Newspoll: 52-48

The latest Newspoll shows Labor’s lead at 52-48, equal lowest since the election of the Rudd government. It is the first time the government has trailed on the primary vote, by 40 per cent (steady on the previous poll) to 41 per cent (up three points) – the previous 52-48 result from October 30-November 1 having had the parties on 41 per cent each. The Greens are steady on 12 per cent, with “others” down from 10 per cent to 7 per cent. Kevin Rudd has suffered no damage on preferred prime minister, leading 58 per cent to 26 per cent (both up one). More to follow.

Other news:

• Essential Research has Labor’s two-party lead at 56-44 for the third week running. It also finds that while the majority of Labor and Coalition voters are firm if not fruity, 24 per cent of Greens voters (double the rate for the majors) “might consider another party and leader closer to an election”. Seventy per cent say politicians “should not be giving advice on moral issues”. Fifty-seven per cent support the Shopping Centre Council’s call for a ban on politicians campaigning in shopping centres. Respondents want a republic but not a new flag, nor (what the hell is wrong with people?) a new national anthem.

• Political party financial disclosure returns, such as they are, have been published. Labor and the Coalition parties were evenly matched on receipts, Labor receiving $42.9 million for 2008-09 against $38.4 million for the Liberals and $5.2 million for the Nationals – sharply down on last year due to the absence in the period of so much as a by-election. The Australian counts $4.65 million in donations to Labor from unions (the opposition makes it $11 million), the Coalition parties received $800,000 from Clive Palmer, and the Westfield Corporation evenly divided $230,000 between the two. Stephen Mayne in Crikey points to the disparity between the Queensland and WA branches of the ALP in a period when both had state elections: $14.3 million in receipts and $15.8 million in expenses for the victorious party in Queensland, against $4 million and $4.5 million for the defeated party in WA. Labor is $7 million in debt, the Liberals $4.2 million.

• Tim Dick of the Sydney Morning Herald reviews the recall election issue. All of the American examples cited refer to individual offices – a very different matter from dissolving an assembly, which the Coalition proposes to look at once in government. However, the article also notes the Canadian province of British Columbia has allowed members to recall their local MPs since 1995. Only one attempt managed to procure the required 40 per cent of voters’ signatures, and the MP in question obviated the need for a recall election (as distinct from a by-election) by resigning. In the current environment in New South Wales, that would obviously inspire efforts to knock off enough Labor MPs to cost the government its majority.

• Toni Bell of the Manning River Times reports John Turner, Nationals member for the NSW state seat of Myall Lakes, has announced his 23-year parliamentary career will end at next year’s election. Turner lost the party’s deputy leadership in 2003 and was dumped as Shadow Mineral Resources and Lands Minister in December 2008. The electorate, which covers the north coast north of Newcastle and south of Port Macquarie, will presumably become of interest to the Liberals.

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.

2,522 thoughts on “Newspoll: 52-48”

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  2. This should be the recognised sign for Truthy (The Idiot):
    ì

    You get it by typing “& i g r a v e ;” (without the spaces)

  4. Socrates@2499:

    If the ABS won’t admit that atheism is a religeon (or at least a coherent belief system) and we can’t say “Jedi”, then belief in the flying spaghetti monster seems the most credible option left. Her followers have never committed a single religeous war in all of recorded history. All hail the flying spaghetti monster.

    I think “The Force” is out as well. They got stroppy after the 2001 census, when 70,000 people put in something related to Jedi, Jedi Knights and so on.

    I wonder if they have red flagged Pastafarianism as well? I might give that a run next time.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

  6. Paul Nash,

    god forsaking third world country that probably idolises allah instead of god.

    Sorry to burst your bubble but they are one and the same entities!

    Allah (Arabic: ?????, All?h, Turkish: Allah, IPA: [?al????h

    ( listen)) is the standard Arabic word for God.

    1

    While the term is best known in the West for its use by Muslims as a reference to God, it is used by Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, in reference to “God”.]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah

  7. Sorry to burst your bubble but they are one and the same entities!

    You’re asking too much if you think The Idiot II can avoid acting like an idiot.

  8. An overview from Xinhua agency on the post-Copenhagen next step:

    The submissions were required by the Copenhagen Accord reached at the climate conference in December, which asked both developed and developing countries to indicate their support and targets for emissions cut before January 31.
    Among the 35 industrialized countries that had submitted pledges, the United States promised to cut its emissions by 17 percent by 2020 on the 2005 base. The European Union, as a whole, promised to lower its emissions by 20 to 30 percent over the 1990 level.
    China said it would endeavor to lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 compared with 2005.

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-02/05/c_13164274.htm

  9. How the Chinese Academy of Sciences currently sees the allocation of emissions quotas (from the ame article):

    Therefore, Ding believed the most scientific allocation of emissions quota should be based on a country’s per capita emissions throughout history.
    He said China’s per capita greenhouse gases emissions from 1900 to 2005 was only a third of the world’s average, 10 percent that of developed countries and five percent that of the U.S.
    “In more than a century from 1900 to 2005, the per capita emissions for developed countries were 7.54 times those of developing countries,” Ding said.

  10. 2477…..TheTruthHurts

    My motto is you can’t help people who can’t help themselves.

    Thats why foreign aid fails. You are basically paying people to repeat the same mistakes and poverty cycle they have been in for decades. If they haven’t learnt to fend for themselves yet, they never will. No amount of cash will be able to fix that.

    Contempt seems to come so easily to you, HTT. Have you always been like this – in other words, are you innately nasty? Or is it an acquired attribute?

    Usually a motto serves to inspire and uplift, unlike your adage, which translates to the more earthy “Lost causes can F… off”

  11. Having been away for a month and come back, my observation is that the tone of this blog is lower than it was last year.

    I thought the intellectual content of the PB discussion was quite high while Herr Doktor was away 😛

  12. Australia’s total foreign aid budget is $3.8 bn a year, less than 1% of Commonwealth expenditure and 0.3% of our gross national income. It’s a trivial amount of money and even abolishing it outright would make no significant difference to the budget situation. Attacking foreign aid is a cheap populist stunt which the Libs-Nats always resort to when in opposition, though they never do anything about it when they’re in government.

  13. Contempt seems to come so easily to you, HTT. Have you always been like this – in other words, are you innately nasty? Or is it an acquired attribute?

    He has always been The Idiot as long as he has been posting here.

  14. So the oppossition says it will plant an additional 20million trees. I figure you can plant a tree every 5 metres (probaly closer, but hey why not 5 to start with) that means that every square km you can plant 40,000- so with 20mill you would plant 500 sq km. But my calculation says you need 13,200 to reduce CO2 by 5% . That is only 4% of wat’s needed. who did the maths on this?????

  16. Attacking foreign aid is a cheap populist stunt which the Libs-Nats always resort to when in opposition, though they never do anything about it when they’re in government.

    Abbott said yesterday that he agrees with the government’s plan to increase it to 0.5% of GDP by 2016/2017.

  17. Abbott wants an election now. He’s realised that his CC ‘policy’ will only stand up for a short time, not a long time:
    “Abbott challenges Rudd to early election”

    Probably so that he doesn’t beat Nelson’s 8% PPM rating if the campaign drags on till September! 😉

  20. Just been from coffee. Scanning over the posts you can see what happens when people start inventing and believing in conspiracy theories.

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