The Australian today brings us Newspoll’s regular quarterly breakdown of its federal polling by state, sex and age group. Compared with the last quarter of 2011, it finds Labor gained a point to lead 51-49 in South Australia, was steady at 50-50 in Victoria, cut the Coalition lead in New South Wales to 54-46 from 57-43 (59-41 in the July to September quarter), and took a point out of the still enormous Coalition leads in Queensland and Western Australia, which are now at 58-42 and 56-44. The Coalition’s two-party lead in the five main capitals is steady at 53-47 and down from 57-43 to 55-45 elsewhere.
Whereas last week’s Nielsen showed a dramatic widening in the gender gap between polls conducted in late February and late March, Newspoll records no such trend between its October-to-December and January-to-March surveys, which may of course conceal a very recent shift. It is interesting to note that the expectation Tony Abbott would poll badly among women was not realised in his earliest polls as Opposition Leader, but has been over time. Breaking it down by age group, the only change which skirts the roughly 3 per cent margins of error is among the 18-34s: Labor is up four points to 33 per cent, the Coalition down four points to 37 per cent and the Greens down three to 17 per cent.
Both leaders were down three on approval in New South Wales, Julia Gillard to 29 per cent and Tony Abbott to 33 per cent, but Abbott was up five in Queensland to 40 per cent. Abbott took a knock in Western Australia to be down five on approval to 31 per cent and up three on disapproval to 56 per cent. Preferred prime minister was essentially unchanged, although a shift in Gillard’s favour in South Australia – from 40-33 to 44-32 – pokes its head above the margin of error.
UPDATE: Oh yeah, Essential Research. As tends to be the case with polls these days, it’s very, very bad news for Labor, who have suffered a two-point shift away from them on two-party preferred compared with last week’s result – with the Coalition lead now at 57-43 – which is rare given that Essential publishes a two-week rolling average. The Coalition is up two points on the primary vote to 50 per cent – a new high for them so far as Essential is concerned – with Labor down two to 31 per cent and the Greens steady on 11 per cent.
Further attitudinal questions show 73 per cent believe the government should delay returning the budget to surplus if that’s what is required to maintain services and invest in infrastructure, with only 12 per cent supporting cuts to services and tax increases to restore the budget surplus. Although it may be that many respondents can instead be restored by “economic management” 28 per cent blame the present government’s lack of it for the present deficit, with 59 per cent choosing four other options available (16 per cent showing awareness of “lower tax revenues because of the Global Financial Crisis”).
On the question of Tony Abbott’s proposed childcare rebate for nannies, 44 per cent are in favour and 33 per cent opposed. Sixty-eight per cent support means testing as a general principle, while 24 per cent believe “people should receive the same subsidies and benefits regardless of income”. A “party best at” question draws the intriguingly dissonant response of a 12-point advantage to Labor on “representing the interests of Australian working families”, but a 6-point advantage to Liberal on “representing the interests of you and people like you”.
Finally, 78 per cent of respondents believe workers should get a “higher hourly rate” on weekends against only 18 per cent opposed, though how much higher exactly remains a subject for further investigation.
UPDATE (16/4): This week’s Essential Research has the Coalition’s two-party lead narrowing from 57-43 to 56-44, from primary votes of 48% for the Coalition (down two), 31% for Labor (steady) and 11% for the Greens (steady). Also featured are Essential’s monthly personal ratings, which have Julia Gillard’s approval steady at 32% and her disapproval down three to 58%, Tony Abbott’s respectively up two to 38% and down two to 50%, and Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister shifting from 40-37 to 38-36. Support for the National Broadband Network is up a point since February to a new high of 57% with opposition down three to 22%, and 46% saying they will either definitely or probably sign up for it. There is also a question on appropriate areas for federal and state responsibility, with the states only coming out heavily on top for public transport and “investing in regional areas”.
[poroti
Posted Monday, April 16, 2012 at 9:14 pm | Permalink
middle man
gee that didnt take long! surely some kind of record??
Well it is the miracle state 😉
http://www.news.com.au/national/kids-claim-miracle-cures/story-e6frfkvr-1226327042237 ]
Glenister Sheil still holds the record.
[Brown was dumped after 54 hours as minister for police but Sheil retained the blue riband, lasting only 43 hours as minister for veterans affairs when then prime minister Malcolm Fraser dumped him for supporting racist separate development regimes in Africa in 1977.
Sheil was never sworn in. Legislation prevented Fraser appointing more than 27 ministers and Sheil was next. Nevertheless he has gone down in history as having the shortest ministerial career.
Sheil told a reporter the night before the swearing in of Fraser’s new ministry at Government House that Australia had a lot to learn from policies in South Africa and Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known. Sheil also said that he favoured the introduction of apartheid in Australia if Aborigines wanted it. He confirmed his belief to the journalist Niki Savva, of the now defunct Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial, that breeding rabbits would help starving Bantu tribespeople. ]
But confirming your theory, he was from Queensland.
“Redfern Oval – bloody trendy cosmo place as far as I was told.”
It is now. You can have a latte from the grandstand coffee shop with the Burgess brothers, check your tattoos with every single member of the first grade side and no matter what your injury or illness, you will be able to compare medical notes with Roy Asotasi. I hear Russell Crowe’s Thirty Odd Feet of Grunt might play there next Festival season.
Actually looks very nice. Will be even better when those ugly Housing Commision on the other side of Elizabeth St are completely razed.
Dio – And at the airport! There you go.
Found this mesmerising watching everyone doing their bit on the guitar.
[ The Poorest Band In The World http://bit.ly/HFyJXS ]
AG says we can’t protect an Aus citizen against things US pollies say (as in Assange).
What about protecting him from things your own Cabinet colleagues and PM have said?
Dear Dawkins! Can’t Q&A moderate the tweets! The first one would have drawn attention here. Err, it did, mine!
The tweets they show are pathetic.
Roy Orbison
I often wondered if the tree children/people were going to bring a branch down …
The oval may have been hard as rocks but always looked magic.
The ‘luxury’ cardboard box sleep on Miller Street ’twas easy after the game 🙂
One problem wit Q&A is that the victims there are talking too fast before they are cut off.
Yeah, looking at you, Jones!
Nothing from Niki Savva about Christine Milne’s dress sense, her distracting
earlobes[insert body part here], the absence of a handbag etc etc.Rupe’s slipping.
More nonsense tweets.
‘Goffrey’ Robertson is an ‘A’ class!
@Mod Lib/4905
I’d be worried about SOPA’s new Sister, CISPA.
Needs of the Many out way the Needs of the few – Spock
(So true btw)
If I did tweets I’d send ‘jones is a wanker’.
Pyne agrees and disagrees.
On-line poll says JULIA has not done enough to support Little Ass – 80 to 20.
Jones is almost as annoying as Prissy.
GD, of course he was!
Nicola is standing her ground well.
Geoffrey interrupts Rox. Not a good look, sunshine.
i tried extradite an Au Pair from Sweden and failed, who said it was easy #qanda
Tony Jones must learn to shutup #qanda
SHUT UP JONES!!!!!
Pyne pouts. Ooh! Nicola slaps.
Well, went on to the Olympics website and let them know of my disgust with their leaders attacks on the PM, this is what I sent them, doubt I will receive a response.
[Sir / Ms
I wish to register my disgust with the statement of Mr Coates. To grandstand and abuse the Prime Ministe with a gladbag of blatant lies is beneath contempt.
The Prime Minister informed your organisation as to why she would not be able to attend your fund raiser, additionally you were offered alternate dates. I would think it is of more interest to the future financial benefit to this country that the PM attends a function that deals with far weightier subjects than who can run/walk/swim or ride a bicycle faster or further, throw a ball/piece of plastic or metal further or any other inane child’s game all funded by the government and the tax payers.
As to the PM attending the actual games, what a steaming pile of faeces, let me ask you, which Olympic Games did PM Howard attend, PM Keating attend, and others.
Mr Coates grandstanding and demeaning the PM and the government that is funding your lifetime of playing games while simultaneously sucking merrily at the teat of tax payers is a disgrace.
Hopefully he and your organisation will not be too disappointed when you do not receive my annual donations to your cause.]
Pyne does Magna Carta joke.
Labor could bury him with that one.
They need Bean-arse SC on
the commentary on here is far better than the show i imagine.
Chrissie hopes Thomson is innocent.
Jingle bells, jingle bells!
‘Christerfer Poyne’ says Goffrey – roight
Geoffrey:”FWA is obviously not fit for purpose.”
That is one big minefield for :monkey:.
The UK had a very severe drought in 1976 with water restrictions and households getting water from standpipes, situation was exacerbated by the myriad of local water boards not having a connected grid of water mains to distribute water beyond the water board boundaries.
can someone remember conditions in Eastern Australia in 1976
From the ABC Law report, Geoffrey Robertson QC on the Swedish legal system. Sounds a bit bizzaro:
[… Then he’ll go to a secret trial. You can understand, he’s charged with an offence which they call ‘minor rape’. Now, that’s a contradiction in terms again for us, because all rape is heinous, but they have charged him with this curious minor rape offence, which they…and they have trials in secret in order to encourage prosecution witnesses, and that is of course a breach of our open justice principle, and they don’t have a jury, they’ve got a judge sitting with two retired politicians…the political parties that nominate the characters who sit with judges, two in each trial. So it’s a very unfamiliar and very unsatisfactory system, but of course the Swedes have a very merciful sentencing system, so if you like no one cares so much about the improprieties in procedure, because at the end of the day no one in Sweden goes to prison for very long.]
I’m looking forward to a question about Robb on the ANZ.
Shut up Jones!!
Jones is poking holes in the air. The mannequin should be given the DCM.
Geoffrey,
Shut up!
FFS Jones. Roxon talks, and he interrupts. He’s done it 7 or 8 times, in the middle of her sentence.
[Geoffrey Robertson QC]
And bizarre ideas not unrelated!
Geoffery, Tony and Christopher interrupting Nicola looks like bullying
Nicola, 30 minutes in, has been cut off whenever she has been posing a response or an argument.
Well the tabaco companies did not plain package there mole in the QandA audience. Stood out like a pack of winnie blues.
Agree rummel
Roxon was doing well, until she said poor people dying is more of a disaster than rich people (or wtte), not sure what she was getting at there!
Nicola is doing serious stuff and Geoffrey and Christopher do laugh gigs.
FMD!
Nicola really rocks #qanda
Mod Lib – she meant that generalising about people’s abilities to make up their own minds (eg. poor people are dumber) is a stupid statement.
It came out poorly though. Took me a while to work out what she meant.
How, in the name of fortune, does Nicola keep her cool?!
TLBD, she knows the ratings this show gets….
when everything else fails, try communists, it works everytime #qanda