Newspoll: 55-45 to Coalition; Seat of the week: Banks

GhostWhoVotes reports Newspoll has strayed from the pack with its latest fornightly federal poll result, with the Coalition holding a relatively moderate lead of 55-45 on two-party preferred compared with 59-41 last time. The primary votes are 30% for Labor (up three), 45% for the Coalition (down six) and 12% for the Greens (up one). In contrast to voting intention, the leaders’ ratings are essentially unchanged: Julia Gillard is on 27% approval (down one) and 63% disapproval (steady), and Tony Abbott is on 34% (up one) and 56% (up one). Results for reaction to the budget presumably to follow shortly.

UPDATE: The regular annual Newspoll budget questions have 18% saying it will make them better off and 41% worse off (compared with 11% and 41% last year); 37% saying the Coalition would have done a better job and 42% saying they wouldn’t have (38% and 41% last year); and 37% rating it good for the economy and 37% bad (37% and 32% last year). Newspoll has been asking these questions after each budget since the 1980s, with mean results over that time of 17.2% better off and 34.9% worse off; 29.8% opposition-better and 47.4% opposition-not-better; 42.3% good for the economy and 27.6% bad. With respect to “will the budget leave you better or worse off”, the five most positive results ever recorded (with some distance between fifth from sixth) occurred consecutively from 2004 to 2008. Outside of this golden age, the mean results have been 13.5% better off and 37.9% worse off.

Today’s Essential Research had the two-party preferred at 57-43, down from 58-42 last week, from primary votes of 50% for the Coalition (steady), 30% for Labor (up one) and 11% for the Greens (steady). Also featured were Essential’s monthly personal ratings, which welittle changed on April (contra Nielsen, Tony Abbott’s net rating has actually deteriorated from minus 12 to minus 17), and responses to the budget. The most interesting of the latter questions is on the impact of the budget on you personally, working people, businesses and the economy overall, for which the respective net ratings are minus 11, plus 7, minus 33 and minus 6. All of the eight specific features of the budget canvassed produced net positive ratings, from plus 5 for reduced defence spending to plus 79 for increased spending on dental health. There was a statistical tie (34% to 33%) on the question of whether Wayne Swan or Joe Hockey was most trusted to handle the economy.

Seat of the week: Banks

A little over a week ago I promised that my Friday posts would henceforth profile a significant federal electorate, but I was diverted on Friday by the onslaught of budget polling. Today I make good the omission with an overview of the southern Sydney electorate of Banks.

Located on the outer edge of Labor’s inner Sydney heartland, Banks has been held by Labor at all times since its creation in 1949, but over the past few decades the margin has fallen below 2% on three occasions: with the defeat of the Keating government in 1996, when Mark Latham led Labor to defeat in 2004, and – most ominously for Labor – in 2010, when a sharp swing against Labor in Sydney left intact only 1.5% of a 10.4% margin (adjusted for redistribution) from the 2007 election.

Labor’s strength in the electorate is in the suburbs nearer the city in the electorate’s north, from Hurstville through Riverwood to Padstow, which is balanced by strong Liberal support in the waterside suburbs along the Georges River which forms the electorate’s southern boundary, from Blakehurst westwards through Oatley to Padstow Heights. As a knock-on effect from the abolition of Lowe, the redistribution before the 2010 election shifted the electorate substantially eastwards, exchanging areas around Bankstown for the Blakehurst and Hurstville Grove area (from Barton) and Hurstville (from Watson), which cut 1.4% from the Labor margin.

Labor’s member since 1990 has been Daryl Melham, a former barrister and member of the Left faction. Melham rose to the shadow ministry in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs portfolio after the 1996 election defeat, but quit in August 2000 in protest against his party’s decision not to oppose Queensland’s contentious native title laws. He returned after the 2001 election, but voluntarily went to the back bench after the 2004 election saying he preferred to focus on committee work. Since the current government came to power he has served as chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

The Liberal candidate at the next election will be David Coleman, director of strategy and digital for Nine Entertainment, whom The Australian’s Media Diary describes as a factional moderate and “one of David Gyngell’s closest lieutenants”. Coleman won a local preselection ballot in March with 60 votes against 33 for the candidate from 2010, Ron Delezio, a businessman who came to public attention after his daughter Sophie received horrific injuries in separate accidents in 2003 and 2006.

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.

3,261 comments on “Newspoll: 55-45 to Coalition; Seat of the week: Banks”

Comments Page 4 of 66
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  2. Well the management decision was a either release several lower paid workers or for management take a pay cut. I opted for the pay cut to keep the lower paid workers on.

    You’ve had 18 months to sort this out, and what have you done? You dont just up and leave a position you have been in for 9 years…

  7. [New2This
    Posted Monday, May 14, 2012 at 11:55 pm | Permalink
    If the main earner earns over 100K the second earner can earn up to 18k but a single parent can earn up to 150k. So if you sit somewhere between you miss out. Rudd government changed the threshold.]
    So, you were earning over $100,000 and up to $118,000 and maybe up to $150,000 AND you still wanted a handout.

    You poor godforsaken mites.

    Here, have the shirt off my back.
    I can’t stand to see people suffering.

  8. Hey ShowsOn

    I was testing something out. It gave you the marvellous chance to show your humour.
    I got a laugh. Just please use guytaur. Not guytard. I take it as an offensive slur in regards to my mental health. So please stop.

  10. 3.06pm: Campbell is asked about phone calls between Blair and Murdoch in the runup to the Iraq war in March 2003.

    They were discussing the 2:45 at Newmarket.

  14. Puff

    I can’t see Buswell surviving too long after this. A scandal too far.

    Then again, that may make him eligible for a promotion from Barney Rubble.

    Hmm. Just spotted the irony of his name, Bus-Well.

  15. Showson
    Bilbo has a fatwa on the ‘tard’. You could end up tard and feathered in the sin bin. And it isn’t very nice. Now apologise to guytaur.

  19. [Showson
    Bilbo has a fatwa on the ‘tard’. You could end up tard and feathered in the sin bin. And it isn’t very nice. Now apologise to guytaur.]
    First you apologise for bossing people around.

  20. New2This

    Um are you trying to blame PM Julia for your employment plight?

    Maybe if the USA had been a real democracy and WBush had never been pres the planet could have avoided a GFC which in turn would have meant a much lower AUD and more manufacturing jobs for people like you?

    Still, keeping making a few more posts so I can YAWN then have a good night sleep!

  22. Dan,
    He has peed off
    1) The disability sector
    2) People with, or associates of people with, diabetes.
    3) People who like dogs.

    He’s stuffed.
    BTW The dog is a little cutie who saved a human life. Buswell is really, really stuffed.

  23. Judging by the headlines, the good folk over at The Australian have what William might describe as ‘shit on the liver’.

  27. [GhostWhoVotes ‏ @GhostWhoVotes

    #Newspoll Would L/NP have delivered better #Budget: Yes 37 No 42 #auspol]

    Interesting…

  33. [New2This
    Posted Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 12:10 am | Permalink
    Do you have kids in high school kezza?]
    Not at the moment, but I have 2 children who have passed year 12.

    And now I have 2 at Uni.

    What do you want to know?

    How to cope with the telling teenagers “No”
    Or how to tell them how cope with a smart arse for a parent.

    They’re probably already trying to work out how to leave.

  35. New2this
    Manufacturing has been opening, trading and closing for as long as there have been factories. A business needs to be a bit more resilient than to be at risk of change of government, seeing it could change every three years.

    Mr Abbott convincing everyone to keep their wallets glued shut by talking down the economy wouldn’t be factor would it?

  36. I think Alistair Campbell is an obfuscating pain…..yet more selective amnesia. I think the published inquiry will consist of three words – “Nobody remembered anything”.

    The British public will go on their merry way buying in huge quantities a paper with large-breasted women on page three – it’s only 20p after all – you can’t buy a newspaper in this country for that money.

    Murdoch and the other oligarchs will end up taking over 100% of all media in Australia unless our Govt does something (Abbott certainly won’t) and we will be reduced to buying comics for our reading entertainment.

    Thank goodness I have built up an extensive library of classics, whodunnits, biographies, histories etc over my 50 years of buying books.

    I will retire to my library, faithful hound at my feet, suitably dressed in tweeds, gin and tonic in hand and enjoy a real book with paper and a cover.

  38. New2This

    The government stimulus, especially in construction saved many thousands of jobs in our economy from recession at the height of the GFC.

    How can you still blame a government that has created far more jobs than that have been lost?

    I think you are FULL OF IT!

  39. New2This

    [No dont compete with imports. Capital equipment purchased prior to GFC]

    With howard handouts which you expected to continue and did not forsee the GFC or howard getting the Big A.

  42. [What about a PM promising no carbon tax then imposing the highest carbon tax in the world.]

    And that led to problems 18 months ago???

  46. [What about a PM promising no carbon tax then imposing the highest carbon tax in the world.]

    Not even in yet,but the sky has been falling for 18 months,think New2This is a credlin staffer,watch you do not go down with her and abbott.

  49. Ah, independent speaker:

    Alice Ross ‏ @almostidealist
    RT @shivmalik1: Speaker says Hunt *NOT* prevented from answering qs or placing docs in HoC library bcs of #leveson << Bercow strikes again

  50. New2This

    Um, PM Julia PROMISED to put a price on carbon. Yes, an ETS was Labor policy BUT she leads a minority government.

    Now, the only way to KEEP her promise to price carbon was to implement a carbon scheme with a starting fixed price (carbon tax), which converts to an ETS, a scheme supported by Turnbull and half the Libs in a pretty short period of time!

    No wonder the Liberals want Julia replaced real bad, because the voting public are soon going to catch on 😀

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