Newspoll: 58-42

Tasmanian reader Econocrat tells of a stunning Newspoll result foreshadowed on tonight’s Lateline: 58-42 to Labor. More to follow …

UPDATE: Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has increased to 50 per cent to 37 per cent. Like the two-party figure, this is a 2 per cent change in either direction from last week. Preliminary reports at Sky News and The Australian.

UPDATE 2: Graphic here, Dennis Shanahan here. Kevin Rudd’s satisfaction rating has recovered three points after a dip last week; the Coalition’s lead on the question of best party to handle the economy has narrowed to 46-37 from 48-33 three weeks ago; its lead on best party to handle national security has unaccountably narrowed from 45-33 to 43-39; and Labor’s leads on education and health have widened considerably. No doubt much of this can be put down to a very Labor-friendly poll sample. Most interesting is a question on strength of voting intention which gives no reason to think the support for Labor might be “soft”.

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.

782 comments on “Newspoll: 58-42”

Comments Page 13 of 16
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  1. “The truth is, whether I wrote a 10,000 page essay on the topic, you made your mind up long ago.”

    GP, there’s no need to get upset. If you want to be with like-minded people, go and join Piers Akerman’s blog. You will be very well received there.

    But back to the basic points, you are talking rubbish on the channel nine/worm issue. As other bloggers have pointed out, there was no formal agreement between nine and the press club over the worm, which is why nine were consistently advertising that they would be displaying the worm in the lead-up to the debate.

    No matter how you try to spin it, the Liberal party were STUPID for allowing the kind of sabotage that took place. Just look at how it has blown up in their faces.

    Keating is on record for requesting that the worm not be used in his debates when he was PM, probably because at the time the worm was also showing negative reactions to him, just as it has for Howard. But at least he had the smarts to know that if he crossed the censorship line, then he would get a public backlash. Howard has been just plain dumb for creating such a big issue about the worm in the first place and then allowing such crude attempts by the press club to physically stop the worm being screened. The mind truly boggles at the idiocy.

    And now your lame attempts at trying to justify and defend what had happened simply make the whole fiasco look even more ridiculous. GP, ask yourself this, if the roles were reversed and it was Labor who had tried to pull the plug on the worm, would you be defending them in the same way that you are for the Liberals? I seriously, seriously doubt it.

  2. #
    583
    Generic Person Says:
    October 23rd, 2007 at 12:33 am

    No 579

    Of course, how convenient. Only those of left pursuasion are allowed to argue or voice their opinions, apparently. Feigned indignation, they expound, when heaven forbid someone holds an alternative view.

    LOL, actually I am not of the ‘left” at all. On the contrary, as stated previously, I am a small “l” lib reviled by the extremist right wing loony dogma and ideology which pervades. So, if anything, I must now consider myself to be of the Labor “right”.

    The truth is, whether I wrote a 10,000 page essay on the topic, you made your mind up long ago.

    Well if you hadn’t already noticed let me point it out to you, all on this blog, including you, have made our minds up, so just accept and get over it.

  3. lol@ Henderson saying Howard is facing a “Hostile Media”

    As we Calabrians would say, he is a Testa di Cazzo (Richard Cranium)

  4. Someone said re Glen:

    What the hell have you got against using commas? You can’t be that poorly educated.

    Eleven years of Tory education policy have had a deleterious effect on our yoof’s spelling and punctuation.

    But whatever. Meh.

  5. [Those health and education figures are quite outstanding indeed.
    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll-23oct.pdf%5D

    All the figures have improved for Rudd, I think this means that as people lock in behind him, they start to say he will be better on all the policies as a way of justifying their voting preference.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if all the categories are close to even by election day. If that is the case, Howard is gone.

  6. from the PDF: Preferred PM goes from Rudd leading 48-39 to 50-37 ouch.
    Managing the economy goes from Howard leading 48-33 to 46-37 ouch again.
    National Security, Howard’s lead has been cut from 45-33 to 43-39!

    Rudd’s lead in education and health both increased by 9 points, respectively. Good god.

    I wonder what impact Rudd’s mentioning Treasurer Howard’s record in the debate will have on the economy numbers. Probably not much, the volume of nematode news will have flushed it out.

  7. [I wonder what impact Rudd’s mentioning Treasurer Howard’s record in the debate will have on the economy numbers. Probably not much, the volume of nematode news will have flushed it out]

    Surely Rudd is thinking that if he has a great week this week, then that would kill off Howard as P.M.

    Surely the Liberals will announce whatever big policy they have left tomorrow. Say the policy on hospitals!

    They’ve got to knock these poll headlines off tomorrow night’s news.

    The CBS Orchestra just played a bit of Beds Are Burning on The Late Show.

  8. “He’s on a roll and the public likes the alternative sausage on offer but crucial marginal seat and issues polling suggests Rudd’s team and friends aren’t as popular as him.”

    Looks like Dennis is thinking in terms of BBQs and sausages again to try to explain the good polling figures for Labor. Poor sod must be getting really desperate…

    http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/dennisshanahan/index.php/theaustralian/comments/labor_not_as_popular_as_leader/

  9. MM @ 514
    Don’t forget all the Wenck commentary – although I can just see Howard trying to do a MacArthur “I shall return”…which MacArthur did, afterall, say in Australia…

  10. Okay, I’ve just read 612 messages before posting. I didn’t want an attack of the H-word (and I don’t mean Howard). This is a good result, probably on the high end, but it does show the ALP neutralised the Libs tax policy, by giving a human touch to it by linking education to it.

    I can sleep better tonight.

  11. Boy, 5 weeks is going to feel like a very long time.
    It might work for Howard I guess, but possibly it gives Rudd extra time to work on the safer Liberal seats if it is really that bad.

  12. Some people speculated that Costello didn’t appear on The 7:30 Report because of the Newspoll results. There may be some truth to that claim according to Malcolm Farr:

    “Liberal strategists were last night poring over poll details, which they fear will add to the momentum Mr Rudd gained from Sunday’s debate.”

  13. I don’t like the hard negative headlines against Howard and the LNP. People will then worry about giving too much of an advantage.

  14. [I don’t like the hard negative headlines against Howard and the LNP. People will then worry about giving too much of an advantage.]

    The next Newspoll will probably be 55 or 56, which will mean Howard will get some “comeback” headlines…

    But 58 / 42 now will kill off some of the Liberal campaign. Some of their volunteers etc will just give up and trade shares on Comsec instead.

  15. Is there a good example where the incumbent has benefited from the “underdog phenomenon” of being well behind in the polls (aside from Major v. Kinnock, which may not apply according to an earlier post in this thread). I can think of Atkinson v. Soorley (Brisbane lord mayoral election, for you non-Brisbanites) and Kennett v. Bracks as example where the incumbent’s loss may have been contributed to by their favoritism. It may be splitting hairs, but intuitively I would think that it is the incumbent more than the challenger that fears favoritism.

  16. As an aside – anybody looking for a decent safe back up system – I have crashed my RAID 0 three times and have restored it flawlessly using Acronis Home 10. AND crashed my main partition once and similarly restored it under the hardware/software RAID 0.

    What will they do next? Will the rats abandon cohesion and start to protect their own seats by dissing on the PM?

  17. ‘Costello didn’t appear on The 7:30 Report because of the Newspoll results.’

    Yeah, that and he couldnt handle Swan one on one in an actual sustained examination of policy. He’s all glib one-liners, the pretender. No good outside the solo soundbite.

    What a dud team!

  18. I’m waiting for Howard to do a Barnett and announce a Canal from the North through to the Murray-Darling 🙂

    That REALLY helped the WA Libs, and the sight of a VERY small crowd at Barnett’s Concession Party said it all.

  19. [It may be splitting hairs, but intuitively I would think that it is the incumbent more than the challenger that fears favoritism.]

    Let’s say the Newspoll on election day says 56 / 44 to Labor. Even if there is a backlash of 2% on the day, Labor would still gain a 20 seat majority.

    There is a point that a backlash could only make a smaller majority, it won’t actually make Labor lose.

  20. Federal takeover of NZ might swing it for Howard.

    But seriously, he was talking about hoons the other day.

    3 months ago, that was a joke I made over at LP. Its unbelievable, What next? The PM share his views on doggy doo-doo?

  21. Yes, I wouldn’t think that backlash would be that large – just, well, Labor will want to win every single seat possible and in those safe Liberal seats 500 – 1000 votes could be the difference.

  22. Lefty E@631:

    “The Labor State Governments have totally failed to police the appalling amount of dog droppings on the street. If re-elected, we will legislate for a federal takeover of all poop-related issues”.

    High Court challenges are expected, of course.

  23. Just had a look at the full Newspoll figures from the GG. There is absolutely no joy here for Rattus and Crew. I was surprised that the GG published graphs showing “The Narrowing” of the polls on the economy and national security. Not a good look for Howard.

  24. Left E @ 631

    6. “The Commonwealth” shall mean the Commonwealth of Australia as established under this Act.

    “The States” shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, including the northern territory of South Australia, as for the time being are parts of the Commonwealth, and such colonies or territories as may be admitted into or established by the Commonwealth as States; and each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called “a State”.

    Don’t give them ideas!

  25. anthony: He will take over control of local councils from the states, and he will replace them all with local board of 10 people paid a small amount. For them to get funding they have to clean up the streets of poop.

  26. So much for breach of copyright law 🙂

    [Nine was well prepared. Not only did it have a direct feed from Parliament, it had a back-up feed from Sky, the cable channel that hosted the debate. In fact, Nine was broadcasting from the Sky feed from the start, concerned its own feed would be pulled. When it was eventually cut, it took someone in Canberra a while to realise that it failed to take Nine off air.

    Westacott said he received a call from Sky News that said Reilly had threatened that its feed would be pulled if it did not stop relaying to Nine. “I couldn’t be responsible for them losing their feed. So the director very cleverly flicked – on a change of a question – to the Sky News off-the-air feed.”

    In other words, Nine simply rebroadcast Sky’s signal, rather than taking the relay. “There was nothing they could do about that,” Westacott said. “And we are a part owner of Sky News, so there was no contractual problems.

    “The ABC and the National Press Club conspired to do the bidding of the Liberal Party. And it’s not up to the Press Club, or the ABC, or the Liberal Party, to dictate the editorial policy of the Nine Network.”]

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/bury-the-worm-get-canned/2007/10/22/1192940991071.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

  27. hmmmmmmmm…….

    [LAST month she was paid $150 to discuss washer-dryers. On Sunday night she was paid just $40 to help drive the worm that declared Kevin Rudd the winner of the only debate of the election campaign.

    In an interview with the Herald, one of the 90 members of the Channel Nine studio audience revealed how she came to be sitting in judgment.

    The woman, who asked not to be named, explained she was recruited to provide occasional market research feedback to the firm McNair Ingenuity earlier this year. Last Wednesday she received a phone call inviting her to be a member of a “studio audience”.

    When she was asked if she had decided how she was going to vote she realised she was being invited to the debate.

    “I knew to say I was undecided because they would want to make it more interesting for the Worm,” said the woman, who had already decided to vote Labor.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/how-a-labor-voter-wriggled-in/2007/10/22/1192940991710.html

  28. psephologistically speaking:

    hahahahahahahaha

    *snort*

    I think the ALP can break the 100 seat barrier. I mean, assuming this is not a rogue poll – but I think the numbers will all be in the 54-58 range from hereon in. More than anything I think: man, was a six week campaign a bad idea.

  29. I still think it’s a little too early to count the chickens. But I think it is safe to say that the Liberals are seriously wrong-footed – for had they expected these sort of numbers, they wouldn’t have released their tax extravaganza so early on in the game.

    But the Libs will no doubt have some Plan Bs to fall back on, and I imagine that the next seven days in their entirety will give us some idea of what their game plan is going to be over the next five weeks.

    At the very least they’ll be concentrating on the firewall strategy.

    I suspect they will then go very, very negative. If the polls stay where they are, they’re going to have to acknowledge what the polls have been telling them all year, and which nearly everyone (with the exception of two obvious people) already know – that Howard doesn’t appear able to cut through. At that point, the party organisation may also realise what the party room has known for years – that Costello isn’t so appealing either.

    In that case, no uplifting ‘narrative’ is going to win things for you, so why wouldn’t you go for broke trying to bring the other side down, and trying to limit the size of their win? Negativity might not guarantee you a win, but it still has its purposes, and five weeks of relentless bashing and provocation might save a few seats here and there.

    I think it’s certainly safe to say that they’re not going to become more moderate and nuanced from hereon in.

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