Newspoll: 55-45

Newspoll shows Labor maintaining its 55-45 two-party lead from last fortnight. Kevin Rudd has gained a point and Brendan Nelson lost one on the question of preferred leader, Rudd now leading 65 per cent to 14 per cent.

UPDATE: The Australian has not published a graphic this time, but you can read all about it at the Newspoll site. The paper also reports on an Essential Research survey on emissions trading, but we are told only that “58 per cent of Coalition voters believe Australia should take action even if other countries do not”, while “only 25 per cent of the 1700 voters polled believed Australia should act only when other major economies agreed to do so”. The West Australian has also published results on the subject from last week’s Westpoll survey of 400 respondents in WA, showing “two-thirds of the poll’s respondents agree that a carbon trading regime should be introduced according to the Prime Minister’s timetable”. However, 69 per cent believe the US, China and India “would need to adopt their own trading schemes if Kevin Rudd’s plan for an Australian ETS by 2010 was to be effective”, and “47 per cent of respondents were not prepared to pay more for petrol”.

UPDATE 2: Full report from Essential Research here. It includes a 59-41 result on federal voting intention based on two weeks of data, with a 3 per cent shift denoting that the week past was quite a lot better for the Coalition than a fortnight ago. There were also questions on the Catholic Church’s response to child abuse by priests and religious affiliation in general. Results were obtained from a targeted online panel of 1013 respondents.

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.

844 comments on “Newspoll: 55-45”

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  1. The polls seem to have 2 messages Message for Shanahan , that PPM is abit irrelevant seeing the Libs can still get 45% 2PP despite Nelson at 14% For Labor , the 65% for Rudd is not a cushon , because at only 55% 2PP and with the MOE factor and the poor labor situation in NSW where lot of seats could be lost , a warning the % margin between the parties is not huge

  2. because at only 55% 2PP

    Only???

    According to that well known political stats fiend, Mr Possum Esq., historically speaking 91% of all polls are within the 55-45 split (2PP), so the government is still doing better than at least 90% of all such polls. A 55% result for Labor at the next election would virtually eliminate the Coalition.

    No bad news there… Well, not for the government.

  3. No, Just Me, 55-45 wouldn’t “virtually eliminate” the Coalition, you’re exaggerating there.
    Agree though, this poll isn’t bad news for the Government, however one spins it.
    And I think the disparity between Nelson’s rating and the Coalition’s, amongst other things, means that the poll respondents are assuming (tacitly, at least) that Nelson won’t be the Leader when we all next have to vote. Funny about that …

  4. Very strong public support for Australia taking unilateral action on climate change.

    THREE-QUARTERS of voters believe Australia should act on climate change even if the rest of the world does not, according to a new poll that will hearten the Rudd Government as it prepares to release its discussion paper on emissions trading tomorrow.

    The Essential Media poll found 58 per cent of Coalition voters believe Australia should take action even if other countries do not, despite the fact that Brendan Nelson spent most of last week suggesting that acting before the world as a whole would be “economic suicide”.

    Only 25 per cent of the 1700 voters polled believed Australia should act only when other major economies agreed to do so.

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24021126-11949,00.html

  5. Just Me

    would take 55% to 45% IF that was on the actual election day but last 7 weeks morgan polls up to 1 week before last electon were 56/44, 54.5/45.5 , 57.5/42.5 , 62/38 , 56/44 , 56.5/42.5 , 55.5/44.5 But result was a wek later 52.7/46.3 So i am cautous at 55/45 Also feel NSW for Labor has worsened much more since Nov 07 electon

  6. Ron,
    I agree NSW is bound to hurt Labor at the next Federal election, at least a bit.
    But until the Libs have a decent leader (and I’m not sure who that could be), I don’t see how Labor could lose the next Federal one.

  7. Dyno

    you are absolutly right , i should have added my assumption that I assume Nelson has no hope of being leader in 2010 , and I suppose the hard part is whether Turnbull once he actualy has the leaders position may present as a tougher opponent , he does not appear to come accross as toffy as Dolly did or as straight laced as Nelson Also historically hard on hold on if the economy goes sour Dyno also guess I’m abit cautous after the polls ‘narrowing ‘ last time in the last week

  8. No, Just Me, 55-45 wouldn’t “virtually eliminate” the Coalition, you’re exaggerating there.

    At the last election Labor got 52.7 of the 2PP vote. 55% would probably be unprecedented for federal Labor and a major wipeout for the Coalition.

  9. Ron, I enjoy the polls for the buzz they provide from time to time, like the occasional goal in a football match.

    I enjoy seeing the despair, anxiety and peptic ulcers they have caused Liberal party members lately.

    I thoroughly enjoy the exercise they give to the likes of Milne and Shanahan as they jump through hoops trying to concoct the proverbial silk purse out of the sow’s ear they represent for Nelson, Turnbull, Minchin et al.

    I enjoy the sometimes absurd, sometimes apoplectic responses they exact from right wing bloggers here and in other fora, such as Bolt’s and ackerman’s blogs.

    But as an indicator of what the popularity or otherwise of a Rudd led Labor government will be 29 months out from an election – you’re kidding me right?

  10. Oops, left this bit off my last comment.

    But I agree that the opinion poll numbers are never reproduced in actual elections. My point simply is that anybody who thinks 55-45 indicates Labor is in a weak position is kidding themselves, it is still a stronger result than the vast majority of polls, and any political leader would kill for those numbers as the lowest they had recorded in office.

  11. “…it is still a stronger result than the vast majority of polls, for any government,…”

    Time for bed it would seem.

  12. It’s a long, long way to the next federal election folks. My best guess is that the NSW factor will resolve somewhat. One way or another, the current NSW government will go.

    I believe there was quite a shift in the electorate after the last election. The position of the electorate obviously effects the positioning of political parties, but the reverse is also true. The positioning of a government has an effect on the position of an electorate. The advantage and leverage of power – not to mention hundreds of millions in advertising – was shoring up conservative attitudes within this country. Leading up to the election people were asking why the governments advertising campaigns were not working. Unfortunately for the Liberals, I think they were.

    Within any system under those conditions – where the system has been held in equilibrium by a force which is removed – there is inevitably an overcorrection before things settle down. The 62 and 63 TPP to Rudd we were seeing were surely that. The question is, has the overcorrection settled already or are we still in it?

    The exciting thing is that we get to see over the coming 2-3 months. There has definitely been a move from away from the current government over the last 2 months but this seems to be bottoming out.

    I believe the preferred PM ratings are also significant here. If the TPP shifts but there is no real shift in preferred PM then one reading is that the vote is settling after the overcorrection and not shifting in response to either the leaders or either parties current policy positions.

    So short of some significant shift from the Liberals or a major stuff up from Rudd the 55 TPP we’re seeing for the Rudd government may now represent the base TPP vote. The coalition are still waiting for the shine to come off but my best reading of the electorate is that [i]it already has[/i]!!

    If I were them, I’d be very afraid right now.

  13. The big issue is still CC and will continue on up till and beyond the next election. The issue is just getting warmed up. It and its relationship to the economy will dwarf anything else. Workchoices has a constant effect on polling and is already factored in.

    Despite minor criticisms against Rudd, the Gov’t can be encouraged at this stage but time will tell. The Opposition are confused and I do not see them recovering anytime soon. Even if the do, Labor has the frontrunning on this issue.

  14. Good to see the site is back up and running William. I’d forgotten all about the latest Newpoll as I rely on PB for so much of my news focus these days.

  15. A national 55-45 at the last election would have been a 7.7% swing and it would have been somewhere around a 92-56 result – only 9 seats different according to Antony’s calculator.

  16. Anyone who tries to use this poll as an indicator to the result of the next election is kidding themselves. It measures what is happening now, not in 2 and a half year’s time.

  17. 55-45 seems about right to moi. The next election IMHO will turn on:

    a) Whether the economy really tanks;
    b) How the situation in the NSW ALP turns out; and
    c) Whether or not the Libs replace the nightwatchman (Nelson) with an electable leader – Costello or Turnbull.

    My expectation is we will have an election before December 2009 which will turn on the ETS which Labor will win narrowly.

  18. Yeah, sorry about that everybody. My excellent web hosts fixed the problem within five minutes of me emailing them about it, but that was fairly late in the day on account of me living in WA and keeping funny hours. Note that I’ve added an update to my post.

  19. [My expectation is we will have an election before December 2009 which will turn on the ETS which Labor will win narrowly.]

    What!? Look at those figures – 58% of LIBERAL voters think Labor has a better ETS policy than the Coalition’s. That means there is a huge consensus building that thinks the Liberals’ have got the major environmental policy of the moment wrong.

    I agree with Milne that the fight over the Coalition’s policy will determine who is the leader. If the climate change deniers win, then they will stick with Nelson and be blasted away at the next election because Rudd will be able to say that they don’t take climate change seriously. If they shift to Turnbull then they will actually be part of the ETS debate and will only lose the election by a dozen or so seats.

  20. Who is Matthew Franklin described as “Chief Political Correspondent” for the OO?
    Isn’t that ShameIam’s position? Franklins’s interpretation of the poll IMO was at least a more balanced one than what we would expect from the Sham.

  21. Workchoices has a constant effect on polling and is already factored in

    I’m not so sure. A good scare campaign based around the prospect of the Coalition reimposing laws along the WorkChoices line could reap handsome dividends for the government in 2010.

    Just mention the possibility of cuts to pay and conditions … and watch working families scramble to vote against!

  22. [ShowsON, the ETS debate has a looooong waaaaays to go.]

    True, which makes me wonder why the Liberals are working as hard as possible to play themselves out of it. Well, sorry, Nelson is playing the Liberals out of it, Turnbull and Hunt are trying to keep them in.

    Do they really want to inherent a Greens-Labor policy in about ten years time? Wouldn’t it be best for them to find a compromise given that the policy has overwhelming public support?

  23. Surely the Fibs must put someone else in as Leader soon.

    This latest poll, the poll on an ETS, but even more Nelson, incredibly, taking a week off in the week where the ETS green paper is being released and he then says he will take time off from his holiday to comment on the green paper!!!

    Two positions on whether he will respond or not!

    Costello, anyone think he would do good, or just remind the voters why they voted the Howard govt out?

  24. Seems like reason, and perhaps even a touch of sanity, are starting to filter into at least one section of the US media if the following about Associated Press Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier is any guide:

    So is scrapping the stonefaced approach to journalism that accepts politicians’ statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.

    ABC please take note!

  25. [Costello, anyone think he would do good, or just remind the voters why they voted the Howard govt out?]

    Costello is too gutless. Say all you like about Nelson, but at least he had the guts after the election to put his hand up for the job. Costello SHOULD be taking on this role, even if he doesn’t think he can win the next election.

  26. [ABC please take note!]

    I think the ABC is much better at giving all sides a fair go than any of the commercial networks. The commercial networks just like jumping on the side of whoever is more popular at any given moment. They couldn’t care less about the merits of arguments.

  27. Out of curiousity guys, who here thinks that this ridiculously unnecessary ETS will stop the earth from supposedly warming?

  28. Franklin is chief political correspondent. Shanahan is chief political editor. Don’t know what difference those grandiose titles make. Never came across Franklin before. He sounds reasonably dispassionate and balanced. Won’t therefore last long at the Australian I’m afraid.

    By the way, Enjaybee, notice that Franklin’s had a blog up since midnight and not one comment has got by the moderator yet?

  29. The CC issues will define the Rudd Government. Is it a government with spine and vision? or just another run-of-the-mill-happy-to-be-elected government. Sincerely hope it is the former.

    A cherio to Amigo Ron, it’s good to see you back.

  30. OK 55/45. I would prefer it to be 58/42 but this is still a very strong result for the ALP given the incumbency factor.

    When the Liberals were in government you could allow 3% at least in their favour for incumbency. As we have seen in the recent Gippsland by-election people most likely lodge a protest vote against the government. If, which is most likely, the same is the case with polls – the Fibs are in beautiful trouble.

    At this stage I believe the PPM figures are a truer indicator.

  31. Ron, it’s a mistake to translate State figures into Federal figures. Labor won in NSW State polls for most of the time Howard was PM and ran a long way in front of the Federal vote.

  32. If I was All Tip, there is no way I would have taken the leadership from a position of weakness. I think he has done the right thing. The longer he stays in parliament the more obvious his true intentions will show. I mean why hang round?

    Given that, Fullbull won’t take too much longer before he moves.

  33. For the first time ever, I was rung by Newspoll. They do not just ask directly political questions, you know. They also asked about funeral directors. They asked me what I thought of Le Pine, Tobin Brothers and one I had never heard of – wait for it – Nelson Brothers. How appropriate!

  34. [If I was All Tip, there is no way I would have taken the leadership from a position of weakness. I think he has done the right thing.]

    He should’ve done it for the sake of his party. It is extremely unlikely that the Liberals will win the next election, but it is important for the most senior member of a new opposition to take over the leadership to hold the opposition together.

    It obvious from the last few weeks that the opposition is deeply divided on how to respond to climate change. They have so many divergent views in the party from complete climate change deniers like Dr Denis Jensen to former Green’s such as the Member for Latrobe Jason Wood (See him attempt to speak here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MqbGJVaIbY )

  35. Centre
    Talcum Moanball has had his chance,more and more he is being sidelined by the neocon barrackers

    a part of me still thinks little johnny will be back in from the cold ( and i suspect alot of fiberals would be hoping that too)

  36. The 14% PP is the killer for Nelson. This figure indicates that, at this time, most Liberal supporters prefer Rudd as PM. While I can understand that Nelson has fought the good fight in difficult circumstances. The reality is that he is a policy blacmange and no one has any idea of where he stands on any particular issue.

    CC and ETS are just another manifestation of this policy desert that is the Brendan and the Libs (and this now certainly seems to be showing up in the polls).

    Nelson is at the stage where he should stop trying to please the various groupings in his party and go for what he believes in. He might go down in flames, but at least he will have had a go on his terms.

  37. 37 + 39
    Costello the weasel…
    A reasonably well devised system would have some sort of convergence between the wants of the individual and the direction of the group. ie. if Tip does what’s best for him then he should more or less be doing the best thing for the party. It’s okay to be self obsessed/interested, to a point.

    I reckon there’s 3 main options here – he IS doing the best thing for the party or he’s got big flaws, or the party has big flaws.

    I think it’s actually the fundamental divergence of the basic tenets of the party that are the problem – the gaps between Tip’s self interest and the party’s interests are just too big.

    The larger problem is that without credible opposition we all might suffer. I’d much rather see an opposition debating the principles of an ETS from a ‘good of the country’ standpoint as opposed to the ‘good of me’ standpoint that seems to be so characteristic of the LP.

    Choices other than autocratic single point leadership have been shown to be effective in so many fields. Team and culture are the buzzwords of all forward moving corporates. It really shouldn’t matter who the leader of the LP is, but the lack of teamwork and concentration of self-interest just further highlights the ineptness of their whole organisation.

    The fact that MP’s in the LP feel the need to be heard in public because there’s no forum for discussion within the party, well, that’s just school PTA stuff on steroids.

    [And before someone starts playing compare and contast with the ALP – don’t. I’m not talking about comparisons (my team vs your team) – I’m talking about absolutes. The ALP will get their turn after the next loss.]

  38. National Press Club Speaker –
    Senator the Hon Penny Wong MP, Wednesday 16, July 2008
    Launch of the Green Paper on Emissions Trading

  39. JohnL & FINNS

    G’day amigo FINNS , like custers lasst stand in reverse , the horses went backwards & left

    JohnL , yes thats true to an extent , however state labor govt’s were prety credible & successful during howards reign eg Carr , Bracks , Beattie but nowYemma is bad news & Belinda Neal Federal ALP link to del a bosca doesn’t help , so am guessing a poll of just NSW would show NSW as a weak link , meaning lost seats as of now That with 1/2 Nelson an inploding disaster , the Libs not sure what the words CC is , and Rudd still the honeymoon kid , am cautous about 55% being the labor base , without state breakups

  40. Whoever is the leader of the Libs will have the same problem, these are the conservatives and the liberals.

    John Howard kept the two “factions” in line, because he won elections and agreed with Costello to become leader unopposed.

    The close result between Brenda and Turnbull was a bad sign for them. For the first time in well over a decade they had to vote, it seems we are back to the revolving leadership charade – Howard, Peacock – the same “split” was evident then.

    Until the opposition bite the bullet and say we are a Conservative party or a Liberal party they will remain divided.

  41. i think it is amusing that some here are saying that the PPM result is the more important one now, when last year it was ridiculed as a nonsense. You can’t pick and choose which result suits you better at the time or you will all be accused soon of being just the same a sham i am.

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