Newspoll: 52-48 to Coalition

GhostWhoVotes tweets that the first Newspoll of the year offers more grim news for the government, with Labor’s primary vote down a further two points from the final poll of last year to 32 per cent and the Coalition up three to 44 per cent. No two-party result has yet been provided, but past experience suggests it will land at either 52-48 or 53-47 depending on rounding. This compares with 50-50 in the final Newspoll of last year. More to follow.

UPDATE: Full tables here. The two-party result is 52-48, which probably flatters Labor a little due to rounding, while the Greens’ primary vote is steady on 14 per cent. Contrary to the findings of an Essential Research poll which gave Labor much better figures on voting intention, the poll also shows a fairly solid majority supporting the government’s proposed flood levy: 55 per cent are supportive (26 per cent strongly, 29 per cent somewhat), with 41 per cent opposed (25 per cent strongly, 16 per cent somewhat). Despite this, Tony Abbott has managed to claw back seven points on preferred prime minister, on which he now trails Julia Gillard 48 per cent (down four points) to 35 per cent (up three). Gillard’s approval rating is steady on 45 per cent but her disapproval is up four to 42 per cent, while Abbott’s numbers are little changed: approval steady on 42 per cent, disapproval up one to 44 per cent.

All told, a most curious set of numbers.

UPDATE 2: Essential Research has the Coalition maintaining a 51-49 lead, with both major parties up a point on the primary vote: the Coalition to 46 per cent and Labor to 38 per cent. The Greens are down one to 10 per cent, further widening the gap in their ratings between Newspoll and Essential (“others” are also consistently higher in Newspoll than Essential – in both cases, the latter has been much closer to the last election result).

My favourite of the supplementary questions is on the party with the best approach to funding flood reconstruction, on which Labor leads 36 per cent to 28 per cent. However, the Coalition performs significantly better on “who would you trust most to manage the program of rebuilding infrastructure”, on which Labor’s lead is 36 per cent to 35 per cent. Respondents were also asked for their opinion on each aspect of the government’s efforts to pay for flood reconstruction. Significantly, this shows strong support for the scrapping of “cash for clunkers”, a program that evidently contributed to perceptions of ongoing government wastefulness. This time the flood levy had 44 per cent support and 50 per cent opposition: better than last week’s Essential, but worse than Newspoll. Cuts in solar energy programs and the scrapping of the higher education capital development pool were strongly opposed.

Questions on leaders’ attributes show a deterioration in perceptions of both leaders since October, in similar ways: both are down sharply on intelligent, hard-working, capable and visionary, but Julia Gillard has also suffered on arrogant, out of touch and narrow-minded. The only question on which Tony Abbott performs better than Gillard is “superficial”, though in many cases there’s not much in it.

UPDATE 3: Essential Research has again set aside a further question for release later in the day by Channel Ten, this time relating to whether the independents should continue supporting Labor or switch to the Coalition. It finds 43 per cent favouring the former option, against 30 per cent for the latter. Breakdowns by age and party support go much as you would expect.

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.

6,579 comments on “Newspoll: 52-48 to Coalition”

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  1. Comparing like to like, ie the last two face to face, is there a bit of MOE and/or rounding going on?

    Labor 40.5 to 39. Drop of 1.5 on the primaries.
    Lib 41.5 to 43. Increase of 1.5 on the primaries.
    Greens: 11.5 to 12.5. Increase of 1 on the primaries.
    Family first: 3 to 1.5 on the primaries. Drop of 1.5%.
    Others: 7.5 to 4 on the primaries. Drop of 3.5%
    This results in Labor moving from 52% to 50% 2PP.

  2. from smh Jessica Irvine: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/its-time-to-cut-payments-to-the-well-off-20110210-1aojg.html
    I would have thought this is the approach JG should take to the BER – not that this is the main point of the article:
    [The government has made a good start, announcing $3.8 billion in spending cuts and deferrals, on ad hoc climate programs and assistance for the car industry. But it is time for a wider debate about what else can be cut. Australians have already shown an amazing capacity to get het up about perceived government waste, particularly stimulus spending on schools. Amazing because only 3 per cent of schools lodged complaints about their projects and amazing because the point of the exercise was always about creating jobs for construction workers, not improving school facilities. Schools essentially played hosts to massive ”make work” schemes, and hey, they got a new library for their inconvenience.]

  3. [LATIKAMBOURKE | 42 seconds ago
    Pyne says he supports TAbbott and JBishop in their positions. On Indonesian schools cuts says cuts are tough but that’s they way it is.]

    With all these Fiberals using terms like “supports in their positions” and “full support”, there must be something happening here.

    Wondering why Poodle wants to support the Indon cuts??

    Its either really stupid (and this is the Prissy Poodle we are discussing), or they want to give Rudd something to beat them around the head with so that they can then run the line that he is outshining Julia G and is after the leadership again?

    Pyne may thing that giving the Govt FM something to beat the Oopo leader and shadow FM with is some kind of brilliant tactical move?

  4. [Gos
    Posted Friday, February 11, 2011 at 1:15 pm | Permalink
    If we adjust by 10% with a twist, then double the first number we think of, before subtracting the margin of error minus three per cent, what’s the result then?]

    Gos,

    If your watch always reads 4 mins fast, you can still use it to tell the time! Just need to subtract 4!

  5. Boerwar,

    I should not have even thought about opening my big mouth to express an opinion that presser.

    Too many here have invested a big heap of their emotions and their hopes and expectations in JG being a success in her role as PM.

    She came into the job at probably the worst possible time, in the worst of possible circumstances and totally unprepared for the challenge.

    It is up to her and the people who made her transition possible, to make it work. Not a lot of what I have seen so far leads me to think they are even remotely achieving that.

    BB may be right! The corner “may” have been turned.

    One can only hope but from where I sit, there doesn’t seem to be much change except for the Opps helping out at the moment.

  6. [Boerwar
    Posted Friday, February 11, 2011 at 1:22 pm | Permalink
    Comparing like to like, ie the last two face to face, is there a bit of MOE and/or rounding going on?

    Labor 40.5 to 39. Drop of 1.5 on the primaries.
    Lib 41.5 to 43. Increase of 1.5 on the primaries.
    Greens: 11.5 to 12.5. Increase of 1 on the primaries.
    Family first: 3 to 1.5 on the primaries. Drop of 1.5%.
    Others: 7.5 to 4 on the primaries. Drop of 3.5%
    This results in Labor moving from 52% to 50% 2PP]

    Its 4.5 to 4% for others and 2 to 1.5 for FF.

    Those TPP changes look fine to me based on those primary changes.

  7. vp

    Do-nothing. Uni of Newcastle. ‘The Australian’ likes him. He says some things that are, as they say, interesting. He thinks that climate scientists who support AGW theory have a political agenda. I assume that the natural coroallary is that he thinks that he does not. That is to say, he moves effortlessly between scientific and political domain thinking without appearing to realize that he is doing it.

    He appears to focus on (a) attacking modelling (b) finding natural cycles (c) saying that the reason he does not support AGW theory is that we don’t know enough.

    He may have difficulty with the notion of best fit explanations.

  8. Abbott at the Menzies Institute this morning:

    “Apart from that this government has rolled back 20 years of workplace relations reform…”

    I wonder if some enterprising journo will ask if he is saying those rollbacks should be reversed with the reintroduction of WorkChoices.

  9. Speaking of polling errors, Newspoll has finally corrected the error of having the last poll recorded as Feb 2010 which I pointed out earlier!

  10. [LATIKAMBOURKE | 57 seconds ago
    Scott Morrison on Ten ‘with a $290 million blowout in their asylum seeker budget yesterday, well, where’s the boat tax?]’

  11. scorpio@6458
    I am on your side – if Labor let the waste meme just play out without any defence then the economic manager credentials will stay down and very hard to win government with that approach.
    They have to start defending their record and get people to understand what they have done. You can’t rely on people working anything out – you need to sledge hammer any point you want made home and confidently. It works for Abbott and Hockey.

  12. Match the headline to the media outlet:

    PM proposes 50-50 hospital funding deal

    GST surrender

    Gillard offers 50-50 hospital deal

    Gillard details revamped health deal

    Two of the above headlines are from newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. One is from a Fairfax newspaper. The remaining one is from the independent national broadcaster.

    Can you guess which one?

  13. Glenns Stevens talking about ‘rates’ in the Economics Committee says that the assumption that rates won’t change in the coming months is ‘reasonable’. But then he added that ‘things happen.’

  14. [Gary
    Posted Friday, February 11, 2011 at 1:34 pm | Permalink
    And what does this poll mean for the future?]

    …having said all we have…probably nothing actually! We need to see post melt down polls (over some weeks) to see its effects, but this is a bad baseline from which to start (from govt perspective).

  15. [victoria
    Posted Friday, February 11, 2011 at 1:34 pm | Permalink

    b-g

    what did you think of Hewson’s comments that the opposition benches that comprises more ambition than ability?]

    I think there is ability in Morrison, Hunt and Turnbull.

    Other than that they are pretty average.There also seems to a deficit in economic understanding.

    There are no policy geniuses. Abbott can be a poiltical genius and a political dunce.

  16. [We need to see post melt down polls (over some weeks) to see its effects, but this is a bad baseline from which to start (from govt perspective).]
    So you believe the baseline.
    Besides, what does it matter where you start? It’s the finall result that counts.

  17. [Newspoll had 52:48 with suggestions of a pro ALP rounding as well.]
    That same Newspoll had Labor with a PV of 33% there abouts. Utter BS.

  18. Possum had compiled a graph a few days ago. He basically concluded that the coalition PV and TPP had not changed since federal election.

  19. we also have to take into account, that Qld nearly delivered govt to the coalition. At least 6 seats in Qld could potentially go to Labor.

  20. Me on January 30th, here:

    Gillard is not mending lives. She is building bridges and roads. She made the same mistake with the BER by claiming it was a revolution in education when it was actually a just very large make-work scheme.

    She should have learnt her lesson by now.

    Author@000 on morgan-52-5-47-5-to-laborundefined

    Jessica Irvine today:

    The government has made a good start, announcing $3.8 billion in spending cuts and deferrals, on ad hoc climate programs and assistance for the car industry. But it is time for a wider debate about what else can be cut. Australians have already shown an amazing capacity to get het up about perceived government waste, particularly stimulus spending on schools. Amazing because only 3 per cent of schools lodged complaints about their projects and amazing because the point of the exercise was always about creating jobs for construction workers, not improving school facilities. Schools essentially played hosts to massive ”make work” schemes, and hey, they got a new library for their inconvenience.

    I rest my case.

  21. [victoria
    Posted Friday, February 11, 2011 at 1:47 pm | Permalink

    b-g

    You don’t mention Hockey, but yet I think he is more likely to get the leadership than the rest in due course.]

    Hockey can play a populist card well, a sort of economic populism. But he can back it up with occasional original policy notions. He is at least interested in policy.

  22. [Possum had compiled a graph a few days ago. He basically concluded that the coalition PV and TPP had not changed since federal election.]
    Possum would know. He does tremendous work in this area.

  23. Gary wins the prize.

    PM proposes 50-50 hospital funding deal – Herald Sun

    GST surrender – ABC

    Gillard offers 50-50 hospital deal – SMH

    Gillard details revamped health deal – The OO

    Is the government doing anything to complain about the performance of the ABC’s news outlets?

  24. [It is up to her and the people who made her transition possible, to make it work. Not a lot of what I have seen so far leads me to think they are even remotely achieving that.]
    I may have missed this but what do you expect her to do?

  25. Diogenes@6191

    dave

    The US is totally stuffed. Its one big slow motion train wreck.

    Have almost finished Matt Taibbi’s – Griftopia, which has a lot to say on the GFC
    disaster, but a lot lot more on the US System itself.

    I keep putting the book down and shaking my head that it can’t be that bad but
    Taibbi gives so many examples.

    I’m reading “Too Big To Fail” by Sorkin on Wall St and the GFC. The idea that people like that are in charge of the world’s economy is frightening. They are mostly greedy, powerhungry, irrational sociopaths.

    – just back –

    Dio – US voters role is basically that of consumers who get to vote for a President every 4 years while their children fight, get maimed or die in their latest wars.

    Whoever voters choose is irrelevant because *special interests* decide every major issue so they come out massively in front.

    US congress reps & senators have a choice of taking the funding offered by special interest groups or having that same money used against them electorally. Almost none decline the money, average about $2 M which is peanuts for the benefit the special groups are then able to achieve.

    Taibbi has a chapter on Obamas *handling* of Medicare reform, which he forcefully calls betrayal and giving the medical insurers the right to further tax the american people. He says Obama won over delegates for the democratic nomination by his promises to radically take on the medical & insurance special interest groups.

    The insurance industry in the US has an exemption from anti trust monopoly laws that goes back to the late 1940’s when they were introduced to allow transition to reform.

    The industry was able to make these exemptions permanent by the early 1950’s without making reforms and have been untouchable ever since, not only on medical insurance but all forms of insurance. Many examples during Cyclone Katrina where insurance companies just refused payment for wind damage. They were so arrogant they refused to payout on such a policy to even then US Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott.

    Unless that law is repealed, Medicare in the US basically goes nowhere, Taibbi says and Obama very quickly backed down. The promised bulk competitive purchase of drug by Medicare has also gone and a range of other stuff. Taibbi’s conclusion is that the Medicare laws that passed are weak and a betrayal of the voters.

    50% of personal bankruptcies in the US are medical expense related. Of that 50%, 75% had medical insurance. The US spends over 16% of GDP on healthcare, (Australia & a swag of other OECD countries spend a bit more than 8% of GDP) yet US outcomes are worse in almost all categories.

    But you are probably aware of the above statistics.

    As you say it is terrifying that such people are in charge. Its just not going to change either, at least for the better. For *informed* Americans, immigration must be very tempting.

    I haven’t even attempted to comment on the putrid corruption of the US financial *system*.

  26. for those who want to hear Abbott and Dutton. They are about to do press conference in Canberra. Appears to be in response to health plan put by Labor.

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