Newspoll: 56-44

The latest fortnightly Newspoll survey shows Labor’s two-party lead down slightly, from 58-42 to 56-44. Kevin Rudd leads Malcolm Turnbull as preferred prime minister 61 per cent to 21 per cent. More to follow.

UPDATE (10/3/09): Reporting a day later than usual, Essential Research also shows a four point narrowing on two-party preferred, from 62-38 to 60-40. Also featured: “political party characteristics”, executive salaries, climate change, maternity leave and “confidence in Australian economy to withstand the current financial crisis”, which Essential Research has been tracking since October last year (and which has taken a big hit in the current survey). You also probably know by now that yesterday’s Newspoll featured a headline-grabbing supplementary question on the Liberal leadership showing Peter Costello favoured by 53 per cent against 40 per cent for Malcolm Turnbull.

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.

1,318 comments on “Newspoll: 56-44”

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  2. Don’t care, elephants and others.

    Finer points notwithstanding.

    Need water. I am in a State.

    Which will die, you know.

    Or do you?

  3. No 48

    Juliem, the most powerful supercomputers on the planet are used to predict weather and even they are proven to be often inaccurate.

  4. [Adam, much of the scientific evidence upon which climate change policy is based is all computer modelling.]

    You haven’t even read the base IPCC report have you? Let alone any of the appendices.

    You can’t point out anything scientifically inaccurate about any of the propositions put forward by climate scientists. Admit it, and stick with analysing Mal Brough’s chances in 2010.

  5. Oz you create more energy than renewables plus you have to understand that you need a baseload power source to take over from coal to maintain deep CO2 cuts…

    Adam also remember it was 30 years ago that consensus was we were heading for an Ice Age….things can change and we’ve been in Ice Ages for longer periods than we have been in warm spells hence all this ‘warming’ may have done is slow down our next entry into an Ice Age.

    I still think if anything is going to ‘get’ us it is an Ice Age.

  6. [Oz you create more energy than renewables]

    I’m talking grams of CO2/kWh. It’s a standard unite of measurement. Has nothing to do with how much power comes from one nuclear plant vs. one windmill.

    [you have to understand that you need a baseload power source to take over from coal to maintain deep CO2 cuts…]

    You don’t even know what baseload is. You also don’t understand the abilities of renewables when it comes to baseload.

    [Adam also remember it was 30 years ago that consensus was we were heading for an Ice Age….]

    This is a lie. There was one article in Newsweek, not a scientific journal, claiming we were heading for cooling. Not a “consensus”.

  7. For FS!
    Both statements [Aust. per capita and China gross pollution] are technically correct and relevant, instead of harping on one or the other both need to be acknowledged and considered.
    Obviously China with its huge population is going to be more likely to pollute more, simply on pure volume alone, than Australia.
    But per capita is also critical.
    IF China were to pollute at the present per capita rate of Australia then our Earth, as we know it, would be all over red rover.
    So we have to stop China from reaching our present levels of per capita pollution and our moral and ethical basis for preaching that to them, and other places, becomes more than a little shonky and hypocritical if we do not take steps to reduce our inordinately high levels.

    Sheesh its not hard to figure out.

  8. [Why should the future of the world be entrusted in a computer model? Forgive me for wanting real, measurable facts instead.]

    No, I can’t forgive you for such a stupid remark. You can’t have “real, measurable facts” about the future. You can only have predictions, based on the best possible modelling. What other method of predicting the future of climate could there be? None. Even if the likelihood of catastrophic climate change in this century is only 10%, that puts an over-riding obligation on governments to take urgent action. But of course the likelihood is already much higher than that.

  9. Glen etc:
    Lovely to watch the tired old canards fly.
    For the “30 years ago that consensus was we were heading for an Ice Age” myth, try:

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

    And, in the interests of being “fair and balanced”, why not look at

    http://climatedebatedaily.com/

    from the excellent Dennis Dutton of aldaily fame. The “denialist” roster is getting weaker, but those most recent three or four articles on the right hand side might scare you a bit. Not a computer model in ’em.

  13. [it was 30 years ago that consensus was we were heading for an Ice Age]

    Rubbish. I remember reading Gordon Rattray Taylor’s book about climate in about 1970 in which he canvassed both scenarios. He concluded that the global warming scenario was much more likely than the Ice Age theory.

  15. [I disagree, look at how often we’ve been through ice ages since the dawn of time compared to warmer period…]

    What has this got to do with anything?

    Nothing.

  16. Sounds like Bishop’s wait and see if we go into a recession before we try and stop it.

    You need to treat all guns as if they are loaded, because there is zero tolerance of a mistake.

  17. julie m:
    I’ve read Mr Diamond’s Collapse – powerful stuff even if his Australia chapter has inaccuracies. But the idea – why some societies choose to fail – is powerful, and the reasons elucidated (ideology, idiocy, the previously successful strategy that a society can’t bear to let go of etc) are very appropriate to this debate.

    For a shorter treatment of similar territory, ‘A Short History of Progress’ by Canadian Ron Wright is also stellar.

  19. [I disagree, look at how often we’ve been through ice ages since the dawn of time compared to warmer period…]

    Conclusive proof that you are a complete moron. Sorry to be personal, Glen, but that really is an unforgivably stupid remark. It shows you have not made the slightest effort to understand the science behind this debate.

    *bedtime, and probably just as well*

  20. [we have to stop China from reaching our present levels of per capita pollution and our moral and ethical basis for preaching that to them, and other places, becomes more than a little shonky and hypocritical if we do not take steps to reduce our inordinately high levels.

    Sheesh its not hard to figure out.]

    Nicely put fredex. The trouble is that GP and Glen want to play minor league politics. What hope therefore when similar attitudes drive those who play real politics in Canberra?

  22. No 58

    [You can only have predictions, based on the best possible modelling. ]

    Ok – the best possible modelling on climate patterns is still wrong, much of the time, even with the most powerful supercomputers on the planet.

  24. Re Adam @ 63:

    I was taught about anthropogenic climate change in highschool in the early 1980s . . . none of this is new, but the sad denialists like to pretend it is so, as a discrediting strategy.

  26. Glen @ 73
    Reasonable graph – that right hand side line going up, up ‘n’ away tends to deflate your argument, such as it is, a little . . .

  27. [look at how often we’ve been through ice ages since the dawn of time]

    And each ice age was followed by an industrial revolution wasn’t it.

    Pretty stupid argument Glen.

  28. [Adam, much of the scientific evidence upon which climate change policy is based is all computer modelling. ]
    Nonsense! It is temperature data from weather bureaus, it is satellite data, it is the temperature from 3000 sensors in the ocean (there was a story about these on Catalyst last week), it is the quantity of gases in ice cores drilled out of the arctic.

    These are the measurements that are then PUT INTO computer models! You are denying all this data!

  32. [This could go on forever…]

    like the spite and malice of a conservative media.

    The ship is in danger of sinking in the storm and all they can think to do is attack the captain, well, it makes good ratings.

    Don’t Americans get sick of persistent spite and malice and trashy tv or is it a cultural thing with them?

    [In recent weeks some have perceived the network to be leading the campaign against President Obama’s economic agenda. Mr. Cramer, who calls himself a lifelong Democrat, said last week that the administration’s agenda was “destroying the life savings of millions of Americans.” One week earlier Mr. Kudlow declared that Mr. Obama was “declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private equity and venture capital funds.”]
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/business/media/09cnbc.html?_r=1&ref=media

  35. Is a 7% margin enough for them to move on MT?
    I would prefer PC as leader of the Liberals, but only because I think he’s an easybeat.
    Or perhaps more accurately, an easier-beat.

  37. Look!

    I am truly fed up! Maybe no one tonight gives a damn. I have read the Diamond stuff and a lot else.

    What about considering what is happening right now? To South Australia. Some years ago I looked aghast at pictures of a former and destroyed lake in Russia and thought thanks we are so enlightened that it would not happen here. Yeah, right.

    It is happening before my eyes.

    And sure, I agree that we must do whatever about emissions.

    BUT and NOW! The Coorong! The Lower Lakes!

    You guys don’t give a shit!!

    Talk on. And on. And on.

    We NEED WATER!

    Get off your horsies, for a moment!

    Help us! Help the environment in our own yard.

    Jeez!

  38. It just means that Costello may be more viable than Turnbull, when the time comes.

    Bolt reckons Costello we challenge 12 months before the election. I reckon a lot more damage would have been done to the Liberal’s electability chances by then, unless Rudd goes of the rails. But I still question why on earth Costello would want a losing job anyway.

  40. Not enough, Oz!

    I appreciate that we all care, but whilst we rage against the world stuff, we are allowing local environments to die. It is absolutely unacceptable!!

    And to think that Penny Wong is a South Aussie! I would have hoped that she would have fought to the last to ensure that our case was heard.

    Not of course, that she should put a particular case in favour of another. But hell!

    Ours is diabolical.

    I am bitterly disappointed.

  41. I get bitter and depressed about the lack of care about our Murray crikey.
    I really do despair sometimes.
    I live on the Murray and I’m watching it needlessly die, not just the lakes and the Coorong but the whole thing.
    Such a waste.

  42. When Nelson lost the leadership, his preffered PM rating was 20%, now Turnbull is on 21%. A MASSIVE improvement, wasn’t it?

  43. Does the GFC make a solution to the MD problem easier or harder? Is it opportunity or increased difficulty. Would it have been much easier when the economy was booming, govt had billions to throw in compensation for water rights?

  44. [When Nelson lost the leadership, his preffered PM rating was 20%, now Turnbull is on 21%. A MASSIVE improvement, wasn’t it?]

    Wow, a WHOLE !% !!!

    A REAL Improvement – NOT.

    Keep taking those nice pills that the nice gentleman in the white coat at Graylands has prescribed :_)

  45. Yep, fredex.

    Worse than a waste.

    I was so hopeful about the dispatch of Howard who could not have cared less, only to find that the Rudd Government, which is hopeless too in the face of the dying waters.

    Our only champion is Nick X.

    I am in Chloe Fox’s electorate, Bright, and would love her to be in a future Government. She is good. Knows the deal.

    But it is probably too late for the Rann Government. Therefore, unless Chloe goes Independent, I will lose her.

  46. And for those interested in the neo liberalism debate.. this from todays NYT

    [Neoliberalism and Higher Education

    I’ve been asking colleagues in several departments and disciplines whether they’ve ever come across the term “neoliberalism” and whether they know what it means. A small number acknowledged having heard the word; a very much smaller number ventured a tentative definition.

    I was asking because I had been reading essays in which the adjective neoliberal was routinely invoked as an accusation, and I had only a sketchy notion of what was intended by it. When one of these essays cited my recent writings on higher education as a prime example of “neoliberal ideology” (Sophia McClennen, “Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Intellectual Engagement,” in Works and Days, volumes 26-27, 2008-2009), I thought I’d better learn more.

    What I’ve learned (and what some readers of this column no doubt already knew) is that neoliberalism is a pejorative way of referring to a set of economic/political policies based on a strong faith in the beneficent effects of free markets.
    ]
    http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/neoliberalism-and-higher-education/

  48. [I think that was Bree the Turnbull hater/Costello lover’s point, Frank …]

    True, but I wanted to make the Graylands joke, which our Eastern States bludgers would have no idea who or what Graylands is 🙂

    BTW Fulvio, why aren’t you posting on the Westpoll thread – Averageliberal is back 🙁

  50. I haven’t read the article but it is not much point if you are comparing those two.

    Turnbull’s problem is that he is trying to be opportunistic without having a platform and set of beliefs to work from. If he had that then at least he would be consistent and actually might develop coherent points and policy. As it is it is only pop shots from the sideline.

    Costello’s great advantage over Turnbull is the myth of Costello. He was in the job of Treasury when it rained money from China. The myth will tarnish quite a bit if Treasury or economists are asked for their analysis. The second part of the myth is that he some great orator and communicator. This is true in Parliament where is allowed to extemporize without the slightest control from the Speaker. But out side of parliament he was pretty poor at it.

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