The first post-budget poll is an ACNielsen survey of 1400 respondents, and it’s given Labor its second weakest poll result since the election of the Rudd government. The first was the same outfit’s 52-48 result from September last year. ACNielsen’s previous survey in March had Labor’s lead at 58-42. The poll finds that:
• Labor’s primary vote is down three points since March to 44 per cent, while the Coalition is up six to 43 per cent.
• The Coalition has opened up a most unlikely sounding five point primary vote lead in Victoria, after trailing by 20 per cent in March.
• Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 69-24 to 64-28.
• Rudd’s approval rating is down 10 points to 64 per cent, and his disapproval is up 10 to 32 per cent. Turnbull’s ratings are unchanged at 43 per cent and 47 per cent.
• While 56 per cent believe the budget to have been fair, only 40 per cent support the budget’s phased increase in the age of pension eligibility from 65 to 67, and 38 per cent say the budget will make them worse off personally. Twenty-three per cent say it will make them better off.
The print edition will presumably feature a full chart with none-too-reliable state breakdowns.
UPDATE: No such budget narrowing from Essential Research, which has Labor’s two-party lead up from 61-39 to 62-38. However, Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is down nine points from three weeks ago to 61 per cent, while his disapproval is up eight to 29 per cent. Turnbull is respectively up two to 30 per cent and up one to 49 per cent. Interestingly, fewer people found the budget bad for them personally than had expected to beforehand. Twenty-five per cent say it will make them more likely to vote Coalition against 22 per cent Labor. Peter Brent has ACNielsen’s state, area, gender and age breakdowns here.
Good news week guy: “If a bomb goes off, and Rudd can’t get to his new bunker quick enough, all he has to do is hide behind Joe Hockey.”
No 599
Just so you know, there’s nothing wrong with a PM residing in Kirribilli House. If you think there is, you’re out of touch with Australians.
[GP, do you really expect us to believe that the profligate spending of Howard did not produce a corresponding increase in inflation?]
G.P. thinks that when Liberals spend, that money comes from trees. But when Labor government’s spend, that is stolen from rich people or borrowed from foreign governments.
GP,
Your Howard love knows absolutely no bounds. Keep it up! I love the focus on a has been who ain’t coming back.
It seems William Bowe himself predicts big things for the Greens, probably to the despair of Laborites on here. And the ABC’s Antony Green reckons that the Greens will retain Freo at the next election. What better people could we turn to for their opinion? Checkmate.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/18/freo-by-election-the-beginning-of-big-things-for-the-greens/
[In any event, the Australian people couldn’t care less. They re-elected him three times and his residing in Sydney was not a reason for his loss in 2007.]
Oh yeah, it was the burning issue of every election. What a purile statment.
Poeple won’t vote Rudd out of office because he got stroppy at the air stewardess – doens’t make him right.
Your devotion to your former leader borders on the Animal Farm levels. Like Boxer you cannot move from “John Howard is always right”.
[Just so you know, there’s nothing wrong with a PM residing in Kirribilli House. If you think there is, you’re out of touch with Australians.]
LOL! Guess what G.P., I AM AN AUSTRALIAN, and Phillip Ruddock and Amanda Vanstone are no longer in charge of the department of immigration, which means I can’t be deported.
lateline announced newspoll yet?
That inflation was a real problem in early 2008 is evidenced by ABS data that sees it go from 3.0% in the December quarter 2007 to 5.0% in the September quarter 2008.
Dave, thanks, I’ll keep an eye out. Centre, wasted is right. Wasted boom, wasted decade.
Gotta love the justice that rewarded Howard with 10 interest rate rises in a row in response to his inflationary profligacy, which gave the emphasis to the Coalition 2004 election lie: to keep interest rates at record lows.
Bob if the Greens don’t eventually support Labor’s CPRS they will no longer be relevant. They will forever be considered as an extremest party.
Bob,
William also predicted a Labor win on Saturday.
As always, the Greens cherry picking the news that suits.
[Bob if the Greens don’t eventually support Labor’s CPRS they will no longer be relevant. They will forever be considered as an extremest party.]
I think that when push comes to shove, they will belatedly support it.
No 607
What a crying shame.
Very selective reading of the history of Kirribilli House, GP.
[In 1956-57 the Commonwealth Government restored Kirribilli House for use as a residence for overseas guests of the Commonwealth and the Prime Minister of the day and his family.]
http://www.theaustralianafund.org.au/kirribilli.html
It was intended to be used by the PM when he needed to perform official duties and extend official hospitality when in Sydney. To suggest that it was simply an alternative accommodation to the lodge is to rewrite history, and to ignore the hue and cry that occured when Howard (or was it Jeanette?) through the hissy fit over having to live at the lodge.
[I think that when push comes to shove, they will belatedly support it.]
I don’t think they will, but it’s definitely not going to make them irrelevant. Voting for a crap policy because Labor’s only argument is “It’s better than nothing” is what will make them irrelevant.
[What a crying shame.]
Your hatred of democracy is un-Australian.
[lateline announced newspoll yet?]
It doesnt start for another hour…
[but it’s definitely not going to make them irrelevant]
I agree with this.
The Greens can only support the CPRS if they can “improve” it. Nothing to be gained for them voting for it as is.
(Though that statement possibly completely contradicts previous statements made by me on the subject!)
OK Oz, reject it, and give all your preferences to the liberals so you can have a better ETS under them LOL.
No 617
It’s more a hatred of morons.
GG
From dim memory, the rest of the Dem Senators voted with Lees and Howard. I assume Howard needed more than just Lees’ vote and the other Dems could have saved their Party but didn’t.
[It’s more a hatred of morons.]
Play nice GP, you are as liable as any of us here to make statements covered in idiocy, no need to get personal.
Grog,
While Oz and Bob get their messages from Greens HO straight, it’s more likely the Libs will support the ETS. Therefore, the Greens will be left out on the limb playing the banjo of irrelevant deliverance.
[They {Greens} will forever be considered as an extremest party.]
No more extremist than the Liberals. I’ve seen a graph of where on the L-R spectrum people perceive the parties to be. The Liberals were perceived as being further to the right than the Greens are to the left.
Diog,
I don’t think Natasha the Scot Destroyer supported it.
[From dim memory, the rest of the Dem Senators voted with Lees and Howard. I assume Howard needed more than just Lees’ vote and the other Dems could have saved their Party but didn’t]
Dio
read andrew bartletts blog
quite enlightning re gst harradine etc
[It’s more a hatred of morons.]
Morons are part of democracy too, how else could you explain Phillip Ruddock and Amanda Vanstone becoming immigration ministers?
You’re working at full speed tonight G.P.!
[It’s more a hatred of morons.]
#622, is your nappy too tight tonight?
How embarrasing for the Greens GG. To have an ETS determined by Labor with support from the Liberals. It will be yes indeed. Who needs the Greens?
[It’s more a hatred of morons.]
I read that as mormons
Finns,
GP and friends should be talking more about the lessons they learnt, than the morons they are.
Not if they don’t support the ETS Cuppa @ 626. 😉
Agreed GG, but I don’t think that will hurt them. Nothing to be gained form the Greens being seen to suport a ETS that the Liberal Party is happy with.
They’re not ever going to be the second party in the country, so it’s best for them to be seen as strong on the one issue their voters want them to be strong on.
The only risk for the Greens is that the Libs don’t support the policy, and thus we get nothing. Their voters might think something is better than nothing.
So ideally the Libs suport it, and the Greens can play the “it’s a bad polciy and we need your vote to improve it” card.
If the ETS doesn’t go through, they are left holding the “You voted for us to get an ETS, but we voted for nothing rather than perfection” card.
So all in all, some big stakes poker is getting played at the moment.
I think Bartlett & NSD were the 2 Dems that voted against it (of 7)
[#622, is your nappy too tight tonight?]
Finns
I was going to ask someone else the same thing last night
😉
lol Dario, trying to keep the eyes open and shooing the teens off to bed so I can watch it. 3 polls in 24hrs, trying to speed read 6 pages of PB and read Poss’s latest post…there’s alot going on.
Diog, with John Huntsman. All i have to say is beware of a Mormon bearing gifts or knocking on my front door (i usually just tell them to farq off):
[The fool and The Lady of the lake – She is an imprisoned opposition Nobel Prize winner and the hope of a nation. He is a Morman from Missouri on some quixotic spiritual mission. When he swam ashore at her guarded home last week in Yangon, their fates were bound together forever. Now pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Vietnam vet John Yettaw are in prison and the future of Myanmar may be on the line.]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/KE16Ae02.html
Grog,
My guess is the legislation will be rejected first time around and the Government will re introduce to present as a DD triggger around September.
It is then that the Libs have to make a call. Libs will not want to fight an election on anything but the economy because, strange as it might sound, that is their only hope of winning.
Certainly NSD did. Her finest hour. I don’t remember whether the Pear did or not. No doubt he will come and tell us.
What a pity NSD came into politics too young, and for the Silly Party. She left just as she was developing into a mature politician. She’s only 39 even now, plenty of time to make a comeback if she can find a more sensible party…
Yes Grog, big stakes poker is at play here, and I reckon the Greens are going to lose if they are not seen as responsible enough to ever make an agreement with a major party on their very core issue.
GG, are the Libs going to run on interest rates always being lower under a coalition government?
http://www.rba.gov.au/ChartPack/interest_rates_australia.pdf
[If the PM feels more comfortable living in Sydney, so be it. ]
It was Mrs Bucket who insisted on living in Sydney. Little Johnnie simply did as he was told.
[What a pity NSD came into politics too young, and for the Silly Party. She left just as she was developing into a mature politician. She’s only 39 even now, plenty of time to make a comeback if she can find a more sensible party…]
The Democrats were a great party during it’s heyday… but would never win over the vote of extreme right wingers such as yourself.
steve,
They’d run under orgasms are better under a coalition if they thought they could win.
[Certainly NSD did. Her finest hour]
As said previously, I think the GST is good policy, but it was absolutely the wrong move politically for the Democrats.
[She’s only 39 even now, plenty of time to make a comeback if she can find a more sensible party…]
And given the Dem’s are gone the stigma of coming back for the ALP wouldn’t be as bad as it was for Kernot.
I voted for NSD for the president of the Adelaide Uni Student Association back in 90 (or 91?). Incedentally she used her initials on all her campaign posters.
GG,
Orgasms are always better under the Labor because it offers more stimulus.
[They’d run under orgasms are better under a coalition if they thought they could win.]
There’ll always be more orgasms under a Labor government.
Because everyone knows Liberal supporters can’t get any.
[Because everyone knows Liberal supporters can’t get any.]
Except when John Howards starts talking about Workchoices 🙂