Nielsen: 52-48 to Coalition

Labor’s run of bad polling has been relieved by a relatively encouraging Nielsen result, in which a modest Coalition two-party lead is offset by an alarming disapproval rating for Tony Abbott and a thumbs-down over his handling of the AWU affair.

GhostWhoVotes reports that the final Nielsen poll for the year has come in above Labor’s recent form, with the Coalition leading 52-48, down from 53-47 last month. Labor is up a point on the primary vote to 35%, with the Coalition down two to 43% and the Greens down two to 10%. Tony Abbott has reached a new low on net approval from Nielsen with approval down two to 34% and disapproval up three to an alarming 63%, which is apparently the second highest disapproval rating for an Opposition Leader in Nielsen’s 40-year history. Julia Gillard’s personal ratings are little changed at 46% approval (down one) and 50% disapproval (up two), while her lead as preferred prime minister is at 50-40, compared with 51-42 last time. There is also heartening news for Labor with questions on the AWU affair, with 47% approving of Julia Gillard’s handling of the matter against 40% disapproval, while the respective figures for Tony Abbott are 24% and 64%. Full tables here.

There has also been a ReachTel automated phone poll of 661 respondents published today, commissioned by Sydney Morning Herald, which suggests Mal Brough would win a clear victory as LNP candidate for the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax despite his recent bruising in the Ashby affair. The poll shows Brough with 48.4% on the primary vote against a derisory for 2.7% for Peter Slipper, who is publicly still committed to seeking re-election as an independent, 21.2% for Labor, 11.7% for the Greens and 7.4% for Katter’s Australian Party. Brough was viewed favourably by 41.8% of respondents against 34.0% unfavourable, while the respective figures for Slipper were 6.9% and 75.5%. Brough’s involvement in the Ashby matter made 37.3% of respondents less likely to vote for him, against 39.8% for no difference. A substantial cohort of very curious people, apparently amounting to 22.6% of the Fisher electorate, say it has made them more likely to vote for him.

UPDATE (17/12/2012): The final Essential Research for the year has the Coalition gaining a point on two-party preferred for the second successive week to extend its lead to 55-45, the highest in nearly three months. However, the primary votes have emerged from rounding unchanged on last week, with Labor on 36%, the Coalition on 48% and the Greens on 8%. Further questions find that 2012 was perceived as being a good year for banks and miners, an uninspiring one for the Australian economy and “you and your family”, a poor one for the media, farming, unions, the environment and “the average Australian”, and a shocker for small business and “Australian politics in general”. Labor, Liberal, Greens and independents were all rated as having had a bad year, Labor emerging the worst. Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott rated equally poorly, with opinion evenly divided as to whether either will make it to the election.

Respondents were asked which of seven deignated political events was the year’s most significant, with the implementation of the carbon tax well ahead on 41%. The other results were 14% for the Kevin Rudd leadership challenge, 9% for the reopening of offshore detention centres, 7% for AWU slush fund allegations, 6% for Julia Gillard’s sexism speech, 5% for “bipartisan support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme” and 5% for Australia winning a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Essential Research will next report on January 14.

UPDATE 2: GhostWhoVotes reports Nielsen further finds 36% of respondents think themselves better off than two years against 45% worse off, with supporters of Labor (50% better, 29% worse) and the Greens (52% better, 26% worse) typically taking a rosier view than those of the Coalition (23% better, 61% worse).

UPDATE 3 (19/12/12): The final Morgan face-to-face poll for the year, covering the last two weekends’ surveying, is a good one for Labor, who are up four points to 40% on the primary vote (their best result since February last year), while the Coalition is down three to 37.5% (their worst this term) with the Greens up 1.5% to 12.5%. Two-party preferred is 52.5-47.5 in Labor’s favour on respondent-allocated preferences, which precisely reverses the position in the previous poll, while previous election preferences have Labor turning a 50.5-49.5 deficit into a 53.5-46.5 lead. These are respectively Labor’s best results since December 2010 and February 2011.

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.

5,440 comments on “Nielsen: 52-48 to Coalition”

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  1. The highlight of today was Julian Assange proclaiming his Senate candidacy from the Ecuador embassy in London, whilst his band of followers sang “Oh come let us adore him….”

  3. Sprocket, I don’t think that contradicts anything I said. Of course MPs and Senators are subject to the law, and if they (for example) assault their staff, they can be prosecuted or sued – if the staffer complains, which often they won’t. Party loyalty protects a lot of bad behaviour by MPs since staff won’t wish to give ammunition to the opposition. Usually if they have bad experiences they just leave and are found a job elsewhere. There’s no shortage of people wanting to work for MPs, even bad ones.

  6. CTar1

    [Or were you just another ‘Riga smoked prat’ : sucked in, I’d say.]
    You got to try it once. Not tried it since. Filed under been there done that.

  8. zoomster, the pleasure of eating fresh sardines can be truly unforgettable – so much so that ‘Zuvele’ is a perfect expression of longing and delight.

  12. Psephos, sorry I thought you were saying itt was a free for all employment wise, which technically it’s not. In reality it follows the power dynamics.

    For example, in 2007 post election win, many ALP staffers who had done the hard yards through opposition got their jobs spilled, and we’re replaced by an army from NSW and Vic state governments. No job security there, and some ministers didn’t get to have much say.

  13. I see that Jimmy Ashby is following up his Federal Court gig with an appearance at the FWA.

    Isn’t this a bit like John Farnham making his latest come-back at the local RSL Club?

  14. victoria@5309,
    What do you make of Tim Ferguson announcing he will contest for the same senate seat as Assange?

    Tim is a Labor man. He is also a fine judge of a prat. 🙂

  15. poroti – NZ’ers dumb as: is your actual name Nigel, primary school teach from Whikickamoomoo?

    If so I was the guy who sold you the ‘safe’ Transit behind Bush Hse in ’78.

    I really did believe it was good despite what the SA heckler guy said.

  16. Vic

    I always thought the Doug Anthony Allstars were fascist libertarians. So Tim Ferguson will fit in just peachy with St Julian.

  19. frednk
    Posted Friday, December 21, 2012 at 9:07 pm | Permalink

    Last morgan has labor ahead by 2%

    http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2012/4852/

    Thanks for that, frednk. Although all of us are very wary in clinging to hopes from Morgan, there is one very interesting stat, which if reliable would almost guarantee Labor a win.

    That is, the primary Labor vote among men is showing 39.5 compared with 34 from Feb. The primary among women is almost unchanged at 41, compared with Lib-NP of34, as they were on the earlier poll.

    If support for Labor among men is now almost the same as it is among women, they’d have to be a big chance.

  21. I do a Xmas compilation each year – here’s the 2012 playlist…

    1. Fairy Tale in NY Pogues
    2. 2000 Miles Pretenders
    3. Merry Xmas Ramones
    4. Bob Schneider All I want for Xmas
    5. Christmas Time Pumpkins
    6. Merry Christmas Baby Otis
    7 Christmas Time is Here REM
    8 Driving Home Chris Rea
    9 Blue Xmas Elvis
    10 Christmas in February Lou Reed
    11 Silent Night 7 0’Clock News s and G
    12 hotel Chelsea Night Ryan Adams
    13 Little Boy that Santa Forgot Aztec Camera
    14 Xmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis Tom Waits

  26. Tim’s sister, Carolyn, told me that when he was 18 and allowed to venture out that their mother always worried that he wasn’t dressed warmly enough on his way to the Dicko. He always said he had a ‘bush coat’.

    Apparently he’d found a coat on the side of the road and would there after that chuck it in a bush near home on the way home and retrieve it on the way out.

    There was a stream of ‘in’ family schoolie jokes in it.

  36. [For example, in 2007 post election win, many ALP staffers who had done the hard yards through opposition got their jobs spilled, and we’re replaced by an army from NSW and Vic state governments. No job security there, and some ministers didn’t get to have much say.]

    I don’t know where you got that idea from. When a party assumes government federally, hundreds of new ministerial staff jobs become vacant, plus all the new MPs and Senators are hiring, so there’s plenty of jobs to go around.

    What happened in 2007 was that Rudd decided he’d make all the ministerial staff appointments himself, and the PMO hired a staff consultancy to do the hiring and submit names to him. (This was an early sign of Rudd’s megalomania, which more people should have noticed.) The system of course broke down and eventually ministers hired their staff the traditional way, via party and factional connections.

    It is true that backbenchers (not so much ministers) often get staff “parked” in their offices by party HQ or faction heads. This is particularly true of Senators, who don’t really need four staffers and usually accommodate a couple of party or faction organisers in their offices.

    And before any Greens wax sanctimonious about this, I remind them that eight Greens Senators equals 32 taxpayer-funded full-time party organiser jobs for them, plus the extra staff Milne gets as a party leader.

  37. C@tmomma …ask William to forward me your email and I’ll arrange to mail you the cd. Some of the songs on the compilation are a bit obscure And hard to find …

    I’m counting the minutes to midnight …. 22/12/12 …. 10 years to the day that Joe Strummer died. A pity he never got to see the Silver and Gold.

  39. C@tmomma – After the ‘curl-back’ bit that is seriously scary.

    I’ll sleep well but if Ms Ciara turns up to give you a couple of quick thumps to the ovaries, both left and right, it has nuffink to do with me.

  41. [sprocket_
    Posted Friday, December 21, 2012 at 10:36 pm | PERMALINK
    The highlight of today was Julian Assange proclaiming his Senate candidacy from the Ecuador embassy in London, whilst his band of followers sang “Oh come let us adore him….”]
    Oh, come let us hate him, oh, come let us hate him.
    oh, come let us hate him, christ the lord.

    You guys really get up my nose.

    Why is that?

    I think that Julian Assange tried very hard to expose the shit that passes for our media. To expose the lies we’ve been told (and that we now know we’ve been told).

    Today there was a tape of how Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and Kathleen McFarland tried to get David Patreuas to be the Republican candidate for the 2012 election.

    Do you believe the tape? And if you do, do you believe Wikileaks would have exposed it if it wasn’t exposed by the Washington Post in what would be considered out entertainment section.

    So, somebody else is now exposing the absolute filth that is Rupert Murdoch.

    Wikileaks would have exposed that. If not for them, this wouldn’t have seen the light of day.

    But. hey, it was sanitised through the WP Style section” womens’ news. Going nowhere. Like women.

    Why was that? Because most Western women think Assange is a rapist. That’s how they sanitise Rupert’s attempt to takeover the democratic process.

    Rupert’s already done the job on Assange.

    I don’t want him anywhere near our elections. But he’e there. His malevolent influence is propping up Sky.

    And the more the women on here vilify Assange, the more Rupert laughs. He doesn’t want the truth anywhere near our politics. You can tell by the way he supports Abbott.

    I remember, even if you don’t, how the night that Abbott was giving his first Budget in Reply speech, how there was coverage of him going into lock-up with Paul Whittacker.

    Can’t find the footage anywhere now, but that’s what happened.

    I would not believe one journo from the News Ltd stable. Not one. They’ve all been bought. You don’t have to wonder why Mega left. Integrity ring a bell?

  43. poroti@5265


    HaveAchat

    I saw Slade live at the tennis courts in Adelaide,


    For you some 1966 Slade before they were Slade.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtsj7MU5Kqs

    Getting all nostalgic now with the talk of past bands and rock stars.

    Long John Baldry was one of my favourites of the time, of course Jethro Tull.
    Now of coursed moved on, current favourites are Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and in the background tonight is Pavlov’s Dog who are still recording, still touring.

  46. GG my Xmas playlist could be accused of many things, but cynicism ain’t one of them. It celebrates life in all in its wonderful forms,. Xmas ain’t just for the Catholics, but for all of us, wherever, whatever, whoever we may be.

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