Newspoll: 57-43

The Australian reports tomorrow’s Newspoll will have Labor’s two-party lead at a relatively modest 57-43. However, Liberal hopes of positive headlines have been dashed by a preferred prime minister rating showing Brendan Nelson back in single figures at 9 per cent, compared with 72 per cent for Kevin Rudd.

UPDATE: Graphic here.

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.

169 comments on “Newspoll: 57-43”

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  1. Nelson on inflation – apparently he doesn’t like the word ‘crisis’:
    http://news.theage.com.au/there-is-no-inflation-crisis-nelson/20080506-2bc5.html
    (Vera posted previously)

    What’s Nelson’s and Allbull’s answer to the trend line shown here:

    Good old Pete did nothing and got away with it, so why can’t they?
    They can get away with this stupidity because the general public (and obviously they themselves) don’t have an F-ing clue what inflation actually is.

    Apparently Nelson actually said that the government is actively trying to increase unemployment…
    “motive, your honour, motive, we have a motive!!!”
    Can anyone think of an even semi-credible reason for why anyone, anywhere, anytime would actively seek to increase unemployment?

  2. Ruawake 37

    I can only presume that, if the figures quoted by Nelson are correct, the difference relates to revisions to budget estimates by Treasury since the credit crunch has hit (inflation can’t have caused any slowdown because Nelson says we have no inflation problem ;). So they might have projected a 1.6% budget surplus in the 2007 budget but since then reductions in forecast capital gains tax etc have reduced Treasury tax income, and might have reduced the forecast surplus to 1% now.

    Its quite funny really – Nelson is quoting precisely some of the statistics that give the lie to his claim that the Liberals have left the economy in good shape. If things are so great, how come their own former budget estimate for the surplus aren’t being realised, even though Labor hasn’t brought down a budget yet??

    As for the 57/43 result, I’d lvoe to see a state-by-state breakdown. I could well imagine Labor has lost ground in NSW after teh state conference embarrasement. Conversely, like others here I’d love to see the WA results.

    I do have one other suggestion on why Labor support may have peaked – I have to say that, while I liked the idea of the summit and what it produced, I was dissappointed in the lack of action on climate change. Some Labor ministers (eg Ferguson) are saying some quite silly things to placate those in the coal industry. We don’t have a realistic policy on dealing with peak oil yet either.

  3. “A key business group has turned its back on the federal coalition by supporting the Rudd government’s tough line on spending to help rein in inflation.”
    http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=480376

    from the same article
    “ACCI says it also supports means testing of welfare, after the government hinted it may limit payments to high-income earners of benefits such as the baby bonus.
    “In principle, we support the concept of means testing,” Mr Evans said.
    But deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop said doing so in the case of the baby bonus would be “ridiculous” and could create an administrative nightmare.”

    How to lose friends and and have NO influence on people. That’s the Libs ex-Rodent.

  4. 54 Vera – agreed
    It never ceases to amaze me how I seem to have a groundhog day recurrence of people pointing out to me with amazement that business group “insert name” fundamentally disagrees with various Liberal Party policies.
    This has been going on for quite some time.
    The ultimate fallacy in this regard is that Costello would be swamped with offers from the banking and business sector. Again, for quite some time this has been known to be quite ridiculous, even in sleepy conservative Canberra.

    I would suggest to Julie Bishop that the real ridiculousness of the bonus is that people earning over $150,000 get the bonus at all. Is 4-5K really an incentive for people earning that much to have a child? If it is, then I’d suggest that there’s a fair bit of evidence that they’re not likely to be the sort of parents this country needs.

  5. Squiggle actually raised an interesting point about inflation.

    Ie why is 4.2% inflation considered bad.

    It goes back to the 3% target figure set by Keating and faithfully adopted by Howard and Costello. Any rise above this figure means pain via interest rates.

    And it is the pain that Squiggle misses, the interest rate rises, 14 in a row now?, means the government, ie Howard lost control as most happened during his time, but these increases do hurt.

    But the target is 3%, supposedly a sensible target, and it has to be set at some level otherwise it becomes a moving target which could see it get totally out of control. Ie 4.2% is OK, then 5, 6 7%, where does it stop.

    For Turnbull and Nelson to deride efforts to bring Australia back to this target is economic foolishness and irresponsibility, they come across as dopes to the business world without a clue.

    But, I don’t think any target should remain fixed forever and the 3% should remain fixed in stone?

  6. I would have thought that the 3% target was set in relation to increases in productivity, i e inflation is not a problem as long as the economy is increasing in productivity by roughly the same amount.

  7. Breathless news in the Australian, under the previous government treasury wrote a document questioning Labors IR changes. Read all about it in the Australian if your interested.

  8. With regards steve@39’s post – To be fair to the Qld Nats (though God only knows why I’m bothering), he might’ve said 50% and then 90%, but it was 50% of members voted, and then 90% _of those who voted_ were in support.

    So about 50% voted in the ballot, and 90% of that 50% were in favour.

    So yeah, can be slightly misleading, but still, they can only report the results they’ve got. Much like actual elections – Australia may have compulsory voting, but still, not everyone votes. The various electoral commissions can only report on the results of those votes actually cast.

  9. @ Charles 60:

    I just read those articles, both from Shanahan and both a complete beat up. It isn’t a treasury analysis of actual labor policy, it is treasury analysis of a labor press conference. The advice came out before Forward with Fairness was released and clearly shows the kind of lengths that he is willing to go to to stretch the truth for a headline.

  10. When did Rudd release the nuts and bolts of Labor’s IR policies last year? Was it before or after this so called treasury advice?

  11. …and like the good little clueless dolts they are, the MSM is on to the ‘scandal’ in a shot.
    It must be lucrative at the bottom end of the media business when you can so afford to insult the intelligence of any thinking reader or viewer.

  12. […and like the good little clueless dolts they are, the MSM is on to the ’scandal’ in a shot. It must be lucrative at the bottom end of the media business when you can so afford to insult the intelligence of any thinking reader or viewer.]

    It actually doesn’t matter, because at the last election the majority decided that they didn’t mind a bit of extra inflation in the economy if it meant that you couldn’t be sacked for no reason whatsoever.

  13. Shanahan breathless revelations

    verbalkint and Possum Comitatus your better than me, I only read them far enough to find out how far you had to read until you where told that this wonder was written before the election.

    Shanahan really is a lost cause.

  14. Rudd and Albanese have ripped into Shannahan’s lame attempt to give the Libs a bit of a leg-up with this totally misleading piece of nonsense.

    [Government frontbencher Anthony Albanese also dismissed the Treasury advice today, saying it was an analysis of a policy that had not yet been released.

    “It’s not advice into our policy,” he told Fairfax Radio Network. “The advice is dated April 18 (2007), the preliminary policy was released on April 28 (2007) and the detail of implementation was released on August 28.

    If there had been any substance in the executive minute it would have been used by the Howard government as ammunition against Labor in the election campaign before the November election, Mr Albanese said.

    “This has clearly come from the now opposition and if there was anything in it, I think they might have used it last May or June or July or August or September or October,” he said. “Of course they would have used it.” ]

    Strangely, enough, Hockey has claimed not to even have seen the “old” Treasury Paper.

    [Former Coalition workplace relations minister Joe Hockey said he had not seen the minute until its publication today but that there were assessments around which told government the same thing.]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23659072-5013871,00.html

  15. For once Crikey has got it right. Bernard Keane writes -(in part)

    There are five stages of grief, they say. Most members of the Federal Liberal Party are still at various points on that journey, some well-advanced down the road to acceptance, some still angry about being turfed out, most, still raw and hurting, somewhere in between. But nearly everyone has moved on from denial. Even Julie Bishop has been dragged away from the corpse of the previous government. Yes, her fingernails may be leaving Warner Bros cartoon-like tracks in the ground as she goes, but she has finally figured out that her plan to revive Work Choices was never going to work.

    Which leaves Dennis Shanahan. Judging by today’s effort in The Australian, “Treasury slams Labor’s IR plan”, Dennis not merely hasn’t accepted the death of the previous Government, he’s sitting by the corpse and reckons he can feel a pulse.

    Lets hope Shananigans gets the message. But I doubt it!

  16. I loved this bit at the bottom of Shannahan’s article. Trying to blame the increase in inflation and interest rates on Labor’s plan to scrap Workchoices.

    Funny how, with less than 5% of workers on Statutory Contracts, that suddenly there is a “devestating increase in “likely job losses; rising inflation, prices and wages; more interest rate rises; productivity and real disposable income falls; and greater difficulty for the “most vulnerable job seekers to find work”.

    [Yet Treasury’s summation of Labor’s scrapping of Work Choices is as devastating as it is concise: likely job losses; rising inflation, prices and wages; more interest rate rises; productivity and real disposable income falls; and greater difficulty for the “most vulnerable job seekers to find work”.

    Treasury came to this conclusion just over a year ago. Since then interest rates have risen repeatedly, inflation has hit a 16-year high, unemployment has dropped below 4 per cent and a bearish Reserve Bank has warned absolutely clearly that a wage-price spiral is the next big threat to the economy.

    If all of that happened under a more flexible labour market, what will happen under a more rigid labour market, a sympathetic collection of state and federal governments and globally rising inflation?]

    “more flexible labour market”; What rot. Less than 5% of the workforce on contracts. What about the other 95%.

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23657749-5013871,00.html

  17. I thought that Shannahan had gradually come to grips with the fact that his beloved Liberals were no longer in power and he had started to write some “reasonably” (for him), objectice pieces, lately.

    Seems as though he thinks there is a federal election on in June this year and he had better get moving on helping out with the Liberal campaign.

    What an absolute peanut and a disgrace to the profession of journalism.

  18. BS (just too funny on thier own those initials…) is welcome to any side of politics he feels an affinity for, but it’s the abject lack of inciteful, rational or credible thought that I find objectionable.
    At best his arguments are built on the credibility of others, and all without any contextual analysis of who and what the others are. The inference is that if someone said it, it’s true, and therefore I’m right too. He’s like some super anti-hero.
    [superman music] “…reduces complex thought to simply irrelevant clichés in a single article..”
    He’s been walking around with his pants around his ankles in the world of thought for some time now – it’s reached the point where someone needs to rip his pants off publically (and repeatedly).
    His actions today combined with the straight to the point rebuttals from the government and denials of credibility from the opposition might just be the start.

  19. If anyone’s interested, Roy Morgan has a poll showing 45 per cent of “respondents” would prefer a republic with an elected president to a monarchy, versus 42 per cent against. Put Prince Charles on the throne, and the results are 56 per cent and 33 per cent. “Respondents” is in quotation marks because they have gone to the trouble of asking people as young as 14, and have provided separate but near-identical figures for “electors”.

  20. onimod 76 says
    “He’s been walking around with his pants around his ankles in the world of thought for some time now – it’s reached the point where someone needs to rip his pants off publically (and repeatedly).”

    Or else rip them up and give him a super wedgie!

  21. Hahahahahha
    Nelson said today that the Treasury document (that everyone’s wiping their arse with)

    wait for it…

    “..proves John Howard is right and Kevin Rudd is wrong.” (I have to confirm is/was, but it doesn’t make much difference)

    Yep – I can’t believe he said it either.
    B52’s – “…lets do the time warp again…”
    Can you hear Allbull groaning from where you are?

  22. 78
    I’d prefer to see the “News Limited” socks he’s got in his pants falling on the floor, but a wedgie would be good too.

  23. Ominod

    If Brendan’s pants fell to the floor, I think we would see three “News Limited” socks

    Perhaps I should get one for my nose

  24. 77
    nice little twist with the “elected president” there in the question, which makes it a pretty stupid poll when viewed against the 2020 declaration of a 2 stage process.

    Either stupid, or designed to fuel a particular fire…

    Quite interesting to note that SA is starkly for and QLD is starkly against republicanism – that must really cost Alexander-the-clown some sleep at night.

  25. 83
    Lovely performer, the Tannermeister. Horatio, OTOH, seems to go from bad to worse. The thing that’s got up my nose today, however, is that the MSM, including the 7.30 report, have run with this stupid Shamaham rubbish all day. Antonio, if you’re around, you’ve got some explaining to do.

  26. Methinks the sample size of 14-17 yer olds is way too small, hence the unexpected result in favour Monarchy

    The give away is the comparison between “Total respondants” and “total 18+”.

    The figures shift only 1 percent when the teenyboppers are included

  27. 83
    onimod Says:
    Tannerisms:
    Brendan Nelson – the only ostrich native to Australia….

    Yes, I had a good laugh when I heard that.

  28. For those haven’t seen it, have a read of Bernard Keane’s “A Toast to John Howard: What Downer Should’ve said” at todays Crikeys free site.

  29. Apparently Dolly has taken back the shadow Foreign Ministers job, and he’s ‘indignant’ about the Australian response to Burma. He’s probably got a point, but what isn’t he ‘indignant’ about any more?
    At least he’s not claiming inflation and the tooth fairy are related, and he seems relatively interested in a social issue.

  30. onimod Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    Tannerisms:
    Brendan Nelson – the only ostrich native to Australia….

    (7:30 Report, May 7 2008)

    Rx tip: Watch this space. The Tannermeister is the next Keating in the making. In the cutting wit department, that is – if not higher office in due course…

  31. 97 ominod

    Yeah, thought much like you on hearing Dolly, but then thought if the military crud governing Burma doesn’t let any aid in, why get indignant about an amount?

  32. I’m a little confused again and need some clarification from Glen or similar. We were assured that it was Workchoices that was causing our boom in employment prior to the last election. Yet now Workchoices is gone employment figures are still trending up. Unemployment is still at historic lows and only high immigration and increased participation rates have stopped it falling lower. See the latest April 2008 figues here:
    http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyCatalogue/362607CA0519045ACA25712B000D0425?OpenDocument

    Can someone explain this please? Could it be that it was the mining boom all along and Workchoices hasn’t created a single job that wouldn’t have happened anyway? As a constructive policy suggestion, if the conservatives really just want to just lower wages, why don’t they start where they are highest – executive salaries. Plenty of scope for wage cuts there without making anyone go hungry.

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