Newspoll: 59-41

Via Peter Brent at Mumble comes the news that Labor’s lead in tomorrow’s Newspoll is up to 59-41 from 57-43 a fortnight ago. More to follow …

UPDATE: The Australian report was apparently up first, which they interestingly seem to be doing a little earlier now.

UPDATE 2: 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.

910 comments on “Newspoll: 59-41”

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  1. I notice they’re opposed to shopping hours de-regulation.

    At the 2005 election, the referendum to allow extended shopping hours was defeated. The only areas that voted yes to extended shopping hours were remote electorates with large indigenous populations, who probably voted yes in the hope they’d finally get some shops.

  3. 650
    Antony Green

    Antony, I got it and I’m sure others did as well. It was a goodie but maybe too subtle for some.

  4. How is Family First going to manage to cap rates in urban areas at or below inflation levels? Queensland councils claim they need 10% increases just to keep up with rising costs at present.

  5. Are Family First saying that local government is not a legitimate third level of government as far as they are concerned and unable to make decisions on how to rate citizens for services provided?

  6. Rate capping has applied in NSW for more than two decades and it has slowly undermined the financial strength of local government. It’s one of the reaons Sydney has such crappy roads and why they charge high fees for development applications. And have poor community facilites, though I think the existence of powerful registered clubs in NSW fed by rivers of poker machine gold has seen clubs take on providing a variety of public services.

    It always amuses me when the NSW clubs scream about how community services will be cut back if the government increases taxes on poker machines. Oddly, I haven’t noticed the crying lack of social services in other states that by that logic must come about because they don’t have giant registered clubs with access to vast numbers of poker machines.

  7. The interesting thing this week in Queensland has been councils bringing down their budgets. Whether newly amalgamated or not most are setting rates increases at about the 10% level.

    If roads are going to be maintained, parks, gardens and swimming pools maintained this would seem to be the amount needed to allow councils to cope with the services needed to support the growth many councils are experiencing.

    It would be interesting to see what services would be slashed if Family First are to pursue a scorched earth theory on rate increases.

  9. Poker machines are just a way of robbing the poor to assist in the reduction in top marginal tax rates.
    A “Bread and Circuses” approach.
    It works well.

  10. A whole article in the Oz about how Rudd kept two public sevants waiting!

    And that’s intended to lessen our opinion of him?

    Hell, most of us will be grateful to Rudd for extracting some revenge on our behalf.

    Seriously, though the public service have to have it spelled out to them that their loyalty is owed to the Government of the day, not to those who they would prefer to be in Goverment.

    If they can’t handle that, they should be encouraged to give their notice or should be fired.

    Rudd does not need a fifth column from within, and should have no compunction in disposing of those who can’t or won’t accept the reality of the election result.

  12. Galaxy Poll in the Curious Snail has Queensland Labor down significantly. Reminiscent of the poll just before the last Queensland election where the Curious Snail pulled a Galaxy Poll out of it’s orifice which showed the ALP losing the last election to Springborg. Steve Lewis seems to be trying to out Dennis Sham – I – am with his usual pro Pineapple Party cheering.

    [The Galaxy Poll, conducted exclusively for The Courier-Mail this week, found Labor’s primary support had slumped to 43 per cent while combined backing for the Liberal/Nationals was 42 per cent.

    This was a stark turnaround on the 52 per cent to 32 result recorded in February in the weeks after Mr Springborg, who has made much of promoting himself in recent months under the nickname “the Borg”, was reinstated as Coalition leader at the expense of Jeff Seeney.

    On a two-party preferred basis, Labor leads the Coalition 52 per cent to 48 compared to 61 per cent to 39 four months ago.

    While Ms Bligh still holds a significant lead as preferred premier, her support has dropped 10 per cent to 55.]

    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23896213-952,00.html

  13. Pity Lewis didn’t explain what this means in the light of his glowing Pro Pineapple Party cheering.

    “Only 8 per cent were less likely to vote for the merged party while 68 per cent signalled the union would make no difference.”

  15. From the OO article:

    Senior officials were already angry that Rudd had publicly accused them of leaking a cabinet document to journalist Laurie Oakes,…

    Well, they did leak, didn’t they?

  16. More from Rupert’s Rags, this time the DT.

    BIG business is spearheading a strong push for Peter Costello to stay in politics and fight the next election as Liberal Party leader.

    In the old days they used to say, “Don’t call us. We’ll call you.”

    These Great Australians, Captains all of our selfless corporations who exist only to serve the poor and the disadvantaged, to wit, several Melbourne bankers, a mining magnate (off-shore) and a “senior industrialist”, are a little coy about releasing their names for publication.

    Not for them the easy, populist way of the personal web site, the giddy press release or the on-the-record interview to shout their identities and their views to the Nation. They would rather remain behind the scenes, doing their Great Work, urging Statesmen Of The People to do something, anything, except come and work for them, at least in a proper job. No, they’d rather Peter stays right where he is… and work for them from there.

    So Costello, not being offered the kind of free ride he loves by even his mates in Big Business, now has to do what he has never had the guts to do before: win the Liberal leadership in his own right. Yeah. Right. Pete could have been leader after the election, but then he would have still had to fight Rudd. Don’t our Business Dukes and Earls realise Pete is only up for it when it’s handed to him on a platter?

    No wonder they didn’t give him a job.

  19. We should be consistent about our view of polls, and when they favour the conservatives, it doesnt make them bad or wrong. Given the MOE of single polls, it’s really the trend in all polls that has to be watched

  20. A change of that magnitude when there really has not been an issue of disastrous proportions to talk about makes me suspicious. The Libs and Nats up there have been going through contortions not Labor. As I said it doesn’t ring true.

  21. 665 – There is no proof that it was senior public servants. It could have been someone down the food chain or a cabinet member or member of their staff.

  22. GB youre right that a nine-point shift from 61-39 to 52-48 is hard to believe, my point was that we shouldnt do a Glen a dismiss the poll because we dont like the results.

  24. Andrew, I agree with you on that and I don’t normally dismiss polls so readily but I do so in this case for the, what I think are valid, reasons given ealier. I will add one thing too and that is that Galaxy IMHO run an agenda for the conservatives. I’ve seen it in many elections, including last federal election. At some stage ,not long before any election the conservatives, who have been a mile behind, have made this “miraculous recovery” according to Galaxy. Not a long time before the last state election here in Victoria Galaxy managed to have the Libs near level with Labor. We know how that election turned out.
    So that’s my rationale for being sceptical about this poll. It’s there to give the conservatives heart.

  26. I love that stuff about Peter – you can just imagine the conversation: “Well, we’d really like to give you a gig, Peter, we’re just blown away by you, you’ve got a terrific record, but seriously, mate, we reckon the country needs you. Love to have you on board, but gees, when it’s a question of the greater good, we’ve all got to make sacrifices, you know how it is.”

    Code for: “Well, we don’t want to p*** the guy off entirely, can’t tell him we wouldn’t touch him with a bargepoll (gees, I’d be watching my back the whole time and we don’t want our every little disagreement popping up in one of Milne’s columns), who knows what kind of influence he still has? Better let him down lightly.”

  27. The attitude of the msm to the rudd government is imho put into context in the following articles :

    Hostile approach to the media by john lyons
    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23897344-28737,00.html

    Anger builds around Kevin Rudd as chaos reigns at the top,
    again by john lyons
    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23898071-601,00.html

    I don’t know if what lyons is complaining about is accurate or not. But it explains to me at least the general hostile attitute of the msm to the new government.

  28. Gary,

    I am only speculating and I ‘m not really close to Queensland issues. But, over the last four months the only top of mind issue that would upset the punters and cause a shift of this magnitude is petrol prices.

    It could be a rogue and the methodology could be crap too.

    But, as Andrew says, it would be wrong to discount it just because you don’t like the numbers.

  29. dave, you beat me to it. It wouldn’t surprise me if that female journalist was Alison Carabine. She has just been scathing of this government in her reports on 3AW. Mitchell also referred to (without going into detail) some incident she’d experienced with Rudd’s minders.
    Who is this John Lyons and why would he know so much?

  30. “But, as Andrew says, it would be wrong to discount it just because you don’t like the numbers.” I think I’ve already enunciated my reasons clearly for questioning that poll and it’s not because I don’t like the numbers.

  31. Gary
    I think john lyons has been around a long time as a jurno. I recall when he used to be a reporter for 4 corners then think he went to channel 9 maybe 60 minutes.

    I could be wrong, but I think he has a pretty good reputation over a long period. I do not think he is in the shanhanhanahan or poison dwarf mold.

  32. Thanks dave, He might have a point then. I think any government has teething problems. They’ll sort this one out over time.

  33. The Nine Network settled another long running legal dispute in February involving another Walkley winning story. Former Sunday reporter John Lyons won the 2001 Walkley for Broadcast Interviewing while it was subject to legal action from the NRMA’s Nick Whitlam. Gerald Stone, in his recent book on Channel Nine, said the interview contained “one of the worst examples of unfair reporting I have seen in my 25 years in television” and accused Lyons of either intentionally beating up the story or being “utterly inexperienced.”

  35. Harris sounds like a ticking timebomb. They might need to arrange for his role not to include dealing with media. But if he treats the balance of power senators like that, the government is not going to get things done.

    The public will only remain in love with Rudd until there is a lack of a viable alternative. A lot of what is being suggested smacks of arrogance which was one of the chief charges laid against Howard’s mob.

  36. And I think we have hit the nail on the head….

    Could it be the vitriolic responses in the MSM we have seen is a result of the relationship between the press gallery journos souring with Rudds media management team?

  39. Why all the bad press by the jurnos?
    When it is apparent that Rudd is wanting to be more open and approachable to the public,wanting and looking for new ideas from people.
    It seems that the Canberra press have been given the shaft and why not as reporters such as Kerry-Anne Walsh goes looking for dirt re his child hood eviction and whether his family spent 1night or 2 weeks sleeping in a car.

  40. Harris is actually Rudd’s chief of staff. Sounds like he has watch too many episodes of the westwing. For a team which is all about the spin they don’t seem to all that good at it.

  41. You can understand Rudd’s minders reacting the way they have. Rudd copped an unfair pasting from the press last year and it has continued in government. Trouble is it helps nobody for this to continue and someone has to relent. The government needs to “show the way” and cultivate a good working relationship with the press, or at least certain sections. Howard made it into an art form, Labor needs to do the same.

  42. I must admit though having read 683 ruawake I’m not as confident about the veracity of the story by John Lyons as I was earlier.

  43. “there are increasing reports”
    “senior officials describe”
    “one angry public servant said”
    “Senior officials were already angry”
    “Chris Uhlmann – told Harris”
    “Insiders say”
    “One senior government staffer said”

    All the hallmarks of a beat-up 😛

  44. 693 ruawake – No substance is there? Why won’t anybody within talk? Chris Uhlmann, now there’s an unbiased view (LOL).

  45. Lyons was up to his ears in the alleged Keating piggery scandal as well.

    I think Harris was chastised for playing up at the Apology.

  46. RE: the QLD Galaxy poll:

    Is an 800 sample size accurate enough for a state poll?

    The problem I have with Galaxy polls is that they always seem to give a boost to the Liberals/Nationals when other polls don’t.

  48. “All the hallmarks of a beat-up”

    And what I liked was that most of the story – apart from the L’Estrange/Huston anecdote – related to the time before Rudd’s Prime Ministership. The Tony Burke took incident place “in the lead-up to last year’s election.”

    Not content to attack Labor from the old Liberal stand-by of “they don’t know how to behave properly in the great halls of power”, usually applied to farting in front of the Queen (“Let’s pretend it was the horse, M’am.”), or manhandling her, getting lessons on the proper application of Standing Orders from Uncle Joe Hockey, or endless wailing about how Rudd has offended the Japanese, we now have the dictum applied to Rudd’s treatment of not only “senior public servants” (poor little dears), press gallery journalists (of course they wouldn’t be nasty back to him, would they Mr. Glenn “Rudd was drunk and disorderly” Mile, or Pies “Heiner” Akerman?) but his own party members! Oh dear, dear, Rudd can’t even be trusted to be nice to his closest colleagues! What are we to do?

    This is another “torches and pitchforks” set-up by News Ltd. After reading a few of these, the gullible expect to open their CBD windows and see villagers marching down the streets in angry mobs, chanting blood-curdling slogans, determined to hunt down The Monster and drive a stake through its heart. Usually its one of News’s “Tax Revolt” scams, endless whingeing culminating in them quoting each other’s articles by the end of the week. This time Frankenstein has created a Rudd-Monster, lurching around the Parliamentary galleries, drunk with power, throwing his weight around and generally upsetting the frail and defenceless.

    Ahem, excuse me… but this guy is the Prime Minister of Australia.” If anyone’s entitled to exercise a little of the argey-bargey around Parliament, it’s Rudd. He almost single-handedly brought Labor out of the wilderness, unseated the incumbent Prime Rodent in the process, relegated Costello, Abbott and Downer to Siberia in the back-benches where they play tiddly-winks with themselves daily, and has consistently, ever since he was elected leader, scored huge, unprecedented polling figures undreamt of by earlier occupants of his office. Not only that, but he has provided endless hours of entertainment for us bludgers by making fools of the likes of Shanahan, Milne, Grattan, La Trioli, Chris Uhlmann (did anyone think it passing strange that Uhlmann should be lecturing anyone on “rudeness”?), Akerman and that dickhead from Sky News (did I miss anyone?) over their endless – and wrong – declarations that the honeymoon, this time, is definitely and positively over.

    There is nothing like a story that says, “Pssst… Rudd’s a maniac in private, but you’ll never see it because he hides it so well.” In other words, we can’t prove it. We give no evidence for it except unsourced anecdotes from disgruntled former Howard Huggers. But, believe us, it’s true.

    What a self-serving bunch of total wankers and wankettes they truly are if this is the best they can dish up.

  49. BSF

    Can you provide one verifiable quote that the public service is pissed off? (Not just one pissed off public servant).

    The media or rather some sections is pissed off because they no longer have the inside contacts that once sustained them.

    We will see a new bunch of media insiders soon, thats how the game is played.

  50. B.S., I don’t know if you are referring to me or not but what part of this statement by me earlier do you not understand?
    “Trouble is it helps nobody for this to continue and someone has to relent. The government needs to “show the way” and cultivate a good working relationship with the press, or at least certain sections. Howard made it into an art form, Labor needs to do the same.”

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