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.
BH – I’m not advocating early retirement, especially if nothing productive or time filling is done to replace work. I’m just pointing out how sensitive people are with it.
People often dream of early retirement only to find themselves bored when they achieve it.
[And what do Poll Bludgers think about hearing JWH on the weekend saying that the current deficit position would have been a lot better if Workchoices were still in operation]
Why would I want to spoil my weekend watching that man? I’m trying my hardest to forget him after having to put up with non-stop media appearances over 11 years.
TP
I completely agree that the retirement age/super thing hasn’t been well explained. I suspect that as everyone works out what is going on that the unhappiness about it will drop off and it will be business as usual.
Scorpio. [poll was taken over a period of “two months”]
If that is the case I gather there would have had to have been an enormous shift against the government in recent times.
Diogs,
Agree. If there was anything in it politically, the Libs would have been all over it. Or, do I give them more credit than they deserve?
This poll seems an outlier so maybe not good for picking up the mood on a single issue.
With regard to Super they would need to do a poll the over 50s to see how much of an issue it is and I guess they probably will do that.
If it does looks anything like an issue with that age bracket it then becomes an issue that the Liberals can latch on to and of course do their usuall middle class welfar bit to win that segment over. The Govt needs to be very clear and persistent when talking about these issues.
AC Neilsen did not have a prebudget poll. When their last 58/42 came out it seemed a bit of an outlier anyway. Pleased to see our ABC calling it a “poor” poll result. Yes, a better position than the last election is still poor. Also think Grattan is trying a Gary Morgan and pinning the change on one issue- pension age.
Sorry TP I missed the point. You are right – they probably only heard ‘super changing’ and that’s enough to worry them without really investigating the changes.
From the Grattan article in the link above:
[The national opinion poll of 1400 was taken from Thursday to Saturday.]
dogma at 91 youre right. It should be the government not George M. making these points. Why are they afraid to do so??
[It can be hard to stop a slide if it gathers pace.]
OMG OMG!! Pass the suicide pills!
HONEYMOON OVER!!!
THE NARROWING!!
and now!
THE SLIDE!!! Yikes!!
help-help-me rhonda! 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mZ0ApTA-y4
Phil Coorey SMH says Turnbull will support the alcopop tax and Roxon said that the government will have the tobaccky tax as well as the alcopop tax. Economically sound for a recession, politically good for both parties, but voter land mightn’t like the new taxes unless they see benefits to the health departments and hospitals. Or some money being paid of the deficit, and that would have to be communicated effectively to voterland.
[bob1234
would point out that the Greens have won by elections before, only to lose the seat again at the next (real) election.]
This is only the second time the Greens have won a lower house single-member seat in any Australian parliament (the first being Cunningham), and the first time their primary vote was higher than Labor’s (the Green primary in Cunningham was 23%).
Antony Green himself has stated the Greens have a good chance of retaining Fremantle at the next election. 🙂
Good one Vera – we should send that the to the MSM. Still waiting to see the Swannies.
I agree Dogma – Govt. has to say that will put the tax taken into health. The mob will love that and it’s the right thing to do anyway.
Andrew 108
I pay a million (monopoly money) to find out the reason why Labor didn’t get rid of the lie that Lib’s left a surplus and sound forcasts. Just think that if they did then we wouldn’t be getting this scare campaign. Why do the Liberals have to scare people all the time?
Yes dogma particularly given how Howard trashed Labor’s record with the black hole claims. Does anybody have the inside story on why Labor is scared to run this line. It’s been in the OO after all!!!
[Rudd defends relationship with China – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he always makes decisions in Australia’s national interest, regardless of whether that makes him popular with other countries such as China.]
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/rudd-defends-relationship-with-china-20090518-b84h.html
I am not too sure that China is really that worried about its relationship with Australia at the moment. i have been keeping an eye on the People Daily, the official mouthpiece of CCCP.
I can see no editorial about this issue and the news reports have been on:
[Post-budget poll shows Australian PM less popular – 09:49, May 18, 2009
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s popularity has taken a 10 percentage hit in the first opinion poll issued since the Federal Budget was announced on May 12, according to local media on Monday.
The latest Nielsen poll, published in Fairfax newspapers on Monday morning, showed Rudd’s approval rating has dropped 10 percentage points from 74 percent in the last poll in late March.
Related News
100 days on, Australian bushfire region slowly recovers from wounds
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Late evacuation blamed for high death toll in Australian bushfire]
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6659736.html
It does make you wonder about the OZ’s Chinese torture.
OMG, it’s the harrowing!!!!!!!
The “surplus”, as we know, was less than half the value of one stimulus package. Some surplus! Especially given that the Howard Party spent or gave away more than 15 times that amount (314 billion) between the 2004-2005 budget and the 2007 election.
Doesn’t the Chinese spokesman’s views leave egg on Turnbull’s face – has he commented yet.
Swannie’s Chinalco decision will make for interesting times for Turnbull too.
One of my ‘not interested in politics’ kids just rang – said ‘is that right that media think Kev’s popularity is lousy at 64% – wish I was that popular with the opposite sex’. So we had a laugh. He is learning some lessons about the MSM.
Meanwhile in US politics…
An interesting pice here about form3er US defence secretary Colin Rumsfeld’s role in withholding army resources from the Hurrican Katrina relief debacle back in 2005. How did this man keep his job so long?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/018217.php
I wonder if we will ever hear the full truth on what he and Cheney did.
BH my kids think I’m crazy for being interested in politics, but their teenagers and think all adults are crazy ATM.
I read that Socrates, it seemed until the pilot told Bush on a flyover that they weren’t asked to he had no idea. Rumsfield had some sort of problem with that organisation and would rather have let the people effected by the hurricane fend for themselves then to swallow his pride and get these emergency relief helicopters to New Orleans.
The more you hear about Bush’s whitehouse picks, the more disgusted you get that they can treat their own people like that, let alone people from another country, and the more the Repugs party has been taken over by extreme right nuts.
[Former federal treasurer Peter Costello says the Coalition should not stop opposing Government measures just to avoid a double dissolution election trigger.
Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has indicated that the Coalition is likely to drop its opposition to the alcopops tax hike when it is reintroduced to Parliament in June. ]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/18/2573361.htm
Deviation from the Liberal leader, interesting…
[THE Obama administration’s Budget chief said there are signs that the free-fall in the economy seems to have halted.
“There are some glimmers of sun shining through the trees, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” White House budget director Peter Orszag said on CNN’s State of the Union.
US economic data have shown evidence that the recession’s worst phase may be over, with April consumer prices unchanged and industrial output declining at a slower pace than in March.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has also suggested that the recession should end this year as long as there is no re-emergence of the credit crunch.]
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25499681-5005962,00.html
Them’s the joys of being a teenager’s parent Dogma. You do actually survive and they are fascinating creatures as they become adults – otherwise we may have put them down. lol.
I will be their world so they have to learn that the Libs tell porkies about deficits and debt.
I helped pay off WW2 and the ’61 credit squeeze, the ’74 Oil shock recession , the ’87 share collapse and the ’01 socalled Asian crisis.
How dare kids nowdays think they should get away with thinking they don’t have to earn their place here.
And I could play the violin and say I lost a father to WW2 but we old Blue Gen. we just got on with things and in the course of it had to put up with Lib Govts. who did nothing but try to strike fear into our hearts and give us b…y Workchoices.
By the sound of your posts your kids will be OK.
“Barely four months into his presidency, Obama is confronting growing dissatisfaction among members of his liberal base, who feel spurned by a series of his early decisions on issues ranging from guns to torture to immigration to gay rights”.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22604.html#ixzz0FpFankY0&B
A piece from The Economist puts into perspective the absurd fear campaign on debt in the budget:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13604663
The killer line is here:
“The IMF reckons that AVERAGE government debt for the richer G20 countries WILL EXCEED 100% OF GDP in 2014, up from 70% in 2000 and just 40% in 1980.”
Makes our debt of 14% of GDP look rather small, like someone’s credibility.
YEAH!! My Aussie passport arrived in the mail today, while I’ve been a citizen since Australia Day 2007, this seems much more real than looking at a piece of paper with Amanda Vanstone’s sig on it 😀
[Lula Seeks to Revive China Pledge With China Trip (Update1) – May 18 (Bloomberg) — When China’s President Hu Jintao visited Brasilia four years ago he left Brazilians expecting $7 billion of Chinese investment. So far, they’ve seen $141.6 million or about 2 cents on the dollar.
Today, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 63, arrives in Beijing to make another attempt at turning Brazil’s chief commercial rival in Latin America into a partner.
As foreign investment dwindles amid the global credit crunch, Lula is seeking Chinese money that could help blunt his country’s sharpest economic contraction on record. He’ll also push to open China’s markets to Brazilian exports beyond soy, oil and iron.
“China is a threat, but also a great opportunity for Brazil,” Trade Secretary Welber Barral said in an interview in Brasilia. “It’s a competitor, but can be a partner.” ]
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEUmnImwo6q8&refer=home
yes, his name was Lula
He was a president
With yellow feathers in his hair
And a dress cut down to there
He knows how to samba,
from Copacabana to the Great Wall of China.
Eat your hat out Bazza.
Socrates, out of interest, what % of GDP was our debt in 2000?
dogma 122
Yes you realise that for Bush and Co. Iraq and waterboarding weren’t abberations. They treated their own citizens the same way when they could. There is something more than slightly sociopathic about people who see others as means to such an extent.
Net debt or gross debt ltep? It wasn’t in the article but I’d assume the NET debt of Australia then (2000) wasn’t much, certainly a lot lower than the structural deficit the Coalition left the new Labor government.
Good on ya Juliem. Hope you’ve got your strine down pat for your trip.
Just read crikey’s bit on Rumsfield. Surely he won’t be able to get away with all this.
[Good on ya Juliem. Hope you’ve got your strine down pat for your trip.]
Nope, she’s still got that Yankee Drawl 🙂
BH [I helped pay off WW2 and the ‘61 credit squeeze, the ‘74 Oil shock recession , the ‘87 share collapse and the ‘01 socalled Asian crisis.]
[How dare kids nowdays think they should get away with thinking they don’t have to earn their place here.]
Good bloody point BH, If we didn’t have deficits then nothing would be built and everything would stand still … sort of like when Howard was PM.
JulieM
congratulations … how’d your photo turn out 😉
There goes that mantra that the “Rudd Govt has not taken tough decisions” in the budget. And that it was a budget to please everyone.
The honeymoon is always longer under the Coalition.
bob, until that petulant child of a former treasurer doesnt put up (ie. challenge) or shut up, we should ignore him
Amigo GG
I wonder if the US green groups will be as scathing at Obi’s 17% targets as ours were at Rudds 15% and now possible 25% 😉 Still no critisism of this by Obi fans who got stuck into Rudd I notice 😉
Also what still gives me the shudders about Obi is that he still sounds like the snake oil salesman to me at these town hall meetings 😉
Another thing is the parties he always seems to be having with celeb guests at the White house and is portrayed on the TV laughing and partying, if that was Rudd our press would be calling him Nero!
Good on you Aussie Juliem 😀
Socrates
Everyone should read the GQ piece on Rumsfeldt, who was probably the worst US person in public life in our generation. He redefines despicable. Nixon was an absolute saint in comparison.
http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_9217
Costello won’t put up. He knows he’s got too much explaining to do about his profligate spending and structural deficit. If this Neilsen poll is indicative of a trend there’s nothing surer than Costello will sit on the outskirs (though not too far from the centre of the action), smirkingly undermining Turnbull with public contradictions while feeding rhetoric, hand-in-puppet style, into Turnbull’s underlings such as Hockey.
BH, I’ve not read that, I rarely if ever go to Crikey. On principle because I refuse to pay for my news so if it isn’t free, I’m not reading it unless someone else cuts and pastes it for me 😉 ….. I know a few Crikey things are free but I’m not wading through the site to try to find them.
That having been said, I have no confidence at all that anyone of any import in the Bush Admin. will be hung out to dry for their activities. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be Obama’s modus operandi 🙁 . Bush, himself, is arguably more in the “wrong” with “treatment” (not using the other ‘t’ word so I don’t set off Lib regulars on PB) of detainees than Nixon was vis a vis Watergate. Nixon, as you know historically, was pardoned by Ford. I feel that the same instincts that guided Ford at that time are behind Obama’s thinking now (protect the “institution”, blah, blah, blah). So, the bottom line is it doesn’t matter how wrong or bad the upper echelons of Bush Jnr’s admin were, they won’t be held to account for it.
🙁
dogma 135,
It is a POS 😀 ……… I’ve seen mugshots that look better 😉
Vera,
I’ve noticed a lot of the Obama cheersquad are starting to realise that he’s just another garden variety politician and that they’ve been used and abused. There are plenty of post hoc rationalisations hiding a growing awareness that they have been had.
Amigo GG & Vera,
Not to mention his jivin’, dunkin’, rappin’, and canin’ are just as fresh as Dubya’s tappin’
😉
I agree Juliem – they will probably be spared to save the ‘Institution’.
Better Obama/Biden than the alternative McCain/Palin GG – so I’ll still keep hoping that he’ll make a difference despite the conventional obstacles.
Cuppa, As my kids would say “I’m soh ova” Costello. His mug has been on every newspaper everyday for the last 12yrs and just like Howard people would be sick of seeing it, when they put compost over the top of it. Oh and Epic fail.
GG
Us liberal intelligentsia elite types have been thrown under the bus by Obama. The writing was on the wall after he beat Hillary and shifted to the centre against McCain. He’s shifting even further. At least the Ruddster never pretended he was a liberal.
GG @ 144
They are all politicians at the end of the day… but then again, would Hillary have done any differently?
BH
Glad Democrats are in power but us amigos preferred Hillary 😉