Newspoll: 50-50

Newspoll has maintained its jumpy record of late, the latest result reverting back to 50-50 after blowing out to 54-46 to the Coalition in the last poll three weeks ago. The two 50-50 results Newspoll has recorded have been the best results Labor has received in phone polls since early last year.

James J reports Newspoll is back to 50-50 after inflating to 54-46 to the Coalition in the last poll three weeks ago. The primary votes are 36% for Labor (up three), 41% for the Coalition (down four) and 10% for the Greens (steady). Gillard’s lead as prime minister is up slightly, from 43-33 to 45-34, but her personal ratings are rather less good than in Nielsen: approval 35% (down one) and disapproval 51% (up one). Tony Abbott has again gone backwards, his approval down three to 30% and disapproval up three to 58%. The poll was conducted from Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1176 with a margin of error of about 3%.

UPDATE: Essential Research puts a dampener on things for Labor by finding the Coalition up a point on two-party preferred to now lead 54-46. The primary votes are 48% for the Coalition (up one), 36% for Labor (steady) and 9% for the Greens (9%). Also featured: 45% expect the UN Security Council seat to be of benefit to Australia against 36% of little or no benefit; 28% support the export of uranium to India against 40% opposed; 39% support nuclear power for electricity generation (up four since the wake of Fukushima) against 41% opposed (down 12); 35% rate the economy in good shape against 29% poor; 37% approve of spending cuts to keep the budget in surplus against 43% disapproval.

UPDATE 2: GhostWhoVotes reports Newspoll also brings us a finding that only 26% expect the government to succeed in bringing the budget into surplus, against 59% who think it will not succeed (38-47 against among Labor voters, 14-78 amongst Coalition). On the question of how high a priority it should be, 35% said high, 35% said low and 21% said “not a priority”. Thirty-nine per cent agreed that Tony Abbott has been sexist towards Julia Gillard against 45% who disagreed. This breaks down, not too surprisingly, to 35-48 among men against 43-41 among women, and 66-21 among Labor supporters against 13-76 among Coalition supporters. Less expected is the concentration of support for the proposition among the 35-49 age cohort: 44-39 compared with 33-45 with younger and 40-49 with older voters. Those who agreed were further asked about the appropriateness of Gillard’s response, the upshot of which is that 2% of the overall sample felt she underreacted to Abbott’s sexism, 30% thought she got the reaction to Abbott’s sexism about right, 6% thought she overreacted to Abbott’s sexism, 45% thought there was no sexism to react to, and 16% were undecided, indifferent or ignorant of the matter.

Federal preselection news:

• The South Australian ALP has made a poorly received decision to maintain the order at the top of its Senate ticket from 2007, with parliamentary secretary and Right powerbroker Don Farrell having seniority over Finance Minister Penny Wong, a member of the minority Left faction. Farrell won the ballot by 112 votes to 83 for Wong. Anthony Albanese, a powerbroker in the NSW Left, described the result as a “joke” and an “act of self-indulgence”, offering that Wong was “obviously our most talented senator from South Australia”. Third on the ticket is Simon Pisoni, an official for the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union and the brother of a state Liberal MP, David Pisoni.

• Andrew Crook at Crikey reports that Labor will hold a preselection for Dobell in February or March next year. Craig Thomson is suspended from the party, and is thus likely to be ineligible to nominate. Mentioned as possible contenders are David Mehan, described by Crook as the “popular local LUCRF super fund manager”, who was the party’s unsuccessful candidate in 2004 and challenged Thomson for preselection in 2010, and David Harris, Point Clare Public School principal and former state member for Wyong who lost his seat at last year’s election. Emma McBride, daughter of former The Entrance MP Grant McBride, was previously mentioned, but is now said to be “out of the race”.

• Mat Nott of the Fraser Coast Chronicle reports the candidates for Liberal National Party preselection to succeed retiring Paul Neville in the Bundaberg-based seat of Hinkler are believed to include Maryborough school principal Len Fehlhaber, Hervey Bay accountant Geoff Redpath, parole and probation officer Greg McMahon, Australian Safety and Training Alliance managing director Keith Pitt, and two political staffers – Chris McLoughlin, who works for state Bundaberg MP Jack Dempsey, and Cathy Heidrich, a former newspaper proprietor who works for Paul Neville and is “widely expected to receive at least his unofficial backing”. Michael McKenna of The Australian also mentioned former Isis mayor Bill Trevor.

• Queensland’s Liberal National Party will hold a preselection on November 24 to choose its Senate ticket, with incumbent Ian McDonald set to retain top spot and two vacancies created by the retirements of Ron Boswell and Sue Boyce. Most prominent among the 16 mooted nominees is James McGrath, the party’s campaign director for the state election this year who unsuccessfully ran against Mal Brough for the Fisher preselection after appearing to have the numbers sewn up in neighbouring Fairfax. Also mentioned are LNP vice-president Gary Spence, Toowoomba doctor and university lecturer David Van Gend, Senator Barnaby Joyce’s chief of staff Matthew Canavan, former Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry president David Goodwin, barrister Amanda Stoker and animal nutritionist Theresa Craig.

• A legal action that was delaying federal Liberal preselections in New South Wales has been resolved, with the state executive reluctantly agreeing to a allow a motion for rank-and-file preselections and a less interventionist state executive to be brought before the state council. The challenge in the Supreme Court arose from the David Clarke right faction, which was angered that factional rivals on the state executive, which is controlled by an alliance of moderates and the rival Alex Hawke right, had imposed candidates in the marginal Labor central coast seats of Dobell and Robertson. However, Sean Nicholls of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that “any change would require the support of 60 per cent of state council members, which many doubt it would receive”. Among the seats affected by the preselection delay was the crucial western Sydney seat of Greenway.

• Former GetUp! director Simon Sheikh has announced he will seek preselection to run as the Greens Senate candidate for the Australian Capital Territory. The Greens have been hopeful of winning the second ACT Senate seat from Liberal incumbent Gary Humphries at the past few elections, but have consistently fallen short.

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.

5,266 comments on “Newspoll: 50-50”

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  1. Ah, I get it. Paying me more is decreasing my productivity and not a reflection of the value of my work. I guess if I work harder/more efficiently, I shouldn’t expect a company to pay me more because that would neutralise all that effort/efficiency I put in!

  2. I was in the lounge waiting for the plane when TA popped up on the TV mainly business men going back to Sydney,thought they will be watching this looked around completely ignoring him, except for two who seemed to be laughing Remember I live in Pruneface’s electorate.
    I have been connected up to the network here so all go, Have had my first lot of advanced tuition on the tablet from the grandsons and been for a walk with my daughter to clear my head

  3. Possum Comitatus ‏@Pollytics

    Like the other eleventy times this has happened, we know which way it will go. So far it’s unions eleventy, government nil on truthiness

  4. DisplayName@4952


    Ah, I get it. Paying me more is decreasing my productivity and not a reflection of the value of my work. I guess if I work harder/more efficiently, I shouldn’t expect a company to pay me more because that would neutralise all that effort/efficiency I put in!

    Generally if you pay people less, your labour productivity figure goes down, unsurprisingly, and removing penalty rates (or allowing them to be negotiated away) does this as well.

    There’s a reason we have penalty rates, and removing them won’t boost labour productivity one iota. It may allow companies to be more profitable, but that’s not what is being argued (again, I put this down to dishonesty on the part of business lobby groups and the LNP).

  5. For the folks talking about productivity – “productivity” is not actually a matter of cost, it’s entirely about the efficiency of producing something. Cost isn’t actually in the productivity equation

    Productivity measures the ratio of volumes. How many units of Y is produced from X units of input, regardless of either the cost per unit of X or the revenue from selling a unit of Y.

    It’s a volume ratio.

  6. davidwh

    The crux of the issue is do we live in an economy (Reagan, thatcher, howard) or a society (labor party). Being a democratic socialist I will always claim we live in a society where the strong help the weak.

  7. #FanBoi No: 1 Hatcher said in USA the Repugs practised bloody minded obstruction to Obama, but he never called Abbott here with Gillard

  9. [For the folks talking about productivity – “productivity” is not actually a matter of cost, it’s entirely about the efficiency of producing something. Cost isn’t actually in the productivity equation

    Productivity measures the ratio of volumes. How many units of Y is produced from X units of input, regardless of either the cost per unit of X or the revenue from selling a unit of Y.

    It’s a volume ratio]

    All true, but when the Liberals are talking productivity, they are talking reduced wages. Always have. Always will. It’s like the sun coming up in the east and it’s the only thing they know.

    Bogans lap it up because they don’t consider themselves bogans until they are affected. Which is immediately. Ref Workchoices. Ref the Newman government. Then they come home to mama but only until the next lot of dogwhistling.

  10. ruawake@4957


    davidwh

    The crux of the issue is do we live in an economy (Reagan, thatcher, howard) or a society (labor party). Being a democratic socialist I will always claim we live in a society where the strong help the weak.

    Yep.

    Exhibit 1 – when things hit the fan ala ‘Sandy’ in the US – where all need to pitch in.

    But the US (& UK) brand of capitalism has always been much more raw red meat brand then ours.

    Which one works the best?

    Which one is the most equitable?

  11. [mumbletwits Imagine gumment’d followed @KKeneally’s advice & ditched/postpned carbon price early this yr. TA’s big scare campaign wd still be potent]

  12. Roy 4960 I think that is only partly true some of the time. You have to try and filter the political rhetoric out of the discussion. And it’s not only the Libs who are guilty of political rhetoric clouding the discussion.

    But I agree people do substitute productivity when they mean profit when talking about this issue.

  13. So how does the Noalition intend to increase productivity?

    They always mention elements of workchoices when referring to productivity, oh and cutting red tape?

    So what red tape exactly do they intend to cut?

  14. Dave #4955, precisely (and thanks Possum).

    An underpriced resource will be used inefficiently (think water), a free one will be completely wasted (think capacity of the atmosphere to absorb CO2, or ocean life)

    For example there are two US economies – the high wage one centred around IT, academia, military engineering, and the ÿou have no rights ” one . Hmm, which is more productive?!

  15. Roy, the Libs and the usual blowhards in the business community can’t see productivity through any prism other than smacking wages (oh, and corporate tax cuts). Erroneous as that prism is, we wouldn’t really expect anything more for that particularly patronaged gravy train set.

  19. DavidWH,

    [Roy 4960 I think that is only partly true some of the time]

    Bullshit. It’s completely true 100% of the time and you know it.

  20. Dear Mr Abbott

    What is the Govt red tape you are wanking about? Environmental stuff, or safety stuff or drug regulations or stopping planes falling from the skies?

    What?

  22. [Why François Hollande’s popularity has plummeted

    He has now broken the record as the most unpopular French president at the six-month mark of a mandate. Only 36% of French people have confidence in Hollande, according to the latest poll by TNS-Sofres for Le Figaro magazine. By comparison, the rightwing Nicolas Sarkozy had 53% approval ratings six months after his election in 2007.]

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/01/why-francois-hollande-popularity-plummeted-france

  23. David & Dave

    (Sheez have one beer and suddenly I’m attacked by different spelling! :smile:)

    Okay then to simplify my point since you are both being recalcitrant: let’s make it you are told to make 1100 buttons per hour for the same rate (ergo work harder for the same money which is essentially a cut in input cost) = productivity increase.

    Ergo reduced input, altered market output = productivity gain

    Same goes for outsourcing ie an output reducing costs – granted replaced by a lesser input, but one does not always cancel the other out.

  24. CUTTING RED TAPE- wasn’t that an initative proposed by Jim Hacker in Yes Minister? Still running on TV and still so current. And we know Tone does watch TV – Down-tone abbey.:)
    Only 5 pro noalition journos ? . Gosh I thought they all were.

  25. BW:

    [The last time I responded to the substance of one of your claims I was informed that you were ‘in charge’. ]

    Disingenuous. You wanted to put yourself entriely in charge of the counterfactual, varying only the cherrypicked item of your choice.

    If I were to have my wish on asylum policy, I’d presumably have my wish in several other areas as well.

    Your preference is a kind of “Green” dystopia, where policies are snatched from context and rolled out as single issue ideas in a worst case scenario.

    Effectively you’re putting yourself in charge of your own nightmare.

  27. Campbell is now trying to get the largest PPP ever in Qld up for the construction of a cruise ship terminal.

    Maybe he should not have laughed at the private equity partners who lost billions on his tunnel.

  28. I imagine that NBN would have a huge effect in increasing productivity but never hear it talked about much. You would thing the business community would be stoked at its possible advantages to them, on that front.

  29. Anyway, if money is an input, then, as a customer, if I’m paying the same amount of money for the same amount of product, the company has exhibited no increase in productivity (regardless of how they shift money around within the company).

    If we with to follow this line of argument to its logical conclusion, the more a company shifts the money I’ve paid into things other than the product I’m paying for the less efficiently it is being used.

    So there we have it:
    Profits = inefficiency :p.

  31. Gecko – no, the technical definition of productivity does not include the amount paid, only the time worked. So if one worker produces 1100 widgets in an hour for $80 pay, and another worker also produces 1100 widgets in an hour for $14 pay their measured productivity is the same.

    How much people get paid is obviously important, but it’s nothing to do with productivity.

    Productivity is a very narrow measure. It’s a very important contributor to national wealth BUT it’s not the be-all and end-all, and it’s one of the annoying things about the current fixation with it as a measure. It’s measuring something but it’s not everything, and half the people who talk about it apparently don’t actually understand what it means.

  33. Yes Catalyst you are right. Red Kerry and Lisa Wilkinson are Labor, Bongiorno is right down the middle, the rest are Liberal stooges.

  34. Jackol

    [and half the people who talk about it apparently don’t actually understand what it means.]
    Yep. The Coalition are convinced it is all about whipping the serf’s harder and reducing their gruel rations.

  37. Alright me little loverlies, I’m orf for the evening.

    Tomorrow will be full-on marking: for every 2 hours I shall reward myself with 10 minutes on PB.

    Say hi to ShowsOn for me 😉

  41. But before I go…

    Zoilord @ 4987:

    The pic of Mr Abbott in your link has him – in skin tone at least – bearing a remarkable resemblance to Mr Berlusconi.

  43. Dave , thanks have had a look and changed some over to Bonds.What sort of warning signs do you for , before bailing out of the bonds ? Higher interest rates ? Lucky I bought 1000 Coles shares at $6.50 when Bernie Fraser was starting the options of buying shares and now rolled over to wesfarmers. Just had a look at my Rimfire shares, had them for about 2-3 years, i bought about $1000.00 at .04 cents and went down to about .02 cents after that and have just gone up to .06 cents ! Small aussie miner in Fifield nsw.Had a offer before to buy more , but needed to buy about $10k ? These are not in my super, so missed out.They mine Gold , silver, Platinum and copper , but still in the drilling stage.Hoping they hit the mother load one day.

  44. Jackol@4982


    Gecko – no, the technical definition of productivity does not include the amount paid, only the time worked. So if one worker produces 1100 widgets in an hour for $80 pay, and another worker also produces 1100 widgets in an hour for $14 pay their measured productivity is the same.

    How much people get paid is obviously important, but it’s nothing to do with productivity.

    Productivity is a very narrow measure. It’s a very important contributor to national wealth BUT it’s not the be-all and end-all, and it’s one of the annoying things about the current fixation with it as a measure. It’s measuring something but it’s not everything, and half the people who talk about it apparently don’t actually understand what it means.

    Your right Jackol

    Gecko – Thats even before taking human nature into the equation… Its not a command economy.

    Take something from an employee (or anyone) and they will find a way to gum up the works of something very important.

    Its not just an economy, its dealing with people.

    Dealing with them fairly.

    Employers who think their employees are dumb are the ones looking for trouble.

    But the claims being put forward by the business lobby are readily hit out of court by the facts.

    They just want greater profitability.

    Thats it.

  45. [Could someone explain it to me in economics terms, what do politicians/economists mean by ‘increasing productivity’?]

    It’s when the workers get screwed.

    It’s also when the silvertails take a long liquid lunch to discuss how better they can screw the workers.

    It’s context, doncha know.

  46. dave

    [Its not just an economy, its dealing with people.

    Dealing with them fairly.

    Employers who think their employees are dumb are the ones looking for trouble.

    But the claims being put forward by the business lobby are readily hit out of court by the facts.

    They just want greater profitability.

    Thats it.]
    BK and his avatar Deming are the go to guys on that.Post war Japanese industry adopted Demings principles and the rest is, as they say ,history.Some samples from Deming’s principles.
    [8.”Drive out fear”. Deming sees management by fear as counter- productive in the long term, because it prevents workers from acting in the organisation’s best interests.
    7.”Institute leadership”. Deming makes a distinction between leadership and mere supervision. The latter is quota- and target-based.
    10.”Eliminate slogans”. Another central TQM idea is that it’s not people who make most mistakes – it’s the process they are working within. Harassing the workforce without improving the processes they use is counter-productive. ]

    http://www.hci.com.au/hcisite2/articles/deming.htm

  48. Boerwar@4838


    l

    Meh. All that means is that there will be empty half hectares doing nothing.

    Its called proper Land management and not rape and pillage for profit. Better eggs and better happy hens.

  49. Fran

    [BW:

    The last time I responded to the substance of one of your claims I was informed that you were ‘in charge’.

    Disingenuous.]

    Um, you were the one who put yourself in charge. If I accept that, I am allowed to discuss the issues on your terms. But if I don’t, I am ‘disingenuous’. Cute. I am sure you have some fallacy term to cover it: damned if I do and damned if I don’t?

    How about sticking to one set of rules? Your goalpost shifting is dizzying.

    [You wanted to put yourself entriely in charge of the counterfactual, varying only the cherrypicked item of your choice.

    What ‘counter’ facts?

    [If I were to have my wish on asylum policy, I’d presumably have my wish in several other areas as well.]

    If were are doing wishful thinking I would change all my positions. But then, I am not a Greens, so that option is out. Nor can I lecture on ethics and morality in my wish-world. It doesn’t exist. Neither does your’s, but that certainly doesn’t stop you from ethical finger waving as if it did.

    As you said, you were ‘in charge’. My point was that no amount of being ‘in charge’ is going to change the way nature works. Oh, and whether you are in charge or not, printing money, aka the magic pudding, is not going to cover your costs for long. It catches up with you.

    [Your preference is a kind of “Green” dystopia, where policies are snatched from context and rolled out as single issue ideas in a worst case scenario.]

    Um, not really my preference at all. I do have a preference for considering all the consequences of an issue whether I am ‘in charge’ or not or whether I like the consequences or not or even whether I wished it were not really like that at all. It just is.

    So, where you doubt that we are in an extinction crisis, I have no doubt about it at all. Further, I consider it symbolic of the biodiversity element of the discussion. You consistently ignore it completely (in your terms, cherrypicking) in your positions.

    You persistently ignore the CO2 consequences of your positions (in your own terms, ‘cherrypicking’).

    You presistently ignore the way in which we have reached the limits of our freshwater (in your terms, ‘cherrypicking’).

    And you persistently ignore the way in which our soils are losing extent, structure and nutrients (in your own terms ‘cherrypicking’).

    [Effectively you’re putting yourself in charge of your own nightmare.]

    Um, the nightmare is there alright. Whether and how I choose to address is my ‘own’ but I am hardly in charge of it. Nor, when discussing policy approaches with people such as yourself I don’t kid myself about being ‘in charge’. I’ll leave that to you. Oh, and I won’t even call you ‘disingenous’ for being ‘in charge’ and then ignoring all the nasty nightmare ‘dystopian Green world’ consequences of what you propose.

  50. Hey Possum,

    Question for you.. Do economists have a separate measure that expresses the notion of productivity-through-technological-improvement ?

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