Newspoll: 55-45

The Australian has broken the Victorian opinion poll drought with a Newspoll survey of 1000 respondents, which shows Labor maintaining a handy lead. No primary vote figures are quoted in the online version (anyone with a hard copy to hand is invited to fill the blanks in comments), but Labor’s two-party lead of 55-45 compares with 54-46 in the last poll two weeks ago, while still representing a 3 per cent swing on the 2002 election. Ted Baillieu is recording much better approval ratings than his predecessor, but Bracks’s rating is up 3 per cent as well.

In other news, yesterday saw the closure of nominations and the draw of ballot paper positions; the Poll Bludger election guide has been updated accordingly.

UPDATE: Primary vote figures are Labor 44 per cent, Liberal 36 per cent, Nationals 4 per cent and Greens 8 per cent. Hat tips to Josh and Peter Brent in comments.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

15 comments on “Newspoll: 55-45”

  3. That poll is about right and as I said earlier every ALP seat below 3% ALP/Lib is at risk. Also Eltham and Prahran. A breakdown into Upper-house electorates wouold be helpful *** MEDIA BARONS HERE IS YOUR CHNAC TO MAKE YOUR POLL STAND OUT FROM THE REST ***

    The Greens at 8% is below the 2004 senate as I also have indictaed. This would mean that the greens need prefernces to win Northern Metro upper-shoue and they could lose out in all other seats. (We will know more tomorrow)

  5. Re The Greens vote, people should remember that in the lead up to the 2002 election the Greens polled between 5 & 7%, so this poll of 8% is actually higher that their previous leadup.
    Newspoll Mar – Apr 2002 – 5%
    Newspoll May – June 2002 – 4%
    Newspoll July – Aug 2002 – 6%
    Newspoll Sept – Oct 2002 – 7%
    Newspoll 8-11 & 15-17 Nov 2002 – 7%
    Further, the Greens polled 7.45% in the Reps in 2004, so this is a rise (it wasn’t an upper house poll, inconsistent as they are), although I do note note that they polled up to 9% in Sept.04 (6% in June, 8% in Aug/Sept, 9% in late Sept).

    And then again you could pop over to Morgan for a look at the Senate poll they’ve just done, to find the Greens on 13% in Vic (but with the Dems flying high all over the place, so maybe the poll’s not that accurate…)

  6. Preliminary Analyis of this poll as applied to upper-house seats is worrying for the Greens. Whilst Newpoll has reported a slight increase in Green vote (up from 7.5% from their october poll) the Green support is still below the 2002 (8.5%) result and the 2004 Senate (8.5%) vote. Subject to the registered party preferences due out today the Greens would only secure election to the Northern province and then only with ALP preferences.

    Will the VEC on election night be publishing the resuts via a rss/atom feed? an rss feed could proviode a better means of pulling down the information of interest and would be better then the xml feed they are currently providngs. Unfortuneaty I do not have access to a web site that can publish an database rss feed. Maybe the ABC will be providing this service as a relay? – Antony???

  7. William you can get a breakdown of LIB/LP on the newspoll web site. The percentage breakdown has not changed between this poll and the October poll. Feedback on the ground in Melbourne is not favourable to the Greens. Their vote is slipping backwards as the pendulum swing returns.

  8. Below is a projection of the poll on Uppewrhouse seats. The obvious unknown is the rather the high OTHER?

    0.44% 0.36% 0.08% 0.12%
    ProvinceNm ALP LIB/NP GRN OTH
    Electorate/State Party Vote
    Eastern Metropolitan Region 39.31% 40.09% 7.57% 13.02%
    Eastern Victoria Region 37.35% 41.19% 6.90% 14.56%
    Northern Metropolitan Region 52.05% 27.25% 12.18% 8.52%
    Northern Victoria Region 33.03% 43.67% 4.90% 18.39%
    Southern Metropolitan Region 33.07% 40.76% 13.65% 12.51%
    South Eastern Metropolitan Region 48.38% 34.82% 5.85% 10.95%
    Western Metropolitan Region 59.04% 27.25% 5.72% 7.98%
    Western Victoria Region 42.89% 38.18% 6.72% 12.21%

  9. I’m not sure how useful polls like these are for minor party votes: a smaller sample size usually ends up with a higher margin of error. What we can say is that the Greens, in terms of Newspoll at least, are registering in the voters’ minds more than they were before 2002. Bearing in mind the polls above and below this result, I’d be tipping a small increase in their vote to around 10.5% in the lower house and 12% in the Upper, with a win in NMetro, SMetro and EVic. Preferences will decide the rest.

  10. Josh the results of both the 2002 state Election and 2004 Senate election put the greens at around the same level of the newspoll. The only change has been the ALP/LIB vote… If the ALP fall just below a quota then the Greens could be eliminated before the ALP. The Greens thought the same thing as you in 2004 and did not get above the 8.5% threshold they needed to win a set. This time the minimum threshold is higher. The newspoll is reasonable accurate I think when it comes to the upper-house vote. Big issue is the number of unknowns. In realityy they tend to split accross the board as they more often then not do not effect the results. we will know more in a few hours when the registered above-the-line preferences are known.

  11. “The newspoll is reasonable accurate I think when it comes to the upper-house vote.” Melbcity, sorry but you do not speak for what really happens. All the pre election polls prove to be unreliable, and the sample size is too small to know whats going on. The fact is the greens are on the rise, and thats is known because more polls have been showin g their support is higher than 2004, tho not all, and from talking to greens leaders who have been receiving a lot more emails and stuff from the public lately. It’s about time the Greens get this fluctuation of significance as there no. 1 issue is the no. 1 issue facing the globe as we speak and will continue to be the no. 1 issue.. not like howard’s doing anything or the US.

  12. Yes William, 36 percent is just Liberals, Nationals on 4, so 40 percent in total. ABC Radio reported the 36 percent figure for ‘Coalition’ all day yesterday: this is how unfounded rumours begin.

  13. I know just enough about XML to translate the VEC feed. I know nothing about RSS.

    The ABC takes the VEC feed, picks the required data out, and feeds it into our election night system. That system then outputs a different xml which publishes the ABC’s website. The only difference between what’s in the ABC’s computer and on the website is we suppress seat predictions on the web site until 10% is counted in each seat, and we only publish the overall predistion when I’m happy it has stabilised at a sensible majority. Any change I make to the system on the television panel is reflected within a minute on the website.

  14. HUGE YARN!!!!!

    Liberals have put Labor ahead of the Greens in every upper house region. In other words, if Liberal preferences are counted in several key regions, they will elect a Labor MLC in preference to a Green. It is a Liberal ticket that would rather see a Labor majority in the Council than the Greens win the balance of power.

  15. Melbcity, Newspoll will be statewide. If it’s not seat by seat don’t count it for certain electorates. Those of us who have been around for a while, know that seat by seat is a very different result from a statewide poll.

    Oh and senate polls are highly innacurate. remember the last Senate poll b4 Federal election had the Dems on nearly 10% from memory.

Comments are closed.