Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor

Full results available from Peter Brent at Mumble. Labor’s 52-48 lead is a slight improvement on 51-49 from three weeks ago, and under the circumstances will come as an enormous relief for the Prime Minister. One sting in the tail is that Labor’s primary vote remains steady on a parlous 35 per cent. The Coalition is down one point to 40 per cent and the Greens are on 15 per cent, one point off their record-breaking effort from three weeks ago. The two-point slack has been taken up by “others” on 10 per cent.

Another sting in the tail is that the preferred prime minister rating has swung to Abbott: Rudd is down three points to 46 per cent and Abbott is up four to 37 per cent, which is respectively a personal worst and the best result achieved by a Liberal leader on Rudd’s watch. This is despite the fact that the leaders’ approval ratings are basically unchanged. Kevin Rudd’s approval is steady on 36 per cent and his disapproval is up a point to 55 per cent, while Tony Abbott is respectively up a point to 38 per cent and steady on 49 per cent.

A further question on prospective standard of living produces a neutral result: “improve” and “get worse” are both on 17 per cent, with 65 per cent nominating “stay the same”.

Next cab off the rank: Essential Research, which should be through at about 1pm EST.

UPDATE: Hats off to Dennis Shanahan, who shows he’s not scared of a renewed round of opprobrium from the Laborsphere.

UPDATE 2: Essential Research joins the party by also showing Labor’s lead up from 51-49 to 52-48, although it gets there by showing a primary vote recovery for Labor (up three to 38 per cent) at the expense of the Greens (down three to 11 per cent), with the Coalition down one to 40 per cent. Again, there’s a sting in the tail for Kevin Rudd – 40 per cent say Labor would have a better chance of winning if they changed leaders, against only 37 per cent who say he is the best person to lead the party to the election. However, the results on this measure are substantially worse for Tony Abbott – 29 per cent and 47 per cent. Kevin Rudd remains preferred prime minister over Abbott by 47 per cent to 30 per cent, and also over Julia Gillard by 36 per cent to 33 per cent. There’s also a very interesting finding on troops in Afghanistan, with 61 per cent saying out troops should withdraw.

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.

1,109 comments on “Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. MWH

    And of course the O’seas country will do nothing about their emissions as Copenhagen clearly showed us all. This philosophy only reinforces the current free-rider problem. You cannot rely upon other countries to do the right thing. A ‘green’ country should be responsible for all the products it consumes and produces if they are going to be fair-dinkum about it.

  2. Jackol,

    I’m sure that a default value could be given for a given weight of plastic.

    And whether the tax is exactly accurate or not makes no difference.

    I don’t deny that there are implementation difficulties for importers. But I think my scheme is much easier than something like doing a GST, so I’m not concerned.

  3. [ So under my scheme coal which is exported is the responsibility of the importing country, including the emissions made in Australia for mining and shipping. ]

    Well that’s alright then we can go on digging up the stuff, we just have to export it all and cleanse the guilt by burning candles at night.

    FFS we can’t even establish effective international fishing regulation and somehow you think we can expect other countries to pay for the emissions our mining industries?

  4. So under my scheme coal which is exported is the responsibility of the importing country, including the emissions made in Australia for mining and shipping.

    Now I definitely know that you do not hold the Senate balance of power- and nor will you after the next Federal election. So unless you can get Bob & Christine to make it Greens’ policy, there isn’t much point in disporting your personal carbon nirvana, now is there?

    Greens’ policy is to “punish the polluters”, and a coal-exporting Australia is a polluter. Such a policy as yours would just lock in failure, as far as the Greens are concerned. And a policy that locks in failure is not worth spitting on, is it? Or so we’ve heard…

  5. [A ‘green’ country should be responsible for all the products it consumes and produces if they are going to be fair-dinkum about it.]
    But that would make Australia’s CPRS scheme very painful as they would not be able to buy cheap credits overseas. Nevertheless it would reduce the potential for rorting in third world corrupt countries.

  6. Johnny Button,

    Thanks for giving the Labor spin that “the O’seas country will do nothing about their emissions as Copenhagen clearly showed us all.”

    This could not be more wrong. Whilst Australia has continued to increase its emissions, many countries have REDUCED their emissions. And many countries have strong reductions as part of their internal policies.

    Put of course Labor spin is to pretend that the rest of the world is doing nothing.

  7. [The idea of the group photo of the current Opposition front bench is more like a horror story than a smear campaign.]
    Big Ship
    Sophie M. could be on page 3 of the document.

  8. Given that what these groups do is often not the most efficient way of reducing emissions, I also doubt that overall economic effectiveness would be achieved.

    You have really failed to understand the entire point of a carbon pricing mechanism, be it a tax or an ETS, haven’t you?

    The point is that once you’ve set a price for carbon, at source, then the downstream processing will incorporate that price, and all downstream users, be they corporations, local governments, NGOs, individuals, clown schools, etc will make choices with the idea that non-GHG polluting choices will be more attractive compared to the GHG polluting choices with carbon price factored in. Because those choices are distributed through the economy, it will be the low hanging (most economically efficient) choices that will be made first as the carbon price is set at a low rate.

  9. A ‘default rate’ is exactly the wrong thing to do MWH – there is no incentive for manufacturers of small plastic elephants to improve their processes, because they know they will be charged the same regardless of what they do.

    What kind of policy is that?

  10. [Straight out of the US Republicans’ playbook – and they get an enormous boost from Murdoch’s disgraceful FoxNews Network.]

    BK – Yep, it’s pretty much like watching Fox isn’t it. Haven’t had the courage to watch Beck lately cos I thought the telly might suffer but I guess he’s teaching the Libs a few tricks.

    I’m actually going to watch Q&A altho I think Turnbull and Richardson will give Emo a hard time. How Richardson can be so disloyal is beyond me – or is he out for revenge.

  11. Kersebleptes,

    I’m not standing for the Senate, so I will not win.

    Or are you trying to pretend that I’m an official Green’s representative?

    Jackol, I was responding to a particular comment. As long as no-one does anything with the silly idea that they will reduce emissions, then an ETS will provide an economically efficient way of cutting emissions.

    The comment I made was that when someone spends lots of money to cut emissions (like a council scheme to put expensive energy efficient lighting into street lamps that is not cost justified) then this will NOT be the most efficient way to reduce emissions.

  12. Jackol, of course as well as a default rate, importers would be able to provide justification that less carbon was used, which would then attract a lower tax. PB is not the place to write a full white paper on the subject!

  13. MWH

    I wasn’t putting any spin on it. You are merely putting your spin on the matter. You must be wearing the Green Goggles. Don’t know about you, but I was heavily disappointed with the outcomes of Copenhagen. That has nothing to do with politics. At the end of the day, the big polluters did little (and they are the ones that count if we are going to resolve the matter).

  14. Dual core processing is good.

    But the ability to assume gaseous form at will is even better!

    If only you had it…

  15. MWH you seem to want it both ways – you complain that the HIP ‘won’t make any difference’, but you -also- want the most economically efficient choices to be made. If you think it’s a deficiency of an ETS that ‘individual action makes no difference’ (though there’s actually no difference between an ETS with a target and a carbon tax with a target) – even though you’ve just made the argument that that individual action is not going to be the most efficient choice?

  16. No, MWH, there is no white paper that can be written. The idea of assessing products where they are used, rather than assessing (and pricing) during production, is just a nonsense. No one would or could make a feasible ‘end user’ pricing mechanism.

  17. Peter

    [Anyone aware of any studies done on the effect of Herd Mentality on political polling? If so, could you supply references?]

    I’m very disappointed that no-one else has answered this one. 😥

    There is a lot of evidence that the herd mentality takes effect in election voting. It follows a power-law distribution so it follows much the same as magnets switching polarity as in the Ising model of a magnet. Most of the articles about it are in the physics literature. Costa Filho of Brazil is the best known theorist in this area.

    Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
    Volume 322, 1 May 2003, Pages 698-700

  18. I’ve admitted my principle didn’t apply in this particular case. It doesn’t disprove the principle that a malignant organization in charge of an Oracular poll (in their own and many others’ estimation at least) can do a great deal of damage if they choose to walk down the dark side with it.

    Yes it does. Your “thesis” was that News Ltd rig their polls. You produced no evidence to support this thesis, except that Labor has had a run of bad polls. All you gave us was reams of conspiracy theory rant and abuse of anyone who said your thesis was bunkum. Yesterday’s Newspoll was the big empirical test of your thesis, and it crashed and burned. End of thesis, end of your credibility, end of post.

    OH, what a drama queen! Sarah Bernhadrt wasn’t a patch on you, Psephy. Hell hath no fury more than Psephy when his “resident guru” status is questioned.

    I didn’t say they rig all their polls. I said their polls were riggable. I mentioned this one, and I was wrong on the night.

    Your one slightly telling criticism of my “conspiracy nut” status was a book you told me I had to read or else you wouldn’t discuss the matter.

    Turns out it was written by a faker and a plagiarist, a point that you have still not addressed. The guru’s guru was a phoney.

    You can’t just dump a list of links or obscure books on verious subjects on someone’s desk and say, “Read that or piss off.” You need to check your sources, a lesson you have suggested I learn

    You could well take your own advice.

  19. [ importers would be able to provide justification that less carbon was used, ]

    Now that would make for a fantastic money laundering scheme.
    Make dirty products at lower cost, corrupt the “carbon clean” justification and import at a reduced rate. Nice.

  20. [WMH….

    So under my scheme coal which is exported is the responsibility of the importing country, including the emissions made in Australia for mining and shipping.]

    Very very very funny material, WMH. This is priceless. You may have no future in politics, but you will go well in live-theatre-of-the-absurd. Brilliant.

  21. [I didn’t say they rig all their polls. I said their polls were riggable. ]

    Well duh. That’s like saying, the Australian Army is materially capable of staging a coup (which is true), therefore they’re going to do so on Tuesday night (which is delusional). Your “thesis” was bunk, it has been proved – by the test that you yourself set – to be bunk, so you should stop making yourself look even more like a horse’s arse than you already have.

  22. [1029
    Psephos

    I believe the Maldives intend becoming the first completely emissions free country, by entirely submerging themselves in the Indian Ocean.]

    A strategy also known as “submission”.

  23. [I didn’t say they rig all their polls. I said their polls were riggable. I mentioned this one, and I was wrong on the night.]
    Why would this particular Newspoll be riggable if Essential were publishing their poll the next day? Do you think a variation of say 5% between the two polls wouldn’t have started to ring alarm bells in even the most gullible readers?

  24. BK
    [It struck me today that the media pack is behaving just the same as wholesale funds managers who are “index huggers” who are paranoid about being different to the rest with respect to portfolio performance. They are concerned less with substance and company sustainability than not being seen to deviate from the immediate norm of their competitors.]
    One might say the same thing about business management strategies…so many businesses are distressingly undifferentiated in their positioning or strategy

  25. [Why would this particular Newspoll be riggable if Essential were publishing their poll the next day? Do you think a variation of say 5% between the two polls wouldn’t have started to ring alarm bells in even the most gullible readers?]

    They could have claimed that one or the other was a rogue and who could prove otherwise.

  26. So Rudd has no plan for Climate Change – well neither has your new mate Abbott according to this.

    GrogsGamut

    Oh Malcolm, you are uttering pure bull here – “vote for Abbott because he is definitely against climate change”? Where is your soul? #qanda half a minute ago via TweetDeck

  27. [I believe the Maldives intend becoming the first completely emissions free country, by entirely submerging themselves in the Indian Ocean.]

    Thats crap. A recent New Scientist article pointed out that islands were actually GROWING in size.

  28. [They could have claimed that one or the other was a rogue and who could prove otherwise.]
    But that reduces the particular Newspoll credibility by 50%. Just tinfoil hat thinking.

  29. Well duh. That’s like saying, the Australian Army is materially capable of staging a coup (which is true), therefore they’re going to do so on Tuesday night (which is delusional). Your “thesis” was bunk, it has been proved – by the test that you yourself set – to be bunk, so you should stop making yourself look even more like a horse’s arse than you already have.

    Can’t be bothered arguing anymore.

    Let’s just agree we both hate soccer.

  30. Clearly, another bad and sad day for ADF in Afghanastan.

    Essential’s poll today on Australia’s involvement there has a reasonable consistency of the big picture view across both Labor and Liberal voters

    [Increase the number of troops in Afghanistan 7% 7% {Labor/Liberal}
    Keep the same number of troops in Afghanistan 25% 32%
    Withdraw our troops from Afghanistan 61% 55%
    Don’t know 7% 6%]

    I wonder if any journalist will take up the issue of Abbott’s mealy mouthed, virtual invitation to the US for a request to increase the number of Australian troops there.

    I would suspect – not a one.

  31. Why would this particular Newspoll be riggable if Essential were publishing their poll the next day? Do you think a variation of say 5% between the two polls wouldn’t have started to ring alarm bells in even the most gullible readers?

    Incidentally exactly the difference between the “latest” Nielsen and the current Newspoll.

    Even three weeks ago, under the previous Newspoll, the difference was 4%.

    No-one batted an eye.

  32. GG

    [Diogs,

    Chick magnets being Polarity swappers is so New Idea.]

    I tells ya, it’s the pearls before the swine here. I present compelling evidence that voting patterns follow a Zipf distribution which irrefutably proves that voters do vote in a “herd mentality” and what thanks do I get?

    Smut about attractive men always being bisexual. 😉

  33. They could have claimed that one or the other was a rogue and who could prove otherwise.

    No “could’ve” about it. This is the standard operating excuse.

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