Nielsen: 58-42 to Coalition

The Fairfax broadsheets report this month’s Nielsen result has the Coalition’s two-party lead at 58-42, from primary votes of 28 per cent for Labor (up two), 48 per cent for the Coalition (down three) and 12 per cent for the Greens (up one). Although a bad result for Labor by any measure, this is nonetheless an improvement on their 61-39 from Nielsen the previous month, and it maintains a trend evident throughout this year of Nielsen being a few points worse for Labor than all other pollsters. It accordingly sits quite well with the 56-44 Newspoll and what I am interpreting as a 57-43 result from the substantial Morgan phone poll released on Friday.

Julia Gillard’s personal ratings have risen slightly from the canvas: her approval rating is up four to 38 per cent with disapproval down five to 57 per cent, while Tony Abbott is down four on approval to 43 per cent and up four on disapproval to 52 per cent. Abbott maintains a 47-44 lead as preferred prime minister, down from 51-40 last time. Michelle Grattan’s report tells us Labor has a 52-48 two-party lead in Victoria, compared with a 55-45 deficit in last month’s poll, and that the Coalition lead in Queensland is 65-35, down from 68-32 last time. It should be remembered here that state-level results are from small samples. Further from Grattan:

Victoria … is also where Ms Gillard has a big lead as preferred PM – she is ahead by a hefty 51-40 per cent; in New South Wales she is ahead by 46-43 per cent. By contrast, in Queensland … Ms Gillard is behind as preferred PM 36-55 per cent. In Western Australia, she is behind Mr Abbott 33-57 per cent. Voters are disillusioned with the current leaders as economic managers. Almost three in 10 (29 per cent each) think former leaders Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull would be ”best to manage another economic crisis if one occurs”. Mr Abbott was rated as best by 21 per cent, compared with 15 per cent for Ms Gillard. A total of 58 per cent prefer a leader other than the current leaders. People remain strongly against the government’s carbon price, with opposition to it steady on 56 per cent and support at 39 per cent. Backing for the carbon price is highest among the Greens (79 per cent) and ALP voters (68 per cent); overwhelmingly, Coalition voters are opposed (82 per cent). More than a quarter of Labor voters are against the carbon price, and one in five Green voters. Regional voters are more likely to oppose the carbon price (62 per cent) than city voters (53 per cent).

UPDATE: Gordon Graham on Twitter:

#Nielsen best to manage another economic crisis if one occurs: Rudd 29%, Turnbull 29%, Abbott 21%, Gillard 15%

UPDATE 2: Full results from Nielsen here. The Coalition two-party vote is 58 per cent in New South Wales (down one on last month), 48 per cent in Victoria (down seven), 65 per cent in Queensland (down three), 61 per cent in South Australia/Northern Territory (steady) and 61 per cent in Western Australia (down two), remembering that the smaller states especially come from small samples. Labor has a better overall result on respondent-allocated preferences (56-44, a five-point improvement) than on the previous-election measure, and while I don’t recommend reading much into this, it’s interesting to note how different this is from Morgan, which has consistently had Labor doing worse on respondent-allocated preferences throughout this year.

UPDATE 3: Essential Research has the Coalition lead unchanged at 57-43 on two-party preferred, Labor has gained a point on the primary vote to 31 per cent, but the Coalition and the Greens are steady on 50 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. As with Nielsen, Julia Gillard’s personal ratings have rebounded from a diabolical result a month ago: most encouragingly for her, this is the first poll since June 14 (Newspoll and Essential results from the same day) in which she has led Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, now leading 38-36 after trailing 37-39 last month. Gillard’s approval is up six to 35 per cent and her disapproval down seven to 55 per cent, while Tony Abbott is down two to 37 per cent and up one to 50 per cent.

Tellingly, 47 per cent of respondents say they think it “likely” there will be “another global financial crisis similar to the one that occurred in 2009” against 39 per cent who think it “about 50/50”, with only 8 per cent opting for “not very likely”. In that event, 40 per cent would more trust the Liberals to deal with it against 31 per cent for Labor and 20 per cent no difference, while 36 per cent would favour stimulus spending in response against 39 per cent who would not. For all that, 54 per cent believe the government has handled the economy well in recent years against 39 per cent who rate it as poor.

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.

2,327 comments on “Nielsen: 58-42 to Coalition”

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  1. [latikambourke Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he supports a balance between the interests of farmers and prime ag land and mining exploration.
    2 minutes ago]

  2. [latikambourke Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the coalition won’t support the Green’s bill because ‘the Greens are against mining full stop.’ #CSG
    1 minute ago]

  3. Victoria: The jury’s still out on the potential success or otherwise of the Carbon Tax/Malaysian solution/Mining Tax etc.

  4. On 25 June Peter Hartcher at the Sydney Morning Herald was talking up the promise of Abbott going positive:

    […His speech today to the Liberal Party’s federal council will mark the beginning of a more positive program. He will offer a critique of Labor, but also the outline of an alternative program. He will lay out themes of opportunity and incentive, and speak about tax, debt and welfare]

    It’s been seven weeks since Hartcher predicted that, but what have we seen since? Just the usual mindless recital of slogans and negative spin. No “positivity” in evidence or signs of any “policies”. Heck, he runs for cover at the first sign of media scrutiny. Maybe Abbott just doesn’t have it in him to be “positive” or enunciate anything at all but attack propaganda. A hollow man in other words. A theme Hartcher might do well to explore, rather than predictions based on no precedent.

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/times-up-for-teardown-tony-20110624-1gjiv.html

  5. Cuppa

    Not to mention trying to hold two different opnions on the same topic. Surely people will realise he is trying to stooge them? Offensive I say.

  7. Whenever I hear a politician say he/she supports a balance between A and B, I take it to mean “Buggered if I know who to support?”

  10. Shah v Minister for Immigration (is Malaysian asylum seekers) is back in the High Court today for directions in view of the hearing commencing next Monday.

    It will be interesting to see if any proposed intervenors show up seeking to appear eg Amnesty etc

  14. 2GB used to have a nice garden show on a Saturday morning with Sandra Ross.

    No matter what your problem you could ring up and Sandra would be unfailingly nice. Then my wife rang up about our sick leighton cypress- Sandra said cut it down and hung up.

  15. [latikambourke Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the coalition won’t support the Green’s bill because ‘the Greens are against mining full stop.’ #CSG
    1 minute ago]

    Perfect chance to wedge Abbott here: Labor should join the Greens against coal seam gas miners’ easy access.

    I don’t mean ban it outright, but give the farmers and landholders some extra rights and compensation.

    After a little more argey-bargey, of course, including getting The Parrot all fired-up.

    ABC now reporting a lead item that Abbott has “backed away” from last week’s stance.

  17. Victoria

    I know a little and lose often.

    Amongst those who know more, I am told the Govt will win but the High Court is difficult to predict because it is not bound in the same way as other courts by previous decisions.

  19. [The jury’s still out on the potential success or otherwise of the Carbon Tax/Malaysian solution/Mining Tax etc]

    “The potential success”? You don’t think that pricing our emissions will lead to fewer emissions in the long term? That’s something I’d expect to hear from Dennis Jensen. Or Alan Jones.

    As for “the potential success” of the mining tax, what’s to doubt? Companies will be charged on super profits and the money will go into govt coffers. How could anyone doubt that, much less frame a process so rudimentary in terms such as success!

  20. Australian domestic power consumption is falling, for the first time in history:
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-15/power-consumption-makes-historic-drop/2839394

    This is good news from a cliamte change POV and suggests the carbon tax will work. But it also highlights another issue: our electricity sector badly needs structural reform if demand falls and prices still rise. Yes it is yet another privatised monopoly, inadequately regulated. This will be an issue with or without a carbon tax.

  21. [ABC now reporting a lead item that Abbott has “backed away” from last week’s stance.]

    And by tomorrow the whole thing will have been forgotten. We’ve seen this before where Abbott is never held accountable for the things he says.

  22. [andreC27 HOLY FRIK Tony Abbott! The Greens are actually supporting your sentiments and you still say NO NO NO! What is the go with this man?! #auspol]

  23. Apart from it being her home State, Gillard has some sympathetic media coverage in The Age with its more balanced treatment of the carbon debate. The SMH doesn’t seem to have as much impact in NSW but it will take time to overcome the legacy of State Labor. Labor supporters have to take it up to the coalition forces, spread good news and expose the rubbish that is being put around as a substitute for policy.

    PS Anyone seen my local member, Andrew Robb, lately? Perhaps he’s consulting other local constituents about single sex marriage, as the parliament asked him to do earlier this year. He could be locked in a cupboard going through govt expenditures/the budget “line-by-line” as Joe Hockey promised. Await their detailed response on the cuts with glee. What’s out of it for me!

  26. The 3aw news has been reporting the Nielsen poll as “a slight improvement” for the government. To me it was always obvious that the last Nielsen was an outlier, but hey, if someone’s prepared to call this one an improvement we’ll take it.

  27. Kevin Rennie
    Posted Monday, August 15, 2011 at 9:07 am | Permalink

    PS Anyone seen my local member, Andrew Robb, lately? Perhaps he’s consulting other local constituents about single sex marriage, as the parliament asked him to do earlier this year.

    He could be locked in a cupboard going through govt expenditures/the budget “line-by-line” as Joe Hockey promised. Await their detailed response on the cuts with glee. What’s out of it for me!

    Kevin, the weekend AFR reported hockey was doing it all himself, because of the stuff up prior to the last election where robb was supposed to doing the numbers but when it all blew up in their faces, hockey (the AFR reports) wore the blame.

    Make of it what you will.

  28. So where was John Kerin during the years of the NSW Right ‘factioning’ the Labor Party. Did Kerin work hard to counteract it?

    Kerin’s sitting pretty now on his comfortable Parliamentary pension but I deplore the old blokes now denigrating their source of comfort instead of helping Faulkner, Bracks, Carr and others to get the needed changes through.

    I applaud Stephen Loosley who refuses to knuckle to the media and the Oppn in talking his party down. His considered statements are valuable.

    Is John Kerin still involved with the Meat and Livestock Corp. or has he retired?

  30. World Bank head Robert Zollick gave a speech in Sydney last night. The reporting of it did little to reassure jittery markets:
    [World Bank president Robert Zoellick has warned the deepening economic woes in the United States and Europe are pushing the world into a new “danger zone”.

    In Sydney last night to address the Asia Society, Mr Zoellick told ABC business editor Peter Ryan a lack of confidence in America’s economic leadership was largely responsible for the recent heavy falls on global share markets.

    “I think we are entering a new danger zone and I think that confidence in economic leadership has been slipping and it will be important that the primary economic actors take steps both short and long term to restore that,” he said.]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-15/zoellicks-warning-on-world-economy/2839098
    Reasuring remarks he made about Australia’s comparatively much better position are not reported in this article, even though I heard them quoted on ABC radio news this morning. Whereas it was reported in this rather different themed SMH article on the same speech:
    [AUSTRALIA is well-placed to withstand another global financial crisis compared with other developed economies, the World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, says.

    Australia could afford another stimulus package if the global downturn hit the local economy, Mr Zoellick said.

    ”In general, I think most economies are now in the position where they’ve used a lot of their fiscal space and monetary policy is about as loose as it can be,” he told the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre annual dinner in Sydney. ”Australia is in a different situation.”]
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/world-bank-chief-praises-australia-20110815-1itdu.html

    I wish the name of writers of pieces on the ABC news website were reported, so we could see who produces this sort of coverage. Why can’t we have an attribution? If we did, I suspect we would see a pattern emerge with the same people producing negative coverage time after time. At lesat Bolt and co put their name to their work.

  32. [William Bowe
    Posted Monday, August 15, 2011 at 12:04 am | Permalink

    BTW, Van Onselen, Peter; Errington, Wayne (2007), John Winston Howard: The Biography, Melbourne University Press, ISBN 9780522853346 claims that Howard’s father Lyall was a New Guard sympathiser so I think deblonay is owed an apology.

    Rubbish. For the record, the book says this:

    Lyall Howard was a logical candidate for membership of a group such as the New Guard. Police records make no mention of his membership, but Bob Howard recalls his father defending the activities of the New Guard and is of the view that his father probably was a member. His brothers disagree. ‘It is simply wrong,’ Walter told us. ‘He was never a member.’]

    This (Walter’s account) is likely true. However, Lyell Howard did have some unusual connections. He lent his name to shipping and Pacific colonial company W R Carpenters for purchasing of land holdings in Papua New Guinea after WWI.

    Part of post-war settlement for returned soldiers allowed them grants (or cheap access) to land holdings for plantations. Carpenters, already big stakeholders in PNG, used ex-servicemen to make dummy purchases on their own names, ultimately handing over ownership to Carpenters.

    Details were never fully disclosed, but it was reported that Lyell probably got the capital for his garage business from Carpenters in return to giving his name to the land purchase.

    As far as is known, Lyell was not active politically and only a modest small businessman, but apparently well-connected through his very good services record (2 WWs) and the W R Carpenter link. J W Howard’s enemies have hinted that this played a role in him getting a Commonwealth Scholarship (from a fairly modest score) and support through his tertiary years and placement in a law firm (and eventual partnership status).

    It could have been a factor in his advancement as a party apparatchik (and it certainly wouldn’t have hurt), but that was more likely Howard’s own dedication. Politics is almost the only thing Howard has ever been interested in.

  33. [3aw news has been reporting the Nielsen poll as “a slight improvement” for the government. To me it was always obvious that the last Nielsen was an outlier, but hey, if someone’s prepared to call this one an improvement we’ll take it.]

    I would say may be that mr morgan is sick of being ignored,
    any one
    53/46 any one,

  34. [joe2
    Posted Monday, August 15, 2011 at 8:43 am | Permalink
    Not sure if it has been mentioned yet but “Kangaroo” by D.H.Lawrence is a great read relating to The New Guard.]

    Kangaroo is available at the Guttenberg Project online ; http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200631.txt

    This is a great place to read ‘out of copyright’ books.

  35. [And I see no mention of the latest poll’s other finding, that Rudd & Turnball are still preferred to Gillard & Abbott.]

    I suspect that any names would have had the tick by people who don’t like Gillard or Abbott (or are feeling mischievous). The pollsters are just encouraging more opinionated comments to fill newspapers.

  36. Victoria: I meant the “PJK” article.

    I have been off doing the getting children ready for school routine, so apologies for the late response!

    LOL @ Abbott getting an atomic wedgie on the miners vs farmers issue. I love it that when he goes with his gut instincts he is invariably wrong, and yet when he tries to go the other way he goes so far as to start pissing off the Coalition’s natural constituency.

    Also, I love it that he just can’t bring himself to admit on any level that he and the Greens might agree on this issue. At least with Labor he can and does say “ooh look! They have stolen our policy!” or “we have been saying that for years and now the Labor Party is copying us!” some such guff, but they have been at such pains for years now to explain to everyone how “extreme” the Greens’ position is on just about every issue, he can hardly admit at this late stage that the Greens are not as far removed from the mainstream as the Coalition want people to think.

    Big fat “sucked in” from me, Tones 😀

  37. BB(115) I think the government is in talks about the miners going onto farmers land, read it somewhere, maybe some one can tell us?

  41. Lib flack, Graham Morris, on ABC Sydney radio now saying the $70 billion “savings” are now only a “starting point” and he doesn’t believe the saving will be “anything like $70 billion”.

    [“The only thing the government are left with now is to try to point out flaws in Opposition costing by attacking Tony Abbott. What a pathetic government,” says Morris.]

    Wow, total spin.

    Morris now saying “The Uniting Church, St. Vincent’s Hospital and the Coca-Cola Company” are in the government’s sites… or if they aren’t, how do we know they aren’t?”

    Wowee-wow-wow-wow. Talk about spreading FUD. This “list” sounds like Morris is trying to set up some kind of Nazi transportation schedule… “Gillard’s List” or somesuch.

  43. At the risk of stating the obvious, the shock jocks are a bigger problem for abbott than Gillard. Abbott seems incapable of disagreeing with Alan Jones.

  45. [And by tomorrow the whole thing will have been forgotten. We’ve seen this before where Abbott is never held accountable for the things he says.]

    may be not by the miners in WA. and then remembered by the farmers in the east.
    ‘ well abbott said ect.”
    yes of course the media will forget it but the people involved?

  46. Confessions,

    I don’t like giving News Limited my clicks. Would you mind giving us the grounds and reasoning on which Loosley suggests that the PM could be ‘a Keating’. Ta.

  48. [Morris now saying “The Uniting Church, St. Vincent’s Hospital and the Coca-Cola Company” are in the government’s sites… or if they aren’t, how do we know they aren’t?}

    is he taling about nursing homes or hospitals. i wonder, of course it is spin but what is he trying to plant a seed.

    The new nursing home policy, from what i have read doesn Not affect nursing homes with care attaced to them which the uniting church and St vincents have,

    so really dont know what he would be thinking of can any one work it out

    is parliment back this week.”

  50. well i lean something every day i didnt know the person who rode the horse and cut the ribbon on the bridge belonged to a ring wing party thought he was just did becauce he wanted to.

    I had never heard of the new guard, is this now the tea party

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