Newspoll: 55-45

The Australian reports the latest Newspoll survey, the first in three weeks, shows Labor’s two-party lead steady on 55-45. Kevin Rudd’s satisfaction rating is up six points to 56 per cent while his dissatisfaction is down five to 32 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull has also performed well on his delayed first set of Newspoll leadership ratings (for some reason the question wasn’t asked last time), with 50 per cent satisfied and 25 per cent dissatisfied.

The weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead down from 58-42 to 57-43. Also featured are numerous questions on attitudes to the financial crisis.

UPDATE: Further detail on Newspoll from Dennis Shanahan: primary votes are 41 per cent for Labor, 38 per cent for the Coalition and a record 13 per cent for the Greens. Kevin Rudd’s preferred leader rating is steady at 54 per cent, while Malcolm Turnbull’s is up two points to 26 per cent. Turnbull in fact has a 1 per cent higher net approval rating (satisfaction minus dissatisfaction) than Rudd, whereas Rudd’s previous worst result relative to his opponent since becoming Labor leader was a lead of 28 per cent.

UPDATE 2 (14/10/08): The West Australian today carries polling on federal voting intention from the same 400-sample survey that produced yesterday’s state poll. Andrew Probyn reports:

The latest Westpoll survey showed the Federal coalition leading Labor in WA 51 per cent to 49 per cent on a two-party preferred status. Though it is the first time the coalition has led the ALP in a Westpoll since last year, it is still well below the 53-47 two-party preferred vote in the Federal election on November 24. However, it showed a significant turnaround from the two polls since the election. In June, when Brendan Nelson was Opposition leader, Westpoll showed the ALP leading 53-47 on the two-party preferred vote, down from a peak differential of 62-38 in April … The Westpoll survey of 400 Western Australians by telephone on the evenings of October 6-8, found that the coalition led on primary vote 46 per cent to the ALP’s 41 per cent (in June it was 42-42). After undecided votes were allocated according to previous elections, the coalition had 47 per cent to the ALP’s 42 per cent. On the measurement of preferred prime minister, Mr Turnbull had eroded Kevin Rudd’s lead. Mr Rudd, who had a preferred PM status of a massive 69 per cent in April against Dr Nelson’s paltry 14 per cent, was down to 54 per cent. Though Mr Rudd’s lead was still commanding over Mr Turnbull on 35 per cent, the gap had narrowed significantly even since June when he led Dr Nelson 59-21 … Asked who was better able to manage the economy, 44 per cent of respondents said Mr Rudd, while 40 per cent said Mr Turnbull. Among men, the leaders were evenly split 43-43. Among women, Mr Rudd was clear favourite, 46 per cent to 37 per cent.

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.

760 comments on “Newspoll: 55-45”

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  1. Go Oz!
    I couldn’t stomach watching Allbull (just had me lunch and didn’t want to lose it) I saw him approach the microphone with his dog at his heels and that was enough for me.
    Allbull will say “rudd stole my thunder” and his offsider can say “the dingo stole my baby” lol

  2. Glen

    Hate to tell you it called the budget surplus, the last budget was Swan’s. So hence it is Swan’s surplus. 🙂

    Don’t like it? Tough. 😉

  3. Glen,

    You seem to be in violent agreement with the Government’s actions. It’s just you don’t like the messenger. Perhaps we could ask Rudd to put on an “Unca Howie gorilla mask” to soothe the battered Liberal egos.

    Apparently, it makes you feel relevant again.

  4. [What was Julie Bishop’s question about Basel II on about? Or is it a new term she just learnt about?]

    Probably just trying to throw in some economic buzzwords. Quite frankly she needs to after looking like a complete dill since being given the job.

  5. She was obviously trying to bamboozle Swan, but he just knew enough to slide through.

    Why’s Turnbull hogging all the questions to himself? The Government’s doing a good job by letting all the relevant ministers explain their own parts of the package instead of letting Rudd bore everyone for another hour.

    Regarding the surplus… it’s actually the “nation’s surplus” – Tanner. Doesn’t that give everyone a warm and happy feeling.

  6. [today’s package throwing pork widely]

    I can just imagine the dilemma that would have faced the Howard government had they been in office during the Global Financial Crisis. They would have been torn between urgently injecting money into the economy .. and waiting till an election year to do the porking.

  7. Turnbull has interjected against Rudd, who was saying, “If the Leader of the Opposition knows better…”, to which Turnbull replied “I do know better”.

    Rudd then reeled off the list of institutions, regulatory authorities and so on that Turnbull was claiming to know better than.

    What a wanker the Rainmaker is.

  8. [Nothing stopping Rudd for making this an election year]

    Need a DD trigger for that… and alcopops & the medicare levy are effectively thru

  9. [Yeah, I know it’s not going to happen – I was just trying to stir up discussion about an early election =P]

    Yeah, I know. It is fun 😉

  10. No 116
    If Turnbull didn’t think he knew better, he would not be seeking the top job. I think that goes without saying for any leadership contender.

  11. “I’m chuffed. Rudd in QT now using the term “Rainmaker” to describe Turnbull.”

    Really?

    So not only has he gotten economic policy from this blog, but insults as well.

  12. [If Turnbull didn’t think he knew better, he would not be seeking the top job]

    Rudd’s point was that Turnbull is claiming to know better than anyone how to run the economy and fix the current global problems. Better than the RBA, APRA, Treasury and all the rest.

    I’ve always said it: Rainmaker’s downfall will be his monumental ego. He just can’t keep it down. He always goes too far and makes himself a laughing stock. At 26% PPM, it seems as if the public is underwhelmed already.

  13. Turnbull’s $10m for ‘rainmakers’ with no proof
    October 24, 2007

    THE Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is giving a $10 million boost to research promoted by a rainmaking company part-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s nephew Matt Handbury, despite scientific experts hired by the Government stating the firm had provided “no convincing data” to support the technology.

  14. No 114
    More arrant nonsense. The coalition cut taxes five times in a row, only two of which occurred during an election year.

    Plus your hypocrisy has been exposed. Only months ago, the Treasurer proclaimed that the inflation genie was out of the bottle. Now he’s spending 11 billion to stimulate the economy.

  15. Turnbull knows better?

    Didn’t do well with HIH? That would be one thing he would claim he didn’t know better maybe.

    [TONY JONES: The high profile politician Malcolm Turnbull has tonight defended himself against continuing claims that he had a role in the collapse of the insurer HIH. Mr Turnbull has been named as a party to a possible legal action by the HIH liquidator, who’s seeking to recover more than $400 million. But the multi-millionaire former merchant banker says the claim is frivolous. He’s accused the liquidator Tony McGrath of playing politics. More from Tom Iggulden.
    ]
    http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1576283.htm

    [Founder Ray Williams is serving at least two years and nine months in jail for misleading bankers and investors about the company’s financial position in the lead-up to the collapse.

    Former director Rodney Adler is serving two-and-a-half years in jail for dishonesty offences.

    Both men have been banned from company boards and were forced to compensate HIH’s liquidators.
    ]

    [As the chairman of Goldman Sachs Australia in 1998, Mr Turnbull was the senior adviser to insurance company FAI, which was sold to HIH for an inflated price.

    Mr McGrath contends that Goldman Sachs’s advice to the shareholders of FAI contributed to the HIH collapse.

    In February this year, Mr Turnbull said that Mr McGrath’s claims against him were baseless.

    ]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2006/06/22/1668855.htm

  16. [Only months ago, the Treasurer proclaimed that the inflation genie was out of the bottle. Now he’s spending 11 billion to stimulate the economy.]
    So which is it GP, inflation was never a problem or we shouldn’t be stimulating the economy at a time of Global financial crisis? While you’re at it can you list your vast economic qualifications, just so I know that you know what you are talking about?

  17. 139 – Oh, so the economic problems were solved and we didn’t need this stimulus. Now I am looking forward to those long list of economic degrees you must have.

  18. One of the recommendations of the HIH Royal Commission was to introduce deposit guarantee legislation. Costello sat on this and did not implement it.

    Turnbull just said (In the MPI) that the Coalition would have introduced it last year except the Member for Higgins though the timing was wrong becuase it may have reduced confidence in the banks.

    Yet when the banks needed confidence Rainmaker says the Govt. is not going far enough.

    Very very bizarre.

  19. No 140

    Please state your qualifications. Two can play at that game.

    Piffle aside, I’m simply saying that if the inflation genie was out of the bottle, necessitating consecutive interest rate rises, a budget surplus in excess of $20 billion and tax increases, why is the government now injecting billions in pork into the economy – especially since it has stated many times that the economy is well insulated from the woes of other economies? I smell a lot of double standards and hypocrisy. 🙂

  20. Generic Person wrote:

    [The coalition cut taxes five times in a row]

    Year after year targeted at the better-off, at the expense of those well off…

    The Age, 9 May 2005:

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/Ross-Gittins/Howards-battlers-may-not-be-that-loyal/2005/03/08/1110160824800.html

    [Howard has established a precedent for excluding the real battlers from tax cuts. Last July [2004], no one earning less than $52,000 a year got a bean; come this July [2005], no one earning less than $58,000 will benefit.]

  21. “Please state your qualifications. Two can play at that game.”

    Unfortunately for you, Gary Bruce is not claiming to have predicted the end of the financial crisis and the measures which led to it. In fact, you’re statements are going against the grain of what other economists have said and in light of that, if you don’t have any expertise in the subject, they are meaningless.

  22. No 142

    At the time HIH collapsed, none of the major banks were in danger from collapsing. They still aren’t in danger now. It has everything to do with the prudential regulation Costello introduced in the aftermath of Asian financial crisis.

  23. Fellow bludgers, if more than one of you was a little bemused when Julie Bishop asked about the Basle agreement: it’s about the capital adequacy requirements for banks (see fuller explanation below)

    I’ll also post a link to the Bretton Woods agreement made in the last years of World War 2, setting up the world financial structures for the then future, including the World Bank and the IMF. She’s sure to raise that tomorrow. Honestly, what’s she trying to prove?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

    “Basle Accord: Agreement reached in 1988 by central-banking authorities from 12 countries including the U.S., to establish consistency among international capital standards. The resulting risk-based capital standards originally focused on default-risk exposure, but subsequent amendments have incorporated minimum capital standards for market-risk exposure. The landmark meeting was sponsored by the Bank for International Settlements located in Basle, Switzerland 

    Basle Agreement: An agreement signed by various countries stating that they agree with the 25 core principles of the Basle Committee of 1997. Aimed at strengthening financial institutions. 

    Basle Committee on Banking Supervision: A committee of banking supervisory authorities established by the central bank governors of the Group of Ten countries in 1975. It consists of senior representatives of banking supervisory authorities and central banks from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Committee usually meets at the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, where its permanent Secretariat is located. The committee’s goal is to improve the strength of financial systems.”
     

  24. [At the time HIH collapsed, none of the major banks were in danger from collapsing.]

    So why not introduce the Royal Commission’s recommendation?

  25. 143 – I’m not the one making definitive statements re the economic descisions made, you are. So I can assume you don’t have the necessary knowledge to be making these statements? Thought not.
    Ever, even for a moment, considered that economic conditions have changed GP and that one “economic nasty” was out trumped by another? Of course not. What a surprise.

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