Newspoll: 56-44

The Australian reports the latest Newspoll has Labor’s two-party lead steady at 56-44. Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating is up four points to 65 per cent, and Malcolm Turnbull’s is down one to 21 per cent. More to follow.

Also today was the latest weekly Essential Research survey, which has the Labor lead widening from 58-42 to 60-40. Also featured: “how important are the following issues in deciding how you would vote at a Federal election?” which party do you think best at handling them; the global financial crisis; climate change; and a broad-brush question on “independent Senators and government legislation”.

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.

1,740 comments on “Newspoll: 56-44”

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  1. Norway and the Netherlands in 1939 (they were actually invaded in 1940) are a different case to New Zealand because they were between warring nations and on strategic shipping routes. Not such a factor with New Zealand. Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Portugal, Andorra, Turkey and Ireland remained neutral throughout the war.

  2. Obama might have a few problems getting his CC agenda passed at home.
    [Barack Obama may be forced to delay signing up to a new international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year because of the scale of opposition in the US Congress, it emerged today.

    Senior figures in the Obama administration have been warning Labour counterparts that the president may need at least another six months to win domestic support for any proposal.

    Such a delay could derail the securing of a tough global agreement in time for countries and markets to adopt it before the Kyoto treaty runs out in 2012.]

    [Obama has committed the US to reducing its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, but scientists and European governments insist deeper cuts are needed. Obama has suggested that the US could compensate with swifter reductions in the years beyond 2020. His recent budget proposal calls for reducing US emissions roughly 80% by 2050 over 2005 levels.]
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/25/barack-obama-climate-copenhagen-delay

  3. [Hillary has done an enormous amount of damage in Europe and I’m sure Obama will be able to win them over with his intelligence, wit and charm]

    Diog, methinks it’s the other way around. it is Hill that is propping up Obi. Afterall, Hill gets in the most pretty A list of the Pollies. Her killer grin and that bloody orange suit (no, not that one given to Fitzy by Helen of troy).

    Obi is nowhere to be seen. You know how the froggies and co. love everything in shirt. You should get Obi to dress up a bit. He will look at good in the black gown of Michelle my belle, Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble, tres bien ensemble.

  5. [ polyquats
    Posted Sunday, March 29, 2009 at 1:43 pm | Permalink
    Techically, Pakistan was only formed as a consequence of Britain relinquishing it’s power in India. Britain was never the ‘colonial masters’ of Pakistan.Tom.

    Technically, that is, if you’re into splitting hairs. Will ‘colonial masters of the territory now known as Pakistan’ make you happy?]

    No it doesn’t actually. Britain was the colonial masters of the lands now occupied by Israel. Britain has no more hold over Pakistan than it does Israel.

    Tom.

  6. [Techically, Pakistan was only formed as a consequence of Britain relinquishing it’s power in India. Britain was never the ‘colonial masters’ of Pakistan.]

    On this basis, Britain never had “deep historical ties” with Pakistan either. Move along.

    Adam’s rubbish about the Netherlands in WW2 is essentially the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy, that he so despises, slightly disguised.

  10. In absolute terms, US power has never been greater, politically, economically, militarily, culturally. In relative terms, of course US power is declining, because since 1945 nearly all other countries have adopted either a market economy or political democracy or both – Germany, Japan, China, India, even Russia (slowly). This is called “the rise of the rest” and is an entirely predictable and positive development. The US is still vastly superior to any other single power politically, economically and militarily. Now that Bush is gone US moral leadership can be re-asserted. So I am perfectly happy, thanks for asking.
    http://www.videosift.com/video/Im-super-thanks-for-asking

  11. I am still trying to figure out why Turnbull, Abbot, Hockey et al think they are on a winner with the “Govt is too close to China” line?

    Sure it plays well to a small demographic sector – who probably vote conservative anyway. But surely business is horrified?

    Adam I agree with you at 1609 – although American “popular” culture is an area I would be very happy to see decline rapidly. 🙂

  13. Well done vera,

    I finished behind. The Sharks with the start saved me from a wipeout. 🙁

    I’ll get ’em next week 😉

  14. RU, there are many things in American popular culture I dislike, but that’s mainly because I’m an upper-class middle-aged fuddy-duddy. *Politically* US popular culture is a powerful icebreaker for western values. The most encouraging thing I saw in China in January was the steadily increasing penetration of western culture among young Chinese. Western ideas come as a package, and by letting in one part the Chinese regime cannot prevent the other parts getting in too.

    Diogenes, Sooner or later, and probably sooner, both Russia and China will have to decide whether they want to be powerful, prosperous, democracies, or weak, poor, authoritarian regimes. Their current attempts to be both at once are not sustainable in the long run. On China, I recommend Will Hutton’s “The Writing on the Wall”, which I read while travelling around China. So far as I can see, everything he predicts is happening.

  18. Not sure if this has popped up yet, but this is what Julia Gillard’s been getting up to lately:

    1,000 jobs at risk under new Job Network: opposition

    Job Network are some of the most completely useless, incompetent (if not actively evil) people in Australia – they’ve caused me nothing but grief the couple of times I’ve had occasion to rely on them. They deserve to lose their jobs, and then get put through the hell of looking for work and wrangling Centrelink at the same time. I hope Gillard just abolishes the whole thing and brings back the CES. It wouldn’t make Mrs Rudd too happy, though – that’s how she made her millions.

    Also, that noted champion of workers’ rights, Tony Abbott’s been having a little whinge about it:

    [ “This is a first-class muck-up.”

    The stuff up will see Prime Minister Kevin Rudd “come crashing back to earth with a thud” pretty quickly.

    “One hundred thousand newly redundant people without access to proper services – that’s the kind of thing that is going to make this … inept prime minister very unpopular very quickly.” ]

    To which Gillard gets her claws out and goes for the throat. Go get ’em, Julia, 🙂

  19. Bird

    I have had the distasteful experience with a job network shonkster, I found myself a job, they were horrified.

    “What – if you say we found you the job we can help you – here look two $20 petrol vouchers”.

    The system needs a rocket up it, go Julia. 🙂

  20. I managed to find myself a job recently, without their ‘help’ – in the meantime I spent about a month without any form of income and with no money, which was… interesting. They rang me up the other day, asking me why I didn’t turn up to a meeting with them, and I deliberately didn’t tell them that I’d found a job – just told them I didn’t need their help any more. That way they don’t get their $$$ from the govt (a few grand per ‘outcome’, isn’t it?). Heh.

  21. Sadly (and I say that as a former employee of both the CES and DSS) the CES is in all likelihood un-revivable. While a national government provider is prefereable to the failed Job Network system, wholesale changes are just unlikely to pass at this time. It took Howard & co nearly 10 years to kill off the CES and its last vestiges, so I don’t think Rudd will be able to bring it back in less than 2.

    Pity, because many employees of the CES felt they were doing something positive for people (actually trying to get them something) – of course people had bad experiences, and the system didn’t always work, but at the end of the day you felt you had got somewhere. I didn’t get the same feeling working in a DSS Regional Office, though – far too punitive.

  22. Adam

    Thanks for the book recommendation.

    [Diogenes, Sooner or later, and probably sooner, both Russia and China will have to decide whether they want to be powerful, prosperous, democracies, or weak, poor, authoritarian regimes.]

    Isn’t it possible to be a powerful and prosperous authoritarian regime?

    Obviously things have changed but most great empires of the past haven’t been democratic. And there are plenty who argue that being a democracy is a positive hindrance to building an empire. There is a difference between an empire and a country but when you’re talking about huge, diverse countries like China, India and Russia, they almost start to function like an empire as they are so stretched to govern all of it.

  23. Oh, and I always felt some the miscreant MP’s like Vanstone, Abbott, Hockey & Andrews should have to spend time working their way through the Centrelink – Job Network system to get some sense of the crap you put up with and humilation it can engender.

    One for Adam – on what US popular culture can mean for European democracies I recommend getting hold of the two Perry Anderson articles in the London Review of Books from 26 Feb & 12 March for an account of the rise of Berlusconi and the failure fo the Italian Second Republic (the first being the one ended by “Operation Clean Hands” in the early 1990’s).

    Yes, all dreadfully middle-class of me I know…

  24. [Isn’t it possible to be a powerful and prosperous authoritarian regime?]

    Not in the modern world, no.

    Stewart, to save the effort of reading them, what is the link between US popular culture and the rise of Berlusconi? Does it have something to do with Madonna?

  25. Gary Bruce @ 1522
    I think we may be agreeing that the Report was a bit of a crock? My first point was that this would not stop silly people from using it to score points. My second point was why do Governments feel that they have the right to routinely manipulate the publication of reports. They were paid for by taxpayers and taxpayers should have access to them to help make informed views. I hope Faulkner addresses this. He is impressive in his zeal for real reform.

    You state: ‘To me anything that makes new water makes sense.’
    Well, not really, when you think about it. Desal plants use huge amounts of CO2 to build and run. They are the equivalent to adding CO2 deckchairs to the Global Warming Titanic. The thing that really makes sense is to manage the demand size a much, much better. But, of course, we mustn’t upset the voters with reality.

    I did have a lateral thought on the North-South pipeline. Perhaps Melbourne can pump a bit of water into the Goulburn. It would be good for the Basin.

  26. My second “run in” with my job network dorks was when I became disabled and granted a DSP. Despite all my docs and the centrelink doc saying I could not work the job network wallies still wanted their cut.

    I refused to go and see them, the last thing a person with a “compromised immune system” should have to endure is a Job Network office. So I stuck to my position, “If you want to interview me – you know my address – come and see me”.

    I was then presented with the bad news that I was “removed” from their client list and that I would recieve no help for 12 months.

    This caused all kinds of difficulties when the 2 yearly Job Capacity Assesment was due. It took two months to sort out. Eventually the new mob said “yep you cannot work” see you in two years.

    Costello’s welfare to work crap – used to help his budget deficit – has to get shafted.

  27. Shows On @ 1590

    I don’t get your point about Taliban and narco-terrorism when they were in power. They achieved what no-one has achieved before and after – they significantly reduced the size of the Afghanistan opium crop. (You may remember that Vanstone did a bit of opportunistic posturing about what a good job she had done in the ‘war on drugs’).
    Now they no longer hold the reins of Government the Taliban are promoting opium growth to fund their activities, so huge amounts are being grown again.

  28. Adam
    No, it was the failure of the left at any stage to deal intellectually with it, instead locking itself into an ideological deadend. Anderson argues that post WW2, power in Italy the Christian Democrats, and culture to the PCI. However the PCI failed to understand the cultural changes of the 60’s & 70’s, and preferred to think that high culture and the PCI (and communism) were the natural and only bedfellows.

    Berlusconi himself has been aided by a centre-left seemingly attempting to retain the political field for two parties of the centre (left & right) and consistently yielded the political impetus to Berlusconi – who has of course spent no time again putting himself above the law, deeply implicated as he is in the corruption of the final phase of the First Republic.

  31. Attempting to analyse Italian politics is a waste of time.

    It’s a corrupt mess of fascists, gangsters and religious extremists. And no, that is not an oversimplification.

  33. Stewart, yes I see now what you are referring to. In both France and Italy the communists spent the 50s and 60s posing as the “defenders of culture” against the influx of cultural junk from the US. While the PCI was up against the DC this made no difference, because the DC was also wedded to traditional European high culture. Once the DC was gone, the right was able to abandon the defence of culture theme and win support from young voters by exploiting popular culture. The fact that Berlusconi owned virtually all the mass media made this easy. In France both left and right remained tied to the defence of high culture through the Mitterand-Chirac era: Sarkozy marks the beginnings of a break from this.

  34. [I don’t get your point about Taliban and narco-terrorism when they were in power. They achieved what no-one has achieved before and after – they significantly reduced the size of the Afghanistan opium crop.]
    Oh quick bring back the Taliban! The wanted production cut so they could get higher prices so they could fund more terrorist projects. Read the 9/11 commission report.

  35. This might give us a clue as to what Obama is planning on CC. It will also be interesting to see what Oz has to say.

    [US President Barack Obama has invited figures from the world’s 16 major economies to Washington for a meeting on climate change at the end of April.

    The event will be the first meeting of what the White House styles “the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate”.

    It will focus on increasing the supply of clean energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the White House said. ]

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7970274.stm

  36. NSW is going to out-Rann Rann. Rees proudly tells us that his new bikie laws go further than the SA laws. Mick Keelty supports the new laws, presumably because the bikies won’t be able to repeatedly demonstrate what a laughing stock the AFP is.

    [PROPOSED laws in NSW will put the power to ban bikie gangs in the hands of a Supreme Court judge, Attorney-General John Hatzistergos says.
    Mr Hatzistergos and NSW Premier Nathan Rees on Sunday outlined tough new legislation calling for jail terms of two to five years for bikie gang members caught associating with one another after the gang is banned.]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25259061-5013945,00.html

  38. Diog

    These laws are crud, oh dear the comancheros are banned, OK lets join the Angels. The old consorting laws lead to police corruption these will do the same.

    Its an admission from state govts. that they cannot or will not enforce the law. 🙁

  40. [NSW is going to out-Rann Rann. Rees proudly tells us that his new bikie laws go further than the SA laws]

    Just out of interest; does anyone know if they are more far reaching than the powers Menzies proposed when banning the Communist Party?

    Or is it comparing apples and oranges legal-wise?

  41. Grog

    “Menzies introduced the Communist Party Dissolution Bill, which required anyone accused of being a communist to prove his or her innocence. The bill’s fundamental reversal of civil liberties led to an immediate High Court challenge. It was defeated in the High Court and at a subsequent referendum but succeeded in casting doubts about the Labor Party. ”

    So its a bit different.

  42. [I don’t know why you would want to bring back the Taliban quickly. I wouldn’t.]

    I don’t recall saying I want to bring back the Taliban….

  43. Grog

    On reflection they seem similar, the only way a person could get off a charge would be to prove their innocence. I bet that no one is charged under these crud laws.

  44. The Communist Party Dissolution Act was found unconstitutional on the grounds that the Constitution did not give the Commonwealth such a power. If a state had passed such a law it would have been perfectly valid.

  45. ruawake

    Couldn’t agree more. It’s a populist knee-jerk response to cover up for crap police forces. If these gangs are doing illegal things, by definition there is already a law they can be charged under.

    I’m not sure they could move to another gang though because the “non-consorting” part might prevent more than one of them being in any other gang.

  46. [If these gangs are doing illegal things, by definition there is already a law they can be charged under.]
    But isn’t it also the job of the police to stop people and organisations from committing crimes in the first place?

  47. “When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid”.

    There are many Commonwealth Laws – that would overide these crud laws. The first guys charged would be off to the HC.

  48. [But isn’t it also the job of the police to stop people and organisations from committing crimes in the first place?]

    Er no. Police should only be involved when a crime has been comitted.

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