Newspoll: 63-37; Nelson preferred PM 7 per cent

The Australian reports Newspoll has Labor ahead 63-37 on two-party preferred, with Brendan Nelson’s preferred Prime Minister rating down a further 2 per cent from last fortnight’s headline-grabbing 9 per cent. More to follow.

UPDATE: Two-party records on the Newspoll site only go back to January 1996 (the company goes back to 1985); before tonight the best result was Labor’s 61-39 from 16-18 March 2007, the top six all coming from Rudd’s killer run from March to October last year. The Coalition’s best result was 56.5-43.5 from 5-7 October 2001.

UPDATE 2: Graphic here. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is at 69 per cent, up 1 per cent to beat the record he set a fortnight ago. John Howard’s best ratings were 67 per cent from 10-12 May 1996, and 65 per cent recorded in the aftermath of the Bali bombing on 1-3 November 2002. Pollsters other than Newspoll had Bob Hawke over 70 per cent in 1983-84. I have derived two-party figures for Newspoll from 1985 to 1995 using preference distributions from the preceding election, and none comes close to 63-37. The Coalition’s best result was 59.9-40.1 from 20-22 August 1993, immediately following John Dawkins’ horror post-election budget. Labor’s was 58.0-42.0 from 12-14 June 1987, at the onset of the campaign for the July 11 election.

UPDATE 3: Rather embarrassingly, this post originally claimed Brendan Nelson’s approval rating was 7 per cent. This figure is in fact his preferred prime minister rating. Nelson’s approval rating is 29 per cent, which is not much to write home about but nowhere near the record-setting level of his preferred PM rating.

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.

836 comments on “Newspoll: 63-37; Nelson preferred PM 7 per cent”

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  1. It seems Marky Marky wants to emulate his namesake, and we all know what happened in the 2004 Election, Howard had a bigger Majority AND Control of the Senate, and we all know whatt happened next 🙁

  2. I’m afraid I just can’t see the value in adopting policies that will clearly see you thrown out of office after one term. We know the electorate rejects radical left or right ideas. Hell, the last election was the latest example of this. This is one political reality no party wanting to remain in power can buck.

  3. 802:

    Totally agree, Lathams Private School hitlist and Medicare Gold are two such examples, ensured Howard got back in, and enabled them to scare the shit out of parents who send their kids to non-govt schools, the majority believe it or not would be traditional ALP Voters.

  4. The SMH – “Kevin Rudd promises carers won’t be left short by the abolition of their one-off bonus payments.” This sentence can be taken to mean two things – for the government, one good and one bad. I’m sure they knew this when they wrote it.

  5. 803 Frank – It’s ok to say you’re in a party to influence their policies but to do so without taking into account the electorate your dealing with is folly.

  6. [The SMH – “Kevin Rudd promises carers won’t be left short by the abolition of their one-off bonus payments.” This sentence can be taken to mean two things – for the government, one good and one bad. I’m sure they knew this when they wrote it.]

    Leme guess, the SMH have just written the perfect “Question Without Notice” for Nelson to use tomorrow.

  7. [803 Frank – It’s ok to say you’re in a party to influence their policies but to do so without taking into account the electorate your dealing with is folly.]

    Totally agree, hence why The Greens or single issue parties never have wide electoral success.

  8. A Labor source said yesterday the Government had never planned to take money from pensioners or carers.

    Instead, it always intended to incorporate the payments into the budget, possibly as an increased payment or allowance that pensioners and carers already received, to provide greater surety. The Howard Government habitually doled out the bonuses annually to spend some of the huge budget surpluses being accumulated.

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-vows-to-care-for-carers/2008/03/10/1205125819844.html

    As discussed earlier, Frank.

    Ceased crying, momentarily.

  9. [Instead, it always intended to incorporate the payments into the budget, possibly as an increased payment or allowance that pensioners and carers already received, to provide greater surety.]

    I’ve always maintained that would be the case, but of course the Opposition Orifice would’ve been told that, but chose not to mention it, and thus engineer the scare campaign that rudd doesn’t care about cripples and oldies – which is crap considering Therese ran an employment agency specialising this area.

  12. In the OO – “The budget changes in education come as Kevin Rudd CAVED IN to an angry backlash from carers and seniors to guarantee they would not be worse off after his Government’s 2008-09 budget in May.” As I said earlier, they create the paper tiger then start knocking it down. The truth is the government never intended to for the carers and pensioners to be worse off in the first place. The OO will say and do anything to embarrass the government whether factual or not.

  14. so much for bipartisanship

    The feeble opposition are going to block government moves to reinstate entry permits for Northern Territory Aboriginal communities

  15. Marky marky,

    Labor did not support John Howard’s policies on Iraq, climate change, IR, tax cuts for very high income earners, the Sorry, non-investment in alternative transport technoloy, support for first home-buyers, family tax benefit B, literacy vouchers, tax deductible/rebateable school fees, entry permits, CDEP. in addition, it produced a lot of policies of its own which John Howard failed to me-too, suchas trade training centres and computer access for every year 9-12 studnet.

    The Liberal policies that the ALP accepted do not amount to the 90 per cent that Generic Person claimed in a throwaway line.

    I do not see any reason for ALP members not to criticise their party when they disagree with it, but surely if the level of disagreement is as great as yours, you must ask yourself why you remain a member. Do you not think that you have more in common with the Greens?

  16. This might be slightly off track but Adelaide metro hit its record (since recording quite some time ago) heat wave today with the 9th straight day over 35 Celsius and looking like getting to Sunday at least on the same track.

    Where is Kevin’s Heaven Opening when we need it.

  18. I see Brendan is trying to shore up his leadership this afternoon. Boy, these Libs stand a good show of having egg all over their collective faces come the budget.

  20. Steve K,

    But don’t you love how the Opposition Orifice have spun it so it causes pressure on the budget ?

    Bunch of hypocrites.

  21. The only thread left for Nelson and Abbott to run on in the censure debate was that they were demanding a lumpsum payout.

  22. Nelson was soooo embarrassing in QT, shrieking like a harridan! Kev’s remark about “the party of newly found compassion opposite” was pure gold, was it PK who liked to “do em slowly”

  23. If the Libs had actually increased the pension by $61.50 per fortnight 4 years ago instead of the one off payment, carers would be ~ $425 a year better off by now.(Including the bribes).

    That was the reason for all these one off bonuses, keep the base low (the ones that increase every 6 months).

    What a slimy bunch we just voted out. 🙁

  24. I note that Nine’s 4.30 news were parroting the OO’s talking points regarding retaining the lump sum payment.

    Remember, this is the same network who in cahoots with the TErrorgraph and their “Petition”.

  25. From the ABC Comments on the unsucessful Censure Motion.

    [Helen:
    11 Mar 2008 5:05:30pm

    You are obviously not a carer Drew!! The lump sum payment gives we carers the opportunity to do something special with or for those that we are caring for…a special gift, a weekend away. If it is just rolled into the overall allowance, it will just go in to medical expenses and general cost of supporting the person we are caring for!!

    Good on you Opposition for taking a stand on our behalf!]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/11/2186663.htm

  30. 828 Yes Rudd extensively quoted from ruawake’s find in QT and during the censure motion. He also quotes Costello’s words from the 2004 budget which were posted here on Friday night I think.

  32. No doubt at all that the entries on this blog were similar to Kev’s quotes, in Parliament.

    Which may mean they are reading this or researching of their own accord.

    Whatever they are doing, reading the contributions here may be helpful.

    Howard, who cares less of course, should note.

  33. [No doubt at all that the entries on this blog were similar to Kev’s quotes, in Parliament.]

    Yep, indeed it was the magic quote about the future of the bonus 🙂

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