Nielsen: 61-39 to Coalition

GhostWhoVotes tweets that the first post-carbon tax announcement poll from Nielsen, presumably conducted between Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1400, has the Coalition’s lead out from 59-41 to 61-39. Further comment superfluous, but primary votes and leadership figures, and presumably also some attitudinal stuff, to follow.

UPDATE: After falling a point short of overtaking Julia Gillard in last month’s poll, Tony Abbott has rocketed to an 11-point lead as preferred prime minister, up five points to 51 per cent with Gillard down six to 40 per cent.

UPDATE 2: Labor primary vote down a point to 26 per cent …

UPDATE 3: Michelle Grattan in the Sydney Morning Herald:

In results that will send waves of fear through the government, approval for Ms Gillard’s performance has tumbled another 3 points to 34 per cent, while her disapproval rating has jumped 3 to 62 per cent. The carbon plan has been given an unequivocal thumbs down, with 56 per cent of respondents opposed to a carbon price, 52 per cent rejecting the government’s carbon price and compensation package, and 53 per cent believing it will leave them worse off. More than half (56 per cent) say Ms Gillard has no mandate for her plan, and the same proportion want an early poll before the plan is introduced. Nearly half (47 per cent) think Bob Brown and the Greens are mainly responsible for the government’s package. More than half (52 per cent) say an Abbott government should repeal the package while 43 per cent believe it should be left in place under a new government. Ms Gillard yesterday denied she had been ringing around to gauge backbench support for her failing leadership.

The Coalition’s primary vote is up 2 points to 51 per cent, while the Greens’ is down 1 point to 11 per cent. Approval of Mr Abbott has risen a point to 47 per cent. His disapproval is down 2 points to 48 per cent … Ms Gillard’s approval rating is her worst so far and the lowest for a PM since Paul Keating’s 34 per cent in March 1995.

UPDATE (18/7/2011): Essential Research is kinder for the government, showing a slight improvement from last week’s worst-ever result for them: the Coalition’s lead is down from 57-43 to 56-44, with the Coalition down a point to 49 per cent, Labor up one to 31 per cent and the Greens steady on 11 per cent. Essential being a two-week rolling average, this was half conducted immediately before and half immediately after the carbon tax announcement, with the latter evidently having provided the better figures. I have noted in the past that, for whatever reason, Essential seems to get more favourable results for the carbon tax than phone pollsters: as well as being consistent with the voting intention findings (albeit not to the extent of statistical significance), the Essential survey also finds direct support for the carbon tax has increased since the announcement, with approval up four points to 39 per cent and disapproval down four to 49 per cent.

This raises at least the possibility that the phone polling methodology behind the recent Morgan and Nielsen results, as well as next week’s Newspoll, is skewed somewhat against the carbon tax – unless of course the internet-based Essential (or perhaps some other aspect of Essential’s methodology) is skewed in its favour. It should also be noted that Essential’s recovery only returns support to the level it was at in the June 14 survey, before a dive on July 11. For all that, respondents are just as pessimistic about their own prospects under the tax as were Morgan’s: 10 per cent say they will be better off against 69 per cent worse off, and 46 per cent believe it will be bad for Australia against 34 per cent good. Further questions inquire about respondent’s self-perceived level of knowledge about the tax, and their reactions about a range of responses to it.

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.

8,826 comments on “Nielsen: 61-39 to Coalition”

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  1. Rishane:

    [It’d be nice to take them down somehow.]

    That’s going to be hard when we’ve got the likes of Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones feeding those myths and reminding people everyday that Gillard is a lying back stabber. The only way to counter the charge of lying is to be honest with people and try to win back their trust with competent government. But that will take a while. In the mean time she has to do something to undermine Abbott and I just can’t see having “a fact based conversation with the Australian people” working.

  2. Abbott is embracing climate change skeptics while saying that his policy is more environmentally friendly than the Greens

    Abbott is urging the government to be tough on asylum seekers while condemning them for ignoring human rights

    Abbott says the government is ignoring cost of living pressures while simultaneously opposing an MRRT or a sovereign wealth fund and proposing inflationary tax cuts and expansions in middle class welfare.

    Abbott says he supports businesses and then he plans to slap them with a 1960’s trade union style paid parental leave scheme

    Abbott says he’s a conservative and then sets precedents for future oppositions to trash the structure of democratic governance

    Abbott is promising productivity increases while expanding middle class welfare

    Abbott says he’s a fiscal conservative but opposes an increase in compulsory superannuation from 9% to 12%

    Abbott is a member of the Liberal Party who has nothing to say on IR reform (he;s even embracing trade unions)

    Abbott says it’s wrong for the PM to give stage managed media opportunities when he’s been doing it himself for the last four months

    Abbott proposed a plebiscite on the carbon tax in the name of democracy and then said he wouldn’t respect a yes vote

    Abbott said the budgets cuts to middle class welfare were “class warfare” but passed them in order to remain “fiscally conservative”

    Abbott says he’s open to scrutiny, but refuses to go on the ABC

    Abbott says the Liberal Party isn’t a Stalinist institution, while refusing to let Turnbull give interviews on the ABC.

    Abbott wants to increase the tax free threshold, but when the ALP does it, he cries gotcha “marginal rates have been increased

    Some things to think about and chew on

  3. having said that, i do worry about some strategic intelligence of julia – she is gaffe prone -e.g. why is this movement called a carbon tax? but felt same with rudd. nevertheless, all will be well, the universe has spoken, and my life is too brief to spend any more time to tory robber barons in this country

  4. [evan14

    Posted Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 11:17 pm | Permalink

    Much easier to blame 2GB, News Ltd, the ABC, Kevin Rudd, Rudd supporters, listeners to talkback radio etc.
    ]

    I see the Road To Damascus has hit a pothole.

    Seems I am once again proven correct in my reading of posters.

  5. It’s not going to change in the short term. The Abbott simplistic negative has it all at the moment. There may be some minor improvement in the coming months as people digest the facts separate from the noise.

    But I’d imagine that even then, it will still be negative at least until the carbon pricing comes in after July next year.

    It is unusual: I’ve never known such an incongruity between negative polling on one hand and a government well on top in administration and achievement.

    Part of the New Paradigm is that we’re no longer governed by frequent opinion polling results but a longer game of achievement.

    It takes a bit of getting used to. Rudd and Howard reacted almost immediately to movements there. To get results, however, the polls will have to be disregarded until there are more substantive runs on the board.

    When you think about it, the government has a formidable list of enemies tobacco, clubs, mining. Chances are in a real campaign they’ll be outspent anyway. So the only option is to soldier on.

  6. [I have never seen such classic denial.]

    Because TP if they said Gillard was the problem then they’d have been wrong about believing Rudd should have been knifed in his 1st term.

    They’re all on a hiding to nothing for them it’s Gillard or BUST!

  7. Keating should have shut his mouth last week, if ever business people needed to reminded of 17 percent interest rates again.
    He was hated by the public and not liked put two and two together Julia knifed Kevin and Paul knifed Bob.

  8. [the greens don’t ‘take’ anything. labor abandons core voters to chase conservative loons who will never vote for them. i’ve been assured in the past by other commenters that this is the sort of clear eyed pragmatism needed to win elections.]

    It was a statement of voter movement, not an excuse to be attacked by a partisan hack.

    Jesus, why do Greens supporters have to take everything so personally?

  9. “There will be no carbon tax under the government I need” – this one will haunt her to her grave…….that’s the killer for Gillard.
    And……….she’s now in favour of something that she urged Kevin Rudd to dump in early 2010, so that makes her look frankly hypocritical!

  10. The knives if any should be out for Shorten, Feeney and Arbib their the one’s who have caused this mess.

    I agree entirely.

    The net effect of knifing Rudd has been an immediate and then accelerating decrease in public support for Labor. The evidence is Absolutely plain, clear and unequivocal.

    These people just snuck over the line at the last election otherwise they and Gillard would be now talked about in a historical context with some distaste.

  11. TP

    One gets the feeling Labor flinched with knifing Rudd. They wanted a quick fix and didnt think long term. Now it’s hurting them.

  12. [RUDD is hated here by some on PB for the very reason…]

    Rudd is hated because he is a backstabbing coward who leaks from Cabinet and who couldn’t keep the Labor Caucus united, and who refused to defend his own record in government.

    I despised Beazley from 1996 onwards for denying the Hawke/Keating legacy, and I despise Rudd for denying the record of a government he led FFS.

    He is no longer leader for these reasons. The sooner his cultists wake up to that the better.

  13. […she really lacks the gravitas that a Prime Minister should possess.]

    The problem is she replaced a previous leader in circumstances that most of the public don’t understand. The problem is that she is the leader of a party that heads a minority government. The problem is that she is the leader of a party that has to negotiate with the ‘evil’ and ‘extremist’ Greens. The problem is that parts of the media have declared war on her personally and the minority government.

    Changing leader will not fix all those problems. In fact changing leader would allow Abbott to come up with new and exciting three/four word slogans as to why the ALP is absolute crap that cannot stick to their leader when times are hard. And lets not forget the minority government is dependent on independents that have made a deal with the PM and not someone else in the party.

    Just stick it out and the people can make their decision (however bad it may be) in 2013.

  14. [Instead of being lazy do nothings who had 161 bills fall into their Hor lap?]

    oh good. yes, i was talking to some people yesterday and i said to them, ‘do you know how many bills labor have passed?’ well once i told them that labor had passed some legislation they all stopped calling her ‘ju-liar’ and changed their…. oh that’s right, they didn’t give a flaming turd how much legislation labor has passed because voters don’t care. it’s there at the top of the window every time you press refresh. funny how hansard is not for freaking sale at my local goddamn news agent.

    it doesn’t matter how good they are. if you don’t want tony and his greasy zombies to march back in and take credit for labor’s hard work you’d better hope that someone at labor hq realises that looking governmental only works for incumbent PM’s who haven’t rolled a popular sitting PM and whose primary vote isn’t slightly higher than double the greens’ high water mark.

  15. All I can think of, lately, with Gillard is that Doctor Who episode where the Doctor says to the aide “Don’t you think she looks tired?” subsequently triggering her resignation.

    Her dumping would cause the same malaise we saw in NSW up to early this year and the Liberal govt of the late 60s.

  16. So, it’s pretty much official: Gillard about as (un)popular as the calamitous former NSW Labor Government.

    😀

  17. duckie,
    Yes, I am watching the tdf, following some interesting PB links and wearing out my scrolling finger. It is a bowl of thin gruel on PB tonight.

  18. Confessions…

    Labor should never have knifed him in his first term.
    He was a monty to win in 2010.
    Labor flinched and now Gillard is a dud and because they believe she lied to them.

    It’s baseball bats 😆

  19. Labor should be hoping for Abbott try and knife Turnbull in some way. Turnbull is one of the few that garners genuine respect, my assumption.

    And doing him in would have a mini effect like that with Rudd. It would be distasteful and turn some of the Liberals. Some people should be hoping a fight develop between Abbott and Turnbull.

    If Abbott had made Turnbull shadow Treasurer before the last election he would be PM now.

    Turnbull is the Liberals land mine.

  20. [So, it’s pretty much official: Gillard about as (un)popular as the calamitous former NSW Labor Government. ]

    GP

    I havent laughed so hard at the Laborites trying to convince each other they’re going to win in 2013 in a long time…

    Self-delusional describes many of them…

  21. [It was a statement of voter movement, not an excuse to be attacked by a partisan hack.

    Jesus, why do Greens supporters have to take everything so personally?]

    sorry, it’s the years of being blamed for labor shooting themselves in the face. i was trying to explain that the voters haven’t moved, the party they voted for has.

  22. Agree Farrell should go also. But in my mind they need to forget about the Carbon Tax and get on with the job of governing. They will not win the debate until mid next year. I cannot see much change until then. By running around the country trying to sell this i think is plain silly instead they must take the focus away and put in place other policies.

  23. So how long does it take after the Independents withdraw support from the government to Abbott actually taking charge?

    That will give us the time span that supposed Labor supporter Evan is willing to wait until Australia has a Liberal government because that is what will happen if Gillard is dumped.

  24. To Speak of Pebbles,

    Our PM is not for turning: she is one dedicated chick.

    I am of an age that is allowed that bit of lèse majesté.

  25. Glen: I think if the Australian people have stopped listening to you, and the media have decided that you’re politically finished, then if you’re Gillard, it’s very hard to recover from that.
    Maybe she’ll get lucky over the next 12 months – Abbott will stuff up spectacularly, or World War III will commence and Julia can be Commander-In-Chief?

  26. governments are always and conitinually passing legislation of various import. The number of them is not relevant, what they are is .

  27. ok trolliatariariat

    firstly just cos bilbo bowled me wrong un in the goolies

    🙁

    dont mean you can go feral

    firstly

    EVAN

    have a biscuit

    glen and the other unreconstructed fibs

    have a bex and a lie down

    you iz turning piss into wine

  28. Confessions the cabinet doesn’t elect a government the public do and that is what Labor must focus on sometime next year, because Julia will not win the election.

  29. 26% PV is really, really bad, coming after 27% and the other low 30s figures. It is worse because I doubt the preferences will flow back from the Greens like they have if Labor keep on with the anti-progressive AS, social and Murray policies.

    They need a real leader but cannot do anything to change even if they had one – and I doubt they do have one anyway, such is the factional baggage of dead wood.

    And I agree that the real wreckers have been the right-wing factional bosses who so clearly set the party and their figurehead Gillard on the empty road to nowhere, leaving hitherto loyal progressive votes strewn on the verge.

    The irony is that one of their key members, that professional parasite Shorten, will expect to emerge from the inevitable wreckage as leader. That will be the final symbolic end to the party I grew up with.

  30. [sorry, it’s the years of being blamed for labor shooting themselves in the face. i was trying to explain that the voters haven’t moved, the party they voted for has.]

    That’s cool. And no, I don’t hold that view. Voters don’t abandon parties, the parties abandon the voters.

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