ACNielsen: 56-44

The latest ACNielsen survey of 1400 voters has Labor’s lead at 56-44, following an aberrant 58-42 result the previous month. Labor leads on the primary vote 46 per cent to 38 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is down a point to 31 per cent and his disapproval is steady at 60 per cent, which Tony Wright of The Age notes has him the same territory as Brendan Nelson and Simon Crean in the terminal phase of their leaderships. Peter Costello remains favoured as Liberal leader by 35 per cent, against 19 per cent for Joe Hockey, 17 per cent for Turnbull, 10 per cent for Tony Abbott and 3 per cent for Andrew Robb. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is up a point to 68 per cent, against a disapproval rating of 24 per cent, and his lead as preferred prime minister is up from 66-25 to 67-24. Fifty-nine per cent want the government’s emissions trading scheme bill passed as soon as possible, and 58 per cent approve of Rudd’s handling of the relationship with China.

Essential Research should be through any moment now (4.30pm EST), but I won’t be able to help you with that until this evening: Possum‘s often quite quick on that front though (and The Finnigans has a small amount of detail in comments). UPDATE: Here it is. Labor’s lead is down from 60-40 to 58-42. Also featured: the performance of Australian law enforcement in preventing terrorism (most excellent), whether such efforts have been unduly concentrated on the Muslim community (no), who should lead the Liberal Party (Joe Hockey), a really interesting one comparing Kevin Rudd’s performance across various issues with John Howard’s (slight lead to the latter on economy and defence/security, thumping ones to the former on everything else), and whether Malcolm Turnbull is fair dinkum on climate change (no).

Other matters:

• Mumble man Peter Brent has a paper in the latest Australian Journal of Political Science criticising the anachronism of the Divisional Returning Officer, part of what government consultants described as far back as 1974 as the Electoral Commission’s “flat” organisational structure: one national office at the top, six state ones in the middle, and no fewer than 150 divisional ones at the bottom. Occupants of the latter posts have too much to do during election periods, too little to do outside of them, and few paths to promotion, with resulting problems for staffing and morale. “Regionalisation” into offices covering four or five divisions has been advocated by the Electoral Commission itself, but has been resisted in part because MPs enjoy the convenience of a local electorate office, and also because they form troublingly close relationships with their local DROs.

• Two doses of cold water for Alannah MacTiernan’s tilt in Canning. The ABC’s Rebecca Carmody strikes back over past acts of condescension in the Sunday Times, noting she has a big obstacle to overcome in winning over the electorate’s semi-rural areas beyond her Armadale base. Tony Barrass of The Australian concurs, describing her as “a polarising figure, perhaps the most admired-disliked state political figure in the past decade”, and chiding the local media for “talking as though she’s home and hosed”.

• Glenn Milne beats the drum for a Kerryn Phelps candidacy against Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth. For what it’s worth though, Labor’s local federal electoral council is making noises about the need for a local rank-and-file vote.

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.

1,849 comments on “ACNielsen: 56-44”

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  2. [Two doses of cold water for Alannah MacTiernan’s tilt in Canning. The ABC’s Rebecca Carmody strikes back over past acts of condescension in the Sunday Times, noting she has a big obstacle to overcome in winning over the electorate’s semi-rural areas beyond her Armadale base. Tony Barrass of The Australian concurs, describing her as “a polarising figure, perhaps the most admired-disliked state political figure in the past decade”, and chiding the local media for “talking as though she’s home and hosed”.]

    More like two articles from people who got a good Bollocking from Allanah more like it. 🙂

  4. “Hot” off the LIberal HQ presses into my in-box. This is their latest take of Rudd’s obsession with crippling, debt high taxes, binge spending etc. etc:

    [Rudd refuses to rule out new taxes
    Monday, 17th August 2009

    The likely cost to Australian families of Labor’s reckless spending and crippling record debt is becoming clearer.

    Newspaper reports at the weekend revealed the Rudd Government had asked the Henry Tax Review to examine a new tax on family homes.

    In Question Time today Mr Rudd was asked a number of times to rule out the new tax but refused to do so.

    Mr Rudd was also asked to rule out an increase in fuel excise of at least 10 cents per litre and tax increases to pay for the health system.

    Again, Mr Rudd refused to do so.

    Labor is addicted to debt.

    To pay for its debt addiction, Labor will rob Australian families by imposing new and higher taxes.

    We must stop Labor’s debt. Now.]

    “We must stop Labor’s debt. Now”

    And just how are you going to do that, “Now”?

    Well, beat me up with an ostrich feather…. This rubbish either preaches to the converted (so their votes are a given) or bashes up against the brick wall of Labor moles (like me). Just what do they think they’re achieving with tough-guy talk like this?

    I guess we can expect to see this as tonight’s ABC TV News daily “theme”.

  5. [We must stop Labor’s debt. Now.]

    Fair enough, tell us how you intend to do it. Obviously not through taxes. So what services will be cut?

  6. The Bushfires Royal Commission has put out it’s interim report. “Stay or go” heavily criticised as were the inadequate warning systems.

    Nothing on fuel reduction which will greatly upset the anti-environmentalists.

    Can’t see where Global Warming has been blamed which will please the anti-environmentalists.

    A fair and balanced report. 😀

    [The commission made a number of recommendations, including:

    # The broadcast of official warnings be expanded outside the ABC to include commercial radio and television.

    # Warnings focus on the severity, locations, predicted direction and likely time of impact of a fire.

    # The risk of death associated with staying to defend your home be given a greater emphasis in the Stay or Go policy.

    # That leaving early be promoted as the best option during a bushfire.

    # The establishment of a fire danger warning system similar to cyclones and the expansion of a rating beyond “extreme”. ]

    http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25940542-5019015,00.html

  7. What an incoherent class warfare dogwhistle. You’d think Jules was hanging outside Polo matches with a guillotine. (Glen, GP – are they called ‘matches’?)

  10. Did the ALP ever give any evidence that they would seriously compromise with the Greens? No, I don’t think they did – it was their way or the high way. If the Greens had capitulated 100%, copied and pasted ALP policy, THEN they actually would be irrelevant. The ALP didn’t try to compromise with the Greens partially because the gap between ALP and Greens policy is far greater than the gap between ALP and Liberal “policy” (sic) but mostly it is because they knew full well that the numbers in the senate meant the Greens capitulation wasn’t sufficient and it would be utterly impossible to find a policy acceptable to the ALP, Greens, MrX and FF. So the ALP have therefore not been at all cooperative with the Greens. It’s pretty simple really.

  11. Dio 958 (previous)

    There has to be some happy medium between having agriculture excluded totally and having an all carrot-no stick approach. I don’t know what it is but a compromise would be a great result.

    Exactly right; that solution is to include agriculture, period. Then they get a credit for doing sustainable things like biochar and replanting forest, and get penalised for high GHG emission activities like land clearing, feed lot pork, and cattle grazing. Some will benefit, some will lose, just like every other sector. So there is a carrott for including agriculture; it is not all stick. The trouble for some of our farming industries is that they have gotten very used to the idea that taxes are things other people pay while governments exist only to provide subsidies. Those days must pass.

    Sooner or later we have to face up to reforming agriculture too, if we are serious about solving this problem. The sooner we do it, the less painfull the ultimate change will be.

    On the plus side, if we implement this sort of ETS, and other farming imports come from countries that don’t, then we can tariff goods from those non-ETS countries. Food prices would go up but, as I have said before, the tax gain from ETS permit sales can be used to reduce other taxes, so there is no need for overall costs to increase. An ETS can be revenue neutral, and that is how it should be sold.

  12. [What an incoherent class warfare dogwhistle. You’d think Jules was hanging outside Polo matches with a guillotine. (Glen, GP – are they called ‘matches’?)]

    Chukka’s old chap,

    or for the coarse bred,ugh, quarters.

  13. [Small problem with commercial radio, especially music stations are mostly automated after 6pm and on the weekends and even more so in rural areas.]

    If it was serious enough, couldn’t the Government get the techs at the radio station to insert a feed from the CFS or whatever body was in charge under the State Disaster Plan or something.

  14. Has there ever been a poll taken on prefered Liberal leader that didn’t have Costello as an option? Such a poll would be of greater relevance.

  15. [If the Greens had capitulated 100%, copied and pasted ALP policy, THEN they actually would be irrelevant. The ALP didn’t try to compromise with the Greens partially because the gap between ALP and Greens policy is far greater than the gap between ALP and Liberal “policy” (sic) but mostly it is because they knew full well that the numbers in the senate meant the Greens capitulation wasn’t sufficient and it would be utterly impossible to find a policy acceptable to the ALP, Greens, MrX and FF.]

    I couldn’t have said it better.

  16. [Has there ever been a poll taken on prefered Liberal leader that didn’t have Costello as an option? Such a poll would be of greater relevance.]

    Essential Today – Costello’s vote has gone to “someone else”. Turnbull is 12%

  17. This question is to everyone but particularly ALPers: considering that we have a preferental voting system, what is your second favorite political party with a broad policy platform? That is the Greens, SA, democrats, nationals, liberals, CDP, CEC etc are in but the Shooters Party, Sex Party & CCC are outside of the scope of the question, if you can see the destinction.

  18. I think the SA referendum could be done nationally but it causes trouble. If the number of Senators are reduced and only serve for one term, it would mean the Senate wouldn’t be in this unique gov+2 minor parties+1 ind balance of power situation, but it would cause major problems with quotas and HoR twice Senate size.

  19. [If it was serious enough, couldn’t the Government get the techs at the radio station to insert a feed from the CFS or whatever body was in charge under the State Disaster Plan or something.]

    Depends on the type of station, for example 3AW/Magic 1278 are both run by the same company and share facilities, so the 3AW people can easily access the Magic system to over-ride it, but it could cause problems where there are 2 music stations such as Fox/Triple M where they would have to put a tech/Journo on call.

  20. #3 – from previous thread:

    [oh dear, more bad news for Mad Mal on Essential Poll:

    Hockey – 16%
    Mad Mal – 12%
    Robb – 2%

    Others+Dont Know: 70%

    Only 25% believes Mad Mal is serious about ETS and 55% dont.]

  22. 18

    There may or may not be a referendum in SA because the bill has to go through the Legislative Council who may well block it.

  24. [There may or may not be a referendum in SA because the bill has to go through the Legislative Council who may well block it.]

    The two majors will team up.

  26. [does your avatar mean that your a horny fish or a cheeky fish?]

    #3 – as far as i know, we have not progressed, in evolutionary term, into a fish. we are still hot blooded!!!!

  28. [We must stop Labor’s debt. Now.]

    Quick, someone concoct an email “proving” Rudd and Swan are corrupt. Call for their resignations, then storm back into office at the subsequent crisis election.

  30. 24

    Has this been announced?

    Why would the Libs support it?

    Is there talent pool not small enough already?

  31. Given how much less than forecast teh debt will be now that the economy and hence government revenue has started growing again, shouldn’t it be a debt-ute instead of a debt-truck?

  34. Good thinking Dario – or a debt bicycle – no emissions and so its better for the environment too. After all, if Turnbull really wants to reduce GHG emissions, shouldn’t he and Hockey be pushing that truck around the country?

  35. Ross Gittins pulls no punches in this article.

    http://business.smh.com.au/business/pm-wont-be-a-great-leader-until-he-plucks-up-more-courage-20090816-embn.html?page=-1
    [I can’t wait to see the day when Kevin Rudd finds himself with no alternative but to take a decision that really annoys the electorate and sends his popularity crashing to the depths experienced from time to time by all his predecessors.
    Why? Because I can’t wait for him to lose his political virginity, grow up and realise that successful, worthwhile, memorable leadership of the nation inevitably involves being willing to make unpopular decisions – decisions the wisdom of which the electorate comes to accept only in retrospect.
    Recent history gives little reason to doubt that governments willing to make genuinely tough decisions can still get themselves re-elected and live to a ripe old age…….
    …..Which brings us back to Rudd. No one could face more dispirited opponents than he does. His chances of losing the next election are tiny.
    But does that embolden him? No way. Consider his lack of courage on climate change – the issue that contributed so much to his election, on which he basked in international glory after signing the Kyoto Protocol, promised so much and raised expectations so high.]

  37. Socrates

    I did pick up your post on farmers in the last blog. One question: ‘Were you working for the government when you had dealings with the?’

  39. Polyquats, Janice, Ozymandius, Fredn

    I did read your various reports from the frontlines. Interesting, one and all, thank you.

  40. Socrates, Dario

    They could always “hire” 21st century slaves at $3 an hour to haul their Truck. Tie the load to their backs and away they go. … Wait! Bloody unions and Labor: they put the kybosh on that fantasy.

  41. Psephos

    I am working on a post on your challenge re: suggestions in relation to Indigenous policy and programs. Might take a day or two.

  45. I like the logos that Ten News uses for their Liberal Party stories:

    A few months ago:

    Today:

    The story was concerning Brendan Nelson saying on Sky that he can’t rule out the possibility that Peter Costello will be the Liberal leader by the time of the next election.

  47. As much as I would like Rudd to show a bit more “bravery” on unpopular decisions, this bit is unfair.

    [Because I can’t wait for him to lose his political virginity, grow up and realise that successful, worthwhile, memorable leadership of the nation inevitably involves being willing to make unpopular decisions – decisions the wisdom of which the electorate comes to accept only in retrospect.]

    His decision to expand our troop numbers was extremely unpopular according to the opinion polls and continues to be.

    Not taking over the public hospitals was also unpopular although that is more of a delayed/non-decision.

  48. Oh dear! I wonder what plan “B” is for the Greens now!

    [ THE Federal Government is not interested in going to an early election, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.

    Speculation over a double-dissolution has been rife since the opposition in the Senate blocked the Government’s climate change policy last week, which could trigger an early election if it is rejected again in three months time.

    “We want to deliver reforms in the national interest and the Senate should be assisting us with that, not playing politics,” Ms Gillard told Channel Nine.

    “Our focus is on governing, we are not thinking about an early election, we are not interested in that. ]

    http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25936656-5007133,00.html

  50. [16% is pretty low as the highest rating…]
    You missed that the highest rating is for “someone else” (24%) and an even higher rating for “don’t know” (33%). Both of those figures are up from the previous poll on that question.

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