Nielsen: 54-46

The latest Nielsen poll has Labor’s two-party lead at 54-46, down from 56-44 in November. The Coalition is up four points on the primary vote to 41 per cent, with Labor steady on 42 per cent (no figure is provided for the Greens as far as I can see). The Prime Minister’s personal ratings have taken a hit, his approval rating down six to 60 per cent and disapproval up four to 33 per cent. The poll is the first since Tony Abbott became Liberal leader, and finds him with 44 per cent approval and 41 per cent disapproval. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is 58-31, compared with 67-21 in the twilight of Turnbull’s leadership. The sample size was 1400. Elsewhere:

• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports Paul Nicolaou, the Liberal Party fundraiser who failed to retain John Brogden’s old seat of Pittwater at a 2006 by-election, will seek preselection for the state upper house. Also in the hunt for the three “at large” positions on the Liberal ticket (the remaining places are selected on a regional basis) are moderate incumbent Catherine Cusack; Peter Phelps, former chief-of-staff to defeated Eden-Monaro MP Gary Nairn (whose alleged political smarts once led him to compare Nairn’s Labor opponent, war hero Mike Kelly, to a Nazi concentration camp guard); Natasha MacLaren-Jones, Right faction state party vice-president and former staffer to Senator Helen Coonan; Dai Le, a former Radio National producer who ran in Cabramatta at the 2008 by-election held after the departure of Reba Meagher; Pat Daley, a former Salvation Army spokesman; and Frank Oliveri, a Fairfield councillor said to be backed by David Clarke. They might yet be joined by Clarke himself if he proves unable to retain his existing position as the candidate representing north-western Sydney. Clarke hopes to retain that position through a deal in which he will back Cusack in exchange for support from moderates. The Sydney Morning Herald reports Clarke’s foes in the Alex Hawke camp claim he could secure as few as 30 of the available 90 votes, with many moderates allegedly refusing to fall in as directed behind Clarke. As well as the Hawke-backed David Elliott, the position will be contested by “Robyn Preston, a Hills councillor, Tony Issa, a Parramatta councillor, and Nick Tyrrell, a Blacktown councillor”.

Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Robyn Parker, Liberal state upper house member and factional moderate, will contest preselection for the Labor-held lower house seat of Maitland after recognising she will be unable to retain her existing position. While it was reported last year that the way had been smoothed for her to win the Maitland nomination through the amendment of the preselection timetable, Ian Kirkwood of the Newcastle Herald reports she faces rival contenders in Maitland councillors Bob Geoghegan and Stephen Mudd and Newcastle councillor Brad Luke. The issue will be decided by 30 local branch members and eight head office representatives on Saturday, February 21.

Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports three candidates have confirmed they will put their names forward for Labor preselection in Macarthur: Nick Bleasdale, the candidate in 2007, Paul Nunnari, former wheelchair athlete and adviser to state MP Graham West, and Greg Warren, the deputy mayor of Camden. Hughes is said by Coorey to be claimed by the Right, factional home to candidates Greg Holland and Brent Thomas, but the Left might yet seek to upset the Right’s applecart by putting forward Liverpool mayor Wendy Waller. Both have been made winnable by redistribution and the impending departure of their Liberal members, Danna Vale and Pat Farmer.

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.

4,247 comments on “Nielsen: 54-46”

Comments Page 3 of 85
1 2 3 4 85
  1. [I am arguing that Abbott has got this correct much more than Rudd on CC and he is reading the public mood much better than Rudd]
    I know you are. It’s a pity the polls aren’t backing you up.

  2. [It failed because China sabotaged it, and for no other reason.]

    Herr Doktor, so it’s the fault of the Pei Ping Bandits. Coming from the great expert on China and its history, it makes perfect sense. You should stop buying “Made in China”.

  3. 54/46 equals 97 labor seats
    That’ll do me 😉

    Lets not forget that Abbott is getting away with the con that his CC policy won’t cost us a red cent.
    When he has to release funding for such “policies’ come election time he will be stuffed.

  4. [Contrast how the ETs has been sold compared to the GST.]
    Just one flaw in that argument however. The GST cost Howard a huge number of seats and fortunately for him he had a huge number of seats to lose. Even on election night the Libs at some stage thought they were gorn.

  5. Making lifestyle changes to a low(er) carbon emitting society would no doubt be hard. However, these changes are best done gradually to minimise the adjustment costs (consider, for example, the long term change from leaded petrol).

    This, and the balance of the consequences of risks (i.e. doing nothing might have really extraordinarily serious consequences), is why I think we need to start NOW (or preferably years ago), even if smaller scale to help the adjustment be more gradual

  6. [Finns – I’ve been telling anyone including you that the ETS has been sold terribly. How else can people explain why Abbott’s ridiculous plan to increase emissions by 17% is preferred to Rudd’s ETS.]

    Diog, wRONg again. When there was a mutual support for ETS between Labor and Liberals under Turnbull. There was no great need for the propaganda war to sell ETS. It’s only after the take-over by the skeptics in the Liberals, and with their great lie of the ETS being “great big tax”, the propaganda war becomes necessary and imperative.

    Try again.

  7. Finns

    Even then, there was the need for the ETS to be sold. You just have to sell a big policy like that whether you have bipartisan support or not. Otherwise you are at risk of losing your bipartisan support as the opposition see an opening.

    The proof has been in the pudding. It should have been sold much better.

  8. All Abbott has done is consolidate the base.
    The ALP pv has remained stable after Abbott became leader. The Greens vote also, if not increasing. So where did he get his additional votes from?

  9. According to Denis Jensen, there is a consensus that God exists, therefore climate change isn’t real.

    He is now quoting Michael Crichton, the guy who wrote Jurrassic Park, as an expert on the history of science.

  10. GB

    The proof is that we don’t have an ETS and Abbott is making hay while the sun shines by putting up a joke of a policy which should get him run out of Australia if the voters had the faintest idea of how bad it is compared to Rudd’s ETS.

  11. [Abbott is making hay while the sun shines by putting up a joke of a policy which should get him run out of Australia if the voters had the faintest idea of how bad it is compared to Rudd’s ETS]

    So why aren’t the Greens condemning it daily then?

  12. Psephos

    [I don’t know wine was made out of water – why does it cost so much?
    ]

    Evidently it takes 2000L of water to make one bottle of wine.

  13. [The proof is that we don’t have an ETS and Abbott is making hay while the sun shines by putting up a joke of a policy]
    But some people just say they support a policy in order to justify their party support!

    Do you even think that the people who say they support Abbott’s policy have read it? They say they support the Abbott policy because they want to vote Liberal, and so they want to think that he has the better policy.

  14. [Evidently it takes 2000L of water to make one bottle of wine.]
    It’s a better use of water than using it to grow rice, which we should just import from Asia.

  15. Dario

    I couldn’t agree more. I heard Milne carrying on about how Abbott had joined Rudd by not making the polluters pay and welching on CC. It was truly appalling. She could say that she thinks Rudd doesn’t go far enough but his is miles ahead of Abbott’s joke policy.

    I have no idea why she’s being such a d!ckhead about it. She’s being totally dishonest.

  16. LOL! According to Jensen, “precious few” Liberal members support an ETS.

    We know that it is actually about 48.

    Jensen complaining that Kerry O’Brien, David Koch, and Tony Jones won’t invite him onto their shows to explain to us all how climate change isn’t real.

  17. I looked up the figures again for wine and it’s more like 600L of water for a bottle of wine. I think rice is the 2000L per kg one. Beef is even worse.

  18. [I have no idea why she’s being such a d!ckhead about it. She’s being totally dishonest.]

    Trying to pressure the government to deal no doubt. Until the Greens can deliver the senate votes though, that is simply a waste of time. So much for the Greens being above politics.

  19. Looks like every poll (except maybe Essential?) has the Coalition pulling in the lead by about 2 points. It is an achievement for them, at least. Thomas Paine covered most of the reasons for that – and you can add that Abbott’s alternative to the ETS has cut through a bit. Plus the summer hasn’t been a devastating one, like last year, and we’ve mostly avoided extended extreme weather conditions and bushfires etc, so people are forgetting what climate change can do. He’s been lucky there.

    So, how can he capitalise on that? Well, er… The ‘Great Big Tax’ mantra has already been overused, and it’s about to get annoying – he’s about to have his “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” moment with it, I expect. He can’t develop his own policy – even the sycophants on Insiders have noticed what he’s doing is hypocritical (though Bolt believes that walking both sides of the road is a brilliant plan – he would). Either you believe in climate change or you don’t. You don’t commit money to something that you think doesn’t exist. He’s already on the back foot there.

    Who can he unleash from his front bench? Nobody who can be taken seriously, not that I can see. What other area of policy can he attack? He’s only got climate change and border protection. That’s his total. Border protection is just background buzz – the only party who can ramp it up is the governing one. As an opposition you can only complain. Which has been done, and it didn’t cut through.

    All can do is hold the fort and hope Labor fall over. And that the MSM continue to treat Barnyard as a quaint diversion rather than someone subject to the same scrutiny as anyone else.

    He’s actually done all right. But he’s used up every avenue available to him.

  20. [Until the Greens can deliver the senate votes though, that is simply a waste of time.]
    So the government should invite Xenophon into the discussions.

    If this Garnaut / Green plan gets up, it would be hilarious to have it all legislated before the election! Then Abbott’s policy would just become COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT!

  21. [So the government should invite Xenophon into the discussions.]

    Why? X + Greens cannot deliver the Senate. FF will not vote for anything, and no Lib will vote for anything the Greens have had a hand in either.

  22. [Why? X + Greens cannot deliver the Senate. FF will not vote for anything, and no Lib will vote for anything the Greens have had a hand in either.]
    Who KNOWS what will happen. Did you think the CPRS would be blocked last year once the Liberal partyroom voted to support it in amended form?

    What if Turnbull goes out and says he supports the Labor / Green / Xenophon plan?

    Who KNOWS what Fielding would do. During the Fair Work Bill debate he SAID he would vote against amendments that he then 20 minutes later voted for!

    AND what about someone like Senator Troeth who is retiring. She doesn’t have a pre-selection to lose, so she may do Turnbull’s bidding just to kill off Abbott’s leadership.

  23. Al

    how you can equate a tragedy with a line of argument is a tad precious.

    If you want debate,great

    but if just want to jerk off over plattitudes,keep it to yourself

    I resent it when you revert to the intellectual pygmy that you obviously arent

  24. [how you can equate a tragedy with a line of argument is a tad precious.]
    LOL! And you only use the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to argue against nuclear power! MORE HYPOCRISY!
    [If you want debate,great]
    Until you call for a shutting down of EVERY gas power station in the entire world, then you are nothing but a completely hypocrite who doesn’t even have the intellectual capacity to see how big a hypocrite they are.

  25. [I heard Milne carrying on about how Abbott had joined Rudd by not making the polluters pay and welching on CC. It was truly appalling.]

    You’ve said much the same yourself many times.

  26. [There are bigger fish to fry than massaging your fragile ego]
    Betty,

    Until you call for a shutting down of EVERY gas power station in the entire world, then you are nothing but a completely hypocrite.

  27. [AL

    BTW]
    Betty,

    Until you call for a shutting down of EVERY gas power station in the entire world, then you are nothing but a complete hypocrite.

  28. A few points:
    – Abbott has achieved a small shift in the polls, some of the base coming back
    – The MSM treatment of Abbott has been very soft, and the poll changes exaggerated. They are probably as surprised as we are
    – The government is losing the CC debate on best model to combat it. Abbott’s is preferred, as he as presented it as CHEAPER. But its not, the taxpayer has to wear over $3b in other spending CUTS. Where are the cuts coming from, and what is the public support for this?

  29. Turnbull:
    [As we have seen in recent days, alternatives such as regulation or direct subsidies will be more costly, even though their proponents will argue to the contrary.]

  30. Turnbull:
    [Having the government pay for emissions abatement is a slippery slope that can only result in higher taxes and more costly and less effective abatement of emissions. I say this as a member and former leader of a political party whose principles are based on the free market and free enterprise.]

  31. [I say this as a member and former leader of a political party whose principles are based on the free market and free enterprise.]

    Surely an indication of how far the Liberal party has moved away from its principles under Abbott’s leadership.

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 3 of 85
1 2 3 4 85