Newspoll: 56-44

Don’t ask me how, but Peter Brent at Mumble seems to have the scoop on Newspoll. Labor’s lead is up slightly on a fortnight ago, from 55-45 to 56-44. Better news for them still on the primary vote, up four points to 46 per cent with the Coalition down one to 34 per cent. Despite this, Kevin Rudd has recorded his weakest personal ratings since October, his approval down six points to 58 per cent and his disapproval up five to 31 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull’s position has improved, his approval up four points to 40 per cent and his disapproval down three to 42 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 64-19 to 58-24.

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.

1,580 comments on “Newspoll: 56-44”

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  1. All this stuff about debt is just complete and utter bunkum. Australia was built on debt. All developing economies are built on debt. Menzies ran budget deficits every year he was in office. He borrowed to build the Snowy Mountains scheme, the beef roads, hospitals and universities. Debt is how all countries, all corporations, all households, finance growth. Debt is necessary. Debt is healthy. Debt is good. We are PROUD of our debt. It shows we are investing in Australia’s future, and that lenders have confidence in that future.

  2. [Rudd said on Lateline that peak debt will be 13.8% of GDP, which in dollar terms is $300 billion.]
    That’s less than when John ‘G.P.’s Messiah’ Howard was Prime Minister.

  3. [I’m sure they’re very sad about the idea of doubling their Upper House representation.]

    While their representation in the upper house has doubled, their influence there has vanished, for which they can largely blame themselves.

  4. well i’m off to bed – budget is out, and three of the four polling companies record a swing TO labor, with the all important Newspoll recording labor primary up 4, 2pp up 1, on 56/44. all in all, very good, libs to spend another 13 years in opposition just like last time.

    To all you libs – have a tissue. It must hurt to be so solidly rejected by the electorate.

    Goodnight all! 😀

  5. Compared to most of the planet, that’s a bugger all amount. Then again, the Republicans and the wonders of Reagonomics made their fair share of debt didn’t they? 😉

  6. [That’s less than when John ‘G.P.’s Messiah’ Howard was Prime Minister.]
    Correction: when John ‘G.P.’s Messiah’ Howard was Treasurer.

  7. Have to agree Rudd looked a bit rattled.

    is it my imagination or was there a phase about a year ago when Rudd was supposed to have a glass jaw? or was it pre-election?

    I wonder if that little thought is going to come back for a another round by the conservative journalists

  8. [Rudd said on Lateline that peak debt will be 13.8% of GDP, which in dollar terms is $300 billion.]

    Gosh, that’s around 10% more than the conservatives minimum level of debt. A whole 10%! The Libs can’t even get their maths right on the ciggy tax so who knows what level of debt they’d eventually rack up. Thankfully we are not about to find out as they are unelectable.

  10. [While their representation in the upper house has doubled, their influence there has vanished, for which they can largely blame themselves.]

    Yep, thanks to their “Deal” on getting 1 Vote 1 Value passed in the Upper House.

    William, would Saturday’s Results be the same under the old boundries ?

  11. [While their representation in the upper house has doubled, their influence there has vanished, for which they can largely blame themselves.]

    Is this about one vote one value? I have no idea about intricacies of that, but I would rather an increased Green vote + fairer electoral system than a lower Green vote + a gerrymandered system, even if The Greens had more direct influence that way.

  12. No 101

    The quesiton concerns the magnitude of debt not the validity of debt itself. Important distinction.

  13. Psephos, one of the electorates to have three members who were leaders is Kooyong (Peacock, Menzies, Latham).

    Not sure of the other, unless you count Wentworth (Turnbull, Hewson and Peter Coleman who was – obviously at a different time – leader of the NSW Liberals).

  14. I took that test on which party best suits you yonks back and don’t feel like repeating it and got something like 98% Green and was also surprised that the Nationals came last by quite a bit and One Nation 2nd-to-last, i’d have thought it would have been the other way around.

  15. [Psephos, one of the electorates to have three members who were leaders is Kooyong (Peacock, Menzies, Latham).]

    Latham was in Werriwa (Gough’s Seat)

  18. Yep, Megalogenis, and Access Economics: ‘Costello to blame for deficit’ is the big message out there. Wont take long for punters to pick up on it. Mind you, polls seem to suggest they arent buying it start with.

    Wow Talcum – punters HAD heard of the GFC after all.

    Back to the tactics room! *whip noises*

  19. 101:

    Debt is not a good thing if it’s incurred in respect of something that is unproductive.

    IE: pink-batts, the Tree of Knowedge restoration and school assemby hall renovations.

  21. After watching Rudd tonight i would have to agree with Peter Brent:
    [Lindsay Tanner is the only government member who credits people with some intelligence and attempts to explain what’s going on. All the others, including to a degree the PM, favour the Swan/Wong “stay on message, stick with the platitudes, just survive the interview” approach.]
    I can understand why Rudd works the way he does, but it’s pretty annoying.

  22. GP

    The only effective measurement of the magnitude of the debt is vis a vis GDP. Rudd Government peaking at 13% in a year’s time compares very favourably to Menzies and co back in the 50s and 60s.

    The only question about debt is your ability to pay it off and how comfortably you do it.

  24. [Rudd said on Lateline that peak debt will be 13.8% of GDP, which in dollar terms is $300 billion.

    Extraodinary in both size and incompetence.]

    So how incompetent would Cossie have been if he was still Treasurer?

  25. [John Latham (who went on to be a High Court judge), not Mark.]

    Ahh, but could’ve at least make the distinction 🙂

  27. I think it’s a deliberate strategy by the government. It’s working for them so they probably won’t mess with it.

  28. Oz, I’m referring to the fact that the Greens insisted when OVOV was introduced that it be maintained in the upper house, where metro and non-metro each have half the numbers despite the 78-22 population imbalance. In your own terms, what you’ve got is increased Green vote + gerrymandered electoral system. I hesitate to blame the Greens in their totality for this because I believe individual personalities were to blame, but I fear I’ve just reignited an old argument …

  29. [Debt is not a good thing if it’s incurred in respect of something that is unproductive.]
    Governments don’t simply spend money on things that are productive. They also spend money on things that are socially just, or nationally significant, such as libraries, museums, art galleries and war memorials.

  30. #88 agree. Gov. will be heaving sigh of relief that majority have understood the budget nuances. Had thought that LNP scare campaign on debt/deficit might have worked better as the budget cuts/spend balancing act is difficult to explain and easy to exploit by the opposition. Government need to keep reminding electorate the reasons that debt is a necessary strategy. Time to do a spend on advertising so journalist distortion is bypassed. Paid for by ALP of course.

  31. [Jones is hectoring and Rudd’s had enuf of him.]

    Jones wastes so much time by endlessly repeating himself. You would think he would use the opportunity to ask a bunch of important questions. Very poor work.

  32. [Have to agree Rudd looked a bit rattled.]

    Non face-to-face interviews are difficult at the best of times but all the more irritating when the interviewer repeatedly speaks over the guest. Jones does this in almost all of his interviews. He also is very obvious when he tries to set up a knock out blow of a question. We know that Rudd doesn’t suffer fools lightly. It’s the end of a long day for the PM who will probably get to bed long after us and will be on the road again while most of us are still asleep. Rattled? Why would he be. Irritated? Probably.

  33. Costello’s marvellous economic management:

    [Grossing up the figures is itself misleading because the first two years, 2008-09 and 2009-10, are recession years when governments would reasonably be expected to front-end load their stimulus. So let’s look instead to the full recovery year, 2011-12, to get a better gauge of the structure of the budget.

    A projected surplus of $18.87billion for that year is now a deficit of $44.53 billion – a turnaround of $63.4 billion.

    This is the bit the Coalition will want to ignore. Labor’s spending in 2011-12 is worth $13.2 billion, of which $6.95 billion came from the budget. The remaining $50.2 billion gap is largely Peter Costello’s doing. He left behind a budget structure that couldn’t return to surplus in recovery. ]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25498284-5013404,00.html

    Key part of the article, in my opinion:

    [The problem is neither side of politics is prepared to recommend cuts deep enough to close the structural deficit.]

  36. Diogenes
    [The 10% or so of people who vote Green aren’t doing so for them to support a climate change policy that Howard could have written.]
    Read this post from Diogenes, then repeat, then breath deeply and complete the first two steps again (both primarily concerned with reading it) and then finally read it once more.

    Centre
    [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?]
    I don’t quite see your point, perhaps you could rephrase? You do realize that not all ETS’s are the same? The Greens aren’t going to be embarresed by a totally inadequte CPRS. The only way there will be a “Who needs the Greens?” moment is if the government commits to reductions large enough to prevent irreversable climate change.

  37. William, that does seem like a stupid system. I wonder how big a role the Greens had. If they were instrumental in producing such an outcome, they’re as dumb as anyone else who supported it.

  39. [Non face-to-face interviews are difficult at the best of times but all the more irritating when the interviewer repeatedly speaks over the guest.]

    Especially when there is a few seconds of delay caused by the sattelite.

  40. Frank,
    Dyno is alluding to an earlier, more conservative (lol) Latham – Sir John. who I think led the Nationalists prior to the depression era labor split.
    I’ve seen the other constituency of Psephos’ question in a trivia contest before, and I seem to recall it’s Hunter – Charlton, Evatt and for non-Labor Andrew Barton the original holder of the seat, who was of course the first PM.

  41. [William, that does seem like a stupid system. I wonder how big a role the Greens had. ]
    They wouldn’t support the changes to the lower house without keeping a gerrymandered upper house.

  42. 116 ShowsON, Net Debt is not the be all and end all measure GP would have us believe either.

    [Compared with gross debt, net debt is a better measure of a government’s overall indebtedness as it also captures the amount of debt owed to the government. Still, like gross debt, net debt is only a partial indicator of the government’s financial strength, as not all government assets or liabilities are included. As an example, unfunded superannuation is not included in the calculation of net debt. On the other side of the ledger, the equity holdings of the Future Fund are also not included as an asset in the calculation of net debt.]

  43. The other seat was Hunter – held by Barton, Charlton and Evatt. (Funnily enough Evatt was earlier member for Barton.)

    William, you’re lucky it’s so late, or I would take you up on the WA LegCo and the Green-Nats alliance. Another time.

    *poof* (so to speak)

  44. [William, that does seem like a stupid system. I wonder how big a role the Greens had. If they were instrumental in producing such an outcome, they’re as dumb as anyone else who supported it.]

    A big role, so it was to ensure that Dee Margetts didn’t lose her seat – but it backfired and she lost it to I think a Nationals person.

  45. The Heyson Molotov @ 98
    [Obama is in a tough position over Guentanamo Bay, cant see any good way out of it for him.]
    True – it won’t be easy, because of the poisoned old-fashioned container he’s been left holding. I must say there were some rather questionable attitudes expressed up the thread earlier towards the remaining and long-suffering, Gitmo inmates. Just think about what it would be like to be in there over all those years, without any right to be heard by an independent tribunal , or even to be charged with an actual offence you can answer for – especially if you’d hurt no-one.

    If they cannot be charged for a crime or even conspiracy to commit a crime under the laws of the US or any country in which they have been operating, should they be locked up indefinitely in solitary confinement because of what the military torturers THINK they MIGHT do – or because of what they’ve ‘admitted’ while being waterboarded?

    Obama has to continue to work to shut down Gitmo – yes he is hamstrung because of the illegal ‘evidence gathering’ under Bush, but if each case is worked though individually, and those who can be prosecuted in the US are charged and tried, then that would deal with some. For the remainder, each inmate can be assessed as to the risks, then a transition back into society in the US or elsewhere can be achieved. From what I’ve read, even any hard-core inmates are all now psychologically stuffed and neutralised anyway.

    Clear them out to country of origin if it can be identified, hopefully reach local agreement to have them monitored for a time if necessary, and arrange for the stateless to be accepted by countries that can handle them properly, again with a careful monitoring if required. It means releasing some who may have supported terrorism at one time, and may still, but you can’t lock them all up if they haven’t actually committed a crime. That is, unless you think people should be punished when merely suspected of dangerous thoughts. McCarthyism anyone? Arthur Miller must be turning in his grave.

  48. But Oz, George M explained it better than Rudd, who is still, who knows why, not running the structural deficit in Costello’s budget

    Whilst Rudd does “stay on message”, rather than banging on about nation building, etc, he needs to point out
    1. Costello’s budget had a structural deficit, and
    2. Our debt/deficit low by international standards
    Although did point out that the oppositions numbers end up similar

  49. [116 ShowsON, Net Debt is not the be all and end all measure GP would have us believe either.]
    I don’t believe any statements G.P. makes about any form of government debt. He talks about debt as if he his part of some bizarre cult that will die if he is ever exposed to it.

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