Newspoll: 63-37 to Coalition in NSW

The latest bi-monthly Newspoll survey of NSW state voting intention finds Labor plumbing lows previously undreamt of, as graphically illustrated by The Australian. The Coalition’s two-party lead is equal to that recorded by federal Labor in the poll of February 29-March 2, but otherwise unprecedented in Newspoll history – remembering that NSW’s optional preferential voting system is likely to make matters even worse for Labor by starving them of Greens preferences.

Labor’s primary vote has fallen two points on the previous two surveys to 23 per cent, for which The Australian’s Imre Salusinszky can only identify one precedent: the 22 per cent recorded by the Queensland Nationals in 1989, which hardly seems applicable as it coexisted with a 25 per cent vote for the Liberals. More instructive is that Labor’s vote is below the nadirs of John Bannon and Joan Kirner, who on various occasions recorded 25 per cent. The Coalition meanwhile is steady on 46 per cent, while the Greens tide continues with a three point gain to 17 per cent – just six points shy of Labor.

Barry O’Farrell has also leapt to a 42-35 lead as preferred premier, after drawing level on 39 per cent in the previous poll. His approval rating has spiked five points to 48 per cent, with disapproval steady on 32 per cent. Kristina Keneally on the other hand is up six points on disapproval to 50 per cent, with her approval rating steady on 39 per cent.

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.

147 comments on “Newspoll: 63-37 to Coalition in NSW”

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  2. The time must be coming where Sussex St is better off stopping the campaign for government and starting to protect seats in West Sydney, Newcastle & Wollongong from vote splitting with the Greens and giving the Liberals a 1993-Canada style win.

  3. It is not too late to knife another leader in NSW

    This might be the best thing to happen for NSW, ALP clean out the dead wood time

  5. Given results in the Federal Election and polling results in Victoria it really does look like the Greens may have finally arrived as a real third party alternative. It will be interesting to see how they do in Queensland arguably the lowest Green supporting state.

  6. The ALP-Green margin is amazing – 6 points

    The Legislative Council could be an interesting result as well: Greens, small parties, independents

    148 days to go

  8. What are the odds on NSW Libs curring that lead back a lot over the next 5 months ? Peter Debnam managed to lose 4 years ago when Labor were badly on the nose.

    For me it would be a shame to see Nathan Rees lose his seat which I hope he doesn’t.

    cheers

  9. LAOCOON – And Federal Labor is counting them down.

    But Kenneally doesn’t have to worry. If the reports are correct, she’s being lined up for a slot in Federal politics.

  12. I know we’re not supposed to swear on here, but c’mon… 🙂

    Their shit is gonna get ruuuuined. The 2pp under compulsory preferential would have to be 65-35 or more to the coalition. This would be about a 15% swing against Labor across the whole state; bearing in mind that would include many safe Lib / Nat / Ind seats where they literally don’t have 15% to lose, there’ll be 20% swings in suburban Sydney as a matter of routine. They’re getting pounded up the arse with a rusty star picket.

    The continued existence of vermin like Tripodi makes me wish we had the English tradition of all candidates standing on a stage when the returning officer names the winner. I want to see him tied to a pole in Fairfield with a spotlight shone on him, with bitter self-pitying tears streaming down his face, realising he no long has the most important thing Labor stands for… power for its own sake. The odd tomato might hit him in the eye too. I will cheer when the Liberals win the next election over there, even though I despise that party.

  13. rosa

    On Keneally, quite possibly. To my mind though, the only leading politician who has less achievement than Hockey is Keneally. Don’t know what her claim to fame is besides her hairdresser and looking like a pouty, whinging sorority girl

    Surely not the wreckage of the NSW planning system which was her previous ministerial position

  14. Bird of Paradox

    And under NSW optional preferential, the “equivalent” 2PP would probably be worse

    The experience of Penrith by-election was that many Greens exhausted before preferencing Labor

  15. Personally, I’m hoping Roozendale is one of the casualties. He’s a really ugly character and has been since his days at Macquarie University with Gabriel Harrison and (the now late) Andrew Ziolkowski.

    I think the Greens need to campaign as the ALP of everyone’s imagination, since the Greens tick pretty much all the values for which the ALP was once revered and one or tweo they never had but are worthy now.

    Make your vote mean something worthwhile — vote Green! would be a powerful pitch at ALP voters.

  16. Fran

    Alas Roozendaal is a member of the Legislative Council, and is not up for election this time round; but agree an absolute piece of work

  18. It’s a pity, because Kristina Keneally is actually a real leader, and could have been a great Premier. Fearless, eloquent, smart, principled, if anyone could have save it she could have. A waste of a good captain to see her going down with such a ship. I salute her.

    But discovering that talent in their midst has been too little, too late … from a party that’s monolithic and inscrutable, a party that anyone can join but real membership is closed, an organization that operates more like a mafia than a place for political thought, whose main function is to preserve the powers of its inner circles and takes only a passing interest in activities of government.

  19. [rosa
    Posted Friday, October 29, 2010 at 9:17 am | Permalink
    BLUE-GREEN: And at what point does Joe step elegantly into a lifeboat and set sail for a career in lobbying.]

    Its not much good when all he can access is a broken opposition.

  21. freecountry

    [from a party that’s monolithic and inscrutable, a party that anyone can join but real membership is closed, an organization that operates more like a mafia than a place for political thought, whose main function is to preserve the powers of its inner circles and takes only a passing interest in activities of government.]

    You have hit the nail on the head!

  22. free country

    This is what wiki has to say about the “discovery of that talent”:
    [Keneally was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 2003, following a bitter pre-election battle with Deirdre Grusovin, the sister of senior Labor politician Laurie Brereton.

    It was in fact her husband Ben who was more interested in a political career, relying on his friendship with Joe Tripodi. However, the party’s affirmative action rules demanded a female candidate, so Kristina ran instead.]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristina_Keneally

  23. @18

    Is it really the case that Keneally is a ‘great leader’, or is it just that she’s less hopeless than everyone else in NSW Labor at the moment? It’s not exactly a high bar to clear to look good compared to the rest of that lot.

  25. Laocoon

    So the only reason KKK is in parliament, is that her husband wanted to be in parliament …. and want to live that life through her?????

    Affimative action at its best!!!

  28. Labor’s been perfectly happy to rack up thumping majorities and reduce the Opposition to a rump, so they can’t start sooking about “democracy” and “one party state” when the boot’s on the other foot.

  29. There has been a major breakthrough in The Greens long-term campaign to clean up political donations and the money politics that dominates at election time.

    The Keneally government has introduced a bill to reform election funding and donations that will substantially stem the dangerous influence of corporate donations on the democratic process.

    John Kaye from The Greens said: –

    “We would have preferred more progress on key areas of corporate donations, caps and third parties but we believe that this is the best that can be achieved at this time.

    “This is only a first step and there will be an on-going need for reform until corporate money politics are driven out of this state.

    http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/news/nsw-takes-step-towards-cleaner-politics

    Thanks Greens and Democracy4sale

    http://www.democracy4sale.org/

  30. I maintain that if Keneally came in as opposition leader at the tail end of a Government (ala Rudd) that she would have been a rock star (look how people warmed to Rudd, who isn’t exactly the most charismatic person). I reckon that she’s the smartest and most capable Labor leader for a long time, but it’s obviously been pretty hard for her to make ground in the current political environment, given the behaviour of some of those around her.

    I think it’s a shame that people so glibly dismiss her because she happens to be attractive. It’s a bit cheap.

  32. HAMISH – I applaud the legislation, but it does look like Labor is conducting an electoral scorched earth policy before the get dumped from power.

  33. HAMISH – She may have an IQ of 150. How would I know. But I’ve never heard anything issue from her lips which suggests She’s got anything like Rudd’s brainpower or his policy depth.

  34. Perhaps. I’d like to think that they’re doing a Clinton and trying to pass a lot of contentious but important progressive policy (not this in particular, but things like the injecting room and same-sex adoption) before the election and on current polling four years in the wilderness.

  36. Don’t politicise military, defence lobby group warns after Andrew Robb’s accountability call Joe Kelly From: The Australian October 29, 2010

    THE PEAK defence lobby group has rejected as abhorrent a call to make military chiefs more accountable, because it fears it would politicise their role.

    But a former high-ranking officer has backed the idea of more military accountability over troops levels and stratgegy, saying defence chiefs are not always right.

    Liberal frontbencher Andrew Robb yesterday called for the establishment of standing inquiries along the lines of US congressional panels that would give the federal government more control over defence.

    He suggested Defence had become increasingly exempt from the sort of scrutiny applied to other government departments.

    But the Australia Defence Association said the proposal would threaten the apolitical nature of the military.

    Executive director of the ADA, Neil James, said that under the Westminster system, ministers were ultimately accountable.

    “The idea that you should politicise military advice we would find abhorrent,” he told The Australian Online.

    “If you’re going to start questioning them more broadly about policy, what are you going to do when one of those military commanders criticised the policy? This is the nub of the question.

    “It’s a constitutional principle. The military must be apolitical You’re going to put military commanders in quite an invidious position if you ask them to criticise government policy.

    “You can change the tradition but I guarantee you in the long run most politicians won’t like it.”

    Mr James suggested other mechanisms to deal with the problem.

    “One would be making ministers explain more often and more truthfully,” he said.

    “Another would be to make politicians bother to learn about military issues before they make military statements. “

    A former senior officer also told The Australian Online that making military leaders more accountable would be a case of “be careful what you wish for”.

    “Military people tell it straight,” he said, speaking on the basis of anonymity

    “If we’re going to make them more accountable then who’s losing control?”

    He suggested a possible reason the issue had arisen was because of a feeling in the Coalition that it was “punching the air”, because the government had framed its commitment and strategy on the basis of military advice.]

    uh oh.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/dont-politicise-military-defence-lobby-group-warns-after-andrew-robbs-accountability-call/story-e6frg8yo-1225945066811

    Front page of Oz online now

  37. Pushing electricity privatization was what started the collapse. That is followed by mistakes after mistakes : V8 at Olympic Park, the Lightrail debacle, and various minister being caught in ethical lapses : sexual harassment, corruption, visiting gay brothels..

    I’m a Labor voter. I have been voting Labor all my life. I will not vote for the NSW ALP as they are no longer the Labor party.

  38. >>an organization that operates more like a mafia

    Given certain matters brought before the courts in recent days, perhaps never truer words were said in jest.

  39. The sooner this train-wreck is over, the better off Federal Labor will be. Lets hope the loss is deep enough to clean out the deadwood in safe seats. A light loss will only get rid of the innocent victims in marginal seats.

  40. Antony Green’s analysis:
    [As the NSW Labor tribes gather at Parliament House tonight to celebrate the centenary of the first NSW Labor government, the latest Newspoll published in today’s Australian has the Labor Party’s vote plumbing new depths, its primary vote at just 23%.

    Just how bad that is can be gauged by the following graph of Labor’s results at NSW elections since 1900. The graph starts in the bottom left with a point representing the 1904 election, the year Labor became the state’s official opposition. Labor’s vote was 23%, the same as today’s poll.]
    http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/10/latest-newspoll-has-nsw-labor-back-to-1904-levels.html#more

  41. From that Oz article: “But a former high-ranking officer has backed the idea of more military accountability over troops levels and stratgegy, saying defence chiefs are not always right.”

    Who? Where? there is no such quote or attribution in the story.

  42. [Labor’s been perfectly happy to rack up thumping majorities and reduce the Opposition to a rump, so they can’t start sooking about “democracy” and “one party state” when the boot’s on the other foot.]
    No one’s sooking. It is just a fact that it is bad for good government. Check the NSW government out for one. Checkmate.

  43. [The sooner this train-wreck is over, the better off Federal Labor will be. Lets hope the loss is deep enough to clean out the deadwood in safe seats. A light loss will only get rid of the innocent victims in marginal seats.]
    What a joke. Can’t you see a big loss will get rid of both and put in the Libs for what will likely be 3 terms with a very arrogant inept government at the end of it? Put the Libs in by all means, Labor doesn’t deserve to be there right now but don’t give them a blank cheque. Make them feel vulnerable so that they stay on the straight and narrow, something Labor failed to do because of its large majorities. Talk about jumping from the pot into the fire.

  44. Sure, but Labor and their supporters have never expressed any concern about “one party state” being bad when it was their side in office. The bigger landslides Labor got, the better, as far as they were concerned. So to pretend to be upset about it now that it’s the other mob who’ll be getting landslides won’t wash with too many people.

  45. OFarrell has basically conceded that even with a landslide election, the coalition will not win a majority in the Council; therefore, there will be a bit of a brake (albeit, the Council is a menagerie of parties)

    In the lower house, as well, there could be a raft of independents as well. Not enough, probably to prevent an absolute majority this time round, but current independents have illustrated, once they get set, they can be hard to dislodge for the 2015 election

  46. It’s just a game that a party that thinks it is going to lose an election plays. Like Debnam did in ’07. It’s kind of like the hung parliament threat, but one party instead of three. It scares a few people who don’t follow politics very closely, hence having served its purpose, and is largely ignored by the rest of us. It doesn’t necessarily mean that any party actually believes in the ‘doom’ of big majorities or a hung parliament, it’s just political posturing.

  48. Living in Keneally’s seat, I can tell everyone that she is, at the very best, a photogenic buffoon. At worst,
    an incompetent attention-seeker who has been out of her depth for a long time.
    Just the other day, we got a letter (via paid mail, not a letterbox drop) that as Housing Department clients and
    senior citzens, we could look forward to all sorts of presents and lollies.
    Unfortunately, we are neither Housing Dept nor senior citizens. getting there maybe, but not yet.

    Sent an email to her office pointing this out, along with some other home truths. Naturally, there will be no
    response. Neither her nor her office would be capable of puuting one together.

    On the other hand, my MP from before we were redistributed, Michael Daley, provided a first class response
    to an enquiry I made on behalf of someone else. Prompt, to the point and effective. The pity is that because
    Keneally has the ghetto like suburbs of Eastlakes to prop he up, Daley will have no such buffer in Maroubra.
    Although many parts of Maroubra itself are a bit slum-like, particularly the jungo and Lexo. He may well go down.
    Partly because of the obvious problems with NSW Labor and partly because we have a federal MP who isn’t
    interested unless he is in a photo with Maroubra or Coogee Beaches in the background. No Lexo, Hillsdale,
    Eastlakes or Botany for Mr Oils.

  49. [ In the lower house, as well, there could be a raft of independents as well. Not enough, probably to prevent an absolute majority this time round, but current independents have illustrated, once they get set, they can be hard to dislodge for the 2015 election ]

    Darn tootin’ Laocoon. The Indies at NSW state level have been proliferating in traditionally safe Nat seats. Though there are exceptions. The inner-city seat of Sydney is held by an Indie, who also happens to be Lord Mayor.

    Overall, I think the general disillusionment of both sides of politics in NSW has made the state a fertile ground for Indies of all stripes.

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