Newspoll quarterly breakdowns

Can’t see full online results anywhere at this stage, but GhostWhoVotes and The Australian relate the publication of the latest quarterly Newspoll figures providing breakdowns by state, gender and metro/regional from the past three months’ polling. The state figures are always the most interesting from my perspective, and it’s only Newspoll and Nielsen which offer this level of detail. Nielsen publishes full breakdowns for its monthly polls, but these are from much lower samples than the quarterly Newspoll. To even the playing field, the following discussion uses quarterly averages of Nielsen’s results.

The resulting samples are substantial for the biggest states – over 2000, in the case of Newspoll for New South Wales – but correspondingly smaller for Western Australia and especially South Australia. It is presumably no coincidence that for the two biggest states the two pollsters are currently in agreement, with swings of 8 per cent in New South Wales and 6 to 7 per cent in Victoria (although as the charts below show, it was a different story in the previous quarter). It is also agreed the swing in Western Australia is around 4 per cent. With Queensland however, a gap emerges: Newspoll says 6 per cent, Nielsen says 10 per cent. There is a still bigger gap in the case of South Australia, but this can be put down to small samples and the latest obviously anomalous result from Nielsen.

To establish whether there has been any consistency in these distinctions over time, the charts below show the Labor swings recorded in each quarter since the election. Despite poll-level peculiarities, both broadly suggest that Labor enjoyed a post-election dead cat bounce in the resource states. In the case of Western Australia, this gave Labor a buffer which is still evident in the relatively slight current swing. On the Nielsen chart however, the most recent result sees the lines for New South Wales and Victoria cutting across Queensland’s – remembering that the prevous quarter’s results for these states were very different from Newspoll’s, the only serious interruption to a broadly similar picture for these two states since the election.

Conveniently, Galaxy has also conducted one poll of 800 respondents in each quarter in Queensland, and these accord perfectly with the Newspoll and Nielsen results from this state. In each period, Labor is slightly higher in Newspoll and slightly lower in Nielsen with Galaxy in between, and there’s not much in it in any case. In the current quarter, Galaxy’s 63-37 two-party preferred splits the middle of the previously noted four-point gap between Newspoll and Nielsen. The only other state-level results I’m aware of are two Western Australian polls of 400 respondents conducted by Patterson Market Research. One of these was as long ago as October last year, which accorded with Newspoll and Nielsen of that time in showing a Labor recovery. However, an unpublished poll from two months ago was solidly worse for Labor than either, pointing to a swing of about 7 per cent.

What the polls would appear to indicate then is a big enough swing in New South Wales to account for Greenway, Robertson, Lindsay, Banks, Reid, Page, Eden-Monaro, Parramatta, Dobell, Kingsford Smith, Werriwa, Barton, Richmond and McMahon, and a slightly smaller swing in Victoria that would take out Corangamite, La Trobe, Deakin and possibly Chisholm (UPDATE: I originally included McEwen, but as noted in comments, the redistribution has made this safer for Labor). Since Galaxy splits the middle in Queensland, it seems best to apply its 8 per cent swing there – which, as was noted at the time the poll was published, would leave only Kevin Rudd standing in Griffith. Gone would be Moreton, Petrie, Lilley, Capricornia, Blair, Rankin and Oxley. In Western Australia, Labor currently holds Brand on 3.3 per cent, Fremantle on 5.7 per cent and Perth on 5.9 per cent: the Newspoll and Nielsen poll swings would put the first in danger while sparing the second and third.

Results from South Australia are small-sample and inconsistent, except that they have broadly been at the higher end of the national spectrum – perhaps around 8 per cent. However, this is coming off the high base of last year’s election, which gave Labor very handy buffers in a swathe of traditionally marginal seats. The lowest Labor margins are 5.7 per cent in Hindmarsh (where Labor has weakened relatively over the last two elections), 7.7 per cent in Adelaide, 12.0 per cent in Wakefield, 12.2 per cent in Makin and 13.9 per cent in Kingston. The last three seats, remarkably, were all in Liberal hands as recently as 2007.

Owing to insufficient sample size, neither Newspoll nor Nielsen provides state-level breakdowns for Tasmania. We did however have an EMRS poll from Bass a month ago which pointed to a 9 per cent Liberal swing, but this was from a small sample of 300 and there were questions raised about its methodology. A swing of that size would nonetheless be enough to take out Bass (6.7 per cent) and its neighbour Braddon (7.5 per cent). The territories of course are pretty much excluded from the polling picture altogether, although Warren Snowdon’s hold on Lingiari in the Northern Territory would have to be open to question given its margin of 3.7 per cent.

None of this should be read as a prediction: first term governments notwithstanding, its a rare government that doesn’t plumb mid-term polling depths far removed from the result eventually produced by the election. This is especially so in the modern environment, when weakening party loyalties have produced an ever-swelling contingent of swinging voters. Even so, the drumbeat consistency of dire results for Labor since April is hard to ignore, and it has no precedent for any government which lived to tell the tale. Labor’s leads during the early part of Mark Latham’s shooting star trajectory were never higher than 55-45; only once in early 2001 did Kim Beazley get as high as 57-43, and was usually solidly lower; and the relevant Newspolls for the great Houdini act of modern federal politics, Paul Keating’s win in 1993, look fairly benign compared with Gillard’s recent numbers. The Fightback! polls which toppled Hawke at the end of 1991 were in the order of 56-44 and 57-43, and Keating wrestled them back to the low fifties by March. Only from November 1991 to February 1992, after John Hewson remodelled his GST to exclude food and clothing, did the Coalition reach such peaks again.

Another lesson from history is that when the electorate ejects Labor from office, it tends to do with a force which the conservative parties are spared. With few exceptions (a handful of those in New South Wales plus Brand, Lingiari and arguably Oxley, which Pauline Hanson won in 1996 as a disendorsed Liberal), the seats listed as Labor losses on the current results have all been lost to them before.

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.

7,134 comments on “Newspoll quarterly breakdowns”

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  1. Diog

    Here’s the link to the Social Cohesion Report 2011 (by Andrew Markus).

    http://scoa.org.au/resources/387423_72752_Mapping%20Social%20Cohesion%202007.pdf

    I’m no expert on methodology, but it seems to me the participants in the survey were not chosen on their political persuasion (i.e. even on Q&A the audience supposedly represents current polling) – this would seem to suggest that it is impossible to draw the conclusions shown in the article you linked from The Australian.

    OTOH, the conclusion could be the Coalition is bleeding support to the ALP 🙂

  2. morning guys

    dave

    I watched the video you linked. I am not at all surprised that Goldman Sachs rules the world. Imo they orchestrated the GFC. But for this trader to speak so bluntly in this way is quite unsettling to say the least.

  4. [Given that Arbib’s mate Bitar is running the Crown Casino campaign, no-one should be surprised that Arbib has dropped the ball.]

    Absolutely. I agree with Elder that Arbib should be dumped, something I’ve been saying for ages now.

    When will the penny drop for the press gallery though?

  6. [It seems to me as a non pokie person that the more people become aware of the facts about the pokies tax the less frightening the tax becomes. ]

    mytbw – did that post really come from the granddaughter of a famous Labor man?

    When did a precommitment ever become a tax? When the lefties start to believe the baloney handed out by Clubs Australia and a self interested footy club which pays players by sponging on others’ addictions then we have come to a really sorry state.

    It was really disappointing to read that comment from you.

  7. BH

    I thought I had misread mtbw”s post. How on earth is a pre committment option a tax. If anything, it is a saving to the problem gambler. If the precommittment enables the gambler to limit the spending, it results in more money in their pocket. For goodness sake people have lost their collective minds!!

  8. GD

    Thanks for the Elder article sorry I am a bit late in replying.

    [Mark Arbib has failed as a minister. He’s had four years, longer than Morris Iemma got as Premier. His powers of quiet suasion no longer exist, if they ever did. He is a power vacuum and should be removed before others are sucked in and wedged fast. He should be removed and replaced with … well, anyone really. The fact that he can’t recognise that his own time is up is all the testament you need to the sheer political failure of Mark Arbib.]

    I will second that. Together with Bitar and a few others they displayed more front than a David Jones window display. I long for the day these clowns exit centre stage.

    I see Doug McClelland has come out against the legislation would have nothing to do with St George Leagues Club being in his electorate would it?

    In my electorate we have one of the largest clubs in NSW and our Federal Member is the current President of the Club. Doh!

    Burgey my mistake in calling it a tax I will blame the keyboard. Inadvertant error!

  9. [Leroy
    Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 9:35 am | Permalink
    http://www.vexnews.com/2011/09/drunken-duo-both-nt-senators-have-a-drinking-problem/

    DRUNKEN DUO: Both NT Senators have a “drinking problem”
    By VEXNEWS ⋅ September 27, 2011

    Both Northern Territory Senators Labor’s Trish Crossin and the Country Liberal’s Nigel Scullion have been denounced as “alcoholics” by angry colleagues who’ve had a gutful of both of them.

    Scullion recently made headlines by revealing a private – and drunken – conversation the two had where she claimed (falsely, it seems) that Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd was close to “getting the numbers” to restore himself to the parliamentary leadership of his party.

    Read the whole thing.]
    Thanks for the link, Leroy.
    I emailed Crossin yesterday and gave her a bit of advice about “loose lips sinking ships”. Funnily enough, she hasn’t replied.

    But, I find it surprising the article doesn’t think Crossin and Scullion should represent a constituency that consists of many drunks – seems to me they represent their electorates rather too well.

  11. eric
    [I reckon some of their news editors have worked at News Ltd at some stage and it shows in their biased and sloppy reporting.They may as well just read the front page of the Australian on air and be done with it!]
    I think you’re onto something there!

  12. [How on earth is a pre committment option a tax.]

    It isn’t, unless you are Eddie McGuire.

    I recall someone telling me once that they played on 1c machines somewhere in the NT which meant they got a night out for $5 or so. Perhaps there can be regulations/incentives for clubs to make X% of their machines 1c machines and really make it hard for people to lose huge sums.

  13. HI,
    I’d heard about Crikey, but these comments are incredible. Are you all the people in black clothes who sit if coffee shops? You can’t be real people.

  14. BH

    Already issued an apology to Burgey for that error. My granddaughter’s ninth birthday today and I posted quickly before phoning her.

    Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa!

  15. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/10347415/afl-furious-at-hillbilly-pokie-chief/

    At least the West Australian runs its own stories…

    [AFL furious at ‘hillbilly’ pokie chief
    ANDREW TILLETT CANBERRA, The West Australian
    September 27, 2011, 5:25 am

    An angry Andrew Demetriou has lashed out at a peak gambling lobby group for dragging the AFL into its bitter public campaign against poker machine reform.

    With the AFL’s grand final week at risk of being politicised, its chief executive yesterday blasted the head of Clubs Australia, Anthony Ball, as a “hillbilly” who should “shut up” after suggestions the AFL planned to join forces with the National Rugby League to fight Canberra’s move to limit betting on poker machines.

    But as worried AFL club bosses met yesterday to discuss poker machine reform, figures compiled by _The West Australian _showed that many AFL clubs own pokie palaces that generated a total of $65 million for them in 2010.]

    More in the article.

  16. I may have already told this story before. One of my friend’s is divorced because his partner has a serious pokies addiction. She works, but most of her earnings end up in the machines. A few months back she sold her car to a friend’s son. She did the exchange at the friend”s house and then asked for the friend to give her a lift to the shopping precinct. A few hours later she was back at the friend”s home accusing her of stealing the sale proceeds in transit. Of course, this was not true. The police were able to establish from video footage that she had lost all the proceeds in the poker machines that afternoon. If precommittment was available to her, would she have thought about how much money she was prepared to lose that day? I doubt she would have committed to blowing all the proceeds of her car sale.

  17. So true

    [AshGhebranious
    @AshGhebranious
    If Sophie Mirabella was in the ALP, who here reckons the media would be kicking the shit out her all week? #auspol]

  18. [For goodness sake people have lost their collective minds!!]

    victoria – I have to agree. If David Pendlebury (who I don’t read very often) can write a good article on the pokie problem today then we know something needs to change.

    To call it a tax is beyond ridiculous and I hope it was not written just as a stir in the mode of TLM. I think we deserve a little more respect than that.

  19. kezza

    Page 45 has the summary % difference in opinions between the voting groups.

    The difference between Lab and Lib was 9.8%.
    The difference between Lab and Green was 19.4%.
    Lib to Green was 29.2%.

  20. The Newspoll shows a bleak picture for Labor. Although, Abbott is not much more popular than the PM. Therefore why are the LNP so far ahead of Labor at present? The leaders are both disliked in almost equal measure. Does this mean, if Labor had another Leader it would make no difference to polling?

  22. Diog

    Thanks for that. My bad. Got the link from Andrew Markus’ monash site – mustn’t have updated to the 2011 yet – and I completely missed the 2007 in my rush.

  24. [Ms Savva in today’s ‘The Australian’ has a wonderful suggestion for the Labor Party: Mr Rudd as leader. The plan would be that he would go straight to an election, win it, and get popular support for a carbon price. Get it?

    Can you troll in print or does it have to be online?]

    In the Lib/LimitedNews parallel universe – both.

    But isn’t this a Newspoll week? And haven’t LimitedNewsLibs beat up scandal after scandal, scare campaign after scare campaign – for what? Overall (despite a few rogues) OpPolls are static. That’s not making LimitedNewsLibs happy. Even worse, OpPolls show the ALP might romp home with Rudd as leader!

    But that’s OpPoll land, not reality. If Ms Rusted-on Royal-blue Savva is pushing the Mr Rudd as leader line, I suspect Lib polling shows otherwise – especially if there’s another bloody coup!

    More interestingly, ramping up Wadda we want? A new election! Whenda we want it? Now!, combined with a Rudd coup, does hint at LimitedNewsLibs belief that, with failing effects of preNewspoll hysteria on OpPoll figures, not only has the none too popular Abbott peaked, but that, given the government is about two years away from an election, its successful – and continuously successful – agenda will carry it to victory in 2013, especially once the electorate switches on to NBN, improved health, CP compensation goodies, MRRT-driven increased super, Ed medical & transport infrastructure etc.

    After all, if Libs (Howard in particular) can turn around an electorate’s 15 Wilderness years of fear & loathing into 11+ years government, how much easier should it be for a successful government facing Abbott’s Mob’s rants Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, especially after last week’s embarrassing disasters over AS & Swan’s award?

  26. Can anyone explain to me how Rudd can call an election in the case that he replaces Gillard? Seems to me he’d have to lose a no confidence motion in the House, AND it would need to be the case that Abbott couldn’t get majority support.

  27. Diog

    Just a quick glance tells me this Social Cohesion Report is far too politically slanted. The question at 18, for instance.

    Also, it doesn’t mention in the methodology selection process how they got the supposed breakup of voters intention. And the fact that they draw on Newspoll is very problematic (if not informative) given I believe LtdNews runs super negative stories about Labor in the lead-up to their polling!

  28. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2945590.html

    [27 SEPTEMBER 2011
    It’s Cash-Strapped Clubs versus Wilkie’s Wowsers
    Peter Lewis

    When Rugby League legend Phil ‘Gus’ Gould stopped his on-air spruiking of sports betting for long enough to attack the Gillard Government’s responsible gambling laws on Friday night, he was blowing the opening whistle for what is looming as the match of the season.

    Cash-Strapped Clubs versus Wilkie’s Wowsers shapes as a classic encounter, a contest where there can’t be any compromises, where a loss could spell death for one side, a victory worth self-evident, if ill-gotten, riches for the other.]

    Worth a read, from the director of Essential Media Communications and includes their recent poll.

  30. [Latika Bourke
    @latikambourke
    MT @AndrewBGreene: Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd tells ABC he is a “very
    happy little vegemite being prime minister”, then corrects himself.
    1 hour ago via TweetDeck]

  32. For my despondent fellow Bludgers,

    Fast forward to pre-election 2013. Abbott’s can’t help himself mouth has backed him into an unpalatable set of offerings for the voter.

    1) Repealing CP means stopping compensation payments and reversing tax thressholds or finding a way to fund it from the $70b + $11b black holes. Plus not one of Tony’s DAP actions will reduce their electricity bill for the voters.

    2) The threat of IR in a globally scary economic scenario will have voters looking for whomever is offering job security in a tight situation

    3) His magic pudding promises or some major services such as health, etc will have to go

    4) He is going to want to repeal a mining tax just as their profits go stratospheric as the mining boom finally moves from the cusp to the uptake

    5) NBN successes will start to become news and people will be telling others about life on NBN and all its benefits. Commercial entities as well as individuals.

    6) Abbott will have voted for no offshore processing and will not be able to use it as a weapon in his arsenal this time around because, in essence,he will have kicked an own goal.

    7) The existence of the Parliamentary Budget Office will place pressure on Abbott to have his offerings costed on equal terms, especially as his magic pudding promises and $70b black hole will demand scrutiny. Greens submitting their offerings will further shame any use of Hogwarts.

  34. autocrat:

    Liberals and their shills in the media want an election because they know they would win it in a landslide.

    They are hoping to do what they did to Labor last year: change leaders, moderate (or dump altogether) the carbon pricing scheme, and race to an election.

  35. OPT

    You make some good observations. I am only concerned that the relentless campaign is going to cause the govt to make some serious missteps.

  37. SK

    True. But as I just mentioned, the pressure on the govt at present is relentless. The right wing noise machine is ramped up so high at present

  41. [Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd tells ABC he is a “very happy little vegemite being prime minister”, then corrects himself.]

    There’s our sideshow for today.

    🙁

  43. kezza

    Yes, some of the questions are quite politically charged although they aren’t trying to force a biased answer to suit an agenda. I think they just want to see the spread of responses.

    They used the standard “‘If there was a Federal election held today, for which party would you probably vote?” to determine affiliation.

  45. Oh dear

    [Marian Dalton
    @crazyjane13
    Dear journo who just asked Abbott about KRudd’s slip of the tongue – turn in your press card. What a STUPID question.]

  46. A lot of those comments on the Peter Lewis article are very much against the Pokie industry. The government is on a winner here, if they can sell it.

  47. [confessions
    Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 10:29 am | Permalink
    autocrat:

    Liberals and their shills in the media want an election because they know they would win it in a landslide.

    They are hoping to do what they did to Labor last year: change leaders, moderate (or dump altogether) the carbon pricing scheme, and race to an election.]
    I just don’t believe the polls. Not what I’m hearing in the real world.
    Just for starters there’s the mobile phone crowd who don’t get polled.

  48. victoria:

    Agree. Footy is all the talk at this time of year.

    But watch the press gallery obsess. What’s the bet someone asks Abbott about it?

  50. [Dear journo who just asked Abbott about KRudd’s slip of the tongue – turn in your press card. What a STUPID question.]

    OMG. I knew someone would put it to Tone.

    Unbelievable.

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