Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

Courtesy of Ghost Who Votes on Twitter, Newspoll has Labor recovering to a 51-49 lead on two-party preferred (up from 50-50 a fortnight ago), but back down two points to their 35 per cent nadir on the primary vote with the Coalition also down two points to 41 per cent. The big show is the Greens – up four to 16 per cent. More to follow.

UPDATE: Full tables from Mumble. Kevin Rudd’s personal ratings have reached a new low, with approval down three points to 36 per cent and disapproval up three to 54 per cent. However, the news for Tony Abbott is even worse: approval down five to 37 per cent and disapproval up four to 49 per cent. All this cancels each other out on preferred prime minister, with Rudd’s lead steady on 49-33.

Also out today was the weekly Essential Research, which had Labor’s lead down slightly from 52-48 to 51-49. Both leaders’ approval ratings have plunged – Rudd’s net rating is negative for the first time. Good news for the government though with 58 per cent rating a returning of “laws similar to WorkChoices” under Tony Abbott as “likely”. Forty-five per cent express themselves “concerned”, and 43 per cent say their views are closer to the unions than to Tony Abbott against 24 per cent for the other way round. Forty-six per cent say ending unfair dismissal protections and restoring individual contracts would make them less likely to vote for the Coalition against 14 per cent more likely.

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.

3,189 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. Laocoon – I heard a little of Mar’n on SkyAgenda this morning. He is actually really good at explaining things so he should be out and about more often on the RSPT.

    He said that Xstrata hadn’t sacked anyone, that the 60 gone were contractors and they had gone to other work. Said the 150 workers were only if something went ahead and that the projects put on hold are the same ones mentioned a few months ago by Xstrata (I think before the RSPT policy was known).

    H was clear, precise and cut through. More please, Mar’n.

  3. Dee@ 2971

    ‘Looks like the Australian is trying to open another divisive front for the election. Daresay to make ole Yabbott look climate responsible & reasonable.’

    No, Dee, unfortunately. The Australian is working from the point of view of having made its contribution to the destruction of AGW as an important election issue. It achieved this with a consistent campaign of denigrating climate science, denigrating responses and promoting thoroughly discredited climatologists like Plimer and Moncton.

    Today’s Editorial is just the Editor having a bit of an enjoyable dig at people who take AGW seriously. It is a jolly jape. It is a distant echo of Abbott’s penchant for playing air guitar with AGW. He jumps around, waves his arms around, does a bit of shouting, but there is no song to it.

    The Australian should take some time out and have a serious look at what is happening with global temperatures this year. It might ask itself where all the coolers have gone.

    I don’t mind people playing with matches provided they burn themselves. What pisses me off is when we all get burnt in the subsequent wildfire.

  5. GG

    [I suppose it’s good old customer service. Do you want to be fried with your tax!]

    LOL

    I think the shareholders might start frying the miners soon. I’m not sure if political posturing can be an excuse for decisions which reduce profits.

  7. re 2985 But the Crows fans love it

    Crows attendance at AAMI has been falling over the last few year. All fans are tiring of the decaying infrastructure at this ground.

  8. Socrates, Rudd actually said in the press conference yersterday that an earlier Labor-Greens ETS could follow the election. Got very little coverage because you know Rudd is very bad at getting the message out. I thought some might go for the “another backflip” angle

  9. The mining lobby does not have time on its side. Sooner or later these large companies will have to declare re: new projects or offer them to other companies

  10. spectator

    [Crows attendance at AAMI has been falling over the last few year. All fans are tiring of the decaying infrastructure at this ground.]

    That’s true but the Crows fans want an upgrade to Footy Park rather than moving, according to the polls of the members which the AFC has done. They were very strongly against moving.

    Port actually want to move (Foley is a Port supporter). They don’t like the deal at Footy Park and think they can capture some Crows fans if they move.

  11. FYI

    The warmest year yet, says NASA June 4, 2010
    .LONDON: The global temperature this year reached its warmest on record based on a 12-month rolling average, said James Hansen, the top climate change scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

    The mean surface temperature in the year to April was about 0.66 degrees warmer than the 1951 to 1980 mean, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. That makes it a fraction warmer than the previous peak in 2005.

    ”Record high global temperature during the period with instrumental data was reached in 2010,” Dr Hansen and three co-authors wrote. ”As for the calendar year, it is likely that the 2010 global surface temperature in the analysis also will be a record.”

    The figures strengthen the case that temperatures show a warming in the climate.

    The NASA data series uses information from 6300 monitoring stations around the world and is one of the three main gauges of global temperature used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to compile its assessments.

  12. Dee

    That is the sort of plain truth about AGW that The Australian normally avoids like the plague.

    The approach of The Australian on AGW has been systemic. Today’s Editorial is a small classic in The Australian’s genre. The overwhelming majority of The Australian’s articles on AGW have contributed to the destruction of this issue as a credible issue that needs a credible response.

    It is not restricted to AGW. When confronted with an environmental issue, the gut response of The Australian is to attack the greens or the Government. The articles usually display either an abysmal ignorance of environmental realities or intellectual dishonesty in what bits to select and how to portray them.

    The last example I can recall was the disgraceful piece on the camel cull. Instead of a word of support for a truly useful and overdue initiative, The Australian chose to quote ‘cameleers’ who, while genuine, spouted crap about a billion dollar camel industry. The article did not even bother quoting anyone from the pastoral industry. In relation to environmental issues it was the usual blend of ignorance of the science, inept journalism skills, and go-for-the-Government’s jugular sort of stuff.

    I can understand why The Australian is a loss maker. I do hope that when Murdoch carks it, the new owners to the right thing by News Corp shareholders and get rid of it.

  13. [the coalition has agreed on a joint senate ticket in NSW…Nationals sentor Fiona Nash has secured the third position on the Coalition Senate ticket, behind Liberals Connie Fierrravanti-Wells and Bill Heffernan]
    Coming third behind that pair is some recommendation, I must say.

  15. Spectator @ 3007

    They don’t care about the decaying infrastructure. Be honest: the reason they are not bothering is the decaying player group.

  16. There is a an explanation for the contradiction between Abbott`s stated strong Christian convictions and his contradictory behaviour. The constant lying and his treatment of the homeless,Bernie Banton,low paid,refugees,etc. are clearly not Christian values. The Christian mask is to confuse the punters,without the mask he would be seen more clearly for what he really is. For the miners, he volunteers to strap on the suicide vest(last breath in his body) to save them from paying their fair share. For the low paid,homeless etc., its his boot on their throats, to keep them down on his masters behalf. He clings to the mask like a child, without it he would be more clearly seen for what he is, an opportunistic, hard right ideologue. He has sold his worthless soul to miners and sold out the Australian people.

  19. wouldnt mind the greens entering the RSPT debate more prominently- would scare the horses if they wanted to negotiate a higher rate after the election

  21. Benji

    I heard that he has cancelled because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill which is turning into his Hurricane Katrina. Rudd’s office hadn’t confirmed it at 9am.

  22. Jon like how its permanently tagged as the “botched” insulation progam. How many homes were insulated? What was the fire rate compared to previously??

  23. Saw on the teev the other day that Florida gets around 90 million tourists and that the industry is worth $US65 billion a year. (I think those figures are correct).

    As the wind blows the oil to within a few km of Florida’s beaches, the cancellations are starting to flow.

  24. [pleasure; indeed she did, a few times; hopefully Pollytics gets some increased traffic flow as a result]

    Excellent – he deserves it.

  26. Everyone remember the good old days under Howard when he didn’t have to invent new taxes every 3 months to pay off a massive budget deficit?

    Ahhhh… those were the days!

  29. [Everyone remember the good old days under Howard when he didn’t have to invent new taxes every 3 months to pay off a massive budget deficit?

    Ahhhh… those were the days!]

    lol

    *cough* GST *cough*

    Thought the RSPT was in the Henry Review, but you are saying the govt invented it.

  33. he didn’t have to invent new taxes every 3 months

    let me think:

    GST, Superannuation surcharge, Ansett Levy…

  35. [GST, Superannuation surcharge, Ansett Levy…]
    Wine equalisation tax, the milk deregulation tax (2 cents a litre), which was the first time in Australian history that unflavoured milk had been subject to any tax.

  36. The Howard/Costello budget would almost certainly have been significantly in deficit over the last two years.

    The tax receipts not collected and unemployment benefits not saved from the 200,000 people employed now because of the government’s stimulus worked would have weighed heavily on the budget as well.

    The current debt will be paid for in good time and is entirely appropriate for the return we have received as a society.

    As also noted, the RSPT has no effect on the budget deficit. If it doesn’t pass, spending on programmes it funded will not pass as well.

  37. Jon – excellent article. John Watson does a lot of good articles like this: debunking rubbish. It’s the way newspapers will have to go if they want to survive.

    ANDREW, Louise Dodson in the AFR has written a very interesting article (page 11) in which says:

    “Some mining industry figures are advising companies to try to do a deal with the Rudd government before the election in case Labor is returned with a Greens-dominated Senate.

    “If this happens, the resource sector could be hit with an even higher tax as the Greens are in favour of a 50 per cent rate rather than the 40 per cent proposed by the government….”

    The Herald also has a story that Twiggy Forrest et al are lining up meetings with Bob Brown (my guess is that they want to find out if he will accept a 40 per cent deal or later try to renegotiate it).

    The miners also have to decide whether they will campaign against the Govt during an election. I know they’ve got no morals, but that’s a pretty tough way to make a buck.

  38. Joffaboy – John Howard paid off the deficit with two things:
    1. Biggest asset sale in Australian history (at least $100 billion);
    2. Huge minerals boom.

    He ran a “structural” deficit in every year he was in office except the first.

  39. Everyone remember the good old days under Howard when he didn’t have to invent new taxes every 3 months to pay off a massive budget deficit?

    These Liberal talking points get worse every day.

    Looks like this one’s just about run its course, so look forward to more ‘horror stories’ from the insulation scheme. Surely there’s a grandma somewhere living in fear that her batts will spontaneously combust?

    Though it must be said for the Liberals that they’re very good at being in opposition. They’ve really taken it to heart and opposed everything. Now they’ve found their niche, it’d be unfair to take it away from them. They should be allowed to be in opposition for as long as possible.

  40. Mad Dog,

    “I’m the (just slightly) overweight, bald one with the beard, who wears socks with his sandals and drives a diesel Citroen C5.”

    And here’s me thinking you were Adam MacDougall. But seriously, along with your “proper” job, you do everyone here a huge service debunking the fantasies of lonely bigots with nothing better to do with their time than to parrot late night talk-back radio talking points. Mr Denmore does an equally good job on financial matters, as do several others who actually know what they are talking about. When we inevitably get around to the NBN, I intend to provide some background detail (but not at your level of experience) that will hopefully counter some of the hysteria that said bigots will doubtless put forward.

  42. rosa
    [“Some mining industry figures are advising companies to try to do a deal with the Rudd government before the election in case Labor is returned with a Greens-dominated Senate.]
    Not to mention an ALP-Greens approved ETS…

  43. Laocoon – totally right. Stupid bastards have got their tail in a crack. But when they think it’s time to make a deal (when they can’t extract any more or its getting too uncomfortable) they’ll do it like lightening. With these guys, life is a deal.

  44. Possum gets another plug in the piece by John Watson in the SMH.

    [Insulation fire risk was worse before rebate ]

    [So, nearly 12 months on, what did the program deliver? Surprisingly, it appears to have made insulation installation safer (thank you to blogsite Pollytics.com for detailing this and examples of misreporting).

    The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that 61 per cent of dwellings, almost 3.2 million, had insulation in 2008, with 98 per cent of these having roof or ceiling insulation.

    Officials in Garrett’s department told a Senate committee hearing that the pre-program rate of installations was 65,000 to 70,000 a year, with 80 to 85 insulation-related fires a year. Roughly 30 per cent were linked to new installations, on industry estimates. The program insulated more than 1.1 million homes. If 94 fires have been linked to this, the implication is that the fire risk was roughly four times lower than before, even as the number of installations rose 15-fold.]
    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/insulation-fire-risk-was-worse-before-rebate-20100303-pivv.html?comments=73

  45. I hope everybody enjoyed National Andrew Bolt is a Dickhead Day as much as I did. When is Dennis Shanahan Gets Everything Wrong Day? We’re still waiting for the RSPT backflip, Dennis.

  46. The politics of the first Rudd Government has been completely skewed by the presence of Fielding.

    The second Rudd Government or the first Abbott Government will not have to deal with Fielding.

    Regardless of whether it is the second Rudd Government or the first Abbott Government, they will have to deal with the Greens holding the BOP in the Senate.

    If the miners are talking with the Greens it is because they know that the political landscape will be completely different after the next election, regardless of Abbott or Rudd.

    I can live without the new Fair Mining Tax, although I would like to see it get in. But what I would really like to see is a systemic start to restructuring the basis of our economy to get ready for AGW.

    I feel confident that whatever Govt we have in the lower House, the Greeens will pursue this outcome. In the trade-offs that will ensure, I believe that the Govt will bring balance to what the Greens want.

  47. I think Rudd may be thumbing his nose at the mining companies after their all out attack on him and his govt and their campaign to get their puppet Jabbott the Mutt into the lodge.

    Rudd spent over a year negotiation with miners/business over the ETS and even gave more ground to strike a deal with Turnbull which the Libs then renigged on.

    So now I think it’s no more Mr nice guy, Rudd is taunting them with rumours that after the election with Green support he;ll hit the buggers for six with a Great Big New ETS target and also with the Greens will impose as big a GBN mining tax that takes his fancy 👿

  48. I know the Australian is bad, but is it becoming more and more like a spoof newspaper ever day? It’s as if an entire newsroom has lost its mind.

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