Newspoll: 58-42

After three successive 55-45 results, the latest fortnightly Newspoll returns the Coalition to its lowest ebb, with Labor leading 58-42. This hasn’t been matched by any seismic shift on the preferred prime minister rating: Kevin Rudd is up two points to 67 per cent, but Malcolm Turnbull is also up one to 18 per cent. If you’re feeling creative, you might interpret the results as a vote of no confidence in the Coalition party room’s hostility to the emissions trading scheme. More details to follow. UPDATE: Labor’s primary vote is up three points to 46 per cent, the Coalition’s is down three to 35 per cent, and Turnbull’s disapproval is down two to a four-month low of 48 per cent. Graphic here; more from Dennis Shanahan.

Meanwhile, the latest weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead up from 59-41 to 60-40. Further questions cover Kevin Rudd’s performance at the G20 summit (good if not great), confidence in his representation of Australia at such events (high), whether respondents agree with Bill Clinton’s kind words about him (they do), confidence in economic conditions over the next 12 months (sharply higher), concern over personal job security (correspondingly lower) and employees’ perception of how their employer is travelling (mixed).

Some big news on the preselection front, as you’re probably aware:

• Peter Dutton appears to have failed in his bid to move from Dickson to McPherson, having lost Saturday’s preselection vote to Karen Andrews. The state executive of Queensland’s Liberal National Party can refuse to ratify the result, but senior figures in the party have reportedly ruled this out. Dutton is said to have come within a handful of votes of victory on the first round, but was defeated on the third after the excluded Minna Knight’s supporters moved en masse to Karen Andrews (although the ABC records Andrews’ win on the final round being a reasonably comfortable 75 to 59). Liberals are telling the media of a “bloc of up to 40 Nationals” accounting for both local branch and state executive delegates voted against Dutton, but Barnaby Joyce (who supported Dutton) gives this the status of “scratching on the back of a public lavatory door”. Jamie Walker of The Australian reports the outcome was influenced by a “boots and all” attack on Dutton at the preselection meeting by Judy Gamin, former Nationals member for the local seat of Burleigh; the role of Currumbin MP Jann Stuckey in shifting Knight’s votes to Andrews; and the absence of the seat’s Dutton-supporting sitting member, Margaret May, who “opted to continue with a scheduled parliamentary visit to Britain”.

• Dutton’s defeat has led to speculation he might instead be accommodated by a retirement announcement from Fisher MP Peter Slipper or Fairfax MP Alex Somlyay, but neither seems to be biting. Scott Prasser of the Australian Catholic University observes: “The trouble is when you are in opposition both federally and state, you can’t offer any existing MPs any positions overseas or posts so it is very hard to sort of lean on someone say could you please go for the good of the party because we’ve got nothing to offer you.” Many have noted there’s a vacant seat next door in newly created Wright, but as Andrew Landeryou of VexNews notes, this is designated Nationals turf under the merger arrangement.

• Stephanie Peatling of the Sydney Morning Herald reports high-profile constitutional lawyer George Williams might challenge Bob McMullan for preselection in his northern Canberra seat of Fraser.

• The ABC reports Tamworth councillor and Winton district farmer Russell Webb will seek preselection for the Nationals in the state seat of Tamworth. The seat has been held by independents for all but two years since 1991: by Tony Windsor until his entry into federal parliament as member for New England in 2001, and by present incumbent Peter Draper since 2003.

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.

1,794 comments on “Newspoll: 58-42”

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  1. [Should be a bottler, Henry Fonda is always a class act.]
    Yeah, Fonda was a liberal Democrat who joined the Navy as soon as WWII was declared. On the other hand, John Wayne was a conservative Republican who didn’t bother signing up. Wayne even went on to make The Green Berets ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063035/ ) one of the few pro Vietnam War Hollywood films, but never explained why he didn’t serve during WWII.

  4. [Mind you ShowsOn Jimmy Stewart did serve in WW2 and he was a conservative Republican.]
    He was more liberal than John Wayne! Wayne said in an interview with Playboy in the early 1970s that “Negroes” aren’t suited to being politicians. And these days they become President and win Nobel prizes in the same year! 😀

  6. Glen went:

    [Also a passion of mine is alternative history novels…]

    I’ve always wondered how late 19th, and thus 20th century history would have changed if the Japanese were as resource ‘well endowed’ as the UK was at a comparable level of development. I’d imagine that the Russo-Japanese war that Psephos referred to earlier via Roosevelt and and inter war Washington Conference system between the US and Japan would have walked to the beat of a seriously different drum.

  7. [The Opposition Leader unveiled a plan to “pay off Labor’s debt”, which involved four points: reducing government waste, increasing economic growth and productivity, reducing government spending to less than 25 per cent of gross domestic product, and ensuring independent and accurate scrutiny of Australia’s public finances.]
    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26183725-7583,00.html
    I look forward to the Liberals fleshing this policy out during the election. They will need to cut about $20 billion out of the budget. I look forward to reading what their hit list will be.

  8. [John Wayne was a product of his age a little hard to criticise him there ShowsOn.
    Times change.]
    Abraham Lincoln was a product of his age too, but it didn’t stop him from signing the emancipation declaration.

    If racial discrimination is morally wrong, then it must be morally wrong all the time, both now and in the past.

  9. 1606

    This would have meant them being open an expansionist for the period they were isolationist. That would likely have meant Colonies around the Pacific in such places as the West Coast of North America, most of the Islands in the Pacific and Australia. Different world history.

  12. 1611

    Had Japan industrialised earlier then Chine would probably have done so too. Mao may not even have been a significant figure at all.

  13. It’s an in interesting proposition Tom. On the one hand, China is this behemoth that could never really be substantially dominated on its mainland and walked to its own beat – although it’s extremities like Manchuria were always open game.

    Yet, on the other, would a Japan that launched a parallel 1st Industrial Revolution with England have forced the Chinese leadership to make that paradigmatic change between their long history of feudalism to something more modern and sophisticated enough to technologically counter as well as administer the consequences of the industrial revolution at the time?

  17. Bill, I don’t know about “paradigmical” – but “paradigmatic” certainly is. If you consult page 3 of the quintessential Paul Kelly’s Guide to Gravitas… it’s about 3/4ths of the way down 😀

  18. [Hockey was appalled at Costello’s behaviour. He saw it as a profound abrogation of the deputy leader’s responsibility to the party. The Liberals are still recovering.]

    When will journalists learn the difference between abrogation and abdication?

  20. Righto, the OO RWDB Push have decided Malcom is too wet or too ditzy, or not willing enough to defend Howard…whatever. The editorial policy is now to destroy Turnbull;

    http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26190190-421,00.html

    The big question is who do they want to insert? They started backing Abbott a few months ago, then …well People Skills went a bit more People Skillsy than usual and the OO dumped him like a fat greyhound. Really, there is no credible alternative. What are they up to?

  24. Wow! Turnbull will quit if the joint partyroom rejects his proposed amendments:
    [But if a special partyroom meeting tomorrow week rejects all the amendments and denies Mr Turnbull the right to negotiate with the government, he has said he will walk away from his leadership.]

  26. [Quiz for tomorrow: Who should have won the Nobel Peace Prize? ]

    Well we do know you’re a Clinton fan. But really, a black man has come from humble beginnings, to end up being the most powerful man in the world. He’s inspired countless young black people.

    Obama is a great choice for the Nobel Peace Prize.

  29. As for John Howard, I am pleased that the “John Howard to save the NRL” movement seemed to have died away. What possessed any RL official to even think of such a thing is pure lunacy,Howard was the one who wanted to screw the very core supporters with Workchoices. Howard the failed Treasurer. Howard only the 2nd PM to loose his seat at an election.Howard of the white picket fence.
    He would destroy Rugby League in Australia. Why, after a year where the largest crowd (85,000) attended the Grand Final, which one team was from Melbourne and many millions in Australia and World Wide watched the Grand Final on TV?

  34. Here it is, found it.

    [Due to the entry of Labor into politics, socialism, he (Andrew Fisher second Labor PM) said, had moved from being tabooed, sneered at and scouted [and had been] brought to a first place in public discussion … We are all Socialists now and indeed the only qualification you hear from anybody is probably that he is “not an extreme socialist”. I do not think that the ideas of the originators have altered one jot.]

    http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080529b.htm

  35. Welcome back Mike Carlton indeed.

    [http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-stew-of-grudges-and-whinges-20091009-gqoh.html]

    At the bottom of his well written and very amusing Howard piece there is something extra. What an extraordinary story.

    [LAST week I was among friends and family gathered at the Randwick Labor Club to celebrate the 90th birthday of a great Australian. And I mean great.

    Francis Joseph McGovern was a lad of 20 when war broke out in 1939 and, as a navy reservist, was one of the first to the fight. After the fall of Singapore in 1942, his ship, the cruiser HMAS Perth, was torpedoed by the Japanese in the Battle of the Sunda Strait, north-west of modern-day Jakarta. Frank’s brother, Vince, was lost in the sinking, but he made it to shore and was eventually consigned to the horrors of the Burma-Siam Railway.

    He survived that, too, only to be torpedoed again, this time by the US Navy

    as he was being shipped off to Japan. Recaptured by the Japanese, he worked as a slave labourer in a factory in Tokyo, where he was fire-bombed by the Americans in 1945 and his back was broken.

    In hospital, he discovered that disabled Allied prisoners were being surgically murdered by Japanese doctors so their blood could be used for transfusions. Somehow he managed to stagger in agony from the ward and eventually he recovered to hear, in his prison camp, of the Japanese surrender.

    These days any mug football player can be called a hero. Frank McGovern, a humble and gentle man, is the genuine article.]

  36. Maybe I needed to sleep on the Obama – Peace prize to see it more clearly

    Has anyone ever declined a Nobel Peace prize? Barry Obama should consider this

    What’s going to happen next time he needs to order an air strike, or there is an oppressed community of a foregin country that request US intervention?

    He will need to dismiss the ‘encouragement award’ influence his decision making

  37. o_O

    [THE spurned husband charged with assaulting Mike Rann with a rolled-up magazine says the full extent of his estranged wife’s relationship with the South Australian Premier will be revealed in court.

    Richard Wayne Phillips, 55, broke a week-long silence yesterday to declare: “When I go to court, that’s when it will all come out, the truth of what really went on.”

    Mr Phillips, a wealthy Adelaide businessman, said it would “look a bit strange” if the police suddenly dropped the charges against him.

    He declined to comment further, on his lawyer’s advice, saying Mr Rann was “speaking enough for both of us, I think”. ]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26189725-2702,00.html

  38. Oh, pure gold.

    [The Weekend Australian is not suggesting the relationship was anything more than a friendship. ]

    Then at the end

    [It is understood that Ms Chantelois may have served Mr Rann refreshments from the Parliament House kitchen in his private office.]

    Gotta love the OO!

  40. 1636

    [What’s going to happen next time he needs to order an air strike]

    then he’ll give the order

    [or there is an oppressed community of a foregin country that request US intervention?]

    then he’ll make a decision based on the facts unlike GBW.

    I see this as a reward to the people of the USA for rejecting the maniacal path taken by the Republican Party and choosing a new path that just might make the planet a safer place.

  41. I’ve been banging on about this for sometime. Mike Carlton has got this right.

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-stew-of-grudges-and-whinges-20091009-gqoh.html

    [ ……. if the Liberals are wondering who or what has plunged them into chaos they need look no further than John Winston Howard.

    Consumed by hubris, clinging to his failing prime ministership with bloodied fingernails, egged on by his wife and his adoring media claque, the Toad (thank you, Alan Ramsey) wilfully destroyed any chance of a seamless leadership succession in the party he so humbly professed to serve. ]

  42. They need to employ a proof reader at the OO

    [TEENAGE adventurer Jessica Watson is not set to not leave Sydney until late next week in her attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world.]

  44. While Dennis Shanahan has somewhat ameliorated his anti-Labor/pro-Liberal stance of the past, he certainly hasn’t given up on his Messiah fixations.

    It seems like Dennis has made up his mind that Turnbull has to go and is sticking to it through thick and thin. He tells us that there is now someone to fill the gap: Uncle Joe. It doesn’t seem to matter that Joe is a buffoon who will make a mucky-muck of the Liberal Leadership (or any leadership, for that matter). All that’s important is that Joe is more popular than Turnbull and that he’s prepared to take on the role of leader, presumably with guarantees that he won’t be booted out when he loses the election.

    Hartcher workshops this theme too in a fluff piece on Hockey listing Hockey’s “achievements”. He even puts up the idea that Joe fought hard for softening of Work Choices via the Fairness Test, when we all know he didn’t have a clue that it was to be introduced, even after Howard had cobbled the plan together. Joe was a useful idiot then, and remains a useful idiot, a gentle giant who’ll do anything for the party, from emptying the dunny cans to popping his head over the parapets to see if the enemy snipers are still awake. Go on Joe, we’re right behind you.

    Both Hartcher and Shanahan quote the story that Turnbull sought to get Costello interested in the leadership one more time, about four weeks back, through an intermediary. But Cozzie wanted to talk to the butcher, not the block, and by the time that message worked its way back, Malcolm had got his second wind and decided to stay. Little Malco, haunted by his dead Dad’s imprecation to never give up and still trying to please his long-gone mother.

    Someone’s leaking, Big Time, if stories like this get a serious guernsey. The Liberal insiders are still plotting manoeuvres surrender is the only option . Turnbull is clearly still on the outer with the geniuses behind the Liberals, and they’re letting their hatred of him and his upstart ways get in the way of self-preservation. They need – or think they need – someone who’ll fill the gap, and who better than the genial Joe: dumb, slow, but loyal.

    Poor Joe, he really is out of his league. I suppose some may hope he’s the bumbling Claudius to Turnbull’s Caligula, cleverly hiding his true talents in order to save his head. Hartcher posits Joe’s ready to take on the top job because he was appalled that Cozzie didn’t – or wouldn’t – when it was offered to him. But that assumes the job itself is worth taking, which of course it isn’t. Hockey is no Claudius. He’s more a hapless Bormann, finally elevated to the exalted rank of Reichskanzler amidst the rubble of Berlin and the Party, his Fuherer already dead. Bormann-Hockey is fated to stick to the bunker until the last, and then disappear without trace, unmourned and unloved. He can have the job if he wants it. The Party hard-heads have – or should have – more important things to think about, like saving their own skins.

    Mike Carlton, in a welcome return to sanity on the SMH opinion pages, says what we all know: blame Howard, or should we now call him the “National Commissioner for getting NRL thuggery and group sex off the front pages and back into the motel rooms where it belongs”? Rumours abounded and then evaporated Howard was going to clean up Rugby League. Yeah right. Can anyone see him tring to explain away the drunken excesses a pack of overpaid 20-somethings get up to on an end-of-season rampage in Coffs Harbour? No, thought not. Blame Howard, who had to destroy his party in order to save it. I almost miss him. Almost. At least Howard had a few brief periods of lucidity, in-between bouts of megalomania.

    It all boils down to an obsession with leadership – at any price – and winning elections. This might sound strange to a bunch of bloggers on a psephy site, but there’s more to government than that, as Greg Combet tried patiently, but vainly, to explain to ABC radio yesterday. Combet tried to get across a novel concept: the ETS is more than just a political toy to be used and abused as the Liberal and Nationals see fit. The barbarians are near the gate, if not at it. Something has to be done. He may as well have been pissing in the wind for all the good it did.

    Somewhere, sometime, someone on the conservative side has to get real about governance of Australia. They have to eschew the fatal fascination with who’s boss and actually do some work. Nelson never had a hope. Turnbull was too interested in destiny (his own). Joe’s not up to it, and never was. Cozzie lost interest when he read the fine print. Dutton didn’t get pre-selected. Howard lost his seat. Downer took off to hector the Cypriots. Abbott thinks Climate Change is crap. Robb’s running from the black dog. I guess whoever the next Liberal PM may be, he’s too busy studying for the HSC to worry about something that far down the track.

    Yet the likes of Shanahan, Hartcher and even Carlton still obsess about leadership, as if that’ll settle anything. Dying in a ditch for a wingnut denialist position on Climate Change isn’t going to help the Coalition, either to win votes or save the planet. The Arctic ice melts ever faster, dust storms turn the sky blood red, it’s hot in September and freezing in October. And still, in their delusions of grandeur, the Coalition believes (and the commentators hope) that a triumph of the will and the new secret weapon – Joe Hockey!!! – will defeat the Asiatic hordes at the last possible moment. I’m tempted to say they have a snowflake’s chance in hell, but that would be too close to the mark.

  47. At times like this I realise how extremely pacifist my views are compared to those of some PBers.

    I can’t fathom how Psephos and ShowsOn can seriously believe that a preemptive strike on Iran would somehow improve “world security”. It’d be more like a sure fire means of shifting public opinion in Iran, which is currently running a little against Ahmadinejad, to strong support of the insane regime.

    It’d be a quick road to another political mess like Iraq or Afghanistan. The current near dictatorship in Iran is not ideal, but it’s largely the result of multiple British and US interventions in Iran. What makes you think another try with a bigger hammer is going to help?

  49. Musrum:
    [“If we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid-for content, it will be the content creators – the people in this hall – who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph,” he (Murdoch) said.]

    The “current movement toward paid-for content” is all in Rupert’s imagination at the moment. I hope it stays that way.

  50. [What makes you think another try with a bigger hammer is going to help?]

    When your logic exists in a moral vacuum,you need something really big and simple to fill the space.

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