Newspoll: 51-49 to Liberal in Lindsay; 50-50 in Dawson

The opinion poll bonanza rolls on, with a Newspoll survey in The Australian focusing on the key seats of Lindsay in western Sydney and Dawson in northern Queensland, both presumed trouble spots for Labor. The Lindsay poll is everything Labor might have feared, showing the Liberals with a 51-49 lead after a 7 per cent swing. However, the Dawson result is much better news for Labor, showing an even two-party split and a swing to the Liberal National Party of 2.4 per cent. The poll was conducted between Tuesday and Thursday, before the Kevin Rudd intervention. Primary votes are 45 per cent Liberal to 41 per cent Labor in Lindsay, and 44 per cent LNP to 42 per cent Labor in Dawson. It seems we’ll have to wait for the hard copy to find out the sample size.

For those of you who have just joined us, note the previous two posts covering poll results which have emerged over the past evening.

UPDATE: Full results here. The samples turn out to be 600 per electorate, producing margins of error of 4 per cent. Both leaders’ approval ratings are evenly split between approve and disapprove in both electorates – in a poll conducted in Lindsay in the final days of Kevin Rudd’s leadership, the result was 33 per cent approve, 61 per cent disapprove. Julia Gillard leads Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister 49-34 in Dawson and 46-41 in Lindsay. Labor’s support is softer than the Coalition’s in Lindsay, but basically the same in Dawson.

UPDATE 2: Courtesy of Possum, full results from Nielsen, who are helpfully maintaining their three-poll state-by-state averages.

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.

3,110 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Liberal in Lindsay; 50-50 in Dawson”

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  1. Castle and others:

    Please note the ACT and NT Senate seats are up for re-election this time, and the winners will immediately enter the Senate. Theoretically, this could make it more easy or difficult for the new PM to get legislation passed before the states-based Senators take office.

    Here’s Antony Green’s complete list of Senate seats up for grabs this time.

    Retiring Senators (Elected 2004) ALP LIB NAT CLP GRN FFP
    New South Wales 3 2 1
    Victoria 2 3* 1
    Queensland 2 3 1
    Western Australia 2 3 1
    South Australia 3 3
    Tasmania 2 3 1
    Australian Capital Territory 1 1
    Northern Territory 1 1
    Total 16 18 2 1 2 1 = 40

    Sorry that the numbers won’t line up—I tried. 😛

  2. 121
    GG

    We will not know whether i am telling porkies until he is in and does not do it, therefore at the moment it is 99% true.

  5. GG

    [And, you bitch about the quality of pollies. Insanity is doing the same thingt and expecting the result too be different.
    ]

    There are three errors in that argument.

    1. Who said I was expecting a different result.
    2. Insanity has absolutely nothing to do with expecting a different result when you repeat a behaviour.
    3. The basis of quantum mechanics is that you can get a different result when you repeat an observation.

  6. Alan Shore: good find! Someone needs to send that to Laurie Oakes and to other journos who can ask Abbott about it.

    That’s an EXCELLENT find!

    I’m assuming here that the Libs will trumpet (a la 2001) that they will determine who comes here etc. in their speech and will hold up a piece of paper with the Nauruan President’s signature scrawled across the bottom.

    THEN is the time to produce this piece of election campaign hypocracy, by Gillard, not by Oakes (who has shown that even when he skewers Abbott it goes unreported on his own TV network cf. last weekend’s interview). Push the Phoney Tony line. “It’s improper, most improper for an Opposition to deal directly with foreign governments, especially during the caretaker phase of an election campaign. Don’t take my word for it, here’s the official Liberal Party policy…”

    Of course, the only problem is that such an expose will be drowned out by the bogans cheering Tony on. They know what they want and they don’t care for quibbles like official party policy. And naturally the media will listen politely to this devastating point and then start screaming questions about Kevin Rudd.

    I liked Dee’s option better. Go low. Go dirty. But make sure it sticks.

  9. 3. The basis of quantum mechanics is that you can get a different result when you repeat an observation.

    Repeat the single observation often enough in quantum mechanics and you will always end up with a predictable statistical pattern. Not quite the same as complete randomness and unpredictability.

  11. Just got polled by Ask Polls on the federal election. They gave on 08 code contact number. Is Billbowe arrange arranging private polling for his own amusement?

  12. BB on Nauru
    [except 80% of it is decrepit guano pits, useless for anything except starting at and saying to yourself, “How in the hell did we do this to ourselves?”]
    …not having an appropriate resources rent tax system in place to get value for its finite resource and having too great a focus on expenditure/handouts, rather than investments and a mismanaged sovereign wealth fund, could all be amongst the answers to that question.

  13. Diogs,

    How many is a quantum of mechanics?

    Julia’s my mechanic and she always gets my motor running without any existential claptrap.

  15. AlanShore @115
    [TONY Abbott will meet the president of Nauru today to demonstrate the Coalition’s resolve to reinstate the ”Pacific solution”.

    That seems odd given the Coalition’s written down, gospel truth border protection policy.]
    Great observation…I wonder how many of the press gallery will pick up and run with this??

  19. [People are fools, to think that Abbott will last more than 1 term, if they think Rudd/Gillard is boring/fake.]

    I agree with that. Abbott I think will be useless and lose support fairly quickly. I would expect that a Turnbull will take over after two years to re float the sunken ship. Turnbull on the other hand is quite capable, more moderate and has a better public persona. Turnbull would win the following election.

    Hence the madness of dumping Rudd. You get one term and trash two PMs. They could have gotten two terms out of Rudd and probably one out of Gillard. So instead of 9 years in govt they get 6 years in Opposition, all because of the personal greed of one person.

    I would put Abbott at least at 50/50 chance now and probably more.

  23. Possum’s Nielson breakdown is better looking for ALP than the headline figures:

    The 2PP is Coaliton 50.6 and Labor 59.4 which is a gain of 1.6 for Labor since last Nielson.

  24. [The media pack are going ballistic becuase Kev and Julia will only allow one camera crew into their meeting.]

    Will they kiss, canoodle and steam up the room?

  25. [People are fools, to think that Abbott will last more than 1 term, if they think Rudd/Gillard is boring/fake.]

    I’m not sure about that -Abbott will be hailed as a hero.

    The real test for a government who has been ahead in the polls is when they take a hit and get behind for the first time. At that point, they have the choice of backing their position or panicking.

    Whenever that happened to the Howard government, they ran with a new strategy as a circuit breaker rather than throwing out the leader, so I think that approach will be more likely since it worked so well for them.

  27. [Repeat the single observation often enough in quantum mechanics and you will always end up with a predictable statistical pattern. Not quite the same as complete randomness and unpredictability.]

    I certainly never said quantum mechanics meant complete randomness. Only that you can do the same thing twice and get a different result.

    On predictions, imagine if someone came on PB a year ago with Kevin at near-record approval ratings and regular 57-43 results and said that Tony Abbott would be PM in a year. They would have been laughed at never taken seriously again. I’m not saying he will be but it’s been an amazing 12 months.

  29. [I have ALP gaining McEwen, La Trobe, Boothby and Stirling. At the moment. Hughes is possible.]

    gloryconsequence, do you have any more up to date information on Boothby since the Advertiser Poll?

  30. [The 2PP is Coaliton 50.6 and Labor 59.4 which is a gain of 1.6 for Labor since last Nielson.]

    I dont think you can say this on the two polls due to MOE. All it does is confirm that Labor is at around the 48/49 mark.

  31. @Triffid/165,

    For now, but as Thomas Paine @ 159 said, what about two years time?

    They could have the same problem as Labor did, not to mention that Coalition Party already had multiple leaders.

  32. Im not liking these poll results, so im looking to the betting markets for my predictor.

    If people are more likely to vote where they put there money than how they responded to some random 5 minute conversation with a stranger then labor will win 79 seats, greens 1 (according to centerbet favorites).

    Transmuting this into ABC’s election calculator, and fudging it a bit, i say labor has more than 51.6% support.

    http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/calculator/?swing=state&national=0&nsw=-0.5&vic=0.1&qld=-3.9&wa=-0.9&sa=1.1&tas=-0.9&act=-10&nt=-0.1&retiringfactor=1

  33. brisoz

    [For now, but as Thomas Paine @ 159 said, what about two years time?

    They could have the same problem as Labor did, not to mention that Coalition Party already had multiple leaders.]

    Possibly, but I think they’re likely to learn if Labor’s experiment fails.

  34. [I’m not saying he will be but it’s been an amazing 12 months.]

    If Labor lose this the JGillard takeover will go down as one of the most stupid self destructive acts of Labor in Govt to serve the personal interests of one.

    However the resultant factional civil war would be worth turning into a reality show. Rudd could sit out of that one.

  35. People were asking for this – 2004 Federal Election Campaign Polling – Newspoll

    Poll 1: Labor 52-48
    Poll 2: Coalition 52-48
    Poll 3: Labor 52.5-47.5
    Poll 4: Labor 52-48
    Night before election: 50-50

  36. [Possibly, but I think they’re likely to learn if Labor’s experiment fails.]

    Wonder if the Libs would learn from the Gillard mistake and plan any takeover in a much better fashion? Naaa, they never learn.

  37. From AFR today on News Corp
    [For what theay are worth, online reports say that more than 150,000 people signed up for the free online trial of The Times (which sells 503,0000 papers a day and Sunday Times (1.08m papers), but only 15,000 paid up after the free access stopped, and there were 12,000 iPad subscriptions.

    The figures mean little. It will be six months at least before any useful conclusions can be drawn]

  39. [If Labor lose this the JGillard takeover will go down as one of the most stupid self destructive acts of Labor in Govt to serve the personal interests of one.

    However the resultant factional civil war would be worth turning into a reality show. Rudd could sit out of that one.]

    They’ll a decade to play that out – that’ll be the next chance we have of an ALP government if Gillard can’t resurrect this election.

  41. [#32 William Bowe

    Pleased to see you are quoting from websites as authority for your point of view. I am sure that use of such quotes to support a proposition would go down a treat in an academic thesis.]

    Peter, you’ve got to stop advertising your stupidity like this. Of course it would be permissible to quote the website of the ACT Parliament in a thesis, not that that’s what I was doing.

  42. [People were asking for this – 2004 Federal Election Campaign Polling – Newspoll]

    I don’t think you can make comparisons between 2007 and now. Two very different set of circumstances.

    A decade long PM up against a super popular and enthusing candidate. Howard got a good narrowing in the polls because of 10 years incumbency and knowledge that he was fully competent and ‘battle hardened’ as he would say.

    Now we have a new government in controversy that has tossed away most of the benefit of incumbency fighting the remnants of the last Govt.

    The problem with Labor being so low in the polls is I don’t believe they will get much if any incumbency benefit.

  43. Thomas Paine @170,
    Obviously, it was a typo. Possum shows Labor at 49.4.

    My entire comment is based wholly upon Possum’s analysis. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do so. If your statistical acumen is beyond Possum’s, then please quibble with Possum, not with me.

  45. [If Labor lose this the JGillard takeover will go down as one of the most stupid self destructive acts of Labor in Govt to serve the personal interests of one.]
    I agree. But if Labor loses Government but wins Lindsay, then they will consider it a successful campaign.

  46. [People were asking for this – 2004 Federal Election Campaign Polling – Newspoll

    Poll 1: Labor 52-48
    Poll 2: Coalition 52-48
    Poll 3: Labor 52.5-47.5
    Poll 4: Labor 52-48
    Night before election: 50-50]

    Thanks for that g/c.

  49. I certainly never said quantum mechanics meant complete randomness. Only that you can do the same thing twice and get a different result.

    Only within very narrow and rigourously defined statistical and observational constraints.

    But otherwise, fair enough.

  50. Interesting time at Carnegie shopping centre (Higgins/Hotham) ….

    Kelly O’Dwyer and about ten supporters were there, as well as Simon Crean and the Higgin’s Labor candidate.

    Kelly’s people were distributed all along the shopping strip so they were impossible to miss.

    Labor were just in one place, and about ten minutes after I talked to them they had gone.

    Crean was interesting. Claims he ‘has never spun in his life’, yet defends Labor’s past and future policy on climate change, and says it was the Greens who refused to negotiate on the CPRS. No carbon tax because Labor does not believe in it.

    Crean will win his seat – no real action on climate change from him.

    I always wonder how young campaign workers can support a party that is for inaction on climate change. What will they tell their children in thirty years time?

    One of the young Liberals told me she believed in climate change and that people should take action in their own homes by turning lights off, etc. Is such ignorance any defense when it comes to the climate change disasters ahead?

    Kelly O’Dwyer will win her seat. No real action on climate change from her.

    So the Labor supporters can cheer Crean’s holding the course (what I call spin), the Liberal supporters can cheer on O’Dwyer’s vigorous and effective campaigning, and I feel so depressed about our future that I think I shall go for a walk.

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