Newspoll has it at 50-50, with Julia Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister is essentially unchanged, from 50-34 to 50-35. The primary votes are 37 per cent Labor, 44 per cent Coalition and 12 per cent Greens. More to follow.
UPDATE: Full results here, plus bonus stuff on leaders’ personality traits here. Julia Gillard’s approval rating is actually up a point to 42 per cent, but her disapproval is up three to 40 per cent. Tony Abbott’s approval is up four points to 44 per cent and his disapproval steady on 46 per cent.
We also have Essential Research in at 54-46 for Labor, down from 55-45 over recent weeks. As Bernard Keane reports it in Crikey:
Labor’s primary vote has dropped a point to 40%, only slightly ahead of the Coalition, which has remained steady on 39%. The Greens, too, have remained steady on 13%, as yet undented by the impact of the campaign. That yields a 2PP outcome of 54-46.
On approval ratings, however, Gillard has gone backwards, with a three-point fall in approval and a five-point rise in disapproval, to 46-38% — her lowest net approval rating in her limited time as PM. Abbott has picked up three points in approval, although that’s offset by a small increase in disapproval, meaning he continues with a net disapproval rating — 38-48%.
Gillard’s lead as better PM has shrunk seven points from 25 last week to 48-30% this week. There’s still a very big gender gap on better PM: Gillard’s lead among men is 12 points; among women, 24 points — 50-26%. Men and women now equally disapprove of Tony Abbott — 48% — but he leads amongst men in approval ratings, 41-35%. Gillard has a much lower disapproval rating among women.
However, the Coalition will be buoyed by the positive reception of Abbott’s pledge to cap immigration at 170,000, with 64% of voters approving and only 22% rejecting the notion. Support is very strong amongst Liberal voters — 91% — but even Labor voters like it (52-32%). The Coalition has a big lead among voters in perceptions of who is best at handling immigration, 35-23% over Labor.
UPDATE 2: Full Essential Research report here. “Reason for voting preference” has four times as many people voting Coalition because the government has been bad than voting for Labor because it has been good, and four times as many people citing the leaders as the reason for voting Labor than Coalition. Julia Gillard’s personal ratings reflect the overall trend in showing her three points down on approval to 46 per cent and up five points up on disapproval to 38 per cent. However, Tony Abbott records more modest changes, up three on approval to 38 per cent and up two on disapproval to 48 per cent. At 47-30, Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister is basically the same as Kevin Rudd’s in his last poll, although her +8 approval rating compares with Rudd’s -6. A question on attitudes to the Senate finds respondents perfectly divided as to whether a minor party balance-of-power situation is a good thing (though I can only say the 10 per cent who favour Opposition control of the Senate haven’t thought things through). Very strong support is recorded for Tony Abbott’s lower immigration target, and the Coalition are favoured as best party on immigration.
Tones moves in for the kill.
What a shocking campaign to this point in time the ALP are running. I’m mortified.
Amigos.
Bad time to post I know, but I’m working on an animated attack song on Tony Abbott. Might this be a good place to post it? Should be ready by mid-week.
Cool 50-50. Exactly what I said it would be.
It’s a neck and neck race and hopefully this week a more front-footed campaign will help us to pull ahead.
[Tones moves in for the kill.]
That gets rid of the last remaining Commandment.
So it is 50/50. It could be said, then, that Labor is trending up after the Advertiser and the Nielsen.
That would be Shamahan’s twist, were he a progressive rather than a conservative.
At least Labor are holding and JG still preferred PM which has to be a big plus …. isn’t it ?
cheers
TSOP
lemers are human too
Gus sends his regards
@enjaybee/2
Can’t be helped with a couple of leaks, and people believing Abbott about “More Tax, More Waste” Rubbish.
The ALP will hope this poll result will be the lowest it gets during the campaign and will retain the lead next week thanks to the anticipated RBA announcement that interest rates.
Expect a loud campaign on the government’s economic record this week.
[I would of thought the ongoing destruction of Rudd is Chris Mitchells reason for getting out of bed in the morning. The OO have two objectives destroy Rudd and Labor.]
No, Rudd is just an instrument for them to attack Labor. If he was still PM they’d be condemning the “Labor powerbrokers” for propping up an obviously incompetent and failed PM and not replacing him with the fantastically wonderful Gillard, etc etc etc – just as they said about British Labour when they failed to dump Brown before the election. They don’t care which way round the narrative goes so long as it’s anti-Labor.
Can’t wait to see the breakdowns.
I am still interested in: if ALP are polling so badly in Qld, then there must be a swing to ALP in other states to compensate?
[Tones moves in for the kill.]
He’s about to be weighed down with several tonnes of baggage which he won’t be able to shrug off – from here on people are going to be reminded of this stupid and backward utterances and also I hear a couple of revelations that the general public haven’t be aware of. The test will be if the media pick up and run with it.
I’ll bet Cossie is kicking himself for not staying on.
Labor lose on 50-50 – not a great result at all!
At the risk of upsetting Psephos: Bitar and Arbib have a lot to answer for.
Wow 50/50 is exactly how I feel. I can’t in good conscience vote for the mad monk, but damn it if I’m going to reward the incumbent for bad behaviour.
Ryan, I do run a very tight anti-Coalition line in my little weatherboard dictatorship, but its entirely possible to loathe Abbott without being an ALP operative – If you weren’t such a giant rectum, you might have thought of that.
[from here on people are going to be reminded of this stupid and backward utterances and also I hear a couple of revelations that the general public haven’t be aware of. The test will be if the media pick up and run with it.]
Oooh Tom — tell me more!
#9
Whoops. Meant to say that the ALP will hope to retain the lead next week thanks to the anticipated RBA announcement that interest rates won’t rise.
“”They don’t care which way round the narrative goes so long as it’s anti-Labor.””
Yes that has been Murdochs history despite some brief flirtations with the left (Blair initially) through his time. I am interested in how the next generation will manage the political angle of News Ltd once the old man moves on.
This will please us all:
[ geeksrulz
#ausvotes #aus2010 52-48 last week is within Margin of Error of 50-50 – no statistical change RT @Paul_Jarman: (cont) http://tl.gd/2s4kv0 4 minutes ago via Twitlonger ]
[I’ll bet Cossie is kicking himself for not staying on.]
It’s impossible to kick yourself when lying in a hammock.
“At least Labor are holding and JG still preferred PM which has to be a big plus …. isn’t it ?”
Always nice to be holding a big lead in the PPM, but 50-50 is not where it should be with only 3 weeks left. It honestly baffles me that so many voters seem willing to put Abbott in power.
Lets hope the campaign gets a move along this week. all I have seen on tv this weekend are liberal run “train wreck’ ads. Not a Labor ad in sight (pay tv)
Oh, and I think I was right. Barbara Boxer appears to have received more votes than any other candidate (in a non-presidential election) when she received 6,955,728 votes in the 2004 US Senate election for California.
Translates to:
COALITION 78 seats
ALP 69 seats
OTHERS 3 seats
Assuming the swing is uniform(which it won’t be ). 😉
[TSOP
lemers are human too
Gus sends his regards]
That’s what they want you to think!
Labor has had a shocker and yet are still in the race. It’s onward and upward from here on.
A much better Newspoll than I was expecting after the disaster of last week.
@evan14/23, is that with or without preferences added?
Where the heck are the Labor TV ads?
The Liberals aren’t as cash strapped as they were making out – Palmer must be bankrolling them very heavily.
[I’ll bet Cossie is kicking himself for not staying on.]
He has the worst case of “hammock sores” you have ever seen.
Cairns TV is running the Labor unplugged ad with figures broken down for FNQ and dragging Entsch into the ad along with Rabbott.
evan being negative because it suits his narrative that rudd was hard done by. How predictable.
evan14
I am encouraged with this poll. This is Labor’s low water mark in Newpoll and barring any further Oakes’ bombshells they will start to improve.
[Labor lose on 50-50 – not a great result at all!]
Considering they’ve thrown everything at us and we haven’t really started, 50-50 ain’t that bad.
Now let’s take the momentum back! Big week this week!
Brisoz: I put the figures into Antony Green’s calculator, which you’ll find on the ABC election site – he’d take into account preferences.
Murdoch is like Mr Burns on the Simpsons — he’ll keep going and going and going … just to spite the ALP
Pica, sorry mate. I’ll try harder next time.
That’s a core promise.
Nothing else to say except either side can win from here. I wouldn’t take too much comfort from the PPM figures. Labor need to come up with something that either buys them votes or knocks the other side out.
I’m thinking Mumble’s theory about Labor throwing away the power of incumbency is ringing true with me. As someone said on the other thread – Abbott’s greatest victory was convincing the Labor party to panic and turf Rudd. It basically confirmed (wrongly IMO) all his criticism of the government.
Gary: a fit and recovered Rudd is their last hope – hiding him away in Griffith was a bad mistake.
There was a stream of good ALP ads on the TV during “Dancing with the stars”. tonight ……which has a huge audience’
They were short and punchy and feature attacks on Abbot re Work Choices..and had a clip of Abbott saying he didn’t always speak the truth(but we know that !)
There is also a good ad from the Nurses re Abbott and cuts last time into Heath care.
Both in Prime time..and very effective
Keep it up !!
Interesting article on a just released report by Akamai of global internet speeds, Australia comes in at a woeful number 50, pretty much the slowest in our region.
http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/government-tech-policy/40744-australia-bombs-at-50th-for-internet-speeds
We don’t need the NBN do we, as Helen Coonan says, we already have fast internet….not.
[knocks the other side out.]
There will be no knock out. This will be a points decision and we have just finished round 4 of a 10 round bout.
@evan14/34, I still can’t believe the big gap between Coalition and Labor with preferences added.
@ltep/37, Infrastructure Building, Building better future?
[At the risk of upsetting Psephos: Bitar and Arbib have a lot to answer for.]
For the umpteenth time, this “NSW right knifed Rudd” narrative is just factually wrong. The feeling that Rudd had to go came from right across the Caucus, from Kim Carr to Don Farrell. It was not a factional thing, an ideological thing, a state thing, or a policy thing. It was a Rudd thing. It was the combination of Rudd’s nosedive in the polls, plus the chaotic way he was running the government, plus his personal behaviour towards colleagues. People were prepared to put up his behaviour with so long as he was winning. They would have supported him even if he was losing if he hadn’t destroyed all personal loyalty through his behaviour. But with both things running against him, he cooked himself. All the factional conveners did was bring things to a head by persuading Gillard to run.
I know this doesn’t suit the preferred narrative of the left (who have now decided that the extremely conservative Rudd is a left-wing martyr), but that’s what happened.
Perhaps we will get a personal endorsement ad from Cardinal Pell.. for Abbott…re abortion..and the need to keep woman under control !
Julia also needed to stop being so nice. She is a scrapper in QT and wins the debate every time. That’s the Julia the electorate need to see. She showed it more today when she was fed up with the nonsense from the fourth estate and Abbott’s crap.
I hope she comes out really fighting this week.
I suspect the electorate is just putting Gillard through a bit of a baptism by fire. I think people will vote for her on the day over abbott*.
* disclaimer: I thought John Kerry would win in 2004.
“Now let’s take the momentum back! Big week this week!”
But is this in fact going to happen? How long is Labor going to leave it before they get things moving? Honestly at the moment it seems like only one party is running.