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. A goer, Sceptic.

    Fielding esp, as a dunce and Xenophon as a pro Work Choice fan, according to his utterances, with a little tinkering, may sink the first legislation.

    Leaves the electoral anger wide open.

  2. Sceptic,

    1 thing i do know is Rudd deliberately sabotaged any chance of a senate majority in the week prior to the election. The 2nd ACT spot was up for grabs until he recklessly and deliberately(and for no reason)went on his “slasher” rhetoric.

    I’ve always thought he did this for 1 of 2 reasons. i’m just not sure which one.

    1) he wants a do nothing,unhelpful senate for his first term
    2) he has been planning a DD on w/choices all along.

  3. Steve, is Horatio a goner? So soon? He’s clearly not up to the job, but does it matter at the moment? Rudd is going to be supreme for quite a long time to come, regardless of the OL..

  4. Harry , the numbers miscalulation delivered a DLP into the vic upper house and FF into the Senate 9both decisions based on beating the Greens for the lat spot)

    After 3 misses , have they learned

  5. Crikey,

    I thought Xenophon was anti-Workchoices. Maybe I’m wrong.

    But this parliament will not last 2 years, let alone 3. Blocked IR and electoral legislation will make that a certainty.

    Expect an announcement from Rudd in about June about the government’s plan to introduce a plebiscite on the Republic if re-elected. Within 12 months this will be followed by a Referendum.

    Won’t that frazzle the factions in the Liberal Party. The reactionary monarchists will get all the air time and the Liberals will look divided and out of touch with aspirational voters. I don’t think Sophie Mirabella, Wilson Tuckey and Tony Abbott appeal to most people.

  6. Harry,

    JWH’s loss proved one thing. Senate majorities are poisoned chalices.

    Easier to blame the Senate for failed policies than a government with a double majority. The last government that lost their Senate majority (in 1981) also lost the subsequent election in 1983.

    I reckon a DD election is a very attractive option and Rudd considered this.

    History is a good guide.

  7. One thing that really resonated in that 4 Corners program was the supreme gutlessness of the Liberal front bench. They all got together, all agreed Howard had to go, then (by the sounds of it) most of them were too chicken to tell him to his face and the ones that did put it in such wussy, soft terms that Howard got the wrong message and thought they didn’t really want him out. Result: destruction.

    Can you imagine any other political party where every single significant senior minister wanted to boot out the leader and yet none of them had the guts to follow through?

    Utterly pathetic.

  8. 60 Blindoptimist, for all practical purposes this is the end. No matter how long he holds out there is no recovery from this sort of widespread rejection. It is exactly the reverse of what we saw when Rudd took over as leader. Nelson can graft away all he likes but even a quadrupling of this figure which would be a Herculean performance still leaves him in the wilderness and the pack will demand results.

  9. He would be crazy to take it, Ron. There are many bad days ahead for the Libs – a lot of resignations/ bye-elections, a lot of policy traumas. He should be prepared to be patient and put in time outside parliament with the great unwashed. There are not many good things about opposition, but the chance to get to meet real people is one of them. He should make the most of this. The Leadership can wait.

  10. Nelson from a purely personal point of view would be better off getting out now, letting some high energy manic like Abbott bear the brunt of the hard work and stand against Turnbull when it really counts.

  11. letting some high energy manic like Abbott bear the brunt of the hard work

    That would be sweet. Unlike the rest of them on the ABC tonight he still had that pro-Howard manic glint in his eye. It would be a beautiful thing to see him go to a DD election still touting WorkChoices and other failed policies and get crushed like a bug, clearing the way for small-l liberal reform of the Liberal Party.

  12. Our leader may be Mr 9% but at least the Bulletin won’t run a headline with Mr 9% why does Nelson bother lol!

    Also 57-43 = bullbutter…

    Also may i remind you of Rooster Swan…
    To have a Treasurer who could not answer this basic economic question is really really sad!
    “Given the RBA’s stated intention to tighten monetary policy to slow economic activity in order to lower inflationary pressures, what does the Treasurer regard as Australia’s current Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, expressed as a percentage?”

    Swan………………………still waiting Rooster!

    Also the Minister for Ageing was caught out reading out a press release in Question Time.

    What did i tell you the Rudd Government are bunch of amateurs…the PPM is stupid to report on atm, Rudd’s been the leader for more than a year Nelson’s been a leader for a couple of months after the Tories lost office…who cares!

    May i also add that why on earth would Turnbull want to take the leadership now if its so bad, Julie Bishop would be the obvious choice if Nelson gets dumped after a year…couldn’t do any worse having a woman as our leader why Julie would have an approval rating in the 30s at least for PPM. Still i think Nelson is doing a good job especially his Sorry speech.

  13. 73 The theory has always been that if what you’re doing isn’t working try something different. More of the same will just produce more of the same results and I can’t imagine successful business people buying this situation even in the short term. When they see the front page of the Australian tomorrow, the business community will be appalled at the outcome expressed by Newspoll. Phones will be running hot.

  14. 67
    Patrick Bateman

    I have to agree, they were so utterly spineless, and like rabbits in the headlights, were paralysed.

    What also struck me was the way Howard knew he was gone, but instead of standing aside to let them get on with it, he clutched the wheel even tighter and steered them onto the rocks.

    What an awful little man.

    Thanks Howard, you really buggered them right royal.

  15. “Still i think Nelson is doing a good job especially his Sorry speech.”

    yep, when the public spontaneously turns away from you, then you just know you’re doing a good job! LOL

  16. 74 [Still i think Nelson is doing a good job especially his Sorry speech.]

    I thought his apology for his sorry speech was the highlight that helped produce the 9% figure. Great work,indeed.

  17. “The news was a little better for the coalition on a two-party preferred basis, as support inched up for the opposition and slipped slightly for the government.”

    Rudd’s in trouble now. The dreaded narowing has started.

  18. Some things never change: the Oz is still the Liberal rag, Glen.

    Pesonally, I think NAIRU is a troublesome concept. It is predicated on a fairly static view of economic activity. Of course, the economy is not static. And NAIRU basically posits a fixed relationship between unemployment and inflation. The existence of such a relationship is uncertain at best. I think you can explain inflation in terms of aggregate demand and you can explain unemployment in terms of labour market function and behaviour.

    Turnbull is making a lot out of a doubtful concept…

  19. 83

    it is rather humerous that a blogger at bludger knows what NAIRU is but the Treasurer apparently doesnt though lol

    another bad day for the rooster

  20. 85
    HarryH

    By all accounts Costello didn’t know much about it either, but he was dopey enough to hang around for a decade waiting to be given something nobody wanted to give him.

    Swan may yet learn to fake it as well as Cossie, at least he’s not so patently full of himself.

  21. {the PPM is stupid to report on atm, Rudd’s been the leader for more than a year Nelson’s been a leader for a couple of months after the Tories lost office…who cares! }

    Glen, wasn’t the PPM figure one of your important markers towards a Howard victory last year.

    Strangely enough, after two months in the job as Opposition Leader, didn’t Rudd have a higher PPM level than Mr Howard. In fact, I distinctly remember Mr Rudd having a higher PPM than Howard from the first Newspoll after he became leader right up to the election.

    The Business community will take one hell of a lot of wooing to part with cash in support of Mr 9% Nelson. I think they are royally stuffed at present and it will take an enormous amount of spin by yourself and your regular Conservative supporters on this site to put even a smidgen of optimism towards a Liberal resurgence in the next half dozen years or so with this bunch of incompetents running the show.

  22. 86
    Kirribilli Removals Says:
    February 19th, 2008 at 12:53 am
    85
    HarryH

    {By all accounts Costello didn’t know much about it either,}

    Not just Costello. For all Glen’s bagging of Swann and praising the Shadow Treasurer’s amazing economic abilities, it appears that Turnbull doesnt have a clue either and nor do most experts in the field.

    http://news.smh.com.au/mps-left-guessing-on-economic-theory/20080218-1ssz.html

    {However, Mr Turnbull did not offer what level he thought NAIRU was now.

    Commonwealth Bank economist Martin Arnold also was hesitant to put a figure on it.

    “It’s a difficult concept to put an arbitrary number on,” he said.

    “While people have put numbers on it in the past, it’s always been a bit of a moving beast” }

  23. Patrick, with respect you have a warped view of the situation.

    1. The MacLachlan affair was ruinous for Costello’s prospective transition to Leader

    2. Hockey was right, “knifing the PM” seconds from the election would have destroyed the Coalition.

    Now, I’m fairly certain that many would be happy to see the destruction of the Coalition, but meanwhile back in reality, the circumstances are rather different.

  24. i agree with Hockey that knifing Howard was not an option.

    they would have been decimated.

    no-one knew this more than Howard. The selfish little bastard cared for no-one but himself…..as always.

    this does not excuse the cabinets gutlessness though. they should have demanded en masse that Howard resign and put on an amicable face. thats if you believe that moving Howard would help them though.

    they,along with everyone else, knew that without Howard,even though Howardism was now dead, they were a rabble…..as proof now shows.

  25. GP, the Liberal Parliamentiary Party failed in its primary role – to serve as a kind of standing electoral college and to foster, elect, support and if necessary change the leadership. Having failed in its duty to itself and the public, the public were only to happy too remove a good number of them.

    Through no fault of my own, I happen to know a few Liberal politicians. They are buffoons, but this is not their worst failing. Their main crime is to treat the public like we are the fools.

  26. Hockey’s comment re howard seemed the damning of all:

    John HAD said he’d leave the Leadership if it was in the intersts of the Party
    but he changed the ‘formula’

    ie. howard was prepared to resign , knowing the LCP would los ewith him as Leader
    BUT PROVIDED the Cabinet resolved formally that he must go…..
    “to ensure people do not think I am a quitter’

    so in the end it was Howard thinking of Howard , not the LCP’s interests ?

  27. No 93

    Through no fault of my own, I happen to know a few Liberal politicians. They are buffoons, but this is not their worst failing. Their main crime is to treat the public like we are the fools.

    I’ll take that with a grain of salt.

    GP, the Liberal Parliamentiary Party failed in its primary role – to serve as a kind of standing electoral college and to foster, elect, support and if necessary change the leadership.

    The extended interview of Peter Costello on the ABC 4 Corners website is particularly instructive. Rudd pitched himself as a younger Liberal – and Costello concluded that if the party did not take the opportunity to modernise itself, then the electorate would do it for them. The 2007 result speaks for itself.

  28. Ron, they all failed to think of their party – Howard, the Cabinet, the rest of the party room. They were thinking of themselves, I suppose. Of how things would look and how difficult it was to summon the courage to change leaders. They all lacked the fortitude and they still do!

  29. The biggest fear I had leading up to September last year was that the Libs would ditch Howard and run with Costello.

    It was clear that Rudd had Howard’s measure and the polls reinforced that view with consistently high PPM figures.

    Costello would have been able to give the Libs a bounce and new direction and would have prompted a total restructure of the Labor campaign strategy.

    By quickly ratifying Kyoto, gutting workchoices and demonstrating a more inclusive and less domineering approach than Howard, the Libs would have had a much better chance than they had under Howard.

    Costello would have changed the dynamics and gained substantial media interest which would have derailed the Labor strategy focusing on Howard.

    It was more than a risky move for the Libs. It was the only avenue open to them with some chance of success but they were so wedded to Howard’s aura of invincibility and electoral ability, (which in many cases relied more on luck and fortuitous timing of events) that they were too stupid and too gutless to take the chance when it was offered to them on a plate.

    For this, the country is truly grateful.

  30. I’m another who’s with Hoe Jockey on the knifing issue. As I see it, Howard has to shoulder a lot, probably the majority, of the blame. He was trying to have it both ways – if he was going to be ‘blasted out’, he was going to make it damn clear that it was on his terms – point being that it was all about the aftermath. If the Libs had pulled a miracle win out of the bag with Costello at the helm, then all would be forgotten; if they lost, as was almost certain, then blame could be placed at the feet of those who drove him out; the polls said he was still their best chance of victory after all. I can see the case for calling the Cabinet spineless, but in the harsh light of political pragmatism I don’t really agree. If I was in their position, my view would probably have been – you’ve made your bed, mister, now lie in it.

    Do not doubt that JWH didn’t have all this worked out. Cunning, very cunning. But unbelievably selfish. Wait, on second thoughts – make that entirely believably selfish.

  31. GP, Costello had the good sense to see what was happening and the lack of spine necessary to do anything about it. What should we make of such a person? That he is unfit to lead? That he is weak? That he is just another feeble could-a-been?

  32. No 99

    Mate get a grip. It’s always about some Keating-esque notion about “spine” and “guts” with you people.

    I tend to agree with Pathological Logic on this.

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