GhostWhoVotes in comments is again first with the poll news: the latest monthly Nielsen poll, published in today’s Fairfax broadsheets, is a shocker for the government. The Coalition has opened a 53-47 lead on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 43 per cent for the Coalition, 33 per cent for Labor and 15 per cent for the Greens. The Herald reports this is Labor’s worst result since just after the September 11 attacks. The sample for the poll is 1400.
UPDATE: Sydney Morning Herald report here. The article notes that if preferences were distributed as per the last election rather othan on the basis of and not as indicated by respondents – usually a more reliable method – the two-party result would be 52-48. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is down four points from a month ago to 41 per cent and his disapproval is up three to 52 per cent – actually better for him than other polls of late – and Tony Abbott approval is down five, also to 41 per cent. Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 54-38 to 49-39. Only 55 per cent of voters now expect Labor to win the election, down 16 per cent in two months. The government appears to have lost ground in the resource super profits tax, with 41 per cent supporting and 49 per cent opposed comparing with 44 per cent and 47 per cent last month.
Sixty-two per cent, including “more than four in 10” Labor voters, support the Liberals’ promised return of offshore processing of asylum seekers offshore. Interestingly, a “party favoured on asylum seekers” question gets 35 per cent for the Liberals, 19 per cent for Labor and 18 per cent for the Greens. We are also told the Coalition has a remarkable 63-37 lead in Western Australia – which could easily be written off on grounds of a small sample (about 140), if we hadn’t been told something very similar last month.
UPDATE 2: The Australian has published results of a Newspoll survey commissioned by the mining industry targeting nine key seats in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. Respondents were only asked, so far as we know, about the resources super profits tax, its likely impact on their vote choice and who they voted for in 2007. I have taken the opportunity to compile all the available data on this subject, of which there is a very great deal, into the table below. Some pollsters only asked respondents if they supported or opposed the tax, while others asked them to specify whether their support or opposition was strong or weak. Variation in wording of the question no doubt explains some of the distinction between pollsters. For example, Morgan asked about “the new 40% tax on profits of mining projects”, whereas Essential merely spoke of “Higher taxes on the profits of large mining companies”. The numbers shown in brackets are the polls’ sample sizes.
That the Newspoll figures for Queensland are less favourable than Galaxy’s might have something to do with the seats targeted in the former – mining-affected Flynn and Dawson, together with urban Flynn – although the higher undecided result from Newspoll is harder to explain. The 41 per cent strong opposition among Western Australian respondents – from Perth, Brand and Hasluck is a striking figure by any standards. The seats targeted in South Australia were Wakefield, Hindmarsh and Kingston, all located in Adelaide and its outskirts. Among other questions asked of respondents was the effect of the tax on voting intention. Overall 8 per cent said it made them more likely to vote Labor against 31 per cent less likely; from Western Australian respondents, the figures were 6 per cent and 39 per cent.
| SUPPORT | OPPOSE | strong | weak/all | weak/all | strong | |
| Nielsen (1400) | National | Jun 3-6 | 41 | 49 | ||
| Galaxy (800) | Queensland | Jun 2-3 | 16 | 21 | 22 | 32 |
| Newspoll (600) | Qld marginals | May 31-Jun 3 | 17 | 13 | 19 | 30 |
| Newspoll (600) | WA marginals | May 31-Jun 3 | 11 | 10 | 16 | 41 |
| Newspoll (600) | SA marginals | May 31-Jun 3 | 18 | 14 | 18 | 21 |
| Morgan (655) | National | May 26-27 | 44 | 48 | ||
| Westpoll (400) | Brand | May 25-26 | 25 | 56 | ||
| Essential (2000) | National | May 19-23 | 12 | 31 | 22 | 14 |
| Morgan (571) | National | May 12-13 | 41 | 52 | ||
| Essential (2000) | National | May 4-9 | 52 | 34 | ||
| Nielsen (1400) | National | May 6-8 | 44 | 47 | ||
| Morgan (669) | National | May 4-5 | 47 | 45 | ||
UPDATE 3: No such calamity for Labor as far as Essential Research is concerned: they have Labor in front 52-48 on two-party preferred, up from 51-49 last week. However, the poll reflects the general trend in having both parties down on the primary vote – Labor two to 37 per cent and the Coalition one to 40 per cent – with the Greens up three to 12 per cent. Also featured are “best leadership team”, with Labor in the clear 47-31, “awareness of asylum seeker intake” (a very even spread across all the available categories), whose mining tax campaign is least unconvincing (the miners’, just), and whether John Howard should be head of the International Cricket Council (50 per cent no opinion, otherwise in Howard’s favour).
It’s just a jump to the left?
Gusface,
That one came in a rare moment of inspiration!
It had plenty of concrete evidence from hundreds of posts on PB to back up the claim though!~ 😉
just looking at the stock prices of the parties involved, since the gulf of mexico well explosion
BP – down about a third
Halliburton – down about a third
Transocean – halved
Harsh, but the companies need to suffer the full economic cost of their actions, even unto failure. Otherwise the moral hazard of asymmetrical rewards leads to pernicious “corruption” (see financial system)
[Please don’t continue the bias towards ABC bias. In my lifetime the government’s supporters always decry the ABC. Please. All you do is display your own bias. ]
Of course everyone is biased except the abc. They could NEVER be biased. Impossible. What patronising nonsense.
Scorps
maybe the labor ad could go along the lines of
[“going to wash that man right outta my hair”]
with apols to oklahoma
😉
Gusface@3299
Essential was the first strike – full penertration is Morgan tomorrow 🙂
They won’t like that Nielsen was an outlier.
My best guess is that TTH is actually Bruce Ruxton.
Pebbles – you make a range of comments, but when cassidy (supposedly an insider) does not know ( or disseminates false information) on how the community forums work, that is just unacceptable.
[National Union of Students Campaign ‘Abbott’s Heaven, Your Hell’ on Wednesday 23 June at the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre in Melbourne.]
now haven’t i been trying to get this through to you all for weeks Hal-la luau
The Unemployment will always be lower under Labor.
Finns
about time to mobilise the dolphin strike force
???????????
!!!
And the winner of the “spit take award for funny comments” is this post!
Thanks Trubbell, now I have a tea covered desk to wipe clean!
‘The Unemployment will always be lower under Labor.’
Yep, so much for ‘teh mere thought of teh RSPT is killin teh economy!’.
Remember Bob Hawke hated the ABC. So did Kennett and Howard. The ABC are probably always going to be skeptical and critical of the government of the day. Get used to it. If you want a country where the public broadcaster is only ever supportive of the ruling party, perhaps North Korea would be more your style. I hear it’s lovely this time of year.
Governing means you make decisions. People might critcise you. Accept it as the price of power.
[Cuppa
Posted Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 8:08 pm | Permalink
At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me. I blinked, looked again, and … yes, it’s really there! The ABC does its first serious scrutiny of Abbott.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2923682.htm
Unfortunately the site is currently broken (conveniently?) and is not allowing a comments box to open.
Still, can try again tomorrow.]
cuppa hope you do not mind me putting this here again its so important.
[used to it. If you want a country where the public broadcaster is only ever supportive of the ruling party, perhaps North Korea would be more your style. I hear it’s lovely this time of year]
something tells me thou doest protest to much.
IT IS BALANCE WE SEEK
dave 3307
I’m not saying that media bias doesn’t exist (I live in Adelaide, the home of the nation’s, and dare I say one of the world’s, worst newspapers. If there is trashiness, ignorance and bias, it’s in our rag.) I just don’t want paranoia to overtake our bright minds and allow ourselves to dismiss every critical article as just being rubbish from a Liberal hack.
For Astroturf, and his Green followers:
[hope you do not mind me putting this here again its so important]
Certainly not, my say. Please spread it as widely as you like/can!
Psephos, I wonder if you have a take on this election in Holland, described by Eurointelligence as a victory for austerity. It seems the wealthy North is becoming both more nationalist and more conservative.
http://www.eurointelligence.com/index.php?id=581&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=2819&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=901&cHash=cab90938ee
The liberal VVW, run by former Unilever executive Mark Rutte, has won the Dutch election, and became the largest party with 31 seats, followed by the Dutch Labour party (PvdA) with 30 seats in the 150 seat parliament. Jan Peter Balkenende’s Christian Democrats crashed from 41 to 21, and became the forth largest party – behind the anti-immigrant Freedom Party (PVV), run by Geert Wilders. The two small-party winners were the Greens and the D66, a radical democratic party. As NRC Handelsblad writes this is the most fragmented political results ever. Never had the largest party as few as 31 seats in the 150 strong parliament. The left-wing SP lost 10 seats to 15 seats…..
There are two wider implications of this election beyond the Dutch border. The first is a trend in the wider Benelux area towards the anti-immigrant right. On Sunday, when Belgium goes to the polls, Bart de Waver’s separatist N-VA is likely to become the single largest party. The second significance is that Rutte’s VVW has campaigned aggressively for spending cuts. Reuters says the Liberals had campaigned for a total of €39bn in spending cuts over the next decade. Over the next four year the plan forsees a fiscal adjustment of €20bn (over 3% of GDP), to reach a budget surplus…..
Flemish Nationalists up to strengthen regions within Europe
The Flemish-Nationalist party N-VA under its leader De Wever gave an international press conference in a charm offensive to calm down financial markets concerns ahead of Belgian elections June 13. According to the polls, this ‘separatist’ party could receive as much as 25 %, far ahead of Christian Democrats, socialists and liberals. De Wever said that if they were to win, Belgium could see a power shift towards regions under a European umbrella…..
[ and the need to act effectively on climate change.
Ironic or what?]
Not really. Humanists are freethinkers who hold to a philosophy that asserts human dignity and man’s capacity for fulfillment through reason and scientific method and often reject religion. In other words they can see through the spin of the major political parties.
[Humanism is a comprehensive life stance that upholds human reason, ethics, and justice, and rejects supernaturalism, pseudoscience, and superstition.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanist_%28life_stance%29
frank
pls lets end the green alp war
the fibs are the common menace
lets try for rapproachment
PLEASE
🙁
speaking of billionaires, political process and the US…$71m just on the primary!
[June 9 (Bloomberg) — Former EBay Inc. Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman won the California Republican nomination for governor to face Democrat Jerry Brown in an election to decide who will lead the most-populous U.S. state as it struggles to emerge from its worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression.
Whitman poured more than $71 million of her estimated $1.2 billion fortune into the primary race and plans to match that against Brown, who has $20 million for the campaign, according to state records. Term limits require Schwarzenegger, a Republican, to leave office in January.
“We have just seen the two Republican candidates for governor stage a billionaire’s demolition derby,” Brown told supporters in Los Angeles. “They both say they want to run the state like a business but they set a national record for excessive spending.”]
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=awDtU2SGjQ_s
briefly…trust you went ok yesterday?
scorpio@3298
People like you are the people for whom they created the complaints avenues. That is, people of a particualr persuasion who perceive that their tribe is getting a bad run.
No problem with that. Just be realaxed in that their is no consiracy. That’s all I ask.,
Be careful – it may not be. Just prepare yourselves for the worst. If it isn’t you will hear about it everywhere and Ministry of Truth and Grossly Pathetic will both become a pair of insufferable pricks on here, requiring infinite patience not to bite…
Not saying that will happen, but prepare for it – just in case!
phes are nt the north dutch reform
[They won’t like that Nielsen was an outlier.]
i think we may have to wait a bit longer may be the end of june
I hope not though it is so depressing but i think the people are awakening.
Of course, another approach would be to assessed the abc by the quality of their reporting ?
Independent assessment, commissioned by the abc itself has found abc tv “baised very significantly” towards the libs. Look it up, check it out yourself ?
Very little has changed…
Pegasus@3320
Yes, a that stance is rather to argue against for those with a modicum of awareness Ï would have thought. Of course such a statement in middle America would be a hanging offence.
Darren Laver,
[Remember Bob Hawke hated the ABC. So did Kennett and Howard. ]
So? I can’t recall any occasion where Kevin Rudd or any Labor Members have criticised the ABC, stated they hated it or accused it of bias!
If the readers and viewers perceive partisan bias in the ABC, they have a perfect right to express it. Even if you your self don’t see any, it is a bit poor to deny that right to others.
Slowly but surely Rudd is winning, The Age Online Poll:
The mining debate continues to flare. What’s your verdict on the tax?
I support it, and Rudd should hold the line – 50%
I support it but Rudd should compromise to win miners’ support – 14%
I’m against the new tax in any form – 36%
Total votes: 5941.
http://www.theage.com.au/polls/business/resources-rent-tax/20100610-xyvg.html#poll
Gerry Harvey has the credibility issue. Franco Cozzo has more credibility.
[ I just don’t want paranoia to overtake our bright minds and allow ourselves to dismiss every critical article as just being rubbish from a Liberal hack.
Pebbles – Yep, you sound a sincere person. But just disconnected from the reality of Sky Noos, the OO and the ab-friggin C.
Have you read any of the crap output from the OO in recent times ? If you want to see paranoia, please just look at the OO most days of the week.
[Gerry Harvey has the credibility issue. Franco Cozzo has more credibility.]
Only in Brunswick and Footescray.
As for the Age poll #3331, they tend to be almost as biased towards the govt as the Australian polls are towards the Conservatives.
Still nice to see 64% approval against 36% against.
Son of Sham a Man:
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/campaign-countdown-rudds-visit-to-the-heart-of-darkness/
[Have you read any of the crap output from the OO in recent times ? If you want to see paranoia, please just look at the OO most days of the week.]
Would be the least read daily in Australia.
The Finnigans@3331
It is a proper and correct tax, but the angst could have been avoided if a little effective groundwork had been done. This wasn’t possible because the reasons Rudd went with this bit of Henry’s bag so quickly was a need to be seen to be strong after the pathetic CPRS cave-in. He must stay strong on the tax now or appear an utter wimp. This might give him the strength to do the same on something so much more crucially important like the ETS. Doubt it though.
[This might give him the strength to do the same on something so much more crucially important like the ETS. Doubt it though.]
Explain how he can do anything on the ETS after the Tories and their mates the greens voted it down three times in the senate until the next parliament?
I think it is a mistake to leave it to 2012, however I am a bit sick of hearing that Labor did nothing.
The Tories and Greens scuttled it three times.
$ 3329 Should read: ‘Yes, and that stance is rather difficult to argue against …’
I think we’d need to see “Authorised D. Shanahan, Canberra, for the Liberal Party” on his op-eds for them to be fully compliant with the Electoral Act.
Gusface @ 3304
[maybe the labor ad could go along the lines of
“going to wash that man right outta my hair”
with apols to oklahoma]
And apologise to South Pacific as well.
JV,
[People like you are the people for whom they created the complaints avenues. That is, people of a particular persuasion who perceive that their tribe is getting a bad run.]
I haven’t made any complaints of bias to the ABC and I haven’t made any complaints to them that my political “tribe” is not getting a fair run.
I have though, made complaints about presentation and disrespectful treatment of important government figures by presenters such as Tony Jones on Lateline and qanda and these were taken seriously by Management and referred directly back to the presenter who improved substantially in that regard after that.
I think he is starting to revert back to old habits again though.
May be time for a reminder! 😉
Winston
damn the rogers and hammerstein gene
🙂
There isn’t a shadow of doubt that for whatever reason, the ABC is out to get Rudd. Lead story on 9.00 pm ‘news’ break, ‘leading retailer’s’ criticism of Rudd, complete with extended soundbite. Since when is this news, let alone the most important news of the day?
FFS, when the leader of our most important ally praised Rudd it barely rated a mention on your ABC.
As for Trioli, she is a shocker. I remember when she was on 702 mornings, she actually started berating listeners who were critical of Howard. She is simply indicative of the type of person that the ABC hires these days, devoid of professionalism or any sense of journalistic integrity.
Australian taxpayers and Australian democracy deserve better than the putrid mess that the ABC has become.
Adrian
pre Rudd ie the Howie reign
I had the pleasure of having la trioli berate me for dissing Howie- when i mentioned SWMBO had been sacked cos of worstchoices – la trioli said wtte “its her fault then”
I have the been the most ardent labor supporter since then- as has the better half
Oh Dear 🙂
Adrian,
The blog, The Political Sword, has an ABC Watch section, which is a repository of information on ABC bias. Blogmaster, Ad Astra writes:
[Your collaboration in keeping track of what OUR ABC is doing may contribute to a change of its policies and improvement in its performance as a national broadcaster. ]
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/ABC-Watch.aspx
I urge you and other concerned Bludgers to submit matters of concern.
[3323
Laocoon
briefly…trust you went ok yesterday?]
Hi Laocoon, all is well, thanks……….:)
Dutch elections: the parties of the right have 83 seats to the left’s 67. But it remains to be seen whether the right can form a stable government, since the three right parties, VVD, PVV and CDA, have conflicting positions on many issues. It’s possible that the VVD will prefer a coalition with Labor and the CDA rather than with the extreme right PVV. The rise of the PVV is a worry, although they didn’t do quite as well as some expected. The main cause is hostility to Muslim immigration, which is at high levels across Europe – although it didn’t rear its head in the British or German elections.