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”

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  1. got off train at St leonards (sydney) 2 bailey campaigners, lots of smiles from commuters

    where’s Joe

    hope he dont eat the worm

    ps 58/42 is surely the new benchmark 🙂

  2. Wonder what it would have been AFTER the debate? I heard it on the web (no worms) and thought Howard started better than Kev, but that Kev came home with a wet sail – would have done himself lots of favours with those swingers who might be inclined to stick with the devil you know.

    With moe’s etc, tend to agree that not much has changed – whatever Libs are trying isn’t working. Wonder what panic strategies they have up their sleeve, and whether they have to resort to them now.

    The kind of swing is now looking like ’96 levels or more. 2004 result leaves a big challenge… I think that’s been met, but can the Libs really lose 30-40 or more seats? Surely not.

    Would Costello stay if it was a rout? If not, who would lead the Libs realistically – they can’t go back to Downer (clown)…

  3. [Shanahan says “Too early to tell if public likes the ALP tax policy”]

    Even if Rudd is sitting to the speaker’s right, in a chair next to the dispatch box, Shanahan will still say the election is too close to call.

  4. From Your Rights@Work.

    [The extent of the Howard Government’s plans to take the IR laws further is frightening.

    Yesterday billionaire retailer Gerry Harvey said a “second tier” of foreign workers should be created in Australia, paid fifty percent less than local workers, undercutting local wages and conditions.

    According to Mr Harvey, Mr Howard and the Liberal party are in total agreement with him. “You won’t get politicians saying what I’m saying, but privately they know this sort of thing is a reality in the future.”

    Read more about Mr Harvey’s demands to the Howard Government, and use our website to write a letter to the editor of your local paper now. http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/campaigns/secondtier

    WorkChoices has already cut wages and conditions for Australian workers by making it easier for business to get rid of conditions like penalty rates and overtime.

    Now big business wants to go a step further, driving down Australian employees’ wages by taking advantage of overseas workers desperate for a new life in our country. Like Australian workers, people from overseas deserve rights at work too. One of these rights is a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

    The Liberals cannot be trusted with our rights at work if re-elected. They will go further with WorkChoices. Write a letter to the editor now and share your views. http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/campaigns/secondtier

    Last week Liberal Workplace Relations minister Joe Hockey indicated a re-elected Howard Government would like to get rid of unions altogether, cutting vital representation and advocacy for working people.

    Liberal Finance Minister Nick Minchin has apologized to big business because the IR laws didn’t go far enough, and promised “another wave” of changes. Peter Costello, who hopes to be Prime Minister, has said he is open to a system where the only right is a minimum wage, and absolutely everything else is up for grabs.

    We can’t afford to let this happen. Have your say now.

    The Rights at Work campaign team]

    Methinks it’s time to call for a Hardly Normal Boycott.

  7. 94,

    SirEggo,

    Cruise on over to your local convience store and treat yourself to a really nice icecream or some dessert that you normally don’t indulge in. Same principle 🙂

  8. Great news!

    So how much longer will News Ltd. keep persisting with trying to get Howard re-elected? Their efforts so far are obviously falling on deaf ears.

  9. Howard’s plan with workchoices as one analyst wrote somewhere was nothing to do with IR and everything to do with destroying Labor.

    When you got a poisonous weed in your garden you have to get it out right down to the roots. Labor has to be ruthless, don’t cost.

    Do I sound obsessed? 🙂

  15. Gusface, Bailey’s posters have all been pilfered by Joe’s mob. Change of tactics methinks. Still, the amount of time it takes to rip posters down you might as well put some of your own up (ive heard =))

  17. 92
    TofK Says:
    JustMe, vodka! You menshevik! Bed its that red label you keep under the bed!

    Da. A whole case. (It is October, after all, the revolution month.)

    wo wo wo wo wow

  18. Never seen anything like it so close to an election.
    John Howard can’t do anything now.
    There’s no point in changing leaders. It would make it even worse.
    It will be termed a rogue poll.
    I agree with Adam. The final result won’t be anything like this.
    Nevertheless John Howard and his colleagues must be feeling quite sick.
    The debate wouldn’t have helped.
    All the allegations that the Government tried to stop the worm – and we can see why- hasn’t gone down well and has dominated the debate story.
    Kevin Rudd in the play pen with the children will help him with the women voters. It made him seem ( and I believe he really is) very human.
    Thanks Antony for showing how this would play out.
    It would be rather like one of those Indian state elections where there are huge swings one way and then the other at the next election.
    Maybe people really do want a change.

  19. GG @ 98 – stay off the sherry until election night.
    Adam @ 110 – getting off at Redfern is like getting off at Redfern for rich people

  20. As I’ve been saying on this blog for months now, there are no dirty tricks left for Howard to play (just the old ones that have already been tried and failed), and Rudd is clearly the superior performer in front of a camera or a microphone.

    So it beggars belief how anyone can logically think that Howard will be catching up in this campaign (beyond eternally hopeful conservatives and chronically pessimistic and frightened Labor supporters).

    Therefore there is no other outcome left but a Ruddslide of biblical proportions. The only issue for me is the extent to which the Labor floodtide will inundate safe Liberal seats.

    People need to accept that Rudd is an exceptional leader (as evidenced by his unprecedented polling performances over the last 8 months) and so we should not expect conformation to norms, but expect results that are exceptional.

  21. I gotta say where are they getting these people from? All the seat by seat polling I have seen has the result at nothing like that.

  22. Anything Morgan produces after this is going to look conservative -where are our statisticians when we need them to help us sort out the trend, margins of error and all the other essential matters to keep us on the path of sanity and sober psephological seriousness.

  24. [Cruise on over to your local convience store and treat yourself to a really nice icecream or some dessert that you normally don’t indulge in. Same principle ]

    I still have 5.5 KG left to lose before election day to make my target of 79 KG.

    I drank a glass of milk, that counts as a treat these days 😐

    But the debate last night, and this poll result, makes the 2 hours of letter-boxing on Sunday feel worthwhile.

  25. SMH front page tomorrow morning:

    Kevin Rudd has pulled further ahead of John Howard, according to the latest Newspoll figures.

  29. Noocat… news limited will not let up… and don’t think for a minute it will not… pathetic rag from a dangerous man… perhaps the most dangerous man in the world due to all that power he has with newsprint…

  31. Where’s Glen!

    He’s probably heard the result and said to himself “I’m not going on Pollbludger with those dropkicks carrying on…..”

  32. O deary me the Libs are in a tad of bother.

    My first reaction was “shock” but we have now seen several times just as the Liberals get the numbers back to 54 ish along comes a bounce for the ALP up to 57-58, this first happened between July – September and appeared to again happen only last week.

  33. Greensborough Growler, I really can’t imagine Warringah coming into play unless Peter Macdonald stands as an independent. He might just win this time. Give it a go Peter.

  35. Rudd Labor will destroy Howard in the HoR thanks to deserting lifelong “wet” Libs.

    that is fantastic news.

    However Rudd Labor will also bleed senate support to the Greens thanks to deserting Left Laborites.

    that is also fantastic news.

  36. 58-42 Just say those numbers to yourself. It’s hard to believe, but true. And again, but slower … F i f t y – e i g h t – F o r t y – t w o . . .

    .. and it still doesn’t register the scale of this result. Not just the result, but the timing of it. Amazing.

  37. Evening all. My big question is… are you smiling just a bit now Lose The Election Please? Ready to shift that prophecy of yours a little… maybe only a three seat Coalition majority likely?

    Interesting couple of weeks ahead. I was expecting another big policy splash from the Libs today… another Megaphone Monday to steal the running for the week (repeated every Monday from here on in). But we got nada, just a vacuum filled by the worm and Kevin looking positively post-coital all day. God bless him.

    Have the Libs got any more big guns to fire, I wonder, or is it a very fierce hand to hand battle in the twenty key marginals from here on in?

    They better make it thirty five key marginals…

  39. [The final result won’t be anything like this.
    Nevertheless John Howard and his colleagues must be feeling quite sick.
    The debate wouldn’t have helped.]

    The result will have a psychological impact. It will demoralise parts of the Liberal support base. Some of them will give up, even if the true result in some marginals is a lot closer.

  40. 110
    Adam Says:
    Getting off at St Leonards – is that like getting off at Redfern for rich people?

    I used to get off at Hornsby. Frequently.

  41. BMWofVictoria @ 132 – the MoE moves in about 3-4% range – so 54-58 is natural ‘noise’ .The real result is probably in that range and probably has been for all of this calendar year.

  44. Keep calm, people. It’s 55 at the outer bound of 3% MOE. Ruddster needs 52 2PP. His cushion is only 3.

  45. Very fitting in hindsight. The storming of the winter palace uncovered the biggest alcohol stash in Russia, and was followed by St Petersburg’s biggest hangover in recorded history to date.

  46. Another thing… this result will give Rudd big headlines tomorrow. No doubt the government will have to counter with a big policy announcement of some sort. Maybe the health policy that the government’s press secretary D. Shanahan has promised.

  47. No Crispy, my 5 seat majority prediction will remain, until very close the actual day. I think this election will be very interesting, and will give us a lot to look back at after it’s all over.

  48. If Rudd can keep it to 55-45 come election day I will be a very happy camper, even if I am stuck in some el cheapo hotel in Box Hill celebrating my el cheapo brothers 50th when the numbers come in on election night.

    At that rate, the 20 seats Adam Carr nominated on his site are looking very good and then some.. Im stick with my 25-27 seats: a reversal of 2004 at this rate.

    Hubris: no, sir. A core beleif that JWH is done and dusted and its time for him to go home and ‘spend more time with the family’…hope he takes Costello with him.

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