The latest federal ACNielsen poll, published in today’s Fairfax broadsheets, has Labor’s two-party lead down to 55-45 from 56-44 last month. Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is down four points to 51 per cent and his disapproval is up five to 35 per cent, while Kevin Rudd is more or less steady on 70 per cent and 22 per cent. Also included are questions on the government’s economic management (positive) and expectations about the economy (surprisingly optimistic).
UPDATE: Galaxy has also produced a poll showing Labor leading 55-45. The poll has Labor on 43 per cent of the primary vote, the Coalition on 40 per cent and the Greens on 11 per cent. No mention of a sample size that I can see, but in Galaxy’s case it’s usually about 800 (UPDATE: It’s 1004 for Galaxy, 1400 for ACNielsen).
UPDATE 2: A surprise from Essential Research: they too have Labor’s lead at 55-45 in their weekly survey. This is down from 59-41 last week, and as far as I’m aware is the closest result they have thus far produced. Also featured are questions on which party is deemed best to handle various issues (huge leads to Labor on climate change, environment and industrial relations, narrow ones to Liberal on inflation, national security and economic management) and the car manufacturing industry assistance package (47 per cent approve, 35 per cent disapprove).
Oz
I’m not blaming Rudd for this one. But there should be better co-ordination between State and Federal Governments. The stimulus money SA gets in it’s Christmas bonus is basically the same as the money saved by dumping the prison, so the net sum is zero.
[Labor cant claim credit for spending the surplus that we built up to stave off a recession]
I asked you some time ago to name a single Howard policy besides selling public assets that “built up the surplus”. You don’t “build” a surplus. You just sit back and watch the mining boom. Both government’s are doing/did the same thing.
So yeah, the only thing Labor has done in is sign Kyoto, apologise to the Stolen Generation and go quite some way in staving off recession. Even those WERE the only things they’ve done (which they aren’t) I’d say they’re pretty formidable and each one worth a million of ANYTHING Howard did.
Um, Labor was absolutely responsible for the budget surplus. They were the ones that moved Australia from a keynesian to a monetarist economy and implemented all the major economic reforms that allowed the budget surplus to create itself during the global economic boom 2001-2007.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: If I was going to mention the very substantial real growth in wages during the period of the last Coalition government, Paul and compare it …
PAUL KEATING: That came off my wages policy.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it’s – someone’s gotta take credit for everything, I guess.
PAUL KEATING: Well, I’m quite happy to take most of it.
…
PAUL KEATING: One of the key rules of public life, Malcolm, is you cannot think aloud in public about the deposit base of the country’s savings. You did this.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: So it’s all my fault.
PAUL KEATING: No, no, well a lot of it’s yours. They started taking money out of the smaller banks.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: This is the only thing you haven’t taken credit for tonight.
PAUL KEATING: Well, mate, I’ve made you rich. I can take credit for that.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: (inaudible), there you go. And what about all these people? Did you make them rich too?
PAUL KEATING: Most of them, yeah.
Roy if you dont think Rudd is the control freak Howard was you are quite foolish i am afraid.
If anything it is critical of Howard and sympathetic towards Costello.
Rudd didnt need to do that because Howard picked department heads based on merit rather than getting yes men in as Keating did (as shown by Ken Henry attacking the Government in 2007).
That all of you are critical of every single thing Howard did shows you to be partisan hacks. Unless you can give credit where credit is due your comments are worth discussing on this blog. Even i can name things, Whitlam, Curtin, Chifley, Hawke and Keating did that were good for the country but you cannot and when you make the exception and do you claim they were only half right…
I said “both”, Rudd/Howard.
Unfortunately, Keating did not get to see the surplus’ that were the creation of his reforms and us flogging bits of rock to the Communists.
ummm bob1234 who paid off Labor’s 96b in debt???
Howard did and if he hadnt Rudd would have $0 to spend right now!
[Whitlam, Curtin, Chifley, Hawke and Keating did that were good for the country but you cannot and when you make the exception and do you claim they were only half right]
Thats because some of the policy coming out of Whitlamn, Curtin, Hawke and Keating was brilliant.
They weren’t lying, racist, divisive, disgusting little rodents.
[Howard did and if he hadnt Rudd would have $0 to spend right now!]
Still waiting for an answer…
The VERY best thing about fran kelly’s drivel tonight is that it is history.
That monster rodent has double wooden stakes in his heart (his government & his seat) and politically he is toast.
His denial of costello is also a bonus for labor because from the way costello now tells things, costello comes across (to me anyway ?) as a lot more believable than rodent. Costello MAY have been a good PM. Big call i concede but the comment is made against the background of what a so and so rodent was.
The rodent years were just about the rodents hate of people who were not like him.
[Labor cant claim credit for spending the surplus that we built up to stave off a recession]
pity Howard and Costello (ok Howard mostly) wasted the company tax that fuelled those surpluses.
“ummm bob1234 who paid off Labor’s 96b in debt???”
All Western Countries went in to massive debt during the global recessions of the late 80s/early 90s. When Howard left office, he did with 16 years of positive growth.
Hold on, he was only in power for 11 years!
Howard just sped up the process of paying it off through cuts in all sectors of the economy, and the global economic boom 2001-2007.
You know, for an economic rationalist, you certainly don’t seem to understand how economies and free markets work!
Decided to give Fran Kelly’s, no doubt massively over hyped, Howard self-justifying wank a miss, but made the mistake of flicking through the channel just as the ex Lord Lunchalot was telling how the only time his master chastised him was not,as you’d expect, for making an unholy mess of the lead up and aftermath of the Timor independence vote, or his gross incompetence (I’m being generous) in the Hussein bribery scandal, or the tardiness in helping Aussies get out of Lebanon, and probably many more stuff ups we didn’t get to hear about, but for having a go at Pauline Hanson. Which tells you just about all you need to know about John Winston Howard and his government.
Forget the thousands of Timorese lives lost, or the millions donated to a murderous thug we were about to go to war against, those are mere triflings of no import. But ticking off a, IMO, cunning harridan using racism to line her own pockets was apparently beyond the pale in Howard World. SIGH!
Glen, Howard got rid of most guns. Great policy.
If you want to take credit for your budget in 96, we will take credit for ours in 08.
The difference is that Rudd/Swan made real savings. Your mob cut everything that moved!
[Your mob cut everything that moved!]
Except helicopters!
Bought lots of of them. Shame they didn’t work.
Greatest PM alright.
[costello comes across (to me anyway ?) as a lot more believable than rodent. Costello MAY have been a good PM. Big call i concede but the comment is made against the background of what a so and so rodent was.]
Well, why is it that Costello has all these big principals AFTER THE FACT? Sure he hit out against Hanson before Howard did (who didn’t?), but why wasn’t Costello taking the tough calls at the time? Why is he only a hero in the documentary afterward?
[Rudd didnt need to do that because Howard picked department heads based on merit rather than getting yes men in as Keating did (as shown by Ken Henry attacking the Government in 2007).]
!!!!!! How did Henry’s pay go last year Glen?
You think Howard sacking 9 Departmental heads had anything to do with merit? It meant do my bidding or get the flick (or if it would be too close to an election to do that, I’ll just dock you pay).
151 diogenes, SA might just be rearranging their priorities and shifting the money around to where they will get more economic stimulus for the dollars spent. Queensland is bringing down a mid year budget review in the next week or so. It will be interesting to see if this is basically in line with what Rudd is trying to achieve.
There is also a Local Government summit on in Canberra this week with mayors from around the country meeting with the Federal Government and I’d be surprised if some form of economic stimulus is the flour of the month there also.
So Cossie and Howard didn’t get it off from day 1. And Cossie still wouldn’t challenge.
What can you say about Cossie, fair dinkum, if he ever wanted a sex change, he’d only be up for the cost of a couple of implants LOL.
162 MF – my thoughts exactly. And Downer almost thought it funny.
Howard agreed with Hanson. There is no reason to think otherwise. He comes out 7 months after to say she’s wrong? Horse bolted; gate swinging open.
Yes, but could Cossie really have been as blind as he always makes out?
Howard leads a round of applause for Reith and the waterfront, but doesn’ t mention the hard yards Cossie put in on the GST; Howard gazumps Cossie at a press conference Cossie called to announce the GST, hogging the limelight and leaving Cos talking to an empty gallery; Cossie puts Hanson last on his HTV and gets a dressing down (etc etc…all of which we know because Cossie or his mates tell us…) and Cossie still expected that Howard was going to hand him the leadership one day?
Reminds me of Annabel Crabb’s comparison of PC to one of those hopeful women who think that the reason the boyfriend hasn’t called is that he’s planning some extravagant romantic gesture to sweep her off her feet…when in fact he hasn’t called because he doesn’t want to talk to her.
Did Peter think that Howard was ‘testing’ him with all these slights and that, if he proved his devotion, he’d one day get thrown the bone?
(PS nice to see that REITH got invited to Kirribilli…and what an insight that Janette’s approval of him meant more than that of cabinet…)
See as i expect most of the posters on pollbludger are hacks…
The man was PM for 11.5 years and you have not one policy you think was good and you continue to use disrespectful terms to name him (rodent), and your childish excuse that Brandis said it doesnt justify your childish name calling of an Australian Prime Minister. It really is beneath you people.
Ahhh big difference Centre we had a 9b deficit and you had a 20b dollar surplus 🙂 nice try.
[The difference is that Rudd/Swan made real savings. Your mob cut everything that moved!]
No they cut everything they hated ideologically.
“Howard agreed with Hanson. There is no reason to think otherwise. He comes out 7 months after to say she’s wrong? Horse bolted; gate swinging open.”
Not to mention what he said to that guy afterward, shown on The Howard Years.
Something along the lines of ‘There, you happy? I gave the stupid speech”
steve
Sounds more like Foley’s battening down the hatches.
[THE state’s giant $770 million new prison project is the first casualty of a review of State Government spending following the global financial crisis.
Treasurer Kevin Foley has told Parliament the state’s budgetary position had been weakened by $280 million as a result of the crisis. ]
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24576403-5006301,00.html
The more i watch Cossie, the more sorry i feel for him. he is looking a very tragic figure.
[The man was PM for 11.5 years and you have not one policy you think was good ]
Have already said the gun control was excellent. Cancelled out though by his Hanson reaction (or lack thereof).
[and you continue to use disrespectful terms to name him (rodent)]
I’m with you on that. KRUdd is stupid, so is rodent. (Not a fan of Fibs either).
[Ahhh big difference Centre we had a 9b deficit and you had a 20b dollar surplus 🙂 nice try.]
The next time you refer to your precious’ surplus without explaining WHAT HE DID I will force you to have sex with him.
The ABC should have simply handed over the money for the doco to the Liberal Party of Australia and let them chose the producer, the interviewer etc and to then allow the final product to go through Liberal quality control.
Hang on… maybe that’s exactly what the ABC did.
Costello and Beazley were two great politicians never to become PM and that is sad IMHO.
[The man was PM for 11.5 years and you have not one policy you think was good ]
Tougher gun laws.
[Ahhh big difference Centre we had a 9b deficit and you had a 20b dollar surplus 🙂 nice try.]
As a proportion of GDP, the deficit was lower when Labor left power, than when Labor came to power in 1983.
[The more i watch Cossie, the more sorry i feel for him. he is looking a very tragic figure.]
Who can’t accept the he just wasn’t good enough for the top job.
[Costello and Beazley were two great politicians never to become PM and that is sad IMHO.]
That award goes to Bob Brown.
“Sounds more like Foley’s battening down the hatches.”
No matter. SA Labor seems to like the ‘rack em, pack em, stack em’ policy.
Glen,
[Costello and Beazley were two great politicians never to become PM and that is sad IMHO.]
it is not fair to lump Kimbo with Cossie. At least Kimbo tried and Cossie never did.
[ The man was PM for 11.5 years and you have not one policy you think was good and you continue to use disrespectful terms to name him (rodent), and your childish excuse that Brandis said it doesnt justify your childish name calling of an Australian Prime Minister. It really is beneath you people.]
What is being dished out is exactly what the rodent dished out for those 11.5 years to people he regarded as enemies who stood in his way.
Take a hike sunshine
Not to mention Beazley gained 50.98% of the 2pp in an election. Costello didn’t even fight an election.
No.
Bob Brown is a left wing radical and is while he is an champion of the environment he does not represent the wider community.
The Howard Years – at least it’s got a happy ending.
Costello was never in the position to be the leader not with someone like Howard in there to be absolutely fair Fins.
Plus Costello was Deputy leader for a decade.
Beazley was leader on and off for a decade.
Kimbo probably would have won in 2007 anyway.
Glen, the real truth is that Beazley blew it. Howard was too greedy and Cossie had no ticker. But it dosen’t matter because Rudd will prove to be better than all of them.
[Not to mention Beazley gained 50.98% of the 2pp in an election. Costello didn’t even fight an election.]
True, but you always need to preface that with the One Nation 8% that was directed away from sitting candidates…
But yes Cossie didn’t get there. He has only himself to blame and curse.
Beazley was a bad opposition leader, but would’ve been a very good PM IMO. I don’t think Cossie would’ve been a good opposition leader either. His only way to PM was the Keating route – he needed to be in the job first before going to an election.
Latham on the other hand was a good opposition leader, but would’ve been a God awful PM.
Centre that is your opinion and a naive one at best considering Rudd hasnt even been in power for 1 year let alone 11.5 or 13? Let us be the judge on how good he has been for the nation when he leaves the stage and the lights go out.
People are smart enough to vote for themselves, who follows the how to vote ticket? Especially of a minor party?
We wouldnt need How to Vote cards if we had the democratic voting system of First Past the Post but nooooo the Nationalists stuffed things up and brought in preferential voting….
“ummm bob1234 who paid off Labor’s 96b in debt???”
by selling off telstra for 60+ billion and hacking into the budget re uni/health/etc…
truly brilliant!
[People are smart enough to vote for themselves, who follows the how to vote ticket? Especially of a minor party?]
Yes, but in 98 the ALP primary vote went up 1.38%. The Dems went down 1.63%. The Greens went down 0.78%. And yet the ALP 2PP went up 4.61%.
If how to vote cards don’t matter, why do they matter so much to every single party every single election?
“Yes, but in 98 the ALP primary vote went up 1.38%. The Dems went down 1.63%. The Greens went down 0.78%. And yet the ALP 2PP went up 4.61%.
If how to vote cards don’t matter, why do they matter so much to every single party every single election?”
Errr, because both parties supporters had ppl putting One Nation first?
If someone had planned on voting Labor, a HTV card wouldn’t have made them vote One Nation then Liberal, or vice versa…
Glen at 186 wrote:
[Bob Brown is a left wing radical]
It is a matter of perspective. Liberals call him and the Greens radical, but to his followers he is probably quite moderate. Howard, on the other hand, called himself an (economic) radical:
[“I am an economic radical but a social conservative.”]
John Howard, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 2004
http://www.smh.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/prime-mover/2007/11/19/1195321650843.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Given SerfChoices as radical IR, I’m not about to argue with him on that.
Glen how do you honestly think Turnbull is going? Without bias I really think he’s a lightweight. Nelson also was so disappointing. I reckon if Cossie doesn’t lead the party they could lose by upto 50 seats next election.
“We wouldnt need How to Vote cards if we had the democratic voting system of First Past the Post but nooooo the Nationalists stuffed things up and brought in preferential voting….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_by-election,_1918
Labor would have dominated Australian politics if the Nationalists (conservatives) didn’t move to preferential voting. The Country Party vote came from the conservative vote.
You might not like preferential, but i’m sure you wouldn’t like historical Labor domination either.