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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  2. BTW
    The biggest news of at least the last decade went largely unnoticed, the meeja really is slipping

    [ “All the gang are really enthusiastic and can’t wait to recreate the fun we had over the 28 years of the show. There is enormous groundswell of public support for this, so it’s the right time to do this… while we are all still here!”

    Each two hour show will feature original cast members, favourite segments and characters including “Dickie” Knee and Plucka Duck.].
    http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/enews/nine/Hey-Hey-Its-Saturday-Returns-to-Channel-Nine-270709.html

    😉

  3. [TPP is a waste of time until the election campaign.]

    Wishful thinking there GP. There’s been no real change for months. A bit up and a bit down but not enough in the right direction for your side.

  4. #151
    2PP is the current measure of party support and voting intentions. It doesn’t suddenly become some random, unrelated figure when the election campaign starts.

    (Posts must have been in moderation because all our post number references are messed up.)

  6. [(Posts must have been in moderation because all our post number references are messed up.)]

    A new commenter, Liberal Slayer @ 118 to 120. 3 posts on previous page.

  7. [(Posts must have been in moderation because all our post number references are messed up.)]

    That’s why it is better to use a poster’s screen name rather than a number as it often doesn’t correlate to the referenced post.

  8. The TPP preferred vote is calculated by assigning small party preferences using the pollsters assumptions. e.g. In some cases it relates to how the votes flowed in the previous election.

    This is OK as far as it goes. However, actual preference distributions may be different due to chnaging preference deals and the profile of people voting for minor parties may change. As long as the methodology is consistent it is OK. However, it is reasonable to have some doubts about the absolute accuracy of the TPP.

    Primary votes are the best indicator of a Parties performance because they are not massaged.

  9. We haven’t seen too much of Caroline Overington lately. Perhaps they keep her on a chain and just let her out for an occasional run when she promises to behave.

    This piece by her is probably a couple of days early but sure fits right in after today’s Newspoll figures.

    [SOME people wonder how on earth the Liberal Party thinks it can win an election with Malcolm Turnbull as leader, but hey, this is a party that once thought it could win an election with Alexander Downer as leader.

    This extraordinary idea was bought back to mind last Tuesday when SBS put to air the first of its three-part series, Liberal Rule.

    Some may recall this was the program that the ABC tried to hobble by restricting access to archival footage, in part because it was making its own series, The Howard Years.

    The producers of Liberal Rule had to go searching for alternative footage from Channel Nine and elsewhere, and they found some wonderful stuff.

    They went back to the moon landing or thereabouts to show footage of John Howard campaigning for the seat of Bennelong in a safari-style suit with two square pockets over the breasts, terrible teeth and hair the colour of nutmeg. From there they flipped to footage of Howard in 1974, newly elected, with wife Janette in an all-brown 1970s kitchen, wearing a cable-knit sweater that somebody appears to have crocheted out of jute.

    Then, too, there’s the fact that SBS really couldn’t be showing this program at a better time. You couldn’t watch the first hour, about the Liberal Party’s wilderness years, without thinking to yourself: this is precisely the situation in which the Liberal Party now finds itself. It has lost an election, and it can’t find a leader upon whom it can agree, let alone one who can get traction. ]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25825327-23375,00.html

  11. SBS, 8.30 tonight. Must have a look. I wonder how the version in 10 years or so will treat Nelson and Turnbull as well as the dozen or so further leaders of the Libs.

  12. scorpio,

    Maybe they need to appoint the ugliest and most homely looking person with bad teeth and no dress sense.

  13. This Liberal supporter, although coming at the issue from a different perspective, seems to have a better handle on the situation confronting the Liberal Party than many I have seen and certainly better than recent offerings from Liberal politicians and their MSM supporters!

    [The Libs need a total overhaul from the top down, as at the moment they can expect to be in opposotion for many many years. The Labor machine and unions will make sure of that at election time. Get rid of the dead wood and dust at the top, and re-start with fresh younger male and female professionals. The 15% of the population that puts the government in are being worked over by lies and innuendo. There is no opposition, and the Liberals need to understand that more younger members is the way to go. We have seen the last of Liberalism in my lifetime. Howard had the chance, he stuffed it, now it is too late. Labor controls everything now. Big brother ??, you haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until Rudd gets his new health policies through, that is a masterpiece that the Libs have ignored for years. Health reform will win over everyone. Slowly Canberra will take over the states, wait and see. Medicare, Denticare, and more to come. Rudd is now starting to look like the Saviour, that is going to be hard to beat.]

    http://www.news.com.au/comments/0,23600,25845951-5007133,00.html

  17. Ooooh, a new level of Newspoll discreditation! And it didn’t come from somewhere like the Courier Mail!

    [The very strong rumour Is that Newspoll respondents in the main are national press journalists – so how valid are these polls since it is well known that a majority of the national press support Labor and support anything that will discredit the Liberals whether good or bad .

    Posted by: Does Press Bias Exist of Adelaide 10:07am today
    Comment 14 of 21]

    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/comments/0,22638,25845974-5006301,00.html

  18. [Denticare]

    Apologies for focusing on something trivial in that piece, but shouldn’t it be Dentacare? I guess it wouldn’t market as well.

  20. [Tony Abbott will be the next Liberal PM. He’s clearly positioning himself and is doing a great job so far.]
    I doubt he will be in parliament in ten years time.

    Also his belief that the Liberals should pass the CPRS when he doesn’t even think climate change is caused by human activity is just stupid.

    If he doesn’t think climate change is man made, he shouldn’t be proposing to put a tax on man made CO2.

  22. Scorpio,

    Apart from during the election where she seemed to become unhinged, Caroline Overington is a reasonable reporter. Her stuff on the AWB scandal was very good.

  23. [Tony Abbott will be the next Liberal PM.

    Yep, you go with that. Good luck]

    Grog
    to be fair to GP, he did mean Post Mortem
    😉

  24. GP
    [Tony Abbott will be the next Liberal PM. He’s clearly positioning himself and is doing a great job so far.]

    Well, he’s certainly positioning himself.

    I agree with you, GP: I would love to see Tony Abbott lead the Liberal Party.

  26. Bring it on GP – Tony Abbott is the bloke women can’t stand and they make up a lot of the voting population.

    You’ve really got nobody and no money at the moment – Malcolm’s money and moneyed contacts will keep him there til after the next election.

  28. [Apologies for focusing on something trivial in that piece, but shouldn’t it be Dentacare? I guess it wouldn’t market as well.]

    They probably want it to sound like Medicare, hence Denticare

  29. [Bring it on GP – Tony Abbott is the bloke women can’t stand and they make up a lot of the voting population.]
    He can’t even handle female political opponents. Gillard, Roxon, and Macklin have all matched up well against him. It is as if Labor deliberately puts strong women against him because he can’t handle it.

  30. [Rumours are swirling after the Sydney University Liberal club AGM last night that the Right-wing conservatives are planning on kicking out Alex Hawke at the next election, and retaking back the faction for true Conservative values. Libertarians are growing uneasy with the people in charge who have broken away, and would like to see a return to David Clarke’s rule.

    The SULC meeting was so bad that members were left fuming after the meeting descended into chaos and screaming matches when some of the members were fighting over who is and who isn’t a genuine member. It became an utter farce by all accounts!]

    In Crikey today – were you there, GP?

  31. GG @ 158 – Just because it is easier to measure a party’s primary vote, it doesn’t follow that it’s a better indicator of its performance.

    Nor is it true to say the primary figure isn’t “massaged”. There’s a lot of built in assumptions (sampling/weighting) thrown in to produce that figure.

  32. That is a great summary of how intellectually bankrupt the Liberals are. They are too busy fighting over who gets to run a stupid university club, instead of figuring how how to get in a position to run the country.

  34. [It is as if Labor deliberately puts strong women against him because he can’t handle it.]

    Maybe that is part of the Lib’s strategy – if Abbott becomes leader, maybe the ALP will want to put Julia against him? 🙂

  35. Talk about being in disarray. Abbott has changed “his” position now after only two days. Turnbull probably had a good long talk to him. Only problem with this is that Turnbull is likely to change “his” position again tomorrow and poor old Tony will be stranded again.

    Turnbull must be slightly concerned that Abbott is manoeuvring for a take over. Why he would want to take over this lot is beyond my comprehension!

    [Mr Abbott again admitted to climate change scepticism, but said: “If the government was fair dinkum about an ETS that doesn’t destroy jobs and isn’t a futile gesture, they’d wait to see what happens in Copenhagen.

    “I am far from convinced by so-called climate scheme science. “I think it (the ETS) is dubious economics. That’s on the record

    “The Rudd government is rushing headlong toward a premature scheme. If we were in power, we would not be rushing to embrace (it).”]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25847113-601,00.html

  36. It’s pretty transparent that Abbott is manoeuvering himself for a tilt at the leadership.

    [Abbott’s book was launched by Sarah Murdoch, who hosts Australia’s Top Model. Mr Abbott joked about making the finals of Australia’s Top Politicians but as to Battlelines is part of the strategy to position himself as leader, Abbott said: “I said as a potential finalist. I didn’t say as the next winner.
    “There are all sorts of finalists who see themselves as potential finalists in these contests, but as yet, it’s all potential.” ]

    And he is certainlky in some level of disbelief about the reality of their situation.

    [“I think the Kevin Rudd honeymoon is wearing off.

    “You can’t continue to ride hight in the polls while the money is running out, and Kevin Rudd’s popularity has been bought.

    “It rests, frankly, on the back of the good work that John Howard and Peter Costello did in government, and when the money runs out, Kevin Rudd’s popularity will run out with it.

    “I am confident that the public will see through Kevin Rudd. ]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25847113-601,00.html

  37. One thing Abbott had going for him was that he is a “conviction politician”. Having said Oz should vote for an ETS when he doesn’t believe in AGW has ended that. He will be viewed as a political coward for not standing up for what he believes is the truth. Talk about making it easy to kill him off in an advertising campaign.

    Abbott: We should pass the ETS
    Abbott: But I don’t believe in global warming

    Why do all the Liberal’s potential leaders self-immolate?

    Turnbull, Hockey, Bishop and now Abbott.

  38. “Rumours are swirling after the Sydney University Liberal club AGM last night that the Right-wing conservatives are planning on kicking out Alex Hawke at the next election, and retaking back the faction for true Conservative values.”
    Alex Hawke not conservative enough, FFS!
    Not a small l Liberal in the joint it appears.
    If this is the face of the Libs into the future, they’re doomed.

  39. David,

    That sort of thinking leads you to the conclusion that all polls are dubious.

    To me the Primary is more reliable simply because it contains all the same original sample assumptions as the TPP but the TPP requires further manipulation of the data.

  40. Forget Abbott taking over. It’s a pipe dream (or that a “pipe nightmare”). He’s the party ideologue, their theoretician, not their up and coming leader.

    Besides, isn’t he aligned with the Looney Jesuits that are trying to wreck the state Libs because they think the next election is a walk in? It’s odds on that he’s sympathetic as he went to both St. Aloysius and Riverview as a boy, both Jesuit strongholds.

    Will no-one rid us of these meddlesome priests?

  41. Gee the Libs are a classic.

    Having spent the last 30 years eradicating the small L Liberals from influence in the Party, they now start a further purge within the dominant faction to ensure ideological purity.

    Meanshile, the electorate smiles benignly at Kev.

  42. And isn’t it weird that on the day Abbott is launching his manifesto for the Libs to regain power he is still mostly talking about Kev’s honeymoon ending.

    Poor Tony – the thought of that nerdy Rudd and Labor taking the place of his mob is sending him round the twist.

    The more he talks about Kev being awful the more we focus on just how awful they were over the last few years. Self defeating Tony – you are still taking us for fools. Give it up.

  45. A new poll showing old numbers!

    I don’t think I have ever seen a federal opposition in worse shape than the current Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull clearly is struggling, not because he is unintelligence but purly because there are many in his Party that do not seem to understand that they lost Government for they choose a set of policies that voters rejected.

    I say that for we have Tony Abbott talking about the honeymoon wearing off and he may be right but it is not showing up in the polls for voters may at times get annoyed with the Government (Nothing new) the same voters have shown over and over that they will not vote for a political party that is divided and lacking in a clear set of policies that match the communities expectations.

    This is not different that during the Howard years when ALP supporters would make policy on the run, claim Howard was nasty and expect voters to come running to them with chocolates and flowers.

    I actually think the best thing that can happen is for an election to take place, i know there still a long time until polling day but watching the behaviour of the Liberal Party and there complete inability to hand a glove on the government is embarrassing to watch.

    This government has in all fairness done a very good job on several fronts but it does not deserve to be so far in front expect for the fact that the alternative to quote Glen is a joke, even during the 1980s/90 the Liberal Party gave a very good account of themselves but what I am currently seeing is a group of people who have no real policy, clearly don’t know what they stand for and lack any real passion.

  46. [“I think the Kevin Rudd honeymoon is wearing off]

    Tone tone tone

    1.The public genuinely like (if not luv) Rudd,they see that he is not all “smoke and mirrors” and by all accounts is a humanitarian and doggedly trying to bring about change.

    2.In political parlance, a honeymonn ends after the first 100 days of a newly elected Gvt.That rudd is still seen in this “light” is morean attribute to the ALP’s popularity and the perception it is doing the “right thing”.

  47. [“It is necessary to get behind somebody before you stab them in the back.” – Sir Humphrey.]

    This statement has come to mind quite a bit lately especially with regards Abbott’s public support of Turnbull.

    I have a vision of Turnbull standing there with Abbott and Hockey behind him fighting over the knife with which to do the job.

  49. [Alex Hawke not conservative enough, FFS!]

    Yes, apparently Hawke counts as the “soft right”, because the people trying to take over are extreme Catholic conservatives.
    [The soft right says it will vote with the moderates to save Mr Ruddock. The leading soft right figures include the party state president, Nick Campbell, and the federal MP Alex Hawke.]
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/holy-warriors-pitch-for-liberal-seats-20090727-dyrb.html

    I really don’t know why they are bothering to save Ruddock, he is a has been.

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