Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition

The latest fortnightly Newspoll offers the government a mixed bag: its best result on two-party preferred since May, with the Coalition lead cut to 54-46 from 57-43 last time, but a 10-point net decline in support for the carbon tax since late July. The two-party shift is entirely down to a four point drop in the Coalition primary vote to 45 per cent, with Labor remaining stuck on 29 per cent. The Greens have leapt three points to 15 per cent, their best result since March. Julia Gillard is up on both approval (three pionts to 31 per cent) and disapproval (one point to 61 per cent), while Tony Abbott is down two on approval to 34 per cent and up two on disapproval to 55 per cent. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 40-35 to 39-36. Support for the carbon tax is down four points to 32 per cent, with opposition up six to 59 per cent.

Redistributions:

• The federal redistribution for South Australia has been finalised, with no changes made to the draft proposals from August. The biggest changes are the transfer of about 10,000 areas in an area around Aberfoyle Park from Mayo to Boothby, and a redrawing of the northern end of Port Adelaide, which has gained 8000 voters around Burton from Wakefield and lost a projected 7200 voters in an area of rapid growth around Salisbury Park to Makin. None of the changes is too remarkable in terms of likely outcomes at the next election – Antony Green has as always calculated notional margins on the new boundaries.

• Antony also reviews the finalised state redistribution for Western Australia, where the main change on the draft is the reversal of a plan to move Mandurah from the South West upper house region to South Metropolitan.

• There’s also the finalised redistribution for the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, which on this occasion has proved a slightly less dull subject than usual.

Preselections:

• The Sun-Herald reports a “fractious meeting of the 17-member Liberal state executive” has narrowly endorsed a plan to hold preselection primaries in federal seats yet to be determined. According to Niki Savva on the ABC’s Insiders program, it is “only a decision that’s been made in principle and they might try it in one or two seats to see how it goes, and that’s something that will be negotiated between the NSW and the federal divisions”. The Sun-Herald report also says nominations for most Liberal-held seats will be open tomorrow (Monday) and settled by next month.

• With respect to the state’s Labor-held seats, the federal Liberal Party is fast-tracking preselections for eight key seats: Dobell, Robertson, Lindsay, Greenway, Reid, Banks, Parramatta and Eden-Monaro. The Sunday Telegraph reports “local builder Matthew Lusted” is the front-runner in Dobell, and that Tony Abbott has approached unsuccessful 2010 candidate David Gazard to try again in Eden-Monaro. The Telegraph has elsewhere reported that Ross Cameron, who held Parramatta from 1996 until his defeat until 2004, is contemplating a return to politics depending on the state of his business affairs. However, he is not interested in recovering his old seat, instead having his sights on Dobell, Robertson, Kingsford-Smith or the Senate. Cameron is encouraging Rachel Merton, daughter of former state Baulkham Hills MP Wayne Merton, to contest Parramatta. Di Bartok of the Parramatta Advertiser reports that the candidate from 2010, engineer Charles Camenzuli, is also interested in running, as are “Martin Zaiter, Brett Murray and George Goivos”.

• Michelle Harris of the Newcastle Herald reports Jaimie Abbott, a former media adviser to Paterson MP Bob Baldwin and RAAF reservist who has served in Afghanistan, has emerged as the front-runner for Liberal preselection in Newcastle.

• The NSW Nationals have changed their constitution to allow local party members to determine what kind of preselection they want, including the option of “community preselections” along the lines of US-style open primaries. A trial in the seat of Tamworth before the 2011 election attracted over 4000 voters and produced a winning candidate in Kevin Anderson.

• LNP campaign director James McGrath has confirmed his interest in succeeding Alex Somlyay as member for the federal Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax. McGrath has recently been embroiled in controversy over his role in paying former Labor candidate Robert Hough to compile dirt files on party figures. In 2008 McGrath was sacked from a job as adviser to London lord mayor Boris Johnson after making an allegedly racist comment about the city’s black community.

• The Burnie Advocate reports Glynn Williams, “Poppy Growers Tasmania president, legal practitioner and Hospice Care Association North West president”, has nominated for Liberal preselection in Braddon. It is presumed he will face opposition from Brett Whiteley, who lost his seat at last year’s state election. The Advocate reported on September 17 that an internal Liberal poll of 220 respondents conducted from August 22-25 had the Liberals leading 60-40 on two-party preferred.

Other polling:

• Market research company ReachTel has recently published two results from automated phone polls, the first targeting 850 respondents in Labor’s most marginal Queensland electorate of Moreton and published on October 12. The poll put incumbent Graham Perrett 54-46 behind on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 35 per cent for Labor, 48 per cent for the LNP and 9 per cent for the Greens. The poll also asked respondents about the carbon tax, finding 39 per cent support and 54 per cent opposition.

• The second ReachTel poll, published on October 19, was a national survey of 2428 which canvased three attitudinal questions. On the future of the present government, three options were offered: 50 per cent went for an immediate election, 36.5 per cent thought the Gillard government should serve out its term, and 14 per cent believed that Kevin Rudd should take over as Prime Minister. A question on same-sex marriage produced a very much more negative response than previous such inquiries from Essential Research and Westpoll: 43 per cent were in favour and 47 per cent were opposed. The Transport Workers Union’s industrial action against Qantas had 36 per cent support and 44 per cent opposition. Results on all three questions showed strong distinctions according to voting intention.

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.

3,048 comments on “Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition”

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  3. Still raining.

    Outsider – all good but polls like this will trigger more hysterical outbursts to try and stem the flow. We just need to be ready for that – and that it will start to look more than a little bit ridiculous. Perhaps it already has?

  5. [DenisShanahan1Denis Shanahan

    How the **** am I gonna spin this Newspoll as a positive for Tony? She’s even gaining as preferred PM. All that bootstrapping we’ve done 🙁

    12 minutes agoFavoriteRetweetReply]

  8. ZoidLord missed your earlier post. I think the LNP is safe from minor party status for at least another poll or three. Basically I think we are just getting back to a little reality.

  10. Chill factor to hurt wind turbine markets…….

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/45010669

    [China, the world’s biggest market for wind power, is bracing for a sharp slowdown in wind turbine installations this year…..

    The slowdown has already claimed its first victim, as Germany’s Repower told the Financial Times that it planned to end wind turbine production in China by selling their majority stake in a turbine factory in Inner Mongolia.

    “We’re not going to keep doing business in China when we have to take heavy losses just to install turbines,” Wolfgang Jussen, Repower’s China chief executive, said, referring to the way that turbine prices have plummeted in recent years as China’s turbine-making capacity has outstripped demand.]

  11. Sorry – just had to say pre bed -still raining in a pretty consistent way… awesome! For you in other parts of the realm this may seem odd behaviour but in the West any rain is fairly unusual if it lasts past 10-15 mins.

    Anyway sleep tight until the Dawn patrol.

  12. […….I’ve been quite upfront that I have sympathy for anyone who wants to reduce socio-economic inequality, but am yet to see anything from the Occupy Whatever mob (in their own words btw, not their supporters cloistered in academia) which indicates this is what they are aiming for.

    I mean, if they were about reducing SES inequality, or corporate greed, they’d be railing against pokies, Big Gina and News ltd….]

    Interestingly, I have noticed calls to “Occupy News Corp” emanating from the US. The “Occupy” impulse is obviously strongest in the US and Europe, for very good reasons. It is interesting…..very widespread, even in Hong Kong, Japan, China….I think it has a currency and elasticity that is worth watching….

  14. Thw OO now have the Newspoll up – with the carbon price fall in support prominent on the free component, and the 2 party preferred results behind the paywall!

    What a bunch of pathetic Wallies.

  16. [Fulvio Sammut

    Posted Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 1:54 am | Permalink

    Thw OO now have the Newspoll up – with the carbon price fall in support prominent on the free component, and the 2 party preferred results behind the paywall!

    What a bunch of pathetic Wallies.

    and guess which part of the Newspoll will reported on Their ABC Radio News in the early hours of the morning…..

  17. The carbon result is hardly news……nor is the PPM or 2PP really, come to think of it…..in any case, I for one will not be paying to get inside the pay wall….

  19. [The “Occupy” impulse is obviously strongest in the US and Europe, for very good reasons. ]

    As others have said, I think something like ‘Occupy’ in America is totally understandable. Conditions are crap there and people have less of a say in politics than even here.

  20. The public views on the carbon tax are not immutable….all the lies will be exposed in the end and resentment of Labor will give way first to puzzlement and then to mistrust of Abbott….

  21. Its interesting too that even with carbon price support going down, Labor’s 2PP still went up. So who knows what’ll happen when carbon price support does turn around?

  22. rishane @ occupy…..for sure, things are very tough in the US…there is some better data out recently though, which might help…..but incomes, employment, public finances – they all point to ongoing erosion of living standards for working Americans. The American Dream has turned into a ponzi scheme….very sad

  25. I think the Abbott factor is influencing Liberal support….he is such a wild-one….nuttiness, aggression, spite…I don’t think people want to elect razor wire for a PM

  28. At a rate of decline of five points a month, (Newspoll) four points (roughly, Morgan) and others one to three points (Essential, Galaxy, Neilsen), with the Coalition having fired all their best shots, the Carbon price, tax reductions and compensation in place, I’d say Abbott will be knifed, axed, boned, shafted and cannibalised in about… oh …say … 8 weeks.

    Just in time to substitute for the Christmas turkey at Joe Hockey’s celebrations.

  29. [rishane,
    Send away my huddled masses…so everyone goes back to Ireland, Poland, China, Mexico, Cuba…?]

    Heh, well I did read that immigration from Mexico is down because the economy is improving over there…

  30. Although of course Malcolm may time his run with the delicious irony in mind of calling for a spill on the anniversary of his own knifing, two years ago.

  35. Actually, we may soon have a flood of American boat people on our doorstep, both genuine and economic refugees. Some may not even have their papers.

    Do we have sufficient detention centres?

    Would Nauru, given its geographic location, become the logical offshore facility to detain them, pending processing and relocation??

    Would Vietnam accept a humanitarian quota?

    Do we really want this type of indigent human flotsam and jetsam, with their crazy fundamentalist religious beliefs, living in our community?

    Will they take the jobs of our unskilled workers by working for little money, or just for food?

    Will we, soft touches that we are, have them living in the lap of luxury in five star facilities, providing them with smokes and thousands of dollars a week, while our own pensioners, who actually fought to defend this country, have to exist on a measly pittance?

    How will we cope when they insist on eating their own foods like hominy grits and oreos and living in ghettos and maintaining their outlandish customs, like saluting their flag, beating their breast and speaking in their strange pidgin dialects?

    Maybe we should start an aid program for America, to stop the problem at its roots. Perhaps a variation of the Marshall Plan? Or food and clothing parcels? Should we send properly trained doctors and teachers to attend to their social needs in situ instead of over here?

    The problems and issues are vexing, and it would be easier to turn around the boats at sea, or order our navy via boat phone to blow them out of the water, but can we really turn our backs on this strife ridden, third world economic basket case and its people?

    We need a proper Government, and a proper Prime Minister, like Tony Abbott, to sort this mess out for us.

  36. From the Strange Bedfellows Dept:

    [‘Bob Katter, Penny Wong and Kevin Reynolds walk in to an annual dinner’…it’s no joke, they really did. Bob Maumill broke the news that the three amigos were not only sighted together at the CFMEU annual dinner, they were like best buds.]

    And according to the soundbyte Bob Katter told Tony Abbott wtte don’t rely on my vote on certain matters.

    http://www.6pr.com.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/three-amigos/20111024-1mfp0.html

  38. [Fulvio Sammut

    Posted Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 3:30 am | Permalink

    Is this a joke like “an Arab, a Chinaman and an Aussi walk into a bar…”?
    ]

    listen to the audio when you click on the link – all will be revealed.

  41. Shanahan in full Sour Grapes mode:

    [ON the face of it, the latest Newspoll survey is the best news Labor has had for a while: the Coalition’s primary vote is down four points; Labor two-party preferred vote is up three points; voter satisfaction with Julia Gillard is above 30 per cent for the first time in months; and Tony Abbott’s personal support is down.

    But those taking heart from a “surge” to Labor of support within the statistical margin of error and calculated second preferences run the risk of self-delusion blinding them from addressing fundamental trends and structural difficulties that cannot be disguised. The combination of the polling on party standing and the Clean Energy bills also points to Labor’s double jeopardy – the political toxicity of the carbon tax and threat from the Greens.

    The Coalition’s drop in primary support from 49 per cent to 45 per cent is a drop from a near record high and would still deliver a crushing Coalition victory because Labor’s primary vote remains unchanged on 29 per cent and below 30 per cent since July.]

    Yeah, yeah… a “crushing Coalition victory” IF there was an election today.

    Drop this link into Google’s search box and you can read this miserable rubbish for yourself.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/alps-good-news-masks-greater-threats/story-e6frg75f-1226175662782

  42. Looks like my prediction is slowly happening

    [Thefinnigans TheFinnigans天地有道人无道
    Abbott’s Blood Pledge is slowly turning into his Dripping Vomit #auspol
    23 Oct ]

  44. Thefinnigans TheFinnigans天地有道人无道
    The set of numbers torturing Abbott day and night – 2 years, 104 weeks, 730 days, 17520 hours, 1,051,200 minutes and 63,072,000 secs #auspol
    12 minutes ago

  49. morning bludgers

    I knew Newspoll was better for govt, by the reportage on Macquarie radio earlier. It was 5th order item, and the report focussed on loss of support for carbon tax. The first item was actually Chrissy Pyne’s comments on qanda last night saying the controversy on curtsy reflects on how unpopular the PM is. The msm as form.

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