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. Gusface,

    [scorps

    frank is the quickest gun in da west ]

    He’s gunna need to be to answer all the Birthday greetings on his Facebook page. 😉

    Bit disappointed there wasn’t one from the PM there. Still, there is time left. She might be a bit busy, what with floods, cyclones, fires, more floods, Tony Abbott, more floods. 😉

  3. TSOP you are correct, this poll shows that voters might be preeved about a new tax but if the Government gets on with the job of cleaning up and reparing the infrastructure then the pressure on Tone will increase.

    Now is the time for the tough Jules i know to be every bit as tough as she can be.

  4. [Newspoll on flood levy. Voters back Gillard tax. Support 55 Oppose 41. Strongest support among 18-34s, most against are over 50s.]

    So why is Abbott’s leadership stocks improving. Opposing the tax, philosophically was probably the only thing he did that could be perceived as a good move.

    Otherwise, it has been blunder after blunder.

  6. [Newspoll on flood levy. Voters back Gillard tax. Support 55 Oppose 41. Strongest support among 18-34s, most against are over 50s.]

    55/41

    so why the drop in support?

  8. Gusface,

    [scorps

    frank is the quickest gun in da west ]

    He’s gunna need to be to answer all the Birthday greetings on his Facebook page. 😉

    Bit disappointed there wasn’t one from the PM there. Still, there is time left. She might be a bit busy, what with floods, cyclones, fires, more floods, Tony Abbott, more floods. 😉

  9. [Newspoll on flood levy. Voters back Gillard tax. Support 55 Oppose 41. Strongest support among 18-34s, most against are over 50s.]

    So why is Abbott’s leadership stocks improving. Opposing the tax, philosophically was probably the only thing he did that could be perceived as a good move.

    Otherwise, it has been blunder after blunder.

  10. TSOP you are correct, this poll shows that voters might be preeved about a new tax but if the Government gets on with the job of cleaning up and reparing the infrastructure then the pressure on Tone will increase.

    Now is the time for the tough Jules i know to be every bit as tough as she can be.

  11. [Newspoll on flood levy. Voters back Gillard tax. Support 55 Oppose 41. Strongest support among 18-34s, most against are over 50s.]

    55/41

    so why the drop in support?

  13. Is this site going down again?

    Scorpio, a malevolent force has removed your email address. Please send again via William.

    I would have contacted over the outage, otherwise.

  17. I have finally got back on…I suspect poll bludger is influencing the political debate and is now subject to malicious attacks. 😉 Or maybe all the weather mayhem has upset the technology?

  19. The Herald Sun has newspoll results in the latest news section.

    They say the greens vote is 14 percent, but one in four prefer somebody other than the top 2. Therefore ‘others’ must be on about 11 percent. Does that sound about right.

    Also said TA approval the same and disapproval only up 1. I don’t know who the hell they polled. It is very disappointing.

  23. [It is very disappointing.]
    Why? One poll out of many to come in the next couple of years. The most astonishing and pleasing part of the poll is the levy result. So much for people being against it in big numbers.

  25. [The most astonishing and pleasing part of the poll is the levy result. So much for people being against it in big numbers.]

    Gary

    The disappointing part was Abbott’s disapproval rating only going up 1. After what he has been up to these past few weeks, I thought more people would see through him.

    Other than that, you are right. Very good news about the levy, and Julia won’t give in to Abbott at all.

  26. These numbers do not make sense. If the levy is not the issue, the only thing I can think of is the continued msm attack (whilst making claims that are not true) are beginning to stick.

  27. While Labor is behind the coalition in the polls they are safe in government. The indies will go nowhere. The last person they’ll hand the job to is Tone, particularly if he is doing well in the polls.

  28. crikey whitey,

    [Scorpio, a malevolent force has removed your email address. Please send again via William. ]

    No worries, Crikey.

    If you wouldn’t mind, William, could you do the honours please.

  29. William,

    Could find a previous post, but can you confirm for me on a previous Newspoll whether the NT was excluded in the two party preferred question. i.e. is it normal for them to do so.

  32. I wonder how many Queenslanders and Victorians were polled on the weekend ?

    Interesting to see how they would compensate for the lack of polling in regional and rural areas affected by flood and cyclone in Queensland and flood affected people in Victoria.

    Wonder if it may have had any effect at all on these figures especially the levy result.

  34. Gusface:

    [also EMRS were in the field (nsw)]

    What were they polling about? I’ve not heard of them operating outside Tassie before and based on my experience of their Tassie polls I would expect anything they did in a well-polled market to be useless.

  36. Hmmm, Goose nearly cooked, check. Parliament sitting this week, check. Bloodbath by Labor imminent, check. Moany gets good numbers…How luckment!

    Year of Rabbit?

  37. [Could find a previous post, but can you confirm for me on a previous Newspoll whether the NT was excluded in the two party preferred question. i.e. is it normal for them to do so.]

    Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.

  38. The way they put the levy question seems prietty stupid, Strongly support, somewhat support, strongly oppose or somewhat oppose. If you somewhat support then doesnt that mean you somewhat oppose and if you someone oppose then dont you also somewhat support. Wouldnt the best questions be do you support a flood levy to help out flood victims or do you think the government should look at other ways.

  39. Puff,

    These figures don’t make sense. They add up, but there is something disconcerting (not just that they are not in ALP’s favour).

  40. SK no not yet. I suspect that he is trying the same ploy. Sooner or later one of us will have to be the martyr and clean up. Although then you get to hold the moral high ground for a brief period. It is a toss up which side actually loses more.

  44. [On the previous Newspoll Two Party Preferred table is there a statement underneath that excludes the NT figures?]

    SK

    The one dated 7/12/2010 does exclude NT. I don’t know if this is always the case.

  47. [On the previous Newspoll Two Party Preferred table is there a statement underneath that excludes the NT figures?]

    Not really sure what that’s about. It seems to say that on every Newspoll release.

  48. Thanks SK. My marriage is never boring. It is akin to playing a complex strategy game with no army, just your wits and guile… and no real penalties except for wounded pride and put down privileges! 🙂 And lots of other rewards which I wont go into…

  49. Gosh, William, do you know who is doing this to you? Spooky!

    Anyway, just got back on. Entertained myself by writing about beautiful Qld at Grog’s place.

    Goodo, Scorpio. Its been lost for ages.

    I heard that about the tail end of Yasi; hoped it would get to WA in time. Though I imagine the not climate change will fix everything in due, rough, course.

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