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. lizzie

    At 20,000 per hectare that works out at each hen having the space equivalent to a square with sides of 0.7 meters. Hard to call that “Free Range” .

  2. Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    OL Tony Abbott ‘I’ve warned our Shadow Ministers that some of our own initiatives might have to be phased in or commence later.’

    Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Which policies @TonyAbbottMHR. Your $3b Paid Parental Leave Scheme in that category?

  7. ajm I was referring to how the government has handled the current issues. However, for what it’s worth, I have heard Caltibano was appointed against Newman’s wishes. I actually heard that from a Labor lobbyist who has some inside knowledge.

    But yes these people who get into trouble for these types of matters deserve all they get. I have little time for them regardless of which side of politics they come from.

  9. Jackol
    [companies can’t just adjust the language to suit their commercial interests in a way that doesn’t fit into what the average consumer understands.]

    You know they already do. 😉

  10. It’s been quite a week in the music world with some new Aussie groups presenting cover versions of old classics. We’ve had Margie and the Kids with ‘My Guy’, Kevin and the Krudds with ‘Yesterday’s Hero’, Greg and the Bookies with a stirring revival of ‘The Race Is On’ and now another new group hits the charts. I give you Maxine and the Leakers with their version of Olivia Newton John’s Eighties classic ‘The Rumour’ which Maxine has dedicated to her mentor Kevin Rudd. Time to sing along now ..
    [This is the last time I look around the table
    And try to face a feeling I don’t even recognize.
    This is a sad hand that reached across and touched you
    When all we’d built around us came crushing to the ground.
    There was a tide turning somewhere deep inside us
    When all these years together seem lost behind my tears.
    Oh there were good times but in between the dog days
    I felt the pain of rumour whisper in my ears.

    But I still tried to love you
    I still tried to care
    Still tried to hold on with the power of my prayers.
    But you can’t fight the rumour, you can’t argue with your heart

    Once the rumour spreads
    Once the rumour spreads
    Once the rumour spreads
    The truth is just a thing of the past.]
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7doVdujPMbc

  11. [Julie Bishop’s asbestos case role – this woman is a hypocrite. Defending the unconscionable.]

    Interesting! Wasn’t aware of this story.

    Should get Peter Garrett to hum a few bars of “Blue Sky Mine”, since that’s about the Wittenoom asbestos mines that Bishop defending against having to compensate the workers they poisoned.

  12. chris murphy chris murphy ‏@chrismurphys

    Ah that LIB hubris in the ACT? LIBs being taught an old lesson. Don’t count your chickens before they cross the road #auspol @KakLinds

  16. leone@4861 luv it 🙂

    theclaw – Being very norty, I suggest if not Peter Garrett then somebody else could sing Blue Sky Mine to BishopJ.

  17. leone
    [theclaw
    I wasn’t aware of it either until today. I’ll be reading up on it.]
    A bit of trivia, Lang Hancock named Wittenoom after his partner.

  23. Where have we heard that before? @TonyAbbottMHR wants to increase productivity, cut wastes/red tapes and more workplace flexibility

  24. [theclaw
    I wasn’t aware of it either until today. I’ll be reading up on it.]

    The most inhumane thing I heard BishopJ say when acting for James Hardie was wtte that the asbestos victims were out of order for trying to hurry up compensation claims before they died. I can’t remember the exact words she used but they weren’t very pretty. How did she expect the families to feel when hearing that.

    I followed the case closely because our ex soninlaw (when in the Army) spent many weeks in Wittenoon. They were covered in asbestos dust much of the time. He’s had asthmatic type problems since altho hasn’t developed asbestosis – still time as he’s only 50.

  25. I have just told my wife, like Abbott, i also want to increase productivity, cut wastes/red tapes and more flexibility in our marriage 🙂

  27. George Bludger ‏@GeorgeBludger

    “@Thefinnigans: @GeorgeBludger @TonyAbbottMHR Geroge, i heard it was SERFChoices” So I can serf the web whilst my choices are removed? WOW!

  32. Caption in the H-Sun under Abbott’s daughters. Tony [Abbott’s daughters Frances and Bridget are excited to hit trackside for Derby Day, where the traditional ware is black and white. Picture: Alex Coppel]
    ‘Ware’ implies something for sale?
    Or is it a pun I know nothing about?

  34. With the Gillard regime excising Australia from the map the asylum seeker question has been batted around here a bit over the last week.

    I see no value in going back over the broad brush issues we usually talk about one more time. Nobody is changing their opinion on what we should do about asylum seekers.

    So, putting aside the ethical questions or attitudes to the John Howard mantra which the Gillard regime seems now to have uncritically embraced …

    One of the less discussed issues concerns the implications of Australian policy for the region. Let’s assume the utterly improbable simply for the sake of argument — that some combination of measures adopted by the regime here really does “stop the boats”. That’d be marvellous from the point of the Gillard regime, but in practice it would mean that all of those in Indonesia and Malaysia right now would stay there, presumably at the expense of those regimes.

    What this shows is that in effect, the definition of a “successful” Australian asylum seeker policy is one that forces the burden of supporting asylum seekers onto our much-poorer-than-us neighbours — a kind of beggar-my-neighbour policy. It’s litle wonder that the Indonesians and Malaysians haven’t been as keen as they might have been to do their part in stopping the boats. To the extent that they are successful, they succeed in having a larger burden.

    The current arrangement, where they spend as little of their meagre resources as they can on supporting them and leak refugees to Australia is probably the least costly solution. I suppose Indonesia could if it wanted impose visa requirements for entry and both countries could try shipping people in the camps back to their countries of origin which would push the problem further back up the chain in the direction of the source countries. In that case the applicants would have greatly reduced chances of making asylum claims. So once again, the knock-on effect of “successful” stopping the boats policy in Australia is a denial of practical scope to claim asylum.

    Article 1 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, defines a refugee as a person who:

    […owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it {my emphasis}]

    To claim you are a refugee you need to be outside of your country of nationality, or be stateless.

    It cannot be that those actively making policy who aim to “stop the boats” by punitive measures (as distinct from those who seek to offer asylum seekers better options) are unaware that the consequence of this policy is to deny asylum to most seeking it and to kettle those seeking asylum either in their countries of origin or within the region but outside Australia’s borders, so in practice, it is fair to see those appealing to stop the boats as either opponents of asylum seeking or supporters of kettling of vuilnerable people in developing countries.

  35. What this shows is that in effect, the definition of a “successful” Australian asylum seeker policy is one that forces the burden of supporting asylum seekers onto our much-poorer-than-us neighbours

    We increased our intake.

  37. I see Santo Santoro is up to his old tricks again. 🙁

    Remember last time he did nothing wrong?
    [So an associate director of a lobby firm offers shares to a Senator who had done his organisation a favour. This causes the Senator to be in breach of his government’s ethics guidelines. The Senator sells the shares and then gives the profit from them to a lobby group, the associate director of which was the guy who offered him the shares in the first place. The Senator and the PM fail to mention this to anyone and instead tell the world that the money has been donated to charity. The PM says the ethics breach doesn’t matter and let’s the Senator stay in the Ministry. ]

    Of course we now know Santo had forgotten about a lot more. Bet he forgets how he gave campaign funds to someone who was not a candidate as well.

  38. Barnyard was screaming about Chinese interests buying Cubby Station. Perhaps Australian farming interests should do more of what the Kiwi dairy farmer co-op is doing ?

    [
    The investment agreement with Yutian County completes Fonterra’s ‘hub’ of five farms in Hebei Province.
    Fonterra’s five-farm hub – expected to produce about 150 million litres a year – was the first of many, Wickham said.

    “We intend to follow this farming hub with several more through China, with the ultimate goal of producing up to 1 billion litres of high quality milk by 2020.”]
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10844681

  39. DisplayName:

    [We increased our intake.]

    Notionally, yes. I wonder if it will be filled?

    Putting that aside though, I was talking about the aim of stopping the boats. If (improbably) it works, where do the asylum seekers go/stay?

  42. Fran

    Where would they stay?

    This is why we need you in charge. You would just fly the first 870,000 to Australia and print $100 billion to cover their costs.

    When the next 870,000 line up, as they will, you would just fly them to Australia and print another $100 billion to cover their costs.

    Problem solved.

  43. At 4884 my apologies, it is the formal ACT Labor-Greens agreement!

    Interesting parts of the agreement:

    Appendix 1, item 12 – size of the ACT Assembly (no of electorates & no of members);

    Appendix 2 – ministerial responsibilities for Mr Rattenbury;

    Appendix 3 – Parliamentary reform

  44. Fran
    I may be missing the point but don’t we take a fixed number of refugees each year? Those who qualify as refugees and arrive by boat do not change that number but reduce merely reduce the chance of those waiting in Indonesia/Malaysia to get here. Stopping the boats actually reduces the burden of our neighbours.

  45. The Finnigans
    [Poroti, the CGI (China Govt Inv) Corp has just bought 10% of Heathrow Airport]
    I just googled that up and it was interesting to see that 49.99 % is owned by a Spanish company. Ole !

  46. OC:

    [I may be missing the point but don’t we take a fixed number of refugees each year? ]

    In theory, yes. In practice most of the successful applicants have come by air. Sometimes the quota has not been filled.

  47. BW:

    Noted: You didn’t respond to the substance of the claim. I assume that’s a backhanded recognition that you find the reasoning robust.

  49. A point that has not received much attention is that most of the Sri Lankan refugee seekers who have decided to returned home were Sinhalese or Burger. They were apparently very basly advised in Sri Lanka of their chances of gaining refugee status.

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