Newspoll: 57-43

From Peter Brent at Mumble comes news that the latest fortnightly Newspoll has Labor’s two-party lead at 57-43 – up from 55-45 last time – with Labor’s primary vote on 46 per cent (up three), the Coalition on 38 per cent (down one) and the Greens on 9 per cent (down two). More to follow.

UPDATE: The Australian reports Malcolm Turnbull’s preferred prime minister rating has hit a new low of 16 per cent (down three), to Kevin Rudd’s 66 per cent (up two). Also featured is a question on the timing of an emissions trading scheme which finds 45 per cent believe the government should delay its legislation until “learning what other countries commit to at the Copenhagen climate conference in December”, compared with 41 per cent who believe legislation should proceed now. The Australian argues that the latter measure amounts to a 20 per cent drop in support for unilateral action since last September. However, the alternative answer in the earlier poll proposed that the scheme should proceed “only if other countries also introduce such schemes”, suggesting a longer delay than the less-than-five-months proposed by its counterpart in the current poll, and placing greater weight on the possibility a scheme might not proceed at all.

UPDATE 2: Peter Brent at Mumble has complete responses on the ETS questions.

Elsewhere:

• The latest weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead up from 56-44 to 57-43. Also featured are questions on which party is better for handling various issues, which finds the Liberals have gone backwards since June 1; the government’s handling of relations with various countries; how safe respondents would feel visiting various countries; and Australia’s top security threat. More from Possum.

• The normally arcane topic of electoral reform has gone mainstream over the course of the past day’s news cycle, albeit in the questionable guise of optional voting rights for 16-year-olds. Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig has said the issue will be raised in the second of the government’s two green papers on electoral reform due later this year, the first of which dealt with campaign funding and expenditure issues and was published last December. The Greens are understandably enthusiastic, the Liberals equally understandably less so. Ben Raue spoke in favour on ABC News Radio earlier today, and further comments at The Tally Room.

• Advocates for retaining the existing Royal Adelaide Hospital site are rumoured to be seeking the requisite number of signatures (only 150 under the relatively lax provisions of the South Australian Electoral Act) to register their own political party in time for next year’s state election. Labor might like to recall that the two surprise defeats that cost their Western Australian counterparts government last year, Mount Lawley and Morley, were respectively in close and reasonably close proximity of Royal Perth Hospital, where a similar controversy was unfolding. Equivalent electorates in South Australia might be Adelaide (margin 10.2 per cent, but traditionally a swinging seat) and Norwood (4.2 per cent).

• AAP reports that Labor is seeking a candidate with “green credentials” – a “Kerryn Phelps-style figure”, to be precise – to take on Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth.

• After being cleared last week on a rape charge, Victorian Northern Metropolitan Labor MLC Theo Theophanous has made life easier for his party by announcing he will quit politics at next year’s election.

• The Geelong Advertiser reports that two candidates have emerged for Liberal preselection in South Barwon, which Labor’s Michael Crutchfield gained in the 2002 landslide and retained by 2.4 per cent in 2006, despite hostile press from the aforementioned Advertiser. The candidates are Ron Humphrey, who lost his Surf Coast Shire Council seat at last year’s elections and was an unsuccessful contestant for preselection in 2006, and Andrew Katos, who represents Deakin ward on Greater Geelong City Council.

• The Victorian Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee is conducting an inquiry into last year’s Kororoit by-election, after the Electoral Commission’s report expressed concern that no action could be taken against an ALP pamphlet which claimed a vote for independent candidate Les Twentyman was “a vote for the Liberals”. For what it’s worth, I have my doubts as to whether it’s feasible or desirable to regulate election rhetoric in the manner proposed.

• The Launceston Examiner reports that school teacher Rob Soward has lost Labor’s game of musical chairs in Bass, where seven candidates were chasing six positions on the ticket for next year’s state election. The lucky winners were incumbent Michelle O’Byrne, former member Kathryn Hay, Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb, Winnaleah District High School principal Brian Wightman, CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean and North Tasmanian Development consultant Michelle Cripps.

• Legendary Clerk of the Senate Harry Evans, retiring after 40 years, reviews the evolution of parliament during his tenure in an article for Crikey.

• A self-explanatory new book entitled Australia: The State of Democracy, edited by Marian Sawer, Norman Abjorensen and Phil Larkin for the Democratic Audit of Australia, is now available through Federation Press. The introduction can be read here.

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.

1,148 comments on “Newspoll: 57-43”

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  1. People, understand this.

    Support for person A/party B != automatic support for every policy, statement or supposition they’ve ever announced.

  3. If the Labor primary vote is up, then my guess is Turnbull’s personal numbers will be down, which means another round of everyone writing and talking about Turnbull’s leadership being terminal.

    Turnbull may as well conduct one last kamikaze mission before losing the opposition leadership, he should convince 7 senators in his party to cross the floor on the ETS.

  4. I very much appreciate your headers, kiddo. You may not get the feed back you should, but it’s a very useful thingy you do. Kuddos.

  6. [Support for person A/party B != automatic support for every policy, statement or supposition they’ve ever announced.]
    Who ever said it did? There are lots of reasons why people support different parties, in fact the trick of the Howard years was that the Liberals managed to get a lot of middle and lower middle class voters to vote against their financial interests, such as when they supported the GST that provided far more compensation for rich people than middle and low income earners.

  7. [People, understand this.

    Support for person A/party B != automatic support for every policy, statement or supposition they’ve ever announced.]
    Not

  9. [Labor might like to recall that the two surprise defeats that cost their Western Australian counterparts government last year, Mount Lawley and Morley, were respectively in close and reasonably close proximity of Royal Perth Hospital, where a similar controversy was unfolding. ]

    And of course it has been recently announced that the promise that the Libs had to retain RPH may be broken due to a lack of funds 🙂

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/23/2634876.htm

  10. Shows On,

    Makes you wonder about Turnbull’s promise to pass the ETS in November when, on these figures, he won’t be around.

    The only issues in the last two weeks are Hu and the China connection and the impending ETS legislation.

  12. Headline on the OZ – “Turnbull’s popularity sliding”.

    It seems Malcolm now has a 16% preferred PM rating. Rudd is on 66%. OUCH

  13. Turnbull is now Mr 16%

    [MALCOLM Turnbull’s support as preferred prime minister has slumped to a new low of 16 per cent – the same level as Brendan Nelson before he was dumped as Opposition leader in September.]

  19. [Makes you wonder about Turnbull’s promise to pass the ETS in November when, on these figures, he won’t be around.]
    So he should help his party, surely whoever next is opposition leader will support the CPRS to get it off the agenda (we already know Abbott would). If that is the case, then why don’t the Liberals just get it done with and let Turnbull pass it in August?

    Surely the only way the Liberals win the next election is if voters start to worry about debt and deficit. The Liberals should use every day to make that case instead of distractions such as climate change, Mr Hu, opposing the hospitals plan, and wheeling mandarins around supermarkets.

  21. I’m pleased to see you didn’t say he’d be around AFTER the next election.

    I wonder if his pride will get the better of him and he decides to quit rather than face the probability of a landslide defeat.

  22. No he will want his campaign launch and his Churchillian concession/resignation speech 😀 might as well get his two bob worth…

  23. [MALCOLM Turnbull’s support as preferred prime minister has slumped to a new low of 16 per cent – the same level as Brendan Nelson before he was dumped as Opposition leader in September.]
    But didn’t Brendan get all the way to 7% at one point? Malcolm hasn’t got that low yet.
    ]It’s indeed a good idea to bear in mind that a new thread is, indeed, a new thread, and that many reading it aren’t following on from the one before.]
    yeah, right.

  25. From one point of view, these new figures virtually free the ‘bull from worry.

    He can now try anything he wants. And he probably will.

    Not necessarily DO…

  26. We will fight them at the petrol pumps, we will fight them at the supermarkets, we will fight them in the hospital waiting rooms…

  27. [No he will want his campaign launch and his Churchillian concession/resignation speech 😀 might as well get his two bob worth…]
    It’s a worry when the major reason to retain an opposition leader is that the party needs his personal donations in order to run a credible election campaign.

  28. Well, it’s a bonza approach to bag the new health report before you’ve even seen it. Turnbull is a joke. and a very bad one.

  29. What these poll figures do is snuff out any thoughts that Turnbull will be forgiven by the electorate.

    His card is marked and he’s going down.

    Maybe the Libs just go with Hockey and Dutton. They have nothing to lose atm.

  30. [MALCOLM Turnbull’s support as preferred prime minister has slumped to a new low of 16 per cent ]
    Has the nominations for Higggins closed yet?

  31. [Has the nominations for Higggins closed yet?]
    I think they closed June 30. Not that it matters, if Costello changes his mind then surely he would be renominated, even if it was a month before the next election.

  32. [Well, it’s a bonza approach to bag the new health report before you’ve even seen it. Turnbull is a joke. and a very bad one.]

    Somehow I predict the Libs will run a scare campaign on eroding State’s Rights over the takeover of Public Hospitals etc and the raising of the Medicare Levy will result with pensioners going without some kind of foodstuff to pay for it.

  33. Good call, Psephos – indeed, the trend in the inner northern suburbs generally from that election reinforces the point.

    On another note, I have grave doubts about The Australian’s suggestion that “public opinion turns against Australia taking a world lead on climate change”. This is achieved by comparing results to a question about whether ETS legislation should be delayed until the Copenhagen conference – less than five months away – with a question from last year which presented the alternatives “AUSTRALIA SHOULD INTRODUCE THE CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME ONLY IF OTHER COUNTRIES ALSO INTRODUCE SUCH SCHEMES” and “AUSTRALIA SHOULD INTRODUCE THE CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME REGARDLESS OF WHAT OTHER COUNTRIES DO”. Which clearly posits a much longer delay than the current question.

  34. Not a word in the papers about the soon-to-be-released-to-government fake email report. That could still be the issue that destroys Turnbull and possibly implicates other senior Libs in our very own dirty tricks scandal.

  36. [Good call, Psephos – indeed, the trend in the inner northern suburbs generally from that election reinforces the point.]

    But did John Hyde in Perth suffer a swing against him though – considering RPH is smack bang in the middle of his Electorate ?

  38. No 34

    What about the SIEV 36 report? Isn’t amazing how quickly the government got information re: utegate, yet we still haven’t heard a peep about what happened off the coast of WA earlier this year.

  39. [I think they closed June 30. ]

    Im sure i read somewhere that they had extended it till the end of july.

    Just wondering if Mr B had any updates.

  41. [We will fight them at the petrol pumps, we will fight them at the supermarkets, we will fight them in the hospital waiting rooms…]
    Great work Tom, the campaign slogan for the Libs next election.

  42. [What about the SIEV 36 report? ]
    A report that, due to the location of the boat, must be made by the Northern Territory police.
    [Isn’t amazing how quickly the government got information re: utegate,]
    You should at least have the guts to accuse the federal police of corruption instead of just implying it.

  43. Somehow you won’t be hearing howls of outrage from the Pensioner Groups as you did when the Govt suggested a modest rise to 67.

    [But Mr Abbott says the Opposition should go further, and give people the opportunity to work for longer.

    “I don’t see it as unreasonable at all to raise the pension age, and it’s not so much saying to people, work till you drop, it’s saying to people we do not want to prematurely shut you out of economic participation in our society,” he said.

    He says people would understand if the Coalition took the policy to the next election.

    Mr Abbott says the electorate would understand the reasons for changing the rules.

    “I mean this idea that you should study until you’re 25, and then retire when you’re 55 or 60 and then live effectively on the taxpayer for another 30 years it’s not a recipe for a productive successful society into the future,” he said.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/27/2638060.htm?section=justin

  44. Doctor Death is doing rather well don’t you reckon? A little bout of light duties, then back to skewering Malcolm. Where’s Julia? had a dream roger hodgson

  45. [You should at least have the guts to accuse the federal police of corruption instead of just implying it.]
    Isn’t it the NT police?

  46. [Somehow you won’t be hearing howls of outrage from the Pensioner Groups as you did when the Govt suggested a modest rise to 67.]
    Steve Fielding will comment on this after he finishes wandering around Canberra.

  47. [raising of the Medicare Levy will result with pensioners going without some kind of foodstuff to pay for it]

    They’ll have to eat dog food!

    *except dog food is actually more expensive than many human foods*

  48. Higgins nominations close at the end of this week, so Gusface has it right. Haven’t heard anything though, so I think Kelly O’Dwyer can be pretty much taken for granted.

  50. [But Mr Abbott says the Opposition should go further, and give people the opportunity to work for longer.]

    Abbott makes it sound like he’s trying to protect people’s right to work beyond 67 but the fact is that no one can be dismissed simply because of age.

    And the Libs say that Rudd is full of spin.

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