Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition

Newspoll ends the year with a three-point blowout in the Coalition’s two-party preferred lead, matching the latest Essential Research result which is a point higher for the Coalition than last week’s.

The final Newspoll for 2012 has the Coalition opening up a 54-46 lead, up from 51-49 last time, from primary votes of 32% for Labor (down four), 46% for the Coalition (up three) and 11% for the Greens (steady). However, personal ratings are little changed, with Julia Gillard on 36% approval (down one) and 52% disapproval (steady), Tony Abbott on 28% approval (down two) and 59% disapproval (down two), and Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister narrowing from 46-33 to 43-34. Hat tip as always to James J, whom the Poll Bludger wishes a very happy new year.

Essential Research also has the Coalition leading 54-46, which is up a point on last week, from primary votes of 36% for Labor (down one), 48% for the Coalition (up one), 8% for the Greens (down one). The monthly personal approval ratings show a sharp fall for Julia Gillard, down four on approval to 37% and up four on disapproval to 53%, with Tony Abbott respectively steady on 33% and down two to 56%. Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 45-32 to 43-34. Also featured are questions on gas and electricity prices, which find 27% blaming the federal government, 16% state government and 45% power companies, and 56% believing power generation and distribution should be operated by government against 24% for private companies. A question on media regulation has 44% believing the Press Council should deal with complaints against 28% for a new government-appointed organisation.

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.

5,623 comments on “Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition”

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  1. Mod Lib

    How many surpluses did the Coalition deliver before inheriting the self confessed strong economy from the Hawke and Keating reforms?

    FACT 1. Australia AAA credit rated by the three internationally recognised credit agencies for the very first time under Labor.

    FACT 2. Labor 2 worlds best treasurers Liberal 0.

    Fact 3. The GFC would have a guaranteed a budget deficit regardless of which Party had won the 2007 election.

    FACT 4. Howard/Costello wasted the mining boom, refer fact 3.

    FACT 5. Liberal opposed stimulus and proposed RECURRING tax cuts which would have enhanced chanced of recession and future budget deficits.

    FACT 6. You are a blow the surface moron. 🙂

  3. Mod Lib: 50 years – 1963 to 2012. Labour has been in power for 21 of those years, so while I don’t contest your figure of 4, it’s 4/21. I accept that the budget needs to be kept reasonably close to balance over the economic cycle, with sustainable debt, but 2013 does not look like a good year. Credible authorities (e.g. AMP’s Shane Oliver) say that we’re on track, that a deficit of say $8 billion in 2012/13 is no big deal. We’re doing much better than the rest of the developed world.

  5. [I am not arguing that you always need to be in surplus, just that it would be nice if the ALP got closer at little more often than 4 out of 50+]

    Such dishonesty. Labor hasn’t delivered 50 budgets in the whole history of the Commonwealth.

    Incidentally, how many surpluses did the Menzies government run in its 17 year history?

  6. [Centre
    Posted Saturday, December 15, 2012 at 11:37 pm | PERMALINK
    Mod Lib

    How many surpluses did the Coalition deliver before inheriting the self confessed strong economy from the Hawke and Keating reforms?]

    The “self-confessed” strong economy from Hawke and Keating?

    Well they were a couple of humble working folk I guess…..hehe :)….so if they confessed to being strong economic managers we will take their word for it.

    [FACT 1. Australia AAA credit rated by the three internationally recognised credit agencies for the very first time under Labor.]

    How did they rate Lehmans?

    [FACT 2. Labor 2 worlds best treasurers Liberal 0.]

    That good old left wing commentariat at it again, eh?

    [Fact 3. The GFC would have a guaranteed a budget deficit regardless of which Party had won the 2007 election.]

    True….what about the other 46 years?

    [FACT 4. Howard/Costello wasted the mining boom, refer fact 3.]

    Nothing but balanced budgets and surpluses, paying off the debt and leaving money in the bank earning interest with the GST Hawke and Keating wanted solidly in place and the states smiling with their rivers of gold solidly in place.

    [FACT 5. Liberal opposed stimulus and proposed RECURRING tax cuts which would have enhanced chanced of recession and future budget deficits.]

    The Liberals supported the stimulus, just not so much and not so sloppily administered.

    [FACT 6. You are a blow the surface moron. ]

    Fascinated by this term “blow the surface moron”….please explain

    😉

  7. No, nobody is arguing that the budget MUST always be in surplus under any circumstances.

    The government as a standard should always aim to be in surplus over the economic cycle.

  8. Psephos

    [Do I have the energy to do a new election guide for next year? I’m not sure what the point would be when I would be competing against William and Antony and no doubt others. Comments welcome.]

    From Aristotle @ 589 of this thread

    [I’ve been doing these aggregations for many years now, since the 1993 election. But it’s only been in the last few elections (thanks to the web) that others, who have been looking at this data and trying to make sense of it, can tell us what they’ve found. It is most welcome, too.
    Along with Possum’s work, I am pleased to see William’s bludgertrack, Poliquant and Mark the Graph now publishing too.
    Each use different approaches which, in my view, is a good thing.
    But remember what we are all trying to do here – that is, to try to get a more complete estimate from a series of estimates of how people are likely to behave in a hypothetical situation.
    When you think of it in those terms, it gives you a greater perspective.]

    Ergo your perspective is as important as the rest and all go into the melting pot for a more accurate picture and this is the point. So I think yes if you can muster the time and zip.

  10. Centre
    [..moron..]
    The memories…I remember a protracted exchange we had regarding the necessity to distinguish the opinions, views, etc of individual Greens supporters from those of the Greens Party.

    “Moron” was your final word to me then. It’s a real clincher in winning a debate 😆

  11. Fran Barlow@5532


    And this snippet is also interesting:

    The weapons were legally purchased by Lanza’s mother, said the official, who was not authorized to release details of the case to the media.

    After killing his mother, investigators believe Lanza took her guns and made his way to the elementary school. There, dressed in black fatigues and a military vest, according to a law enforcement official, Lanza reportedly targeted two classrooms of kindergartners and first-graders.


    So there you go. The mother, who had three legal weapons — two pistols (Glock and a Sig Sauer) and a Bushmaster .223 caliber assault rifle, presumably to “protect her family” and oppose putative tyranny from the government, was overcome by one of her family, while the government she thought might hurt her never even knew that she was in danger, until it was too late. The weapons with which she meant to resist harm, became vehicles of harm directed at other families, and ultimately, the family member who dispossessed her of them.

    Could one have more compelling proof of the nonsense of having guns to defend yourself in a place with a functional government? It’s hard to imagine.

    Long before I feel nervous enough to consider buying a gun to protect myself from harm in my neighbourhood, or coming from my government, I’m finding either a better neighbourhood or fighting harder for a better country. If it really is the case in the United States that despite their wealth, they are so unsafe that everyone must pay the overheads of bearing arms, then this would seem to be clear proof that the United States is yet another failed state. It claims that national security is its top priority, yet if one is to believe the gun advocates, nobody is safe, including, it seems, from people who are armed and believe this to be so.

    That’s simply too mad to dwell on, but perhaps we should.

    Excellent post Fran and I agree wholeheartedly.

    No sane person needs a semi-automatic assault rifle or hand guns. And of course no insane person should have the means to get anywhere near such weapons.

  13. Re Guns in the USA,,,and my family
    __________
    I have a son living there and his wife and our grandson are US citizens and we have made a number of visits to the USA

    Once after dining in an Phoenix Arizona restaurant we walked to the car ,as a couple who had sat near us walked to their car too
    The man opened his boot as I stood by and in it he had a huge gun rack with a host of weapons in it…in the boot ..in the car park…why ??
    I wondered why…but kept silent

    A while ago in Chicago when we were there a man shot 5 teenagers on a bus…left the oldies go..but shot the kids

    quite near where my son lives!

    we always fear for our grandsons safety after he hear of events like today …and wish they would come home.to Oz….but my dauaghter-in-law… while a clever woman.. is also stupid and thinks the USA is the Kingdom of Heaven
    She is from China and has a US passport..the meaning of life is that passport
    Anyone who thinks Chicago is better than Melbourne has rocks in her head in their head
    …she is Chinese with US passport but it is everything

  14. Mod Lib

    Howard admitted he inherited a strong economy in 96 you idiot.

    [How did they rate Lehmans?]

    You are a moron, I’m not reading further than that!

  15. The ALP Commonwealth Government HAS to deliver a surplus.

    The Government, despite its many policy achievements, seems unable to present an alternative national “story” to that espoused by the LIB/OM story, as expressed on this site by cynics like “Mod Lib”.

    The Government seems, to me, to be essentially reactive and therefore at the mercy of the agenda set by the Lib/OM.

    The Government does not seem to have a strategy to counter the right-wingers that, at present, control the national agenda.

    I do not know whether that is because they have no great MPs anymore, like the giants of the past or because they have become so right wing they cannot chart an alternative vision.

    Is it that they have no zeal because they do not believe in anything worthy of being zealous about?

    Most here, I think mistakenly, seem to have their hopes in policy “earnestness” as winning out in the end.

    They should be tearing the LNP apart because of the Ashby scandal but most on here seem to think that a “draw” is the best the Government can achieve!!!

    Despite policies streets ahead of the LNP, it is hard to have hope in a party that acts like a mob of rabbits in the spotlight – waiting for the execution.

    It really depresses me.

  18. Mod Lib@5559


    Labor hasn’t delivered 50 budgets in the whole history of the Commonwealth.


    Thank God for that I guess!

    And thank God for the fact Labor was running the show during the tough times like 2 world wars and the GFC.

    Mental midgets like Howard and Costello are great in the good times.

  20. 5548
    deblonay
    [We had surge arestors on many items
    One of our electricians said they are only effective against a minor surge]

    Your electrician is right. They handle small surges and spikes, but nothing more. Useful as far as it goes, but keep your household contents insurance paid up (and check the small print on the policy).

    Also keep your electronic data separately backed up.

  21. [Excellent post Fran and I agree wholeheartedly.]

    Ditto. I try hard to be pro-American, and I strongly believe the world would be a much worse place without them, but their social pathology is hard to find excuses for. When I saw Obama saying (again) that “today is not the day to discuss gun laws”, I really wanted to hit him. When IS the right day, Mr President?

  23. John Howard ran back to back surpluses courtesy of the mining boom. His budget projections were regularly out by $10 billion or so. He used a about half of these surpluses to bribe anyone likely to vote Liberal via non-means tested handouts for babies, self-funded retirees (aka self-funded whingers in many cases) and to increase the income of private health funds (while ostensibly helping to pay premiums). Middle class welfare has helped create a structural deficit which will take many years to squeeze out of our economy.

  24. So mod lib simply airbrushes his lie that labor hasn’t delivered 50 budgets in it’s history with a “whatever”.

    Hope you don’t wonder why nobody really takes you seriously ML.

  31. [Henry
    Posted Saturday, December 15, 2012 at 11:58 pm | PERMALINK
    So mod lib simply airbrushes his lie that labor hasn’t delivered 50 budgets in it’s history with a “whatever”.

    Hope you don’t wonder why nobody really takes you seriously ML.]

    What lie?

  32. I’m going to watch a another DVD.

    I watched the movie TROY with my GF a little earlier. It was a beauty, but she kept drooling over Brad Pitt so I was rooting for Eric Bana in their fight big time, but he lost 🙁

    *catch u guys later* 🙂

  33. Why can’t Australians “try hard to be pro-Austraian”??

    Let the Americans (that is the Usaian Americans) be “American”.

    They believe they have lots of a Gawd-given “rights”, presumably including the right to be gunned down. Good luck to them.

    Only Communists would challenge that.

    I think the ALP should become more nationalistic (in the good sense) and lead Australia to a greater independence.

    The governing elite, including the ALP, seem more enthralled by the USofA today than we ever were by the UK when I was a child.

  34. Mod Lib@5581


    Henry
    Posted Saturday, December 15, 2012 at 11:58 pm | PERMALINK
    So mod lib simply airbrushes his lie that labor hasn’t delivered 50 budgets in it’s history with a “whatever”.

    Hope you don’t wonder why nobody really takes you seriously ML.


    What lie?

    Labor hasn’t delivered 50 budgets you fool.

  36. Mod Lib you said this:

    [The ALP have only delivered 4 surplus budgets in the last half century]

    To most a half century is 50 years. To a Lib following Joe hockey, who knows what it means?

    A millenium?

  37. “I am not arguing that you always need to be in surplus, just that it would be nice if the ALP got closer at little more often than 4 out of 50+”

    You said this mad lib?

  39. Henry:

    Don’t fret….its not uncommon for bloggers here to make personal attacks and unfounded accusations when a little fact is presented that is not to their liking.

    Happens all the time!

    I no longer expect there is sufficient honour among said bloggers to even admit their mistake let alone apologise….a little too much for them it seems.

    Here is my post that drew such hostility:

    [The ALP have only delivered 4 surplus budgets in the last half century….no-one will be surprised if they do not deliver one next year.]

    …notice the “in the last half century”?

    The denominator is years not budgets.

    You see?

    Good night! ;grin:

  43. Fascinating alternate universe this blog….apparently I am the only one who can see the simple mistake Henry made.

    Just fascinating…

    I see you still cannot even bring yourself to admit that you are wrong Henry, eh? I guess I won’t wait up for an apology then.

    Hehe 😉

  44. Re Labor Federal Budgets
    ____________
    On my reckoning …with the possibility of some error re special wartime budgets….since Curtin took powser in Oct 1941…under 7 Labor PMs ..Curtin/Chifley/Whitlam/Hawke/Keating/Rudd/Gillard……there have been 31 Labor budgets__________

  45. Mod Lib, have a sleep kid and come back with some sense.
    Sadly, you just look silly.
    Shame you can’t delete posts on here eh ML?
    Good luck. 🙂

  46. Do you really not get the difference between years and budgets Henry or are you just trying to blur the distinction so that it can appear you might be correct?

    The underlying cause of all of this is the collective shock on this blog that the ALP has only delivered 4 surplus budgets in the last 50 years (which can also be termed “in the last half century” by the way……).

    4 in the last 50 years…..says it all doesn’t it?

  48. ML, no matter how you try to spin it labor have not delivered 50 budgets since federation. Are you that thick?

    Incidentally, Psephos asked an interesting question.
    How many surpluses did Menzies deliver? Your answer?
    ho ho 🙂

  50. [Henry
    Posted Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 12:44 am | PERMALINK
    ML, no matter how you try to spin it labor have not delivered 50 budgets since federation. Are you that thick?]

    But I did not say Labor have delivered 50 budgets, so your accusation against me is wrong.

    I said the ALP had only delivered 4 surplus budgets in 50 years and that is absolutely correct.

    Notice:
    Henry’s accusation completely wrong
    Modlib’s post completely correct

    [Incidentally, Psephos asked an interesting question.
    How many surpluses did Menzies deliver? Your answer?]

    No idea, what difference does it make to how many ALP budget surpluses there were?

    How many surplus budgets did Gough deliver?

    Displayname: Whether it is a badly chosen metric or not, what I said is correct. Is it not?

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