Newspoll: 57-43

Lateline has reported that tomorrow’s Newspoll will show Labor leading 57-43 on two-party preferred. However, the big news from the survey comes from the preferred prime minister ratings: Rudd 70 per cent, Nelson 9 per cent.

UPDATE: The Australian’s graphic here. Note the question on the stolen generations apology, which puts overall support at 64 per cent. It would be interesting to see a state-by-state breakdown, because Westpoll’s survey of WA voters (published in The West Australian on February 11) showed 44 per cent in favour against 46 per cent opposed. Elsewhere in The Australian, that shameless Labor booster Dennis Shanahan reports that Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating has “overtaken the previous highs of Mr Hawke, on 60 per cent, and Mr Howard, on 67 per cent” – but with respect to Hawke, it must be remembered that the peak of his popularity was in 1983 and 1984, and that Newspoll did not commence operations until 1985.

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.

627 comments on “Newspoll: 57-43”

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  1. Well Ron, I just thought it was a good excuse to reproduce the speech. It still inspires, and you’re right – it’s still Labor philosophy.

  2. 503 Seems like the Liberals are in such confusion over their on again, off again IR policy they have forgotten to issue their talking points to Glen and GP.

  3. Nelson is on now denying that inflation, business confidence drop, interest rate rises, Uncle Tom Cobbly & All has anything to do with the Howard government.

    Apparently it is all Labor’s fault.

    All of it.

    A skills crisis, little infrastructure development, education up the spout and somehow or other it’s all Labor’s doing. And it’s only taken three months.

    Will he ever learn? This kind of triumphalist claptrap is why they lost.

  4. 506

    What about the state Conservative oppositions???

    Their performance as the opposition is woeful…but that isn’t the point…is it???

    But then again…the Commonwealth has been the shining light the last decade.

  5. State Labor governments? Yes! Let’s throw them into the mix.

    Nothing, NOTHING that went wrong was down to Howard and his mob.

    The only thing – apparently – that Labor could not be blamed for is the unemployment figure. That’s Howard’s property.

  6. In the interests of following up on my post from earlier and using a reliable source, I was in a bookshop and looked up the latest Ralph magazine. I can confirm that Julia Gillard was voted the second sexiest woman by Australian men along with someone from Barbados called Birannia(?), and Jennifer Hawkins won. What truly disturbed me was that the magazine had offered Gillard $50,000 for a bikini shoot which her office had turned down!

    BTW I just bumped into Nicole Cornes for the first time. She needed an extra 10c for her parking ticket. She really is quite stunning in real life.

  7. In Victoria Kennet left Bracks an economy if in fantastic shape and awash with cash.

    Where is my Royal Comission into the Vic Police?

    NSW well… it will be the State that will give Mr. Kevin “the buck stops with me (health)” Rudd headaches. He will say I only just got in to office and the Coaltion will say when are you going to accept responsibility. That’s my take anyway.

  8. JoM, Kennett (note sp) left Bracks a state where everything that moved had been privatised, infrastructure was beginning to deteriorate, schools had been closed, and many people were unemployed or underemployed because of privatisation. Local councils have never recovered from the forced ‘tendering out’ that occurred at that time. Take off your rose-coloured specs.

  9. Diogenes, this is completly of topic (forgive please Mr Bowe) but can you point me towards some decent info on aspartame and its real and/or imagined downside. I have tried to research it but the net is just full of…well…you get the point

    Do you know of any reliable reasearch or indeed do you know whether its as bad as some say?

    Thanks in advance, a friend is hitiing 7-10 coke zeros a day in the belief that all is ok … I’m not so sure 🙂

  10. John of Melbourne,
    The grieving process looks like it is going to take a long time for you. Nelson/Turnbull/Hockey can’t make up their minds about anything. Apparently Workchices was responsible for higher wages but removing it is going to cause higher wages. Go figure! And now the states are to blame for L’il Johnny’s downfall. Of course they are.
    For now console your self with:
    1) Irag – we’re out
    2) Stolen Generation – kissed and made up
    3) Workchices – gone (along with some Liberal credibility)
    4) Kyoto – signed
    And we haven’t even used up the first two weeks! There is not much more that JWH stood for, if you exclude squatting at Kirribilli. Oh – that’s gone too.
    You’ve got a lot to be angry about, JOM.

  11. classified @ 512 – Most of the horror stories are rubbish. However, there is a very recent study (pdf) which found that artificial sweeteners actually make it harder to loose weight.

    I’d be more worried about the coke. Horrible stuff thats only good for cleaning metal, IME.

  12. Classified, I’m not a doctor of medicine, however, am a mental health clinician with 30 years experience. Forget the effect of the artificial sweetener, the quantity of Coke itself is a problem. I understand why people drink fizzy drinks, but they’re bad, bad, bad, from every perspective. Not good for teeth and gums, do not adequately quench thirst, sets up craving for more, feeds corporate profits for bad products. Seriously, that’s too much Coke anyway, even on the caffeine intake level.

  13. I’m neither a doctor, nor a mental health clinician, but I’ve coached plenty of youngsters. We enforced the rule of 1 to 8 – for every glass of coke they had to drink 8 of water; it worked pretty quickly. Getting 8 glasses of water into a youngster can be hard work though…..
    Then their wonderful parents started pumping them full of Gatorade. A fair few kids worked out the ills of that at their first major tournament…when they threw it up all over themselves, and played particularly poorly.
    Classified – it’s going to hurst, but at your friends presumed age, just quitting it cold turkey and dealing with a few weeks of real pain is probably the best long term solution. In my experience – be prepared for a personality change, obviously for the worse initially, but then the better.
    I once knew of a person who was using coke zero because they actually liked what it did to their personality (more aggressiveness, paranoia). I don’t think he’ll give it up without a lot of professional help.

    Now to keep it political, today we saw some real mock outrage in the H of R, from both sides; I didn’t expect Labour to go there this early.
    Julia has locked both doors at then end of the corridor that the libs are stuck in now, and the corridor runs from nowhere to the-back-of-nowhere anyway.

    What’s the difference between a fortune teller and an economist……nothing.
    Does anyone think that if the US goes in to recession that we won’t? There are plenty of intellectual arguments for why we won’t, but by my observation there are too many similarities between the fashion industry and the stock market – if miniskirts are the go in the US, I’ll bet they’re the go here too.

  14. John of Melbourne, I have no doubt that NSW will provide many challenges for Fed. Labor and Rudd. Labor has its own issues there as anyone with any degree of honesty would tell you or agree with you. However, Victoria, where I also live, is a different story, I would suggest. There are many things I would criticise about the government here, the previous Police Minister being one of them, but I think Christine Nixon has been exceptional and to the government’s credit they have backed her all the way. I have fairly senior connections within Victoria Police who confirm that there are people who do sabotage any attempt by Christine Nixon to cleanse and modernise the force. I’ve no idea why you think a Royal Commission would do any better. From talking to my plod colleagues, they seem to think that if you’ve got either the current arrangement in Vic. or something like the Q’l’d CCJ, society has, at the least an ongoing mechanism for addressing the problems in policing. Now ask me about fraud and corruption that happens in the health industry, not to mention outright criminality. I add, to demonstrate I’m serious about this, that I was part of removing a very senior person from my work and having them charged and found guilty of criminal charges, and deregistered. I say in my defence, I’m a social worker with a pronounced mongrel streak.

  15. Scorpio, 500.

    Mind how you go! I am alarmed!

    Creature Comforts, for example, do not cause such deleterious reactions.

    I recorded Rick Stein. French Odyssey. The program itself was very relaxing. Recording it and renaming it on the new machine was even more blindingly boggling, though.

    Think I have coaxial issues.

    Pretty okay about the Parliament, until I saw the 7.30 report. The Future Eaters bit.

  16. Classified

    at 512

    Google Aspartame + Donald Rumsfeld and you will be guaranteed some interesting reading and eye openers.

    Just the name Rumsfeld should help your friend give it up.

  17. 512 classified-Actually, your post is NOT off topic. Nutrasweet, aka aspartame, was made by Searle whose CEO was one of history’s most evil men, none other than Donald Rumsfeld!!

    Like all artificial substances, it has been blamed for almost every disease imaginable but none of the evidence is credible. It’s been around long enough to say its almost certainly harmless, unless you have PKU (which my daughter has incidentally). It’s certainly better than having normal Coke in those amounts. I agree with the other bloggers regarding the caffeine though. There’s plenty of evidence of harm from that amount of caffeine in terms of psychological changes. Being a Stoic, I think the best advice I can give is everything is okay in moderation, except perhaps ricin and cyanide.

  18. And yeah, it is all Howard’s fault. Definitely. Though I do not overlook Labor’s, or was it the Democrats, progress, or lack thereof, in advancing the digital world, much earlier than Howard’s World.

    If my house, street, suburb, district, telephone exchange, cabling, infrastructure, State, Australia, had not remained so dismally 19th Century, under the Golden Years of Howard, as Andrew Robb so deludely, if that is a word, put it to Fran, I would probably not have to grapple with all these weirdly difficult matters, such as not enabled for ADSL2, no digital infrastructure conveyance for digital TV.

    And no one need bother to challenge me on this. Why is that my friend’s students, as I have mentioned in the past, from Hongkong, for example, are so puzzled that our buildings are not wired for everything I struggle with.

    They apparently have no problem. They apparently have super speed broadband. At cost little to nothing. I don’t know about digital TV reception etc but I would place my bet it is nothing like this household to household challenge.

    And I won’t even begin on alternative energy, solar and on it goes.

    The Retrograde Years. Retreated, Australia Fair.

  19. Harry i also live in Victoria and yes the Victorian Labor Party is quietly and slowly beginning to be on the nose. A royal commission i am ambivalent about, on the one hand it would be a lawyers picnic and on the other their are a number of endemic problems within the police force at present, they being corrupt police.
    In regards to other matters i think the government here has become arrogant and distant, it is letting the big end of town develop policy and is supporting it through spin, this is a major concern. Issues such as transport are a sore and why because the government has been to slow to introduce change, instead it spent billions on a roof at Southern Cross Station this money could have been used for outer suburban lines or railway crossing safety measures.
    The government is supporting projects like Channel Deepening with costs and benefits practically equalling each other, who came up with this great vision! It is simply a joke. And guess what to overcome all the truck traffic at the entrance of the docks as a result the government will sign off for tunnel under the Yarra… Already the Racv and the Herald Sun are demanding it, but at what cost and at what future cost when peak oil presents itself and then slowly drives prices to levels in which few people will use the road.
    Another toll and another major infrastructure financer owner benefiting… Put simply the Victorian Government has little vision and is in trouble.
    After listening to Jacinta Allan telling us that the Opposition has no policies or ideas last week i have one question for her what are ideas and policies of the present government?
    Jacinta Labor is on the nose and will if it continues to ignore public concerns be in trouble in 2010.

  20. And not forgetting all those Iraqis’ who died as a result.
    And the traumatised and miamed soldiers, it was an absolute disgrace. Just amazing what human beings do to each other.

    Wonder where the WMD’s are?

  21. sanque,

    There is no such thing as a Howard Government. It was a fairy tale. You were fast asleep while everything was happening.

  22. 533
    Never forgive, never forget.

    All too easily we fall into the trap of forgetting just how bad a period of time was, because its easier to forget and enjoy the good times.

    The ex-Howard Government was the worst period of Australian history for a long time, and we must endeavour to ensure that this period is reviled and never repeated again.

  23. ESJ- All Stoics are underweight. We have forgone the Dionysian pleasures of the flesh, unlike you hedonists. And as above I met the lovely Nicole Cornes today, but I decided not to ask her about your query? PS Alan Clarke arrived yesterday, if it’s no good I’m holding you personally responsible!
    steve- The most obese people in the queue’ I find myself in ALWAYS drink diet Coke. They just have a donut, a pie and a bucket of chips with it.

  24. I am amazed that Iraq is merely that amount. $2 billion.

    But does it include the ships in the Gulf, the support costs and so on?

    Or is that figure only about troops on the ground, in Iraq itself? Does it, with due respect, include…..and at this point I stop.

    For I entertain some very terrible thoughts, about other costs. Which are hard, inflammatory and need more consideration before being put in writing.

  25. ESJ – Mea culpa and apologies for yesterday putting Major Peter Young as ALP candidate for Lowe in the 1972 election. It was 1969 when he stood against McMahon. The ALP insider I asked was an election off the mark, and I don’t blame him as those from that era are getting on a bit now. So it was indeed Bill Fisher in 1972, who later became very an excellent and well-respected President of the NSW Industrial Court.

    Diogenes @ 509 – Can you expand a bit on Nicole Cornes needing 10c for parking? It’s intriguing. Did you help her out?
    My parking was $50 today – where were you then?

  26. Crikey Whitey Says: @ 522
    February 20th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
    Scorpio, 500.

    {Mind how you go! I am alarmed!}

    Not half as alarmed as I was Crikey.
    It was a sight to behold. Accompanied by the Pink rimmed glasses, pink earrings and pink lipstick, the vision filled the screen and made my eyes glaze over.

    It was like looking at someone through pink cellophane paper. Certainly a very colourful scene in the Parliament today.

  27. Marky Marky,

    There is this thing called democracy.

    I can tease you,
    You can say I wan’t to kill you and I am a member of the KKK.

    Let the punters decide who is more credible.

  28. 541 jv- It was very boring. She was with two colleagues and was parking the car in Adelaide. There was a parking inspector there and they needed the minimum of 50c or something for the meter and were 10c short. They asked me, very nicely, for 10c was able to give them. I think she must have been going into 5AA’s studio.

  29. {Has anyone seen the prolific pre-election poster, lose the election please, around lately?}

    Yeah. There are still a number of these posters stuck up on telegraph posts in my area! LOL

  30. Diogenes @ 525 –
    “everything is okay in moderation, except perhaps ricin and cyanide.”

    A very reliable source tells me that Lib supporters thrive on both in the same way that horses do on arsenic – puts a spring in their step and gives ’em nice shiny hair. Indeed, the more they consume the better they and the rest of us will feel. 😉

    Crikey Whitey @ 539 – The $2 billion will be the raw on the ground costs so won’t include whatever ongoing costs are incurred for Veterans Affairs payments, medical treatment, etc, nor will it include wear and tear/accelerated equipment replacement, etc. OTOH, they usually include some costs that would have been paid anyway – wages etc.

  31. Did she really, Scorpio? I thought for a moment it was just you.

    Isn’t there a rather interesting person called Pink? Who seems to be, last I had time to think of such things, a socialist type?

    Perhaps Fran has confused her role models. Or is that she is trying to outdo Bronnie Bishop?

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