Newspoll: 58-42

The latest fortnightly Newspoll shows no change from Labor’s towering 58-42 lead from the last survey. Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating is up two points to 64 per cent, while Malcolm Turnbull’s is steady on 20 per cent. More to follow. (UPDATE: Graphic here.)

Also today, Essential Research has Labor’s lead at 62-38 in its weekly survey, up from 61-39 last time. The poll also features results on views of the economy (nervous), support for federal control over primary health care (overwhelming), Rudd versus Costello as well as Turnbull, and – interestingly – how respondents would feel about an early election if the Opposition continued to oppose financial measures (38 per cent good, 34 per cent not good).

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.

1,782 comments on “Newspoll: 58-42”

Comments Page 2 of 36
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  1. I don’t understand why some politicians complain about how many pages certain legislation is.

    If you want to make a complicated environmental and economic reform, it is most likely to require a lot of legislation.

  2. [We might as well admit it, the planet is dead.. Simple. Time for action is now. Not 2020 not 2010, the planet is heating up, droughts , storms, rainfall lots of it all at once.]
    Let me see if I understand your position here Marky. Because Australia will not take the necessary steps to mitigate CC the planet is dead. Is that it?
    I would have thought the actions of other countries would have some influence on the result as well.
    Or do you believe by acting in the necessary manner we can save the world by influencing every other country to do the same?

  3. [We might as well admit it, the planet is dead.. ]
    I think the planet will do fine; whether or not it remains habitable by humans is the question.

  4. The Coalition bought more than they bargained for with Turnbull! Rudd has captured the centre ground, while Turnbull has drifted to the left! Turnbull’s poor economic knowledge has failed to grasp the votes of the Howard Battlers.

  5. John Ryan,

    Nice to have you on board. But, I think you have me grouped with the wrong crew. Maybe GP is the one you were trying to sledge?

  6. I get the feeling Bree is either Mr or Mrs Costello.

    Well the last 58/42 we thought was maybe an outlier. But this one confirms the figure is pretty much real, that is an enormous figure. This is not much different from when Rudd took over as Leader of the Opposition.

    Rudd only needs to keep taking note of Treasury’s advices. I think it might be time to go back to their earlier tactic. Don’t mention the Opposition, don’t bring them into issues. They are quite happy making their own headlines at the moment, no need to given them distractions.

  10. #54 The Howard battlers dropped off in droves at the last election and even greater numbers have dropped off since. You can complain all you like about Turnbull but he’s all you’ve got. Costello isn’t going to put his hand up and guess what – if he did he’d fail to have the numbers as his colleagues have finally woken up to him long after the public worked out that he is a spoilt, sulky, spineless man who doesn’t give a rat’s A about anyone but himself.

  11. Diogenes

    re Anna Bligh allegdly lying:

    “It’s almost impossible to ever prove that someone knows the opinion they express is not what they really think”

    So its almost impossible to ever prove that Diogenes knows th opinion he expresses on Anbna Bligh is not what Diogenes reely thinks

    that sounds like you ar now admitting Anna Bligh tells th truth
    .
    no wonder Diogenes lived in a tub , no one wuld let him get out fearing such ilogic wuld spread like a virus

  12. Turnbull like every other merchant banker made a lot of money during the boom times. People were borrowing at a rate of knots, commissions were high. Big mergers and Acquisitions were the norm.

    However randomly choosing shares would have produced a similar result. Only an incompetent would have lost money during the boom times in the share and property market – until now that is.

    There was of course the matter of HIH. When it mattered someone failed badly.

    I don’t rate Turnbull very high on the economics front, Costello even less so.

  16. [#54 The Howard battlers dropped off in droves at the last election and even greater numbers have dropped off since. ]
    Most of them actually dropped off in the 1998 election; some went back in 2001 over Tampa though.
    [Bring back Hewson.]
    LOL! 😀

  19. The Age, 17 November 2007

    [Retiring Liberal MP and Howard favourite Jackie Kelly last year spoke to the media about Costello’s image problem, saying he was likened in Sydney’s western suburbs to “one of those nasty Liberals you don’t want to be part of”. Doing Costello no favours, she elaborated on his public image fitting the anti-Liberal stereotype: “Nasty, terribly unfeeling, uncharitable, toffee-nosed, rich people.”]

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/beyond-that-smirk/2007/11/16/1194766958579.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

    Please Liberals, put this dalek up as leader during an economic downturn!

  20. [she elaborated on his public image fitting the anti-Liberal stereotype: “Nasty, terribly unfeeling, uncharitable, toffee-nosed, rich people.”]
    This sounds like all the ones I’ve met. 😀

  24. […in its last five years, the Howard government brought about a major change in the structure of our tax system, greatly increasing our reliance on company tax and greatly reducing our reliance on income tax.

    That would have been fine had the rise in commodity prices and hence company tax receipts been permanent. But we now know how temporary they proved to be.

    This suggests it may be quite a struggle to get the budget back to balance. Chris Richardson, of Access Economics, who has been warning for years about the riskiness of the tax rebalancing, says the new shape of the income-tax scale has taken much of the former bite out of bracket creep.

    He now warns that, after the tax cuts already legislated for (and already included in the budget’s forward estimates), it may take as long as a decade before the government of the day is able to afford another tax cut.

    This is the budget time-bomb John Howard and Peter Costello left for their Labor successors. Not quite the good budget managers they keep telling us they were.]
    http://business.smh.com.au/business/rudd-needs-courage-to-defuse-timebomb-20090222-8env.html?page=-1

  28. Are any other non coalition voters praying for Costello as leader of the Liberal Party? What a gift that would be! He’s from a marginal tendency, making him a divisive figure, and to boot he’s as popular as a 5 watt bulb.

  29. No 71

    Yes Adam, that was an absolute travesty for the Liberal Party and a totally unacceptable form of campaigning. Ms Kelly has been, and should continue to be, condemned.

  30. I find it highly amusing that Bob Brown’s climate change rhetoric now countenances the possiblity of “cataclysmic” climate change, up from dangerous and catastrophic previously.

    Bob, sorry to say, Australia contributes to 1% of global emissions. Nothing we do will materially avoid “cataclysmic” climate change.

  32. I for one will not vote for the Greens again, as a protest vote, as I have done in the past.
    The Greens should be getting right behind the ALP and insist they get the legislation in place asap.With the proviso that they review it each and every year to upgrade the emission control legislation until it reaches the desired effect.For the Greens to join with the Libs for a Senate inquiry is just a waist of time. The ALP had a comprehensive inquiry last year, with a ‘green paper’ and a ‘white paper’ and came up with Legislation that would suit all concerned to have an mission Control in place in 2010 and be flexible enough to be able to meet the coming World CC conference in 2011.
    However, some politicians have not learned frm what happened re the Republic vote and that is that the libs have now split the politicians that not only believe there is a CC but doing someting about it.
    So all you Green supporters should get in touch with your Green Senators and insist that they get behind the ALP to pass the ALP legislation and improve it from within.

  35. Dovif,
    After reading that article you linked to, it seems that the ALP was listening to the voters, as they did not want the tunnels in their electorates they would have voted against the ALP as they are the Government.
    What is wrong with that?

  36. Showson @ 51
    [I don’t understand why some politicians complain about how many pages certain legislation is.]

    They obviously don’t even look at them. If the did, they would know that they are about 60% white space, and 20% standard clauses and phrases, so the amount of reading in a 100 page bill is about 20 standard pages.
    Slack, really. If reading bills is such a chore, why go into parliament? And if they’re organised enough, saves them money on trashy novels and magazines at airports.

  37. [For the Greens to join with the Libs for a Senate inquiry is just a waist of time.]

    As far as I’ve seen the inquiry in itself will not effect the passage of the legislation. It just looks into certain issues rather than the legislation itself (which hasn’t been introduced yet).

    If they did want to inquire into the bill(s) though, they’d be well within their rights. These are the people being asked to pass the legislation. I actually think it’s prudent for them to learn all they can about the bills and any issues surrounding the bills before passing them (with amendments if required).

  38. [I think the planet will do fine; whether or not it remains habitable by humans is the question.]

    This is not really the case. There will be (and we’re already seeing it) a significant loss of habitat and thus biodiversity.

  39. Penny Wong last night on the 7:30 Report was a joke. Surprising, because whilst I don’t agree with what she says she’s always been competent.

    And if you were wondering about the Young Liberals stacking the Q&A audience last week the Herald has the answer. After Abetz gave them grief for apparently biased audiences they started recruiting from accounting firms and Jewish organisations. At the last shows 36% were Liberal voters, 29% were Labor voters and about 10% were Greens voters.

  40. [The Greens should be getting right behind the ALP and insist they get the legislation in place asap.]

    If the legislation is not their policy then why should they not negotiate to get it closer to their policy and what their supporters want? You talk as though they’re some faction of Labor as opposed to an independent political party.

  42. [GP says: Australia contributes to 1% of global emissions. Nothing we do will materially avoid “cataclysmic” climate change.]

    Well that’s not actually true. China and India will not cut their emissions if rich countries (who created the problem) do not. If we lead, others will follow.

  43. Why “China and India”? India emits less than 5% of total global emissions. China and the US emit more than 20% each.

    Almost a third of global emissions are emitted by countries who individually emit less than 2%.

    If Australia, a very wealthy member of those countries, says well we can’t do much then we’re effectively saying it’s an issue China has to solve even though their emissions reflect their population far more accurately then Western countries.

  44. India is catching up fast. It asks quite rightly why its 1 billion should stay poor while rich countries (which created the problem) fail to curb their own emissions. Of course the US must lead, but so must the smaller rich countries. The EU countries, by and large, are doing so. Australia thus far has not.

  45. No 94

    The EU has had a tokenistic ETS for a number of years and it has been an utter failure. The only possible way China and India will be influenced is if the US commits to substantially reduce its emissions. Australia’s involvement or lack thereof will make no difference and you’d have an overheightened sense of self-importance if you think it will make a difference.

  46. [Australia’s involvement or lack thereof will make no difference and you’d have an overheightened sense of self-importance if you think it will make a difference.]

    You ignore Australian’s position as the wealthiest country out of the small emitters (who do add up) and Australia’s potential to be at the forefront of new technologies which we should have been 10 years ago.

    Fun trivia – The richest man in China is actually an Australian citizen who used to lecture in renewable energy at UNSW.

  48. [The EU has had a tokenistic ETS]

    I don’t call 20% by 2020 tokenistic. It’s much more than we are currently proposing.

    [Australia’s involvement or lack thereof will make no difference]

    Quite untrue. China has specifically mentioned Australia as an example of a rich country which preaches to others while doing nothing itself.

  49. How can you be a toxic bore? And it’s about time Abbott and Gillard got a room. 😛

    [KEVIN Rudd is probably the worst parliamentarian as prime minister since Billy McMahon, federal Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott says.

    “The guy is a toxic bore in the Parliament,” he told Sky News.

    Not so Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

    “Thank God, you’ve got Gillard there who is a fine parliamentarian to liven up the awful performances of the Labor Party.” ]

    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25098787-5005962,00.html

  50. A carbon tax would be an unusual tax, they are not usually designed to encourage people to avoid them. I think it would work if the money raised was used to push the economy away from carbon. The tax take would then fall as it was not needed.

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