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.
Its plain and simple. Nobody is listening to the Federal Coalition at the minute, in time as the get fed up with Labor they will again begin to liste to the coalition.
201 I’m listening JoM and I love the sound of a rabble especially on Friday mornings.
onimod
The NCA has a lot to answer for. The have made / are making a mess of the Parliamentary Triangle. They’ve screwed up the airport and surrounds (for some reason that’s under their control). And I blame them and carnal Kate for replacing a perfectly good hospital (including basic infrastructure such as nurses quarters) with a monstrosity of a museum which would have been much better off 2 ks down the road at Yarramundi Reach.
I’ve lived in Canberra since 1963. The NCDC made some “interesting” decisions but they weren’t vandals.
[Its plain and simple. Nobody is listening to the Federal Coalition at the minute, in time as the get fed up with Labor they will again begin to liste to the coalition.]
I agree. That time will be in 10 – 15 years from now.
185 Glen
Blinkers mate, blinkers!
What would be wrong with supporting the ALP positions when you agree and offering to get stuck in and shoulder some of the work instead of arguing for arguments sake eh?
You the LP and most politicians are stuck in “barrister world” – you’re right I’m wrong or vice versa.
Think of how easy you’d make it for those LP supporters who jumped ship to turn back to you if you actually represented their views?
The long term philisophy of democracy is that eventually the adversarial position must diminish as we chip off the corners and move toward a consensus position of how we, as a population, want our government to act. It should be the case that subtle change SHOULD get you elected. The inability to see the world beyond ideology and extremism is immature at best. Take the ALP kit and improve upon it – it’s what Australia voted for.
Sheesh – it’s not rocket science!!!
ShowsOn you’re probably right but it may come sooner, in the mean time lets get back some states.
No 207
Honestly, if Iemma isn’t voted out of office in NSW, the people of NSW are a bunch of idiots.
GP, one thing you Liberals will have to learn is that you win elections by attracting voters support, not by hurling abuse at them.
ViggoP 203
Thanks
I’m partially raising the issue because I’d like to say that and KNOW I’m right – it’s just a general feeling at the moment, though I’ve come across the opposite view often enough.
Are you in the indiustry, or (just) one of those concerned Canberrans?
The problem is that in a town the size of Canberra, everybody knows someone who knows someone (who holds a grudge…).
I feel a bit guilty for burning Williams bandwidth with off topic discussion, so if there’s a collection of the like-minded elsewhere or you’d like to chat drop me a line via William I guess.
The RBA has announced it’s interest rate decision.
http://www.rba.gov.au/
Steve:
1 – probably
2 – possiblybut doubtful
3-6 Nup
208 steve
spot on
people vote (A) “for” something as a priority, but (B) against something if the aversion is strong enough. Obviously if you’ve got no (A) in the tank you skip straight to (B).
telling people (B) because they’re too stupid to vote correctly on (A) is reasonably ironic.
You’d need (un)common sense to work that out though.
JoM, that’s only true to an extent. The Libs have to give people posiive reasons to vote for them. People need something to listen to, before they’ll tune in. They just can’t do a Micawber, waiting for something to turn up.
They’re in the ungainly position of doing 180 turns on basic policy, without offering alternatives. They’re all plainly licking their wounds, but who in the LP has the capacity to reform, rebuild and offer positve policies? Playing naughty children on Fridays doesn’t cut it. It only irritates the punters, especially compared with serious, hard-working ALP.
207 Generic Person – a true Liberal. If you don’t vote Liberal you’re an idiot. That’s the way to win friends and influence people, well done.
210 steve
The RBA cash rate has now jumped ahead of Brendan Nelson’s PPM rating.
No 214
Mr Bruce, that’s not what I said. Clearly, if you enjoy month to month revelations of scandals, jobs for Labor mates, corruption and developer bribes, Mr Iemma is your man. That, my friend, is idiotic.
215 Triton, if you think that is bad just wait until the next newspoll. With all this focus on inflation being cleaned up and interest rates rising due to Howard’s legacy the Liberals will be in freefall.
Puting aside Liberal leadership, with the interst rates rising again, on top of todays balance of trade figures, I think the case (economically) is overwhelming for Rudd adn Swan to back away from a straight tax cut at the budget. If they don’t they could lose a lot of credibility as economic managers very fast IMO.
As for the political comments, I must agree with the right wing bloggers – NSW Labor deserves to go. Like Howard, the myth of their economci management ability is well and trully exposed.
GP @ 216. We hear similar things in Qld, GP. “You’d have to be an idiot to vote for Beattie (or now Bligh)”. And who knows, maybe that’s true. The trouble is, you’d have to be an even bigger idiot to vote for the alternative.
And there’s the problem. Compared to a highly competent Government, Labor was sadlywanting. But compared to the Coalition, well…there was no comparison.
Ironic that the Reserve Bank has chosen to put Howard’s legacy up in Black and blue no wonder the Liberals are feeling a bit bruised today.
William,
Sorry if I seem like a pain in the butt, but I cannot remember seeing a 9% PPM rating for Brendan Nelson “last year”.
I can though remember a 9% poll figure for “last month”.
[with Brendan Nelson’s preferred Prime Minister rating down a further 2 per cent from last year’s [month’s] headline-grabbing 9 per cent. ]
????
onimod
I was a minor public servant (computers) and have been living in the outskirts of West Belconnen for 37 years, now happily retired. I like my bush capital the way it is / was. If the Molonglo development affects my lifestyle I’ll have to consider my options.
218 Socrates – the problem is that with interest rate rises causing severe pain out there in the mortgage belt, there’s lots of people hanging out for a tax cut to ease the pressure. You can argue all you like that, in fact, this will only add to pressure for even more rate rises, but if Rudd doesn’t deliver on this promise it will damage his “all our promises are core” credibility. There will be a backlash and it will be severe.
FG
Then they have to do something else clever or tough in the budget, or risk going to the next election with the country in recession. That won’t be good for re-election prospects either.
I’ve corrected that too, Scorpio. Think that’s everything …
I heard on the radio news this morning that Nationals leader Warren Truss said Nelson had the support of the full coalition party room.
Think I know where the pollsters found that 7 % then! ;-D
224. Yep Socrates. Rudd is between a rock and a hard place on this one – which is just where JWH wanted him.
Yes FG, quite brilliant of Howard to booby-trap the economy before leaving office. He really was a great economic manager. He should be proud of his achievements on foreign debt and wage inflation too.
216 – GP [‘Mr Bruce, that’s not what I said. Clearly, if you enjoy month to month revelations of scandals, jobs for Labor mates, corruption and developer bribes, Mr Iemma is your man. That, my friend, is idiotic.’]
I love the hypocrisy of a statement like this from GP.
Whereas if we replaced it as follows:
Clearly, if you enjoy month to month revelations of scandals, jobs for Liberal mates, corruption and AWB bribes, Mr Howard is your man. That, my friend, is idiotic.
Yet, I heard nothing but crickets chirping.
As a follow up to 229.
I don’t live in NSW, yet a corrupt government be it Liberal or Labor should be kicked out.
GP – just to add to 229 asanque’s comments – would you be advocating the same if a Liberal state government was in the same position?
Asnaque I agree with you! No matter the party corruption should never be tolerated as it undermines confidence and undermines the state.
Thus then you also believe the WA ALP Govt should be kicked out too Asanque?
If any Government is corrupt then they ought to be gone. Though i dont see why you think the Howard Government was corrupt, where is the evidence??
JoM
Quite right. Lets see them all go. And the guilty stand trial, whether former Federal Ministers guilty of contempt of court over immigration cases, or State ministers taking kickbacks.
What’s wrong with just removing the bad eggs? Not all in these governments are bad.
Socrates, here, here!
Gary it undermines confidence. Wipe the deck clean and start again, I say.
234 Socrates – I’m sure Glen will agree with that.
Speaking of Glen, glad to see you’re back on line. I’ll aske you the same question I asked earlier – 185 Glen, just an aside, were you arguing against Workchoices last year?
Well at least Iemma and Carpenter were/are prepared to chop the infected portions out of their governments unlike a previous federal government I know of.
GB I always believed that we ought to have removed unfair dismissal but leave the pre-2005 no disadvantage test for AWAs…had we just done that we’d have been able to argue a good case for the policy but since this did not occur it left us open to attack big time.
I think it is a disgrace that we’re going to destroy AWAs who have been in the system since 1996 just because of one policy we made, individual agreements are necessary and i think its a disgrace that the Liberals gave up on them so easily.
No 231
Yes I would.
Glen, fair enough.
240 Glen
I’ve always been puzzled by people’s willingness (including the former government’s) to use the term ‘unfair dismissal’ this way. It implies that you think it’s okay for people to be specifically _unfairly_ dismissed.
“Though i dont see why you think the Howard Government was corrupt, where is the evidence??”
Agreed: Neither Howard, Downer nor Vaile knew anything about AWB’s ‘creative competitiveness’. The Cole inquiry’s terms of reference allowed these honourable individuals to be completely exonerated.
233 – Glen
Yes I would, if they were corrupt.
I love it when you give me a chance to rehash the endemic corruption in the Federal Liberals under John Howard.
Here are a just a few examples:
1. Regional Road Rorts
http://www.alp.org.au/media/0405/msrdr120.php
2. Failure to conduct a proper inquiry into the AWB scandal
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/this-inquiry-is-only-half-the-job/2006/04/13/1144521461752.html
3. Children Overboard – lying to the Australian public
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_overboard#Senate_inquiry
No Trinton i believe it is about making it easier for people to get a job and for small business to not have to worry about letting poor performers go.
IW where does it say that they knew and where is the evidence of any bribes being payed to any of them…if you dont have the evidence you are bordering on slander.
240 – Glen
You do realise its possible to have an individual agreement (called a common law contract) without an AWA.
Asanque
Lets not forget numerous instances of possibly misleading senate committees – a potentially jailable offence. I think if we are honests the real standards of accountability of State and Federal ministers have fallen over the last decade. Its one thing to lose your job, but if you knowingly break the law you should be held accountable. eg former Qld Labor minister Meri Rose standing trial for blackmail. I don’t see why potential guilty partys in the outgoing Federal govt should just sail into the sunset with their super any more than NSW Labor miisters should.
I just realised my first link at 245 was old. Showing that the Federal Liberals under Howard have long been corrupt.
The last such occurence happened in 2005 after the 2004 election which they pork barrelled to victory on.
Given they felt the Australian public just didn’t care about corruption, they were at it again even more strongly before the 2007 election.
http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/newmedia.nsf/e741a3eefa539841ca256c8c0016eaac/04fec85d065e38b5ca2572e40000545b!OpenDocument
Lets not forget the corruption of Freedom of Information as well.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/editorial/freedom-of-information-should-be-beyond-price/2007/11/19/1195321692307.html
What are the chance of the Liberal Party being able to reform itself? And what does it need to do to reform itself. After all no matter how important it was to remove Howard it is still important to have a relevant and competitive opposition and from what I can see that is a long time off.