rudd runs a tight ship, but there is no love for his controlling style. It is predicated on success and tolerated because of it. Tighter polls suggest some sort of failure, which could lead to a questioning of Rudd's authority.

But not at the moment. Last week I telephoned Labor backbenchers as part of an anonymous survey, asking: Should the government let the Oceanic Viking dock at Christmas Island? After 58 of 59 Liberal backbenchers answered my question on whether they should be negotiating amendments to the carbon pollution reduction scheme, it seemed a good idea to ask Labor's base about its contentious issue. I got one-quarter of the way into the ring-around before giving up. Two MPs were prepared to defy their Prime Minister and answer yes, three said no and the remainder refused to participate. That's discipline, Labor style.

After nearly two years in power, Labor's hardheads would be acutely aware that despite the many issues since the party took government, nothing has shifted voters' sentiments as sharply as the Newspoll this week suggested the asylum-seekers issue could.

One poll does not make for a trend. Everyone, will be watching for the next Newspoll, which no doubt will include a question on the government's handling of asylum-seekers policy.

The main parties don't do a great deal of polling between elections. At this stage in the electoral cycle, parties rely on the published polls. Internal track polling, where the parties target key marginal seats and voter groups in nightly rolling results, is expensive. It dominates party budgets in the lead-up to elections. That process can start more than six months out from an election. But in the middle of the cycle the work of agencies such as Newspoll, Galaxy and Nielsen feed into a collective quantitative sample party strategists look at while conducting cheaper qualitative focus group research. The polls reveal the overall trends in support, while focus groups give insight to the raw numbers.

According to polling analyst Andrew Catsaras, the three big polling agencies have interviewed more than 66,000 people for 54 published polls since May last year, giving the results a small plus or minus 1 margin of error. If the 18 months since May last year is broken down into six three-month polling periods, the figures are remarkably consistent. Five of the six sets give exactly the same two-party results: 56 per cent for the Labor Party and 44 per cent for the Coalition. The only set that is different is the first (May-July last year), which is slightly worse for the opposition at 57 per cent to 43 per cent.

Catsaras concludes: "Nothing that has occurred in the last 18 months has had any lasting impact on the voting intentions of the public." This is a fair observation. When you consider there have been two budgets, a global financial crisis, the threat of recession, a build-up of government debt, problems with implementation of the stimulus and rising interest rates, the public has consistently sent the message it knows which way it will vote at the next election and it is sticking to its guns.

The resilience of voting intentions also has been maintained despite the many problems on the Coalition side of the chamber: divisions between the Liberals and Nationals, leadership challenges and dissident undermining of Malcolm Turnbull in the wake of the OzCar fake email affair. With Turnbull's net satisfaction rating at record lows, below even Brendan Nelson's, it is perhaps surprising the Coalition vote has not fallen further.

So where does that leave us now that Newspoll has registered the closest result since Rudd won office? It may mean little if the next poll returns to the range of recent times. But if the new figures are maintained, all sides will have something to think about.

Labor will need to decide if closer results improve discipline and dispel protest voting or bring on divisions that success papers over. And if strong polling can be maintained in the face of so many issues until now, but it isn't maintained now that asylum-seekers bungling has occurred, Rudd will need to think about whether he sticks with his contradictory "tough but humane" message or changes tack, with the risk of being accused of flip-flopping. Judging by the amount of media Rudd did this week selling his message, a change in rhetoric doesn't seem likely. But a continued dip in polling could change that.

The Coalition won't be able to deflect questions about what it would do differently to resolve the asylum-seekers issue forever. But after the latest poll, it won't be changing tactics on this front any time soon. Liberal frontbenchers are convinced the Newspoll shift this week reflects more than dissatisfaction with Rudd's asylum-seekers bungling. They believe his attempts to be all things to all people may have started to crystallise in voters' minds. To an extent, that may be true, but on the back of a terrible fortnight the government managed a polling result that would see it maintain its existing majority of seats. But a Newspoll result of 52 per cent to 48 per cent means the margin of error for the government has been greatly reduced.