Newspoll: 50-50

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.

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.

3,750 comments on “Newspoll: 50-50”

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  1. [His only major achievement has been to spend lots of money when there was a pile of loot left in the bank by Costello. ]

    It is easy to leave a nest egg when you’re gifted by a prolonged minerals boom, you sell major assets and you don’t have any major financial crises to deal with.

    It is much harder to keep your head above water when the whole world is going down the gurgler around you.

    Costello was never really tested — he looked good to some merely by default.

    If you have economics credentials as you say — you would know that.

    Your rusted on political leanings are merely showing.

  2. I don’t recall the PM actually saying that she will only have one debate.

    It was just an impression given from such interviews as the following…

    JOURNALIST: “Studio audiences last night gave you a victory in the debate. Why won’t you debate Tony Abbott again? Are you scared?”

    PM: “I’ve debated Tony Abbott and had a lot of discussions with Tony Abbott over the years and I think it was a good discussion and debate last night. And obviously Australians in their lounge rooms watching it will judge what they thought of the debate last night.

    Now what I will be doing in the campaign is doing things like I have done today, being out, talking to people, and making announcements about the future that matter for hard working Australians and their families. And there’s nothing more important than making sure if you had a health emergency, that you could go to an emergency department with the staff, the doctors and nurses that you need, that’s what today’s announcement is about.
    We’ll just go here and here.”

  3. Generic Person
    Posted Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 11:19 pm | Permalink

    No 3536

    “What’s even worse is the fact that Gillard said she delivered three tax cuts in a row, when in fact these tax cuts were promised by John Howard in 2007 and MIMICKED by Rudd.”

    Can you advice who was Treasurer that delivered those 3 tax cuts…Swan

  4. No 3595

    The difference to 1996 is that Costello had to make real and drastic cuts because Labor had left a $9 billion blackhole in the budget which wasn’t revealed prior to the election. Swan increased a few taxes, made some token cuts here and there, but otherwise the fact that the budget was going to be in surplus was never in doubt as far back as November 2007.

  5. The Libs have been quite happy to roll with beat-ups relating to gaffes in the past so you can’t come crying now. Remember when Rudd accidentally said ‘sh*tstorm’ and the Libs carried on for days about how he’d concocted it to make him appear more ‘everyday’? There was also ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’-gate.

  6. [actually tone cant go any lower]

    That is either a very brave or very silly (possibly both) assertion to make at this point Gus. 🙂

  8. [His only major achievement has been to spend lots of money when there was a pile of loot left in the bank by Costello. ]

    We’ll Mr Squiggle your post grad qualification are obviously worthless. Do you read about world economics, do you know what happened in Europe and the US. I’ll tell you millions lost their jobs, they have 10% unemployement, their banks collapsed and govts are in debt upto their eyeballs. It was the GFC. Without Govt stimulus which the Liberals blocked this country would have been in recession – the surplus left by the Libs was barely enough to cover the first stimulus payment, it was the second $42bn that saved the country and kept it out of recession. The libs blocked this one – that is why they cannot be trusted on the economy. I suggest you pay attention to what Swan says well ahead of Abbott and his merry band of fools – Hockey and Robb.

  9. # 3589 [howard always spoke about his past achievements on the economy]

    Incorrect; Howard waited until he had built a meaningful track record before he tried to stake a claim on his economic. It wasn’t unitl the 2004 latham election that he finally rolled out the “who do you trust…etc” and ” we will alwys keep rates lower than Labor would have etc”

    By comparison, Swan is trying to make a virtue out of his record of handing out free cash, when in fact we all know that he is pre-disposed to pissing it up against the wall anyway.

    The fact that the ALP was in power during a global crisis will be viewed by the electorate as good management. Now that the crisis is past, the electorate will want to get the proper managers back in power

  11. No 3600

    See this is the disingenuous behaviour of Labor supporters. They consistently criticise Howard for coasting along on the back of a protracted minerals boom, while shamelessly announcing a Resource Rent Tax to the tune of $10-12 billion a year for the reason that “the miners haven’t been paying their fair share” to Australians.

    You can’t have it both ways.

  12. GP, I am not going to debate this with you. You’re arguing from your own bias. Abbott could kill someone on live air and you would claim it’s a smear of him. This is not worth my time.

    And don’t bother arguing tu quoque, I have countless times been the one to say we’ll get no mileage from beating an issue that might hurt the Libs, in the past.

    This was a gaffe. Plain and simple.

    It has served the campaign by giving Gillard control of the ball again. Now it’s up to her to convert that into goals. (or whatever metaphor you would like to use)

  17. [the surplus left by the Libs was barely enough to cover the first stimulus payment]

    Which the Liberals agreed with. The also agreed that there needed to be stimulus in the second round, just less of a stimulus. Yet, even though they believed there needed to be stimulus they were happy for there to be none. This means that they knew they were putting jobs and the economy at risk.

  18. No 3607

    The key difference buddy is that Australia had no net debt going into the financial crisis. It’s precisely because of the debt-averse excellent financial management of the Liberals that automatically guaranteed our economy was on a better footing than any other nation going into any crisis. The Europeans and Americans had to bail out banks for egregious amounts of money when their balance sheets were already heavily in the red. Look at Britain – a government cannot continuously spend its way out of a recession and now Brits are paying the price for profligate and excessive Government spending.

  19. @Generic Person/3610,

    And you cannot save to a surplus and not spend much while your infrastructure crumbles.

    Just look at Telstra’s network a fine example of Coalition’s brilliance.

    Indeed, you cannot have it both ways.

  20. [Incorrect; Howard waited until he had built a meaningful track record before he tried to stake a claim on his economic.]

    no ncorrect. What is more meaningful than surviving the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression. the Asian crisis was a picinic compared to that and Costello never shut up about that.

    [the electorate will want to get the proper managers back in power].

    the ones who would have send the country into recession, are not proposing to increase company tax and the ones who propose $20bn in new spending. the economic novices.= Liberals.

  22. [Now that the crisis is past, the electorate will want to get the proper managers back in power]

    Squiggle that is your first attempt at humour in the campaign, well done! I love a good belly laugh from desperate Tories.

  23. [fools go where angels fear to tread]

    Just make sure your carrying a big stick (in case you bump into GP you can do the world a favor), and the right how to vote card.

    Just signed up for a shift in Alanna’s electorate of Canning today. 🙂

  25. Jen author

    [Costello was never really tested],

    Nonsense, there were a number of economic crises during Costello’s tenure, inlcuding the Asian meltdown and the 9/11 rolercoaster, just to name two.

    For the record, I consider the ALP’s loosening of fiscal policy to be a significant contributing factor to Australia avoiding the economic downturn. My point is that this is what the ALP does, they spend taxpayer’s money wastefully, and the fact that Swan was treasurer during the GFC was phenomanally good luck for Australia

  28. [The key difference buddy is that Australia had no net debt going into the financial crisis. It’s precisely because of the debt-averse excellent financial management of the Liberals that automatically guaranteed our economy was on a better footing than any other nation going into any crisis.]

    Noted and agreed however the Libs blocked the second stimulus payment. 1Q 2009 GDP was o.1% Aust narrowly avoided the recession and all the lost confidence that would bring. The libs would have sent Aust into recssion if we had followed their advice.

  30. imacca

    even better,ive been to truthy town twice

    as regards the home patch,well lets just say that the fibs are cowed

    as regards the big stick,GP would be the one needing it

    😉

  32. GP,

    If Howard had won the election, guess what? He also would have had to go into debt to stimulate the economy.

    Why? Because you lot blew all that once in a generation revenue generated by the mining boom.

    Hang your heads in shame GP!

    That’s the truth!

  33. Squiggle,

    Your wife stealing your credit card and buying a sofa is the basis of your intellectual critique of Labor Govrnments.

  37. [the quiches are running me around like pavlova

    time to look on the sunnyside up]

    I’m fried right now and completely scrambled…

  40. William Bowe
    Posted Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 11:48 pm | Permalink

    “Hell of a lot of Greens ads on television.”

    whats your guess in WA of % vs Labor and Libs

  42. [the ones who would have send the country into recession, are not proposing to increase company tax and the ones who propose $20bn in new spending. the economic novices.= Liberals.]

    Which begs the question — Who in the Liberal party has ANY expertise on financial matters?

    Robb? He can’t put a coherent sentence together.
    Hockey? He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?
    Barnaby? Puhlease — its like asking a senile tuckshop owner to head up the biggest company in the country.

    Anyone else at all?

    Any ‘past’ expertise is long gone. Nobody on the coalition benches has an ounce of a clue.

  43. [It wasn’t unitl the 2004 latham election that he finally rolled out the “who do you trust…etc” and ” we will alwys keep rates lower than Labor would have etc”]

    And promptly got 10 interest rate rises in a row! 😉

  44. Over all a very good day for the Prime Minister.

    I will say that I am disappointed that Jules did not phone Kevin, he was her leader and a colleague and a phone call should have bneen made.

    It is not a vote changer butn will just cement views.

    I also think people have been a little unfair to Tone for his no means no on this occasion cannot be seen as supporting that excuse in rage cases and I think we need to remember that Tone does have three daughters and he does seem to have a deep affection for his childern.

    The ALP do not need to turn this campaign into the gutter for it has the issues to hit Tony out of the ball park as we saw today with Jules performing very well.

  46. [TSOP

    well

    beat it]

    Are you flipping me off?

    Geez, only a matter of time before William bans egg puns from this blog 😆

  48. Steve #3621

    Cheers Steve!!

    We owe our current economic state to good work from both sides of politics.

    I don’t mind giving credit where its due, but I’d give more to Hawke and Keating than Swannie.

    The only reason Swannie and Rudd dished out so much lolly is the same reason why a dog licks its balls. we need wiser heads in control of the public purse now

  50. [It’s precisely because of the debt-averse excellent financial management of the Liberals that automatically guaranteed our economy was on a better footing than any other nation going into any crisis.]

    It was so marvellous that the country was actually in “structural deficit” when Labor took over and had been for the previous four years! 😉

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