Newspoll: 53-47 to Coalition

Newspoll has Labor narrowing the two-party gap from 54-46 a fortnight ago to 53-47, with Labor on 32 per cent of the primary vote (up three), the Coalition on 44 per cent (down one) and the Greens on 12 per cent (down three from an aberrant result last time). On all measures, this is Labor’s strongest and the Coalition’s weakest result since May 27-29. Tony Abbott is up two on disapproval to a new high of 57 per cent, with his approval steady on 34 per cent. Julia Gillard is on 30 per cent and 60 per cent, down one in each case. Abbott leads as preferred prime minister 40-39, narrowing from 39-36 last time.

Also:

• The latest weekly Essential Research poll has Labor up a point to 35 per cent, the Coalition down one to 46 per cent and the Greens down one to 9 per cent. Two-party preferred has also edged a point in Labor’s favour, from 55-45 to 54-46. This is Labor’s best result on two-party since June 14, and on the primary vote since May 16. It exactly replicates Morgan in finding 35 per cent approving of Qantas’s shutdown, but disapproval is 53 per cent rather than 61 per cent. A question on who is to blame substitutes “workers” for “unions” and includes a “both equally” option: the results are 41 per cent management, 20 per cent workers and 31 per cent both. Respondents were also asked whether they approved or disapproved of various parties’ handling of the matter, with pretty much equally bad results for the government, opposition, management, workers (although here the “strongly disapprove” rating was relatively low), Alan Joyce and “union leaders”. Julia Gillard and the government recorded 30 per cent approval and 59 per cent disapproval, against 27 per cent and 45 per cent for Tony Abbott and the opposition. The one party that emerged favourably was Fair Work Australia, with 55 per cent and 21 per cent. There are also questions on media usage which point to an increasing use of the internet as a news source, but not to the extent that respondents would be willing to pay for the content (9 per cent say likely, 88 per cent unlikely).

• Roy Morgan has published preferred Labor and Liberal leader figures from last week’s phone poll. Kevin Rudd leads Julia Gillard 31 per cent to 24 per cent, which sounds better for Gillard than recent Galaxy polls (which unlike Morgan didn’t provide the option of other candidates) which had Rudd leading 53-29 in mid-October and 60-26 in early October. However, it’s almost exactly the same as the result of a similarly framed question from Essential Research in May, which had Rudd leading 32-23. Malcolm Turnbull leads Tony Abbott 38-24, compared with 25-22 from Essential in May and 28-24 from Morgan in March.

• Michael McKenna of The Australian reports LNP treasurer Barry O’Sullivan is “being mooted as a candidate to replace one of two Queensland senators likely to leave the upper house ahead of the next federal election”, namely Barnaby Joyce, who is plotting a move to the lower house, and Ron Boswell, who recently confirmed to The Australian that he is considering retiring. This emerged before yesterday’s reports from Steven Wardill of the Courier-Mail that O’Sullivan “allegedly held a bet at the last federal election where the winner was promised a trip to Bali with two virgins”, and that he “boasted to colleagues about calling one of Queensland’s top cops during an investigation into financial irregularities within the party”. O’Sullivan has also made headlines recently over his robust handling of a recalcitrant state election candidate and involvement in procuring “dirt files” on Labor identities.

• Phillip Hudson of the Herald-Sun reports the Greens will run an “open” how-to-vote card in Adam Bandt’s seat of Melbourne, rather than direct preferences to Labor. But given the certainty that the Greens will make it to the final count in this electorate, the destination of their preferences is neither here nor there. Antony Green further dissects the limited impact of Greens preference recommendations.

• Heath Aston of the Sun-Herald reports that the Greens’ Senate preselection in NSW looms as a turf war between Bob Brown and Lee Rhiannon, who are respectively said to support state upper house MPs John Kaye and Jeremy Buckingham.

• An opinion piece by William A. Galston in the New York Times cites the Australian example in advocating compulsory voting to redress America’s “intensely polarized politics”, which he says “impedes governance and exacerbates mistrust”. If the recent tenor of political debate in Australia might cause one to look askance at such an observation, it should be noted that American academic Shanto Iyengar observed after a recent trip to our shores that “Australian political discourse appears relatively elevated, at least by American standards”.

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.

4,989 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47 to Coalition”

Comments Page 100 of 100
1 … 99 100

  5. Re Vex News /Landeryou on Toebuck
    __________________________
    Is this the same Landeryou who just a few days ago described the Murdochs as “great Australian patriots” and said of those who read the Australian that they were “patriots”??
    so reading the Oz is an act of patriotism ??? WOW

    Landeryou would be lower than the Murdochs which is saying something!!

  7. I want Abbott to stick around for a while. We had to put up with his antics for so long on the way up, ’tis only fair to watch his squirming on a slow descent. Yes, I am that mean.

  9. Yes I love walking down on to that beach, the wind blowing, its like being at the end of the world
    Some one may like to google ocean beach, west coast tas
    Cannot get the hang of it with the ipad,
    Strahan is amazing the boat trip to sarah. Island wow

  10. [The rate that Abbott is declining might encourage the Government to bring on an early election.]

    hah, i am so confident, i would advise PM Gillard to go for DD

  12. Hard to know whether Abbott is Abbott on a stick or a glove puppet at the moment. Sure as hell, he is not a free agent.

  13. deblonay,

    Interesting to see you attack the person rather than the issue at hand. Unless you have evidence to the contrary you’re blowing wind.

    It’s quite a trait you’ve developed.

  16. Thefinnigans TheFinnigans天地有道人无道
    It’s only a matter of time before Newspoll 52-48 to Labor & PM Gillard well infront in PPM #auspol
    59 seconds ago

  17. [This little black duck

    Posted Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 9:26 pm | Permalink

    gg,

    Interesting to see you attack the person

    Situation normal. Deb’s other recog is vociferous ctrl-v.
    ]

    Along with a fellow Green Traveller of the species known for eating hay and Galloping 🙂

  18. [GhostWhoVotes GhostWhoVotes
    #Nielsen Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 45 (+2) L/NP 55 (-2) #auspol
    1 minute ago Favorite Retweet Reply ]

  27. Like many others posting, I mourn the passing of Peter Roebuck, the doyen of modern cricket writers.

    Not least of the appeal of cricket is the quality of writers reporting on the game. Many had distinctions in other fields – Neville Cardus as a music critic; CLR James on philosophy, politics and almost anything, John Arlott (famous for threading a pathway into international cricket for Basil D’Olliviera through the appalling barriers of apartheid) on wine.

    Some former cricketers became outstanding writers or broadcasters:Jack Fingleton, Bill O’Reilly, AG (‘Johnny’) Moyse and Alan McGillvray.

    Peter Roebuck was right up there with those greats.

    It is a pity that issues about his personal life emerging have detracted a little from that, albeit I think Vex has drawn a long bow in claiming he is a predator. After that episode and conviction regarding the assaults it is less surprising that he claimed Australia as his home in later years, much to our reading advantage.

    At worst it shows a side of him he’d have preferred to have kept hidden and in check. I don’t think we need to speculate beyond that. Lewis Carroll/Samuel Dodgson had what some might have considered an unhealthy interest in young girls without there being evidence of him actually exploiting that. In each case we are the richer for their writing.

  30. got in first 😉

    thought it might be a bit better – although Abbott’s figures are always a bit better when he is out of the country – out of sight, out of mind.

  31. The Queensland problem
    _____________________
    Any thoughts about the next Fed. election,must be tempered by the realisation of the curious political conservatism of Q’Land,since WW2

    In 1946 when Chifley just a year after Curtin’s death led the ALP to a second massive landslide election victory QLand bucked the trend. It saw the defeat of Forde,who a year earlier had been briefly PM after Curtin’s death,and then Dpt to Chifley ,as well a having been successful wartime Defence Minister,. None of that helped him.

    Forde lost Capricornia in 1946 in a shock outcome,and the Libs-CP won the three Queensland Senate seats( in a senate 33-3 for Labor)

    This was even further shown in 1949 when in the Menzies victory, Qland gave him a remarkable result.

    In the next decade Qland remained rock solid for him,and only in the landslide of ’61 did Qland nearly toss Menzies out.!…..but in the years that followed Qland returned to the Lib/CP fold(notably in ’66)

    It improved a little for Labor after that result,but when Whitlam was defeated in 1975,there was almost a wipe-out in QLand, both at state and federal levels.

    Again with Keating in 1996 they swung massively,and stayed loyal to Howard until Rudd’s victory in 2007
    We know how they swung last year…and none of this tells of the long years under Joh.
    Qland remains a great danger to Labor,despite the few seats it still holds there ,and the history of the state in modern times tells it’s story,
    …all swings against Labor will be bigger there than in any other state,and any recovery slower..Only once since the 2nd WW (1961) has there been a massive swing back to Labor.

  34. Re Polls
    __________
    Using Anthony Green’s usual guage,a poll like the present 53/47 would give Abbott about 15 seats,and an overall majority in the House of about 25-30 seats.
    So your earlier musings on an early election is just silly talk,but you do a lot of that..

  35. A 45/55 polls would see a loss of about 25 seats…so Gillard better not follow GG advice ,no Finningans suggestion of a DD

    Curb you wanton enthusiasms
    Even Frank doesn’t seem so carried away !

  36. 4981

    Since the introduction of preferences in 1919, Queensland has only given the ALP a majority of the 2PP (using the majoritarian block preferential Senate votes 1919-1949) 6 times. 1931, 1937, 1943, 1961, 1990 and 2007. The first three of those had 2 ALP Senators who were elected consecutively those three times (there was a change of the 3rd Qld ALP Senator at the 1937 election).

  37. Pre-1949 Senate system
    ______________

    The “old” senate prefs system,in effect had a cascading effect so the party with a majority got every seat in the state.
    The big Labor polls of/37/43 as you showed above,gave Labor 33-3 after the 1946 election…indeed without the Qland Lib win… Labor would have had all Senate seats after ’46
    .
    At the ’49 election the present Prop Rep system was was introduced,by Calwell
    who ensured a Labor Senate in Menzies first term…to no great avail.

  38. 4987

    Jack Lang (who was an MHR at the time) called the Senate reform Gerrymandering because of the massive advantage the ALP had with all but 3 of the 1946 Senators and because it was PR. Jack Lang scrapped PR in NSW is 1927 as well. The Senate at the time had an older membership than the House of Reps and lacked the scrutiny of Government role it developed when it did not have either a Government or Opposition BoP. The Senate reform meant that the ALP could have re-elected all their 1943 Senators but 2 did not get preselected and another was defeated by another ALP candidate (This was in Tasmania of course).

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 100 of 100
1 … 99 100