Newspoll: 58-42

The Australian reports Labor’s lead in the latest fortnightly Newspoll is up from 56-44 to 58-42. Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating is up two points to 67 per cent, and Malcolm Turnbull’s is down two to 18 per cent. More to follow.

UPDATE: Graphic here. Rudd has exchanged five points of disapproval (down to 21 per cent) for five of approval (up to 68 per cent), while Turnbull’s disapproval exceeds his approval for the first time (42 per cent to 39 per cent). Also featured are questions on foreign ownership of Australian mineral companies (it’s bad).

Elsewhere:

• The weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead steady at 63-37. The other questions relate to Australia’s international relations, in particular Kevin Rudd’s handling thereof (67 per cent approve), the state of our relations with China and the United States, and the countries respondents feel “are most like Australians in their attitudes and the way they see the world”.

• Perth’s ABC TV news yesterday reported that litigious Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer plans to bankroll a campaign by the WA Nationals to win a Senate seat at the next federal election – something they haven’t succeeded in doing since 1975. No word on who the candidate might be. Former Deputy Premier Hendy Cowan didn’t have any luck in 2001, but he did have Graeme Campbell/One Nation to contend with on that occasion. Their subsequent efforts have been half-hearted.

• The ABC reports the WA Nationals are insisting on a precisely fixed date for the state’s elections, contrary to Premier Colin Barnett’s policy of allowing flexibility in the timing of elections in February or March “in case of natural disasters”.

• In yet more Western Australian news, Antony Green has a page up on the state’s May 16 daylight savings referendum. The Poll Bludger’s page on the concurrent Fremantle by-election is in business here.

• The Victorian Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee will conduct an inquiry into whether the Electoral Act should be amended to expand the scope of the provision prohibiting misleading electoral material. At present this refers expressly to material “likely to mislead or deceive an elector in relation to the casting of the vote”, and is thus narrowly concerned with matters such as how-to-vote cards that deceive voters into backing the wrong party. The Victorian Electoral Commission rejected a complaint from independent Kororoit by-election candidate Les Twentyman about a Labor pamphlet stating that “a vote for Les Twentyman is a vote for the Liberals”, but its report on the by-election suggested parliament consider addressing “an undesirable trend for candidates to take advantage or build on community misunderstandings of preferential voting with confusing statements”.

• Ben Raue at the Tally Room has started an election wiki.

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.

1,460 comments on “Newspoll: 58-42”

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  1. Rudd doesnt really have any policies either he’s just in government. Rudd’s idea of getting us out of a recession (which we’re probably already in) is to spend all the money our country has and keep borrowing and selling government bonds to China in order to raise capital.

    We’ve run out of money and we’re in debt thanks to Mr Rudd.
    And yet his numbers are still so high.

  2. Spot on Gary Bruce. Sorry if you thought I have anything in common with my “namesake”. Just trying to make the Libs arguments by taking them to their absurd logical conclusions.

  3. I said the same thing (very nervously) during the ‘Scores scandal’, when confident predictions were being made that ‘this was the end of the honeymoon’ (I think it had only ended half a dozen times at that point) and noone knew whether it really was or not…
    If people genuinely like someone, and that person is attacked, they will swing even more violently towards that person in defence.
    And that’s what seems to be happening. People like Kev, they trust him; if he’s attacked, they get all bristly and defensive and his numbers go up.
    The Libs need to leave him alone. If they want to do personal attacks, they need to go for weak pins, that the public don’t care about. But they’d be much better just concentrating on painting themselves as fair, considered and reasonable, so that (when the tide finally turns, as tides do) the image in people’s minds is not negativity and carping.
    I can offer this advice freely, knowing that the Libs are incapable of following it.

  4. Juliem: don’t forget there are electoral redistributions to come in NSW and QLD, that might alter the margins in some seats.
    And, if the Libs are headed for another heavy defeat in 2010/2011, I wouldn’t expect that the likes of Peter Lindsay, Fran Bailey and a few others in marginal seats would want to hang around, so Rudd could very well pick up a few more seats because of Liberal sitting members retiring.

  5. Most marginal seat is McEwen: if Fran Bailey contests it again, she probably retains it, if she retires, it’s up for grabs.

  6. Glen youre clearly not getting the message. You seem to think the electorate will wake up one day and suddenly agree with you.

    Electorate to the libs: we’re happy with Rudd and the government. You need to offer a better alternative

  7. Andrew, at a rough guess, if the Newspoll was the actual election result, Labor would pick up McEwen, Herbert, La Trobe, Dickson, Bowman, Swan, Cowan, even Chris Pyne’s seat.

  8. If the Coalition sat down around the table now to establish their platform and policy direction would they be able to achieve a consensus that would last 5 seconds outside their meeting?

    The next thing they should consider is what type of leader is most acceptable to the public (hint: Obama, Rudd). The keep looking for messiahs and headkickers. Rudd is a data freak and Obama a true intellectual.

    They need an entire culture change.

  9. [Rudd doesnt really have any policies either he’s just in government]

    Hahahahahahahaha, you should get Lib HQ to try running with that line… I’m sure it will go down a treat in voterland! 🙂

  10. As an aside

    I think a few of the Howard battler seats will be in play next election.
    Reasons
    1 higher unemployment
    2 less confidence/mortgage stress
    3 changing world order

    I think the ‘dog whistles’ are playing on this fact and fanning the flames.

    the Libs are playing the long game as well as short term Hits.

  11. Fran Bailey is 65 now. The Bushfire Disaster has given a boost to her popularity and als give her a legacy beyond her years as one of Howard’s 96ers.

    She is unlikely to run again.

  12. This is the link to the new pendulum BUT it isn’t organized nicely into coalition and labor columns. It has the seats in their OLD order but notes who has won them. Would have preferred to have it just shuffle them into two lots straight up and in numberical order as the old pendulum was. Antony, is there a link to the post election pendulum in that format?

    http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/results/pendulum.htm

    What it does show, though, for those who don’t want to read the fine print. From the top down the 10 seats won off of the Libs and their percentages from most to least –

    Forde, previously at 11.5
    Leichardt, previously at 10.3
    Dawson, previously at 10.0 (to the Nats)
    Flynn, previously at 7.7 (to the Nats)
    Petrie, previously at 7.5
    Robertson, previously at 6.9
    Longman, previously at 6.7
    Blair, previously at 5.7
    Page, previously at 5.5 (to the Nats)
    Corangamite, previously at 5.3

  13. Why has Malco not been smart enough to change his approach? His trendlines are all down and yet the Opp. are talking about blocking the budget etc. The party of NO.

    Just remember that for all his bravado, Malcolm supported the StimPac 1 from last December which he now decries bitterly. Talk about the Malco 3 step dance.

  14. The Libs have been a bunch of headless chooks for a while now, I’m not expecting Turnbullbutter to change his approach anytime soon.

  15. I wouldn’t be carried away with these polls except to say it indicates that Labor has a resilient lead over the Coalition.

    Didn’t I hear that Obama was going to visit Indonesia later this year? No doubt he could drop in.

  16. Diogenes, from previous thread, you still win with your Jeckle and Hyde remark 🙂 you can’t help it if Malcolm is a bit slow.

  17. TP if you are happy that one government alone is buying up australian commonwealth government bonds then you have probably have a screw loose somewhere.

  18. David, it is only going to change a FEW seats in NSW and QLD. 90 to 95% of it will still be exactly the same. Once we can scrounge up a link to the post election pendulum in a traditional 2 column format with new margins for the seats, we’ll be in business and then will have a much better idea of where these juicy polls are taking us 😀

  19. House of Reps is not the main game really. The Senate is. The ALP best possible outcome is perhaps greens having the balance.

    Mr X is the fly in the ointment. Will he get someone to run under his banner in the next half senate or a running mate in a DD?

    As for a NAT getting a guernsey in WA, it would be most likely at the expense of the Liberals one would think. The greens are still doing well and ALP is pretty much at rock bottom.

  20. I understand your point Glen.But I thought Japan and others were buying up our bonds as well? I know China is a big buyer.

    [World-Beating Australian Bonds Rally Is Luring Daiwa (Update2)

    April 3 (Bloomberg) — Australia is attracting bids for triple the amount of debt offered at auction, fueling a world- beating rally even as its bond market swells by 41 percent.

    The government today sold A$599 million ($430 million) of securities due in 2013, drawing bids for 3.4 times the amount offered.

    “There is a very high level of foreign investment in Australian government bonds and if they stay engaged, yields can stay pretty low,” said James Hayes, head of fixed income for Australia and New Zealand at BNP Paribas SA in Sydney.]
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a2iQkNT4996A&refer=japan

  21. [Why has Malco not been smart enough to change his approach? His trendlines are all down and yet the Opp. are talking about blocking the budget etc.]

    The internal politics of the Liberal party must be absolutely killing Turnbull. The only way he can retain support is to continually take the fight to the government, opposing and attacking relentlessly, so as to appease the right-wingers who loathe the ALP with all of their being. But in doing so he’s severely damaging the party to the point where its leadership becomes essentially worthless.

    So what’s his motiviation for fighting on each new day, when he must know how hopeless the situation is? For the first time I can reveal Turnbull’s ultimate plan. He’s clearly aiming to get the Liberal vote sufficiently low by the time of the next election to ensure that as many of the old guard lose their seats as possible. He’s perfectly safe within his own seat, even obtaining a swing towards him last election. He’ll then be able to finally take control and lead the party the way he wants, to victory in another 3 years’ time.

    It’s the only explanation that makes any sense. Of course, he’ll be such damaged goods by that time that he has no hope of succeeding. Still, it’s his best (and only) shot. But how much does he really want to be PM? Enough to risk another 4-5 years of his life on it?

  22. TP,

    Interesting that the world markets are giving Rudd and the Australian Government’s approach to the GFC the thumbs up.

    On the other hand, the Libs and Turnbull have played the wrong strategy and are now in danger of talking Australia down. At any time that is dangerous, but in a time of crisis the electorate is going to want to see all hands to the pump.

    Turnbull and the Libs have totally stuffed up.

  23. [Cast doubts aside, G20 is right to borrow and spend

    But the counter-intuitive idea that governments should increase their borrowing to minimise the economic damage done by private sector debt reductions, could be described as the most important insight of economic theory since David Ricardo came up with the equally implausible-sounding idea that nations could enrich themselves by removing the barriers that protected their industries from foreign competition, however cheap or “unfair”. ]
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article6041266.ece

  24. Anyone heard if Ackerman,Bolt and Blair along with a few other Liberal toadies have done the lemming trip and chucked them selves off a high building yet.
    These Newspoll figures (owned by the Australian,would I lie to you Newspaper) must be killing them still Piers can fall back on gibbering about Hiener

  25. juliem, with NSW losing a seat and Qld gaining one, the changes will be more sweeping than that.

    zombie – good point! Presumably any WA Nat would caucus with the eastern states Nats. So why throw a truckload of money at trying to flip a seat from one coalition party to another?

  26. Sour grapes by the OO, after all their hard work last week to knock Rudd off his perch lol
    This is them trying to console themselves over Newspoll as they wipe away the tears and stamp their little foot
    [Ultimately the voters turn on politicians who pretend
    But voters invariably work out when people have different public and private faces. People in politics and the Canberra press gallery have long known of Mr Rudd’s short temper, and many do not find him endearing. The risk for the Prime Minister is that the voters will consider the media coverage and conclude that Sunrise and the real Rudd are different men.]
    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25299994-25209,00.html
    [voters will consider the media coverage]
    LMAO I don’t think so!

  27. Malcolm has done the flip on performance for the first time:
    39 Satisfied
    42 dissatisfied

    Is this the cue for Costello? Did they have a deal? Will Cossie push or will Malco go POP?

  28. Are these journos seriously demented or what? How is an investigation into a clear leak of Defense department goings on, a ‘witch hunt’. Witches didn’t exist. Somebody give them a good slap ffs.

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/anger-grows-at-farcical-fitzgibbon-inquiry-20090406-9uw6.html

    [HUNDREDS of Defence Department security officials are being pressed to sign statutory declarations as part of a widening witch-hunt into the Joel Fitzgibbon affair.]

  29. Here’s a prediction you will hear more and more in the nest few days.

    Hockey will lead the Opposition.
    All the Libs will say that Joe’s a good guy and he has a difficult task.
    Libs will lose the election.
    At the appropriate moment, all the Libs will say that although Joe is still a good guy and has had adifficult task, he hasn’t lived up to expectations and should be replaced.

  30. But GG, the Libs are living in Groundhog’s Day. They’re going to have to do that another 72 times before November next year!

  31. So, Rudd goes to G20 and popularity goes up, as well as the ALP’s TPP. Turnbull and the Libs sink further. Rate cut tomorrow or even rates holding steady will be another positive for the Govt and make the Libs look even more silly on economic management which has to be a bad look for them.

    How do you reckon the figures will start to look though, if Obama’s recent stated position on nuclear arms control even begins to look like a reality?? This article actually links this to Rudd’s position in Hiroshima last year and i have vague memories of Rudd being criticized for this at the time??

    http://www.smh.com.au/world/no-nukes-vows-obama-20090405-9tas.html?page=-1

    It may actually be quite legitimate for the ALP machine to spin any positive moves on this over the next year or two (like US / Russia decommissioning a few hundred or thousand warheads each) as somewhat down to Rudd and his diplomatic efforts.

    Heavy Kevie saves the world from nuclear annihilation anyone?? While its not going to win over rusted on Libs, (who seem to be the only ones who reckon they will vote for that rabble), it really wouldn’t need to as they wont determine the result of the next elections. At the moment all the ALP need to do is solidify the record levels of support that they have to give the Libs a good kicking and build a massive seats buffer for the next election or two.

    This happy thought being apart from the simple fact that the world could do with a lot less nuclear weapons.

  32. Robert Manne rips Albrechtsen and the ‘Australian Right’ a new one with a bit of basic research a high school student could do. Basically he demonstrates Albrechtsen was incorrect in her assertions about the Rudd ‘neo-liberal’ essay being an ideological backflip. She just had to look up hansard, or use google, to find it out for herself. OOPS.

    They should just stick to writing about Rudds obvious lack of social skills. Which, by the way, is not that surprising as he is an intellectual book nerd type of guy.

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25299902-7583,00.html

  33. Given the allegations from the media that they have leaked data from defence, allegations of spying on the minister and engaging in politics you would think an investigation would be mandatory.

    The media got leaked data and are trying to protect their source. However some of the implications of the Defence leaking are of some concern and go beyond just investigating this incident, it goes to person(s) abusing their position and powers for the purpose of undermining a minister and or the duly elected government.

    The media try to make it seem justifiable by smear Ms Liu in making her seem some risky sneaky woman with powers but present no data beyond what is normal. This is disgrace of the media. They would destroy one innocent person to protect the sleazy work of another person for the purpose of attacking yet another person with no justification.

    The Age comes out stinking in this. As does their extremely weird position that the Government should butt out of interfering in Chinalco taking a large stake in Rio Tinto. As though this isn’t a matter of national importance that the govt should at least risk assess.

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