Newspoll: 55-45

The Australian reports that the latest fortnightly Newspoll has Labor’s lead at 55-45, down from 57-43 at the previous two polls. Labor’s primary vote is down one point to 44 per cent and the Coalition’s is up one point to 38 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is up four points to 30 per cent. More to follow. UPDATE: Graphic here. Turnbull’s approval is the only leadership measure that has moved noticeably.

The weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead steady at 58-42. Also featured: support for an ETS-driven early election continues to fall; confidence in the economy continues to rise; there is no one widely held view on who should be our next US Ambassador; and two-thirds agree that “the Liberals are just not prepared at the moment to take on the difficult task of governing Australia”.

Also:

• The Gold Coast News reports that Peter Dutton faces “an ugly pre-election battle” if he wishes to move from notionally Labor Dickson to the safe Liberal Gold Coast seat of McPherson, to be vacated by the retirement of Margaret May. Rival candidates include federal divisional council chair Karen Andrews, a “close ally” of May; Dr Richard Stuckey, husband of Jann Stuckey, state front-bencher and member for the local seat of Currumbin; and Michael Hart, who unsuccessfully contested the state seat of Burleigh at the last two state elections.

• For the second election in a row, Dennis Jensen will represent the Liberals in their safe Perth seat of Tangney despite having lost the initial preselection vote. The West Australian reports that Jensen won a State Council vote over the initially successful candidate, Glenn Piggott, by no less a margin than 76 votes to five. This result was foreshadowed a month ago by a commenter on this site travelling under the name of Matt Brown’s Imaginary Friend (Matt Brown being the initial victor of the 2007 preselection), who wrote: “Council knows that if Jensen (is) dumped, the Libs’ chances of holding the marginals will dive because campaign funds will be so stretched, adverse publicity will have (a) ripple effect, and Tangney itself could be lost to Jensen if (he) stood as an independent, whether to him or even to the ALP if he did the obvious and swapped preferences with them”.

• Saturday’s Weekend Australian featured a post-redistribution proposal Mackerras pendulum, which you can see at Mumble. The accompanying article takes aim at the assertion of Peter van Onselen and others that the redistributions of New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia collectively constitute a “Ruddymander”.

• Simon Benson of The Daily Telegraph reports that the tensions over the New South Wales Labor leadership could be coming to the boil:

With the various warring factions in the Labor party room unable to decide on who would be a replacement, Mr Rees was said to be considering acting before he gets chopped. Sources confirmed he was using threats of a reshuffle to axe “trouble-making” ministers, a veiled reference to Health Minister John Della Bosca, if sniping about his leadership continued. The internal malaise in the Government has become so bad that very few MPs believe the current situation can continue. Mr Rees is also reported to have told those closest to him that his position was untenable if the plotting against him could not be arrested. Another Labor source said Labor powerbrokers including national secretary Karl Bitar were considering tapping Mr Rees on the shoulder next week if they could convince Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt to take over. It is understood Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is also being drafted into the soap opera with sources claiming his Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese has directly lobbied Mr Rudd to support a move to install Ms Tebbutt, who is Mr Albanese’s wife.

John Della Bosca today added fuel to the fire by declaring it was “no state secret” that it was constitutionally possible for an upper house MP such as himself to be Premier. However, Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports focus group research shows “many people still think (Rees) should be given time to make a go of the job”, and gives an insight into the public view of Della Bosca, Tebbutt and other sometimes-mentioned leadership prospects, Kristina Keneally, John Robertson and Frank Sartor.

• The ABC reports that the member for the Nationals member for the Victorian state seat of Murray Valley, Ken Jasper, will retire at the next election. Jasper is 71 years old and has held the seat since 1976. I must confess the seat does not loom large in my consciousness, but my election guide entry tells me the Nationals are “concerned at their ability to hold the seat without him”. Jasper nonetheless held the seat in 2006 with 50.9 per cent of the vote against the Liberal candidate’s 21.9 per cent.

• The Victorian Greens have preselected for the highly winnable state seat of Melbourne a barrister and former president of Liberty Victoria, Brian Walters, ahead of Moonee Valley councillor Rose Iser.

Lots more information on various Greens preselections from Ben Raue of The Tally Room:

• Raue appears to have the inside dope on the state upper house preselection in South Australia, declaring former Democrat and current state party convenor Tammy Jennings the “clear frontrunner” for the lucrative top spot (he earlier named SA Farmers Federation chief executive Carol Vincent, former convenor and unsuccessful 1997 lead candidate Paul Petit and unheralded Mark Andrew as the other candidates).

• Raue also names preselection candidates for the Queensland Senate: Larissa Waters (the 2007 candidate, who also ran for Mount Coot-tha at the March state election), “perennial candidates” Libby Connors and Jenny Stirling, and 2009 Sunnybank candidate Matthew Ryan-Sykes.

• Raue names Emma Henley and Peter Campbell as candidates for the Victorian upper house region of Eastern Metropolitan.

• In the Tasmanian state seat of Braddon, Paul O’Halloran has apparently been chosen to “lead the ticket”, to the extent that that means anything under Robson rotation. Braddon is the only one of the five divisions currently without a Greens member.

Antony Green corner:

• In comments on this site, Antony discusses the prospects of a Victorian redistribution before the next federal election:

A Victorian redistribution is due because the boundaries from the last redistribution were gazetted on 29 January 2003. A re-draw starts seven years later, the end of January 2010. A redistribution is not required in the last 12 months before the House expires. The current House first sat on 12 February 2008 so it expires 11 February 2011. This means there is an unfortunate two week gap that will force a redistribution. If the Victorian boundaries had been gazetted two weeks later in 2003, or if the Rudd government had re-called parliament in December 2007, the redistribution would be deferred. Unfortunately, the Electoral Act is very prescriptive on dates so it appears the redistribution will have to take place, unless the act is changed.

• Two posts on his blog relate to the slow decline of the Nationals, one directly, the other with reference to the relative decline of rural population.

• Also featured is a post comparing the current position of the state Labor government in New South Wales with that of the Unsworth government as it drifted to the abyss in 1988.

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.

2,352 comments on “Newspoll: 55-45”

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  1. The Heysen Molotov,

    Sounds unusual. You’re lucky that he didn’t just say “shut up”. With his expression, if not his tongue.

  4. I’ve always assumed they get stuck in Limbo, like all those babies do.

    Though limbo doesn’t exist anymore right?

    Any changes in Japan?

  6. [Though limbo doesn’t exist anymore right?]
    Correct, limbo was abolished in 2007. It must’ve just been practical joke gone wrong.

  7. THM, yep, it’s what they believe. It’s a very weird thing if you don’t yourself believe in a deity, which I don’t, but see what such belief can do to help people deal with dying. I think you probably weren’t around last year when my sister had been dying for some time, and finally did. In my view, it did help her and her husband and child. They all think they are going to meet up again. But, amusingly for myself and my 2 other brothers and families, because we’re not their particular religion, we’re stuffed, gawn. AND they don’t vote.

  8. 2199

    He must think it rather unfortunate that the Vikings did not keep contact with America and cause Christianity to be in the Americas centuries earlier.

  9. Sertse,

    Actually I think I remember Pope John Paul II saying that heaven and hell didn’t exist anymore as well. Something about heaven really being a state of complete union with god, and hell really being a state of complete divorce from same.

    Didn’t sound like a goer to me. Wouldn’t that mean that a “perfectly good”, but poor and miserable person, is already at the pinnacle? And that a “perfectly evil”, but rich and comfortable person, is already at the nadir? But then I never did philosophy.

  11. You cannot argue with a person on the validity and rationality of their religion using standard logic and reason, if they happen to be a ‘genuine’ believer. Their belief required a leap of faith, or rather a suspension of reality, to be obtained. It is quite obvious that religions are in their description quite bizarre on one level or another or all and it is this fact that is being suspended.

    A believer operates from the position that all that they have accepted is true, genuine and unassailable by the logic of normal man. And the bible even says out loud…’the wisdom of man is folly in the eyes of the Lord’ or something similar. In other words the reasoning and logic of man is just too puny to come to grips with the infinite knowledge and plan of god etc etc.

    There are no contradictions only things beyond human understanding and all this is filtered through gods plans and so forth.

    You will never change a true believers religion by employing usual rational logic and reasoning for that is what has been tossed in the dust bin.

    What you would have to do is seek to understand where they are, they way think and what it is they believe and feel. You need to argue from the interpretation of their scriptures, but you can only do that if you happen to be one of them.

    At the end of the day if a person falls out of a religion it usually comes from some personal experience and not some discussion over the contradictions contained in their scripture.

    You could equate religious belief with love, it is a powerful emotion and addiction and usually it forms the foundations of a person’s life, so it is no small matter getting them to change that.

    You can berate all you like the terrible things written in scriptures but it is not the scriptures or god that will seem wrong or ‘inhuman’ but your lack of understanding and belief in the god that sets you in the wrong.

    In other words give up.

    I know that Natalie Dessay speaks only the truth and will transport me to another safer world every time I listen to her.

  12. People complain about the Australian trait of skepticism, as manifested in the so-called tall poppy syndrome, but the flip side of that is that most of us can spot a charlatan much more quickly than quite a few Americans can. Thus we are, by and large, safe from incursions into politics on the part of religious crackpots. In a funny sort of way, I rather hope that the new Sex Party wins a seat in the Senate next time round, just for the joy it would give me to see all the religious ratbags out there melting into a pool of protoplasm or whatever like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  13. Thomas Paine’s comment 2211 is for me a fine place to draw a line, gently & sympathetically draining all hope for victory as it does.

    It has been a good debate (spiced with more allegations of British greed & stupidity), but now I feel as if one of those pea floaters has been carefully drained into both of my ears.

    Harry should ignore my thoughtless questions @ 2210. Sorry a second time, most especially for your sister.

    *straightens aching back and heads off*

  14. [You cannot argue with a person on the validity and rationality of their religion using standard logic and reason, if they happen to be a ‘genuine’ believer.]

    Or with an atheist. Most atheists I know start from a position of “but we know all religions are rubbish”. Therefore, in their mind, case closed.

  15. At least atheists in general don’t knock on your door when you are half asleep to try to lead you to their version of the light, preach at you in the street through a cheap sound system, or generally make artichoking pests of themselves.

  16. [Or with an atheist. Most atheists I know start from a position of “but we know all religions are rubbish”. ]
    This is just a generalisation. Which lets me make one too. Most atheists I know admit that religion can help people love and care for others, and is a comfort when they are approaching death.

    The problem is, none of these benefits are unique to religion, which begs the question what does religion uniquely provide that other philosophies don’t or can’t?

  17. dyno
    The Jonestown massacre and Jim Jones as leader of that cult is an object lesson in why religion in some form will continue. It certainly had an impact on me – seeing a documentary on it on SBS or somewhere last year. While there are people capable of being led into an atrocity like the Jonestown massacre religion will exist.

    There are too many credulous, naturally superstitious types looking for a leader, and who will coalesce around anyone somewhat charismatic who appears to give the answers to the yearning questions they can’t quite enunciate, let alone answer.

  18. About 30 years ago I was staying in a motel and being on my own and a bit bored I opened up the bible beside the bed and started to have a read.

    I read a passage in Exodus that I found very troubling and over the years I have asked many pastors and religious people to explain it to me. I have had a range of explanations but none have sufficiently satisfied me that they could be the right one.

    The passage is this: “Kane killed Abel and was cast out of the Garden of Eden to the land of Nod where he took a wife”!

    The question I have asked many people is; “If there were Adam and Eve and Kane and Abel, where did the wife for Kane come from?

    If you read the passage to others and ask them the same question, I feel sure you will have the same responses that I have!

  19. The thing that puzzles me about me religion is not that people believe in a deity or deities. People are as a matter-of-fact disposed to forming and holding such beliefs and I am prepared to accept that people hold all manner of things to be true in spite of a lack of good evidence for them. I am not puzzled by this at all.

    What I find truly weird, however, is that individuals can seriously imagine themselves to have a direct relationship with ‘the creator’. Have they never stopped to consider why, in a world where billions now live, billions more have formerly lived and many billions more will live in the future, and in a universe where countless more billions may well live, any creator could possibly have an interest in a being so insignificant as any one of us?

    This seems to me a philosophical absurdity. It is saying “I can imagine God and, having a strong belief that God exists, can sense I am coming to know God. Therefore, God must be able to know me.” This is then taken as a subjective affirmation of the existence of God. This is not only a logical fallacy, it is typically human in its presumptuous ego-centrism.

  20. [What I find truly weird, however, is that individuals can seriously imagine themselves to have a direct relationship with ‘the creator’.]
    Yeah, you think they wouldn’t be so selfish to think the universe was about them.

  21. Showson

    While you don’t need religion to get its benefits. Religion does provide a structure/guidelines/procedures for people to follow that the alternatives don’t. “Not knowing how to go about it” is a common factor otherwise.

    For example, many it’s benefits stem have having a people around you who love and care about you etc. Your local church etc provides a social network of welcoming, supportive people with very low barriers of entry. Most other social clubs would have some sort of “expectation” of some sort, (e.g. at least rudimentary skill/knowledge in an particular area the club is about), but churches would take anyone who come to them with open arms.

    I know when we immigrated here, one of the first things we did here was find the local Chinese church. In the big strange foreign land that’s Australia, it helped us build ties, community etc to initially settle in.

  24. I found this comment on Malcolm Farr’s blog that I am sure gives a slightly different insight to an issue that is often mentioned on PB. Now my head aches!
    [Tom Griffin Q.B.C replied to Tator
    Wed 26 Aug 09 (04:28pm)

    sid of buderim,I wish to compliment you on a very well written and accurate assessment.Of course Malcolm and his ilk will never accept the reality, which is,largely the media is biased toward Socialism.

    There are Labor supporters on this blog who preach balance within the media. However they have never been able to provide me with an answer to the following question.

    Why does the A.B.C. have 5 guests on the Q&A;panel rather than 2,4 or 6, and why do they have 3 guests on the Insiders panel rather than 2 or 4? Surely even numbers present a better opportunity for balance than do odd numbers.

    I have monitored both these programmes ever since their inception and have found on every single occasion the left outnumber the right.Of Course to rub salt into the wounds the moderators, and I use this term loosely, Barry Cassidy and Tony Jones are fierce Labor supporters.

    Insiders make a half hearted attempt to demonstrate balance by mostly, although not always alternating from week to week between Labor and Coalition members of parliament as their interviewees . However on each occasion when they have a Coalition member as the interviewee, they screen lengthy clips of a Labor Minister.

    There can be no doubt the A.B.C. is the National Media arm of the Labor Party.In view of this and the fact the general media is firmly entrenched in Labor’s bed I think it was remarkable the Coalition performed as well as they did at the last election.]
    http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/malcolmfarr/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/invitation_to_a_bunfight/P0/

  26. 2218
    scorpio

    I’ve wondered the same thing myself ever since High School, when the same passage was read out one day. I just took it as a demonstration the Bible could not be taken literally, and, in a straight-forward way, was just collection of stories and therefore could not be anything ‘sacred’.

    Sacrilege, I know. But there you have it.

  27. [Religion does provide a structure/guidelines/procedures for people to follow that the alternatives don’t.]
    Maybe you have a point there. But now you are essentially saying that the doctrine of religions aren’t important, it is the fact they are something to do and believe in that are important. So it isn’t the end point, it is the process. It is more like a hobby, well, there are a lot of other hobbies.
    [For example, many it’s benefits stem have having a people around you who love and care about you etc. ]
    So like going out to the movies with friends?
    [Your local church etc provides a social network of welcoming, supportive people with very low barriers of entry. ]
    Like say joining a union, or a political party, or a sporting team.

    Well if that is the case it sounds more like a hobby. More like a hobby like stamp collecting, which has structure, guidelines and procedures.
    [Shows On,

    Stop pouting!]
    Get over yourself, that post wasn’t about you.

  28. scorpio,

    Have never ever thought about Tony Jones’ personal politics. However, he is Alan Jones’ nephew. When he was State Political Reporter here in Victoria he used to be fairly chummy with the Libs. But, maybe that was how he got his stories.

  31. JV,

    That doesn’t help either.
    If Kane took his brother’s daughter (his niece) for a wife, then Abel must have had his daughter by his mother.

    If not then where did Abel get his wife from to have the daughter.

    Doesn’t help much, does it? Still a great one to get rid of pesky missionaries of a Saturday morning though!

  32. [the guy that took public money to get a train ticket to shag his mistress lost his seat]
    [Koizumi’s (LDP) 28-year-old idiot son, won]
    So the son of a truck driver lost. Glen will be happy.

  34. [I am curious when you ask people the question about where did Kane get his wife what is their response?]
    Perhaps it was only a metaphorical wife?

  36. ShowsOn! I suspect you share my cynicism but i still think it would be interesting to see how the people of faith explain the question of where did Kane’s wife come from.

  37. Seriously unpalatable food for thought for everyone who has been banging on regarding the merits and otherwise of proportional representation eletoral systems on this blog over the past few months:

    [The Democratic Party may be forced to give up some parliamentary seats because its overwhelming victory in the electoral districts may not leave enough candidates on the party’s list for the proportional representation vote.

    Under the current electoral system, a candidate can run in both an electoral district and the proportional representation segment. A candidate who has won a constituency will automatically be omitted from the proportional representation list.

    If the party wins more than its expects to in the electoral districts, there could be a shortage of candidates in the list for the proportional representation seats.

    When this happens, the party would have to give up the seats they won in the proportional representation segments. These seats will then be provided to other parties.

    NHK’s exit polls suggest that this may happen for the Democratic Party in Sunday’s election because it is headed for a landslide victory.]

    http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_26.html

  40. [I suspect you share my cynicism but i still think it would be interesting to see how the people of faith explain the question of where did Kane’s wife come from.]
    The same way they deal with all the other contradictions in their doctrines: they completely ignore them and just concentrate on the parts that they think make sense.

    There was a story on the news last weak concerning a breast cancer survivor who received a new treatment developed by pharmacologists at the University of Adelaide. She was the first person in Australia to receive the treatment which worked.

    Towards the end of the story it was revealed that this woman was a specialist in “Alternative Medicine” (which of course is a contradiction in terms, there is medicine that works and then there is other stuff). But when she found out she had breast cancer, she went to a doctor like every other sane person, her belief in “alternative medicine” didn’t extend to curing herself from cancer.

    People have an astonishing ability to compartmentalise their brains, and to not recognise when they completely contract themselves.

  41. [Well they all could have been having children through the only known woman, Eve.]
    So what you’re saying is that Eve was a slut?

  42. Thomas Paine are we really suppose to believe that at a time in human history when Women were not able to give birth as late in life as they can today that somehow a Women gave birth to several generations. simplly weird.

  43. I am following the Sherlock Holmes method, the obvious. The only possible answer to the story if it gives all the facts, then the obvious.

    So if Eve gives birth at 15/16 and Kane and Able each have a child with her when they are 15/16 , Eve would be in her 30s.

    I did read from some scholar some years ago that the Genesis story was apparently created and added quite late, after many of the other sections were done maybe sometime in the 5th – 3rd century BC.

  44. Other thoughts on Japan tonight (BTW I’ve lived there for several years, speak the language etc):

    ‘When the swing is on, the swing is on’ Very large turn-out (almost 70%) which means the populace had not only decided on the necessity for change but was determined to turf out the rightists.

    This has been a very powerful message from the people to the public service and other sectoral interests in Japan.. “This is our will – Hatoyama has our overwhelming mandate – do not frustrate the DPJ reform agenda” Hatoyama would have been completely disfunctional with a narrow victory, or even a good victory, but a 200 seat majority (WOW!!!) is a thumping, shocking, jolt to the entrenched, conservative, power elites in Japan, who make our crowd of neocon wannabes and hasbeens at the OZ and IPA etc look like the half-witted milksops they are.

  45. [Thomas Paine are we really suppose to believe that at a time in human history when Women were not able to give birth as late in life as they can today that somehow a Women gave birth to several generations. simplly weird.]
    Err…, thats not exactly the hardest part of the bible to believe, though such inbreeding would probably cause serious reproductive problems. Also, for your information, some charactors in the Bible lived for many hundreds of years!

  47. The Heysen Molotov!! yeah there are a few old charactors it makes you wonder how some people believe it all but regardlerss faith is a personal thing and i guess if it gives confort or purpose then that is there choice.

  49. The JDP coalition is now predicted to have 327 seats, i.e. over 2/3 of the House of Representatives. The JDP itself is on 300.

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