Newspoll: 54-46

The Australian reports the first Newspoll of the year has Labor’s two-party lead down from 56-44 to 54-46. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is down three points to 57 per cent, his second lowest rating since the election. Labor are down three points on the primary vote to 40 per cent, which has gone to the Greens (up one to 12 per cent) and other (up two to 10 per cent) – the Coalition is steady on 38 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is down six points to 52 per cent, disapproval is up two to 34 per cent and uncommitted is up four to 14 per cent. Also featured are Tony Abbott’s first personal ratings from Newspoll: at 40 per cent his approval rating is similar to Turnbull’s pre-Utegate, while his 35 per cent disapproval is slightly lower. Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is 57-25, down from 60-23 on Abbott’s debut in the final Newspoll last year and exactly where it was in the last poll before Utegate.

This chart shows the number of times Labor has recorded particular two-party results in the 48 Newspolls conducted since the 2007 election, which places the latest poll among Labor’s five weakest results:

newspoll0810

Today has also seen the first Essential Research survey of the new season which has Labor’s lead at 56-44, down from 57-43 on December 21 and at the lower end of Essential’s usual range. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating of 55 per cent is the lowest yet recorded by Essential, although his 33 per cent disapproval is two points lower than the November 30 survey. Tony Abbott’s ratings have improved slightly on his December 14 debut, his approval up three to 37 per cent and disapproval up one to 36 per cent. Further questions find respondents optimistic about economic prospects, though less so than late last year (note the stunning turnaround on this measure from early to late last year).

Note of caution: Possum has observed that “when you look over the history of polls that happen in the Christmas/New Year period going back forever, you find them being more ‘all over the place’ than you tend to find at any other period (with the possible exception of Easter)”. Not sure how late into January this applies.

Also:

• Karen Brown, chief-of-staff to WA Opposition Leader Eric Ripper and unsuccessful state election candidate for Mount Lawley, has scotched suggestions she will run for the marginal Liberal federal seat of Cowan. The West Australian has reported party state executive member Alex Banzic, who is “understood to work for Melbourne-based EG property group as an investment manager”, is the only nominee so far, although it last week reported staffer Sam Roe as a possible entrant.

• The Northern Star reports Tweed councillor Joan van Lieshout has won the local ballot for Liberal preselection in the north coast New South Wales federal seat of Richmond, although there remains the formality of endorsement by the state executive. The Liberals have never held the seat, and have not contested it since 1996, although its increasingly urban character is such that they would be as likely to win it as the Nationals if it returned to the conservative fold. Labor’s Justine Elliot has held the seat since defeating Nationals member Larry Anthony in 2004. The Nationals candidate will be Pottsville pharmacist Tania Murdock.

• The Esperance Express names Ian Bishop, former adviser to state government ministers Kim Chance and John Bowler (the latter now an independent aligned with the Nationals), as Labor’s candidate to run against Wilson Tuckey in O’Connor.

• The ABC reports Queanbeyan councillor John Barilaro and New South Wales Farmers Association executive councillor Mark Horan have nominated for Nationals preselection in the state seat of Monaro, which Labor’s Steve Whan retained in 2007 by a margin of 6.3 per cent.

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.

970 comments on “Newspoll: 54-46”

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  1. #94 – Chinda

    The staff may have been looking at the records for “interest”, but I am surprised that other staff members did not take some action where there were concerns the file was being examined for non-work purposes (which indicates a systemic failure to inculcate a proper culture of confidentiality within the service). However, the bottom line is whether information obtained by the readers was ever used outside of work or released to others outside of work. If there was a breach of confidentiality, a release of information into the wider community, then the suspects would be limited to those working in the service.

    The concern is about hackers getting into a central data base. How do you make the database “hacker-proof”.

  2. #96.
    [ Barry O’Farrell is apparently already referring to himself as the next Premier of NSW: a little premature?]
    Yeah it is premature.
    The next Premier is either – Frank Sartor (pre-2011), John Della Bosca (pre-2011), Barry O’Farrell (2011) or Mike Baird (2011).

    I reckon it’s a 4 way race.
    🙂

  3. [Because all of the Newspolls have had the opportunity to be a one-off for an outlier. And none have given Labor as low as 40% on the primary vote.]
    But in your words ” I’m not saying 40% is correct”. Well, yes you are if you think it is significant. If it is not correct then it is insignificant. It is only significant if it continues.

  7. chinda63

    In 20 years of medical practice, I can honestly say I don’t recall a single patient who died or had a serious adverse outcome because of a lack of information being available. There certainly were times when decisions could have been made more quickly and money saved but the life-saving benefits are greatly overstated.

  8. Diogenes – #108

    I hope your lack of enthusiasm isn’t based on a desire to avoid having to enter the details into a central database for some reason e.g. cost, opposition to change e.g. scribbling indecipherable notes onto bits of paper, loss of individual way of keeping records, need to adopt standardised expressions etc.
    🙂

  11. PY

    That certainly would be a pain in the arse. All of our records are electronic now but someone would have to upload them onto the central server which would create an awful lot of work. Very expensive.

    Obviously, I won’t be paying for someone to do it. If the Government wants it, they can pay for it. 😀

  13. Dario

    “I’m so glad I don’t have to read his drivel. Praise the unmentionable!”

    hart brokens am I , here i think you were my followin my sins , but alas no

    BTW i come back heres and here about some new “thingy” I ask what it is , silense , no reply , from none , supose a Da Vinse code developd when i away

    Then i think it is a vapor invisible thingy , and bob 123456 is banned , but no he here
    Now William seals th Da Vinse codes so i never know

  14. Obviously this poll is within MOE of previous results so it is either steady as she goes or a slight improvement for the Liberals. I can’t think of anything recently that would have shifted the actual result. If interest rates continue ot go up there will be a leak from the government 2PP figure, as per Poss’s previous analysis. But we still aren’t back at the interest rate figure before the change in government. Plus, the economic news basically proves the government’s stimulus package was correct. The budget session will be a hoot, with whoever is Shadow Minister for Knowing Nothing About Finance having to defend all those silly debt comments. The way things are going, unemployment and debt will be far lower than forecast. That will leave the government free to spend before an election in August (my guess).

    What amuses me more than how this result is spun is that The American readily publishes such results when they shift to the Liberals. Yet we still don’t know what those missing results from November and December were. I wonder if next fortnight’s poll will be “missing” or aggregated into a quarterly total again, if it shifts back and this just turns out to be more noise.

  15. Dio 108

    My mother in law is a doctor (women’s health, cancer) and both she and Xanthippe are skeptical of central databases for medical records, based on their past experience of the poor security for existing databases, plus the very dubious benefit from them as you say.

  16. Socrates@114:

    [What amuses me more than how this result is spun is that The American readily publishes such results when they shift to the Liberals.]

    Took me a while, I do lots of things slower these days, but I finally twigged:

    The American = Rupert Murdoch = The Australian Newspaper = OO

  18. Don

    Sorry, my obscure joke. Yes, for me its The American or The Fascist. The paper where it is un-Australian to have a view that conflicts with Republican Party policy, should not be called The Australian.

  22. Seriously, if you are going to report this stuff, could you please report margin of error, which for this sample would be about +/- 3%, meaning that there is no statistically significant change in any of what you have reported on.

  23. [Seriously, if you are going to report this stuff, could you please report margin of error, which for this sample would be about +/- 3%, meaning that there is no statistically significant change in any of what you have reported on.]

    If a poll trend went 60/40, then 58/42, then 56/44, then 54/46, then 52/48, then 50/50, would that be no change as all movements were in MoE?

    Move on. Nothing to see here.

  24. MM@122:

    [Seriously, if you are going to report this stuff, could you please report margin of error, which for this sample would be about +/- 3%, meaning that there is no statistically significant change in any of what you have reported on.]

    Already reported on the newspoll link, and I got it from there and reported it here as well.

    Don@90:

    [MOE is plus or minus three percentage points.

    Thus the poll could be 57-43 or it could be 51-49.]

  26. Michael, people who come here know the drill. Newspoll has conducted fortnightly polls from the same sample size since the dawn of time, and readers don’t need to see the same point reiterated in every post. When I think relating the margin of error will tell people something they don’t already know, I do.

  27. [Three steps to a better Poll Bludger:]

    Don’t you mean Three steps to a Labor Poll Bludger… blocking opinions of those you don’t agree with?

  29. bob@123:

    [If a poll trend went 60/40, then 58/42, then 56/44, then 54/46, then 52/48, then 50/50, would that be no change as all movements were in MoE?]

    You’ve not gained any mathematical skills while you’ve been away, bob, and you need them real bad.

    Taking the top and the bottom figures, and applying MOE of 3%:

    The worst result for Labor from the 60/40 would be 57/43.

    The best result for Labor from the 50/50 would be 53/47.

    Notice there is no overlap.

    Thus it would be statistically significant, and Labor would be in deep doo-doo.

    But that is not what has happened. The trend has been jumping around the trend line, as polls always do. Go over to Possum’s site and learn something.

    And in any case, many people here think there is something fishy going on with Newspoll announcements or non-annoucements of polls.

    Some are missing.

    They might be only reporting the ones favourable to the Opposition, or more likely the Australian newspaper is only reporting the ones favourable to the Opposition, since they pay for the Newspoll polling, and not publishing the others.

  31. Don@129:

    [The trend has been jumping around the trend line, as polls always do.]

    The poll results have been jumping around the trend line, as polls always do.

    Curse the lack of an edit function!

  32. [Bob McMullan, ALP for Canberra, quitting.]

    A shame. I’ve always had a lot of time for McMullan and used to cite articles and academic releases of his in essays I wrote about development and international aid. A true intellectual. I wish him all the best.

  34. [Don’t you mean Three steps to a Labor Poll Bludger… blocking opinions of those you don’t agree with?]
    That’s funny on a number of levels, but the one that made me smile was the idea that making this blog an exclusive Labor site would filter out any contrary opinions…

  36. [Don’t you mean Three steps to a Labor Poll Bludger… blocking opinions of those you don’t agree with?]
    Bob’s chip on the shoulder is alive and well.

  38. [She presides over a party which has shifted from its purely ecological roots to an identity which might be described as radical social democrat; although still with the most demanding agenda for fighting climate change, and resolutely anti-nuclear, the Greens are now equally concerned with job creation in the recession and defending the NHS.]

    Sounds like our Greens 🙂

  42. i just repost it

    Ron
    Posted Monday, January 18, 2010 at 10:58 pm | Permalink
    #22

    LAST YEAR

    jan 18th 09 poll 54/46

    3 weeks earlier 58/42 actualy 59/41
    6 weks earlier 55/45

    feb 6th 09 pol 58/42

    so maybe holiday poll”

    si eithr side of th same 54/46 poll last yr in th same jan mth were large labor polls
    Now anyone tinks Greens ar reely at 12% is silly , anyone thinks Labor primary is 40% is also silly & what lose primary %’s from 2007

    very obvous Newspoll do Jan pols and cannt get labor suporters on ph to poll all down th caravan parks & where no phones in caravans

  43. #136
    ‘Bob’s chip on the shoulder is alive and well.’
    Don’t conservatives have the chips built into the shoulders of their suits to give them a neat, edgy look?

  44. Bob,
    How many jobs would be lost if the Greens emissions reduction targets were implemented? Greens policy and job growth is an oxymoron, pure and simple.

  45. “Don’t conservatives have the ‘chips’ built into the shoulders of their suits”

    cips yes but they ar reely selectiv , ‘right’ side ‘core’ , and ‘left’ side ‘non core’

  46. Jonny B Good

    “Greens policy and job growth is an oxymoron, PURE & SIMPLE.”

    very clevr Johnny , Greens polisys , ‘pure’ and ‘simple’

  47. when i first looked i got the usual tummy wobbles but really 4 points down from the last poll i dont think we should take news poll with a grain of salt these days.
    and i bet the media ignor essential again. Can i suggest we all let the abc know re essential i had an email back from them once saying that they essential did not do a poll the same as news poll and any way its News Poll that politicians mostley take notice of.
    they wrote ?-/Textor what has that got to do with any thing. but any way i want give up will email them again re the world to day etc. and the News Radio, they can be very short with you there though. re the ? mark cannot remember what they wrote there.

  48. And Greens voted against means testing the rebate on private health insurance, thus taking money from the poor to give to the rich.

  50. [How many jobs would be lost if the Greens emissions reduction targets were implemented? Greens policy and job growth is an oxymoron, pure and simple.]

    There’d be more jobs with all the greener jobs that would be created out of it.

    And bottom line, without a climate, there are zero jobs.

    I find it so hilarious that diehard Labor supporters have slowly but surely been pushed by their Labor government in to views that Liberals took to the last election! They don’t know whether they’re Arthur or Martha, it’s pure classic comedic gold! 😀

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