The Sunday Mail/Adelaide Advertiser has published results from one of its occasional in-house polls conducted from fairly small samples, in this case of 572 respondents. The result is quite a lot worse for the government than the 54-46 Liberal lead from last week’s Newspoll, which can variously be put down to a slightly flattering result for Labor in the earlier poll, a high margin of error in the present one (over 4 per cent) and The Advertiser’s relative lack of expertise. Labor’s primary vote is just 25 per cent, against 49 per cent for the Liberals and 9 per cent for the Greens.

Nonetheless, the poll is interesting for its findings on preferred Labor leader: 40 per cent nominate Education Minister Jay Weatherill against 27 per cent for Mike Rann, whose continuing presence in the job is to my mind the most inexplicable mystery in Australian politics today (and I’m fully mindful of the stiffness of the competition). Deputy Premier John Rau, the favourite of the Right to succeed Rann, only manages 11 per cent, with Treasurer Jack Snelling on 8 per cent. The poll also chimes with Newspoll in finding a softening in support for Liberal leader Isobel Redmond, whose lead as preferred premier is at 48-35 compared with 56-28 at the previous poll in April. The full results feature further detail on the response to the budget (negative) and the preferred timing of Rann’s departure (soon).