Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition

GhostWhoVotes tweets that the latest Newspoll has the Coalition two-party lead at 54-46, down from an aberrant 57-43 a fortnight ago. The Coalition is down four points on the primary vote to 44 per cent, which in fact returns them to where they were in the poll before last. Labor is up a point to 31 per cent, which is still a point shy of the previous poll, and the Greens are on 13 per cent, which compares with 10 per cent last time and 12 per cent the time before. Julia Gillard has consolidated the lead she opened up as preferred prime minister a fortnight ago, which ended five months of ascendancy for Tony Abbott: she is now up three to 43 per cent, with Abbott up one to 36 per cent. Gillard also has a less bad net approval rating than Abbott for the first time in eight months, with her approval up two points to 36 per cent (its highest in eight months) and disapproval up one to 56 per cent. Abbott is down one on approval to 33 per cent and up two on disapproval to 57 per cent, in both cases equalling his previous worst results and collectively producing his lowest ever net rating of minus 24.

UPDATE: Essential Research likewise has it at 54-46, unchanged from last week, with primary votes of 47 per cent for the Coalition (down one), 34 per cent for Labor (steady) and 10 per cent for the Greens (down one). Encouragingly for Labor, there has been a shift in sentiment in favour of the government seeing out its full term: support is up seven points since early September to 47 per cent, with “hold election now” down seven to 41 per cent. Less happily for them, a question on best party to handle 15 issues has Labor leading only on industrial relations, and then only slightly – the Liberals hold leads approaching 20 per cent for all economic questions, as well as “political leadership”. On the question of which issues will most influence vote choice, there has been little change since June.

UPDATE 2: Possum charts polling showing a shift in sentiment away from an early election:

However, the apparently radical nature of the shift from the first two polls to the last three is largely a function of the poorly framed question posed by Galaxy in the earlier cases, when respondents were offered the false dichotomy of “Gillard has a mandate for the carbon tax” and “an early election should be called”. Australia’s worst and least trusted major newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, used these obviously flawed results to run a front page lead claiming Australians were “demanding Julia Gillard call a fresh election” and an editorial headlined “voters demand a carbon tax ballot”. It will be interesting to see how the paper reports today’s contrary finding from Essential Research.

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.

4,584 comments on “Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition”

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  2. I thought this was amusing in that SMH report:

    [Mr Rudd was upset that his role as prime minister was clinically deleted from Ms Gillard’s opening speech on Friday and from a tribute to Labor’s handling of the global financial crisis.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/alp-postmortem-damns-rudd-20111204-1odj8.html#ixzz1fZj7vjGq%5D

    I like that they’re so eager to depict Rudd as victim that now its not just an unnecessary snub, its a goddamn clinical character assassination.

  6. Frank,
    That last line is a joke. wtte that every coalition vote is a conscience vote because they don’t throw dissenters out like the Labor Party does.

    No, they just Slipper them.

  11. [ journeytimeWendy

    Angry Kevin Rudd hits out at ALP national conference, calling it a failure http://bit.ly/sX0qEd

    11 minutes ago FavoriteRetweetReply]

    Good work Rudd! Always doing what’s best for the party, clearly… 😉

  13. “The ALP national conference has been a project in surrealism and reality denial”

    Paul Kelly.

    Bit like The Australian.

  16. So the result of the first interest rate cut are starting to filter through into Newspoll another interest rate cut this week should improve the figures again in mid January.

  17. Newspoll as expected but would’ve like a point or 2 more on the PV – and yes an interest rate cut at this time of the year will be very welcome.

    Just on a side note – I wonder what’s going through Peter Beattie’s mind these days

  18. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
    I see the OO is banging on a bout how the various versions of religious leaders are going to declare a fatwah on the Labor Party for its SSM platform. Of course our friend George Pell is first mentioned.
    The SMH has extracts of David Marr’s new book “Panic”. In it he introduces the term “mandate of the fearful”. A very good read.
    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/fear-and-loathing-down-under-20111203-1ocd1.html

  20. Good Morning to all the Dawn Patrollers. What a good way to wake up.

    The sun is shining here at Bradfield, well trying to anyway.

    PM Gillard is governing like a real PM with solid fundamentals and policies.

    And Tony Abbott is waning like a real LOTO who has no fundamentals and policies.

    2011 has been hard but it was necessary for all the pains. Bring it on 2012.

  25. Morning All

    Nice poll – great to see the Greens in the teens again, if they stay there and Labor get back to the high 30’s it should be enough. How long will the Liberals stick with Abbott if his numbers stay so low???

    I’ll change my mind again, no switch to a conscience vote by Abbott after the religious crowds coming out (no pun intended) in the papers today

    Finally – rather than leaking about leaking would it be better for Julia to call Kevin out??? i.e. challenge or go to the backbench??? they have the extra number now so if he was to quit altogether it wouldn’t bring down the government – although with him being so close to Slipper it could backfire + they might want to keep the margin in case the Thomson thing gets worse – worth thinking about though imo

  27. To all those in the Graveyard Shift who have been defaming my good name, yes, you know who you are:

    I never had sex with that woman!!!!!!!!!!!! 😛 😡 👿 But it was good just the same.

  33. Ross Gittin laid in on the line:

    [Under Abbott the Libs are at their most populist, protectionist and anti-rationalist in decades. They’ve been working overtime to exploit and frustrate any attempt by Labor to implement unpopular reforms. The notion of Abbott in government is frightening……………….

    Where were they with their accusations of politicians being ”purely political” when, almost from the first fiscal stimulus package, the Liberals began trying to inculcate their pre-Keynesian nonsense in the minds of an economically illiterate electorate?

    I don’t remember hearing from them. In fact, with the honourable exception of Saul Eslake, I can’t remember ever hearing a business economist dare to criticise a Liberal government or opposition.

    Under Abbott the Libs are at their most populist, protectionist and anti-rationalist in decades. They’ve been working overtime to exploit and frustrate any attempt by Labor to implement unpopular reforms. The notion of Abbott in government is frightening.

    But do we hear a breath of criticism from the business lobbies or the business economists? Gosh no. The Libs might take offence.

    But take a shot at a Labor government, especially one that’s out of favour with big business and looks on the ropes? Sure, why not. How could the boss object to that?

    Labor’s problem is not that it’s had bad economic policies – its response to the global financial crisis was almost too successful for its own good; its carbon price scheme was compromised more by the reneged-on deal with Malcolm Turnbull than by the subsequent deal with the Greens – but that it can’t explain itself, can’t educate the electorate.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/economists-are-playing-politics-over-surplus-20111204-1odh0.html#ixzz1fbDOHpS5

  39. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/04/vladimir-putin-majority-complaints-violations

    [Vladimir Putin set to lose majority amid complaints of electoral violations

    Opposition leader condemns ‘theft of votes’ after reports of pre-filled ballots, invisible ink and multiple visits to polling booths
    Miriam Elder in Moscow
    guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 December 2011 19.23 GMT

    After more than a decade of unwavering popularity, Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party was on Sunday night predicted to lose its majority in parliament, as voters used a national election to register concern at authoritarianism and corruption.

    Early exit polls showed United Russia would lose its majority in the Duma, or lower house, and fail to win an absolute majority of votes as in the past. VTsIOM gave it 48.5% and the Public Opinion Foundation gave it 46% when polls closed in Russia’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad. These numbers are liable to change, not least because they were accompanied by widespread reports of polling irregularities. Voters took to social media to report apparent violations, at times marvelling at their creativity.]

    More in the article

  41. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/04/croatia-expected-elect-centre-left

    [Croatia elects centre-left government
    Former Yugoslav country headed to polls to decide which government will take it into the European Union
    Ian Traynor
    guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 December 2011 18.28 GMT

    Croatia sought to turn its back on years of political sleaze and scandal by inflicting a humiliating defeat on the rightwing party that has run the country for almost all of its two decades of independence.

    In a general election that decided which government will take the former Yugoslav country into the EU in 18 months, Croats handed power to a centre-left coalition of four parties led by Zoran Milanovic, the social democrats’ leader. Early projections on Croatian TV on Sunday gave the centre-left coalition 83 seats in the 151-seat parliament, against 40 for the governing HDZ or Croatian Democratic Union party of the prime minister, Jadranka Kosor.]

    More in the article

  42. Gus,
    Well done. There are indeed nine dolphins.
    A curious effect of this is that, when shown this image, children see dolphins and adults see what they will.

  49. Ballieu spends $125k on drinks & nibblies for Grand Prix guests, but won’t tell anyone who he invited:

    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/add-125000-for-drinks-to-the-cost-of-the-grand-prix-20111204-1odjk.html

    So much for transparent government!

    [
    Greens MLC Greg Barber said government entertainment was ”one efficiency saving that missed Treasurer Kim Wells’ razor” in the May budget]

    [
    In September it was revealed that Ted Baillieu’s office invited almost 200 guests to this year’s grand prix event.

    Senior freedom of information officer in the Premier’s office, Don Coulson, listed 11 reasons why detailing who the 200 people were would be ”unreasonable”.

    These included, ”many of the people identified in the lists are well known to the public”, the ”documents were not created with the purpose of public disclosure” and the ”release at this time would serve no discernible public interest or benefit”.]

    Well, what was the public interest or benefit in inviting them? Couldn’t we at least know that?

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