Newspoll: 51-49 to Coalition

Newspoll has opened its account for 2013 with an encouraging result for Labor, recording a primary vote six points higher than the previous poll of December 7-9.

The result of the first Newspoll for 2013 has been reported by AAP (your guess as to how that’s come about is as good as mine) and almost simultaneously by the ever-reliable James J, and it’s a relatively encouraging one for Labor who trail just 51-49 on two-party preferred, down from 54-46 in the final poll of 2012. The primary votes are 38% for Labor, up six on last time, with the Coalition and the Greens both down two, to 44% and 9% respectively. Julia Gillard is up two on approval to 38% and down three on disapproval to 49% while Tony Abbott is up one to 29% and down one to 58%. Gillard leads as preferred prime minister by 45-33, up from 43-34.

UPDATE (16/1/13): A Morgan face-to-face result covering both the previous two weekends (and presumably warranting more than the usual degree of caution on account of the holiday period) has the Coalition leading 51-49 when preferences are distributed as per the 2010 election result, and by 52-48 according to respondent allocation. The primary votes are 36.5% for Labor, 41.5% for the Coalition and 10.5% for the Greens. This follows what now looks an aberrant result in the final poll of last year, when Labor led 53.5-46.5 on previous election preferences and 52.5-47.5 on respondent-allocated.

UPDATE (19/1/13): AAP reports a ReachTEL poll of 511 respondents conducted for the United Voice union in Wayne Swan’s Brisbane seat of Lilley suggests he is heading for defeat, trailing LNP candidate Rod McGarvie 45% to 38% on the primary vote.

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.

3,565 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Coalition”

Comments Page 69 of 72
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  1. sprocket_
    Posted Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 10:18 am | Permalink

    When Lance met Tony, who told the biggest porkie?

    —————————————————-

    lol sprocket

  2. Fran, I think this troll is doing it primarily for the lulz.
    Pity, I’d love to hear someone explain why the Nats are any more than the Libs rural sycophants.

  3. []Ignore JM. She/he/ (maybe even ‘they’) is so blatantly a troll it’s not worth responding.]

    I totally agree leone. It’s one thing to try and engage in stimulating dialogue with a person who has opposing views. But it becomes something very different once that person shows that all they are trying to do is press all your buttons for the pleasure of watching you emotionally react. It’s almost a kind of sadism.

    In my experience with PB there have only been very few who would fall into that category. Most people with right wing leanings who come here at least try to argue their cases in a persuasive way backed up by facts and sound reasoning (David, Rummel and Mod Lib all come to mind) but JM does not seem capable of doing that. It seems that all he/she is seeking to do is grab attention and rattle our cage, which so far he/she has done very successfully.

    I know it goes against the grain of many here to countenance the idea of completely ignoring someone, but I think JM has earned that “privilege” and I don’t intend to respond to him/her in future unless the blatant trolling ceases.

  5. Darn
    JM is very good at cage rattling and button pushing. The Tories must run classes in it. Last night I said I would not respond to any of JM’s posts and straight back came questions to answer and comments designed to make me respond. I ignored it all. It’s easy to ignore dickheads.

  6. Ratsars:

    [Many have criticized Gillard for not being more aggressive in fighting back against this argument about the correct descriptor of this imposition.]

    Or even inviting people to run with it rather than slapping it down, or even using the ‘carbon tax’ disavowal in the first place. Had she stuck with being committed “to explicitly and transparently pricing emissions” there could have been no meme to unmask.

    Wahts she did was to effectively invite people to troll her and the regime.
    [It is really an ineffective argument because depending on one’s views there will always be an argument that somehow the Government has misled the citizens.]

    Of course — that’s a given. What you can avoid doing is offering grist to the mill. Instead, you can make such argument seem expressly partisan and demand that when journalists speak to you they do not choose terms that are the subject of partisan contest. e.g. Let me stop you right there, Heather. It has been ALP and unil recently even Liberal policy to explicitly price carbon emissions since before the 2007 election. We in the ALP, unlike the Liberals, never floated the idea of a carbon tax and although I don’t wish to preempt the MPCCC, I stand by what Garnaut concluded in 2009 — that a cap and trade scheme was the better approach. You should really be asking the Liberals why they dumped Shergold’s cap and trade in favour of ‘a simple carbon tax’ and now accuse us of doing the very thing they favoured when on a whim they dumped cap and trade.

    What could any journalist have done with that but adopt carbon pricing as the neutral terminology?

  8. I know it goes against the grain of many here to countenance the idea of completely ignoring someone

    I think there comes a point in any conversation where further communication holds little value and dialogue ceases anyway.

  12. PvO today gives the lie to the coalition cheersquad’s insistence that their party still allows MPs a free vote:

    [Once upon a time, the Liberal Party did allow MPs to cross the floor and break ranks when they disagreed with their party position. There is a mythology as to just how often it happened, but happen it did. Today, any individual who does so in the Liberal Party faces two openly articulated consequences: no chance of executive promotion, and an almost certain challenge come preselection time, for disrespecting the powerbrokers and the leader. Times have changed.]

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/parliament-plods-along-party-lines/story-fn53lw5p-1226556966209

  14. DisplayName:

    [I think there comes a point in any conversation where further communication holds little value and dialogue ceases anyway.]

    Just so, and that applies even in the case of non-trolls.

  15. Finns @ 3350

    There’s nothing gutsy about Armstrong. His apologies are long overdue, insincere, and incomplete.

    He makes much of his ‘battle’ to overcome cancer, yet ruins most of the good by being an utter control freak and bully who stood over teammates and wives of teamates. He is contemptible.

  16. Finns @ 3352

    There is almost no end to the cornucopia of choice of Abbottisms:

    [17. Bringing back “fault” divorce

    “…a society that is moving towards some kind of recognition of gay unions, for instance, is surely capable of providing additional recognition to what might be thought of as traditional marriage.

    “Something akin to a Matrimonial Causes Act marriage ought to be an option for people who would like it.”]

  20. Vic @ 3367

    It is scary. The resemblances, both physical and otherwise, between Abbott and Armstrong, are amazing. George: a Photoshop side-by-side of the two, on their cycles, is in order!

  22. steve

    Someone should ask Armstrong if he ever really had cancer as he’s lied about everything else.

    He’s a classic narcissist. No-one else matters and no rules apply to him.

  23. Abbott is certainly the best thing going for Labor but he’s still headed for a convincing win at 51-49. His team is pitifully weak and his economic credentials are non-existent, but the old mantra of pink batts, school halls, waste,deficits and ‘Stop the boats’ is deeply ingrained in the minds of the populace. Increasing unemployment is icing on the cake.

  24. At 8:45 this morning, J M announced that s/he was “Off to mil (sic) the cows …”.

    Isn’t that rather late in the day for the first milking? I bet the girls weren’t amused.

  27. AFR report on electricity in Qld. Split?:
    [Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said on Friday that he did not support selling the state’s electricity transmission and distribution assets, despite it being a key recommendation from the Costello Commission of Audit.

    Mr Newman’s comments also put him at odds with Treasurer Tim Nicholls, who said Queenslanders needed to have a full and frank debate on asset sales, including electricity assets.]
    Timing? Possibly stretch out to post the federal election??:
    [But Mr Nicholls said the report would not be publicly released until the LNP government had formulated its response, which may not be until the June budget.]
    But maybe it will be Gillard’s fault after all (as of course, all right thinking people would have known all along):
    [Mr Newman on Friday said any potential asset sales would need to be taken to voters at the 2015 election. He rejected the push by Prime Minister Julia Gillard for full deregulation of the state’s electricity network.]
    http://afr.com/p/national/wait_for_final_electricity_report_MO96qnwvoOZNYb1RcodfZL

  28. Diogenes@3422


    steve

    Someone should ask Armstrong if he ever really had cancer as he’s lied about everything else.

    He’s a classic narcissist. No-one else matters and no rules apply to him.

    It stinks that he is even be given any air time let alone all the publicity world wide.

  29. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10860122
    [Son’s ordeal was our fault, say parents
    By Natalie Akoorie
    5:30 AM Saturday Jan 19, 2013

    A boy who almost died of tetanus before Christmas is home and on the mend, but his parents are desperate for others to vaccinate their children after they did not.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/gillard-hits-back-over-gun-imports-20130118-2cysz.html
    [Gillard hits back over gun imports
    January 19, 2013
    Judith Ireland and Bianca Hall

    PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has hit back at claims by the Liberal Party that her government has failed at protecting Australia’s borders from illegal gun imports, saying that only 1 per cent of guns in Australia come from overseas.
    Speaking to Fairfax Media on Friday morning, Ms Gillard said that her government had ”more than doubled” the number of interceptions of illegal packages – that includes drugs and firearms – since 2007.]
    Make sure you watch the vid

    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/meddling-mp-fuels-liberal-row-20130118-2cz0w.html
    [Meddling MP fuels Liberal row
    January 19, 2013
    Royce Millar and Melissa Fyfe

    A SENIOR state MP’s bid to secure the mayoralty of a Melbourne council for her son has embroiled the Baillieu government in a political row over Liberal party interference in local government.
    Leaked emails obtained by Fairfax Media reveal upper house MP Inga Peulich intervened directly on behalf of her son Paul in his failed bid to become mayor of the City of Kingston late last year.
    After his defeat, Ms Peulich sought retribution against ”disloyal” Liberal-aligned councillors who voted 8-1 for rival councillor Ron Brownlees.]

  31. http://bridgesfrombamako.com/2013/01/16/behind-mali-conflict/
    [Behind Mali’s conflict: myths, realities & unknowns
    Posted on January 16, 2013 by brucewhitehouse

    Since the French military intervention in Mali, known as Operation Serval, began last week, the internet has been buzzing with talk about its motives. Is France really only trying to contain a terrorist threat, as it claims? Or do major world powers have other, more sinister interests at stake? At its root, what is the conflict in Mali about?

    This discourse, generated largely by journalists, analysts and activists unfamiliar with Mali, has been far too speculative for my tastes. Let’s consider what we do and don’t know about the causes and effects of international interest in Mali.]

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/18/the_eradicateurs_algeria_terrorists_hostages
    [The Eradicateurs
    Why Algeria doesn’t talk to terrorists — even if that means killing hostages.
    BY GEOFF D. PORTER | JANUARY 18, 2013]

  34. Diog: I won’t go so far as to accuse him of lying about his testicular cancer, but as a jounno in one of today’s papers pointed out (had the same cancer at same age), any cancer is not a good thing, but the chances of full recovery for this type are very high.

    Lance, it would appear, has exacggerated his ‘brush with death’. When compared to, say, ovarian cancer or other types or reproductive-tract cancers (you would be better placed to comment), he is overstating the threat. And yes, I had a large brain tumour removed (beinign) a year ago, so I do understand … Vale Vera and Gwneth :–(

  36. There is no evidence of a New Year’s resolution at the AFR to the concept of mere truth burdening its headlines.

    Page 2 headline and then paragraph #3:
    [ Gillard’s wish: wipe out the states

    She said she was a realist and was not suggesting the abolition of the states.]
    It’s worse than the Daily Telegraph

  37. http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/tafe-offers-reveal-extent-of-cuts-20130118-2cz0j.html
    [TAFE offers reveal extent of cuts
    January 19, 2013
    Benjamin Preiss and Craig Butt

    THE number of TAFE courses available to students through the state’s admissions centre has dropped markedly, according to figures from first-round offers.
    An analysis of Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre figures showed at least 170 fewer TAFE courses were available this year.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/greens-push-to-ban-drug-company-perks-for-doctors-20130118-2cyzm.html
    [Greens push to ban drug company perks for doctors
    January 19, 2013
    Julia Medew
    Health Editor

    DRUG companies will no longer be able to pay for doctors to travel to conferences under new laws proposed by the Greens to get rid of a multimillion-dollar gravy train believed to be contaminating medical practice.
    As concern mounts about the influence of drug and medical device companies’ largesse on doctors, Greens health spokesman Richard Di Natale said he would introduce a bill to the Senate to clean up the pharmaceutical sector’s interaction with health professionals.
    The bill would ban payments for doctors to travel or attend education seminars and conferences domestically and overseas, as well as the sponsorship of educational meetings intended for Australian doctors overseas. It will also ban gifts and promotional items and require companies to report the names of health professionals and the fees they are receiving for services such as speeches or consulting.]

    http://bit.ly/XkhqlV (top link)
    [Private sector closing jobs gap as indigenous work rises
    BY: PATRICIA KARVELAS
    From: The Australian
    January 19, 2013 12:00AM

    BOLD policies to close the gap between black and white Australia in employment are working, with new data revealing that employment growth for Aborigines has increased dramatically, mainly in remote areas via the private sector.

    A paper to be released by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University offers the first major analysis of the nation’s closing the gap strategy, demonstrating that between 2006 and 2011, the employment rate increased by 13 per cent in remote areas and 3 per cent in non-remote areas for the nation’s first people.]

  38. dave
    [Looks like fun, but hope they have good backup power.]
    Yes I was thinking both those very points when I looked at the video!

    I don’t know about the company, but the product looks interesting

  39. AFR reprints a story from Economist. Does not sound great…
    [Hot heads rule over China-Japan dispute

    THE ECONOMIST

    Watch Chinese television these days and you might conclude that the outbreak of war with Japan over what it calls the Senkaku and China the Diaoyu islands is only a matter of time. You might well be right.

    Since Japan in September announced it would “nationalise” three of the islands that had been privately owned, China, which has long contested Japan’s sovereignty over them, has also started challenging its resolve to keep control of them. So both countries are claiming to own the islands and both are pretending to administer them. China this week announced its intention to map them thoroughly. Something has to give…]
    http://afr.com/p/world/hot_heads_rule_over_china_japan_wMJhyaVLorR8zHAcaV5x3N

  40. Survival rates for testicular cancer are now well over 95% in Australia. There are less than 30 deaths annually from it
    There are 2 main types – one is extremely sensitive to radiotherapy and the other to chemotherapy.
    At one stage there was a public health program encouraging men to self-examine for cancer – as most men tend to do this on an hourly basis I thought it was somewhat unnecessary but then I had a patient who waited until his testis got to 20 cms until he got something done about it.

  41. Laocoon:

    [Gillard’s wish: wipe out the states]

    I recall her saying to Doyle If you started with a blank slate today you’d probably have a system with a Federal government and regional governments but I’m a realist and we justr have to work with what we have. I don’t think we’ll be seeing the states disappear any time soon. (or wtte)

    So yes, it’s bogus. She never spoke of wiping out the states.

    FTR, I’d like to see that occur, but in practice, as Gillard attests, that is improbable in any timeframe of relevance to her.

  42. Just for you Oakeshott Country 🙂
    [As for us aficionados, the strange thing is that one is guided by a kind of instinct to the right shelf. For example, in Manchester recently I found a small bookshop with so little stock that I wondered how it survived. For some reason I picked from the shelf a slim paperback on Britain’s National Health service entitled Making Sense of the NHS Complaints and Disciplinary Procedures – an illustration of an important literary principle, namely that there is no subject so boring that no one has written a book about it.

    This little book had so many bullet points that one felt one’s brain had been attacked by a Maxim gun; in the foreword, Sir Donald Irvine, erstwhile president of the General Medical Council, wrote the following one: “The early recognition of dysfunctional doctors, adequate public protection, and the chance of effective mediation before damage dependent on sound local self-regulation in which doctors know  what their duties and responsibilities are, and how to  make the system work.”

    Why on earth did I home in on this book, so dull and tedious? There was a slip of paper in the book. It was a review copy and had been sent out by a medical publication to a doctor for review. The doctor in question was Dr Harold Shipman, believed to have killed more than 200 of his patients without detection, and the book had obviously been read thoroughly. I bought it for £5, not as a memento mori, but as a reminder of the irony of human existence.]
    http://afr.com/p/national/arts_saleroom/delight_amid_the_dusty_or_dismal_z6A9tRPDcNtxkYOaphxj6H

  43. [Dan Gulberry
    Posted Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 11:18 am | PERMALINK
    My thoughts on the identity of “JM”.

    JM’s identity

    Agree with you in fact I was talking to a fellow PBber this morning and said I thought it was Shows, only think he didn’t was CAPITALS for his comments After all an 81 year old woman back of Bourke who is a lifesaver and firefighter plus various other claims, is right up Shows avenue.
    Think JM will disappear as soon as Shows comes out of Suspension, BTW that is also my last word on JM 😉

  46. Toorak Toff@3423


    Abbott is certainly the best thing going for Labor but he’s still headed for a convincing win at 51-49.

    Is he? Historically, oppositions with slender leads at this stage of the cycle have usually lost. (That said, the last Newspoll underestimates the Coalition’s lead.)

  47. A sensible observation by Chanticleer on the recent sacking of its CEO:
    [Rio is a leader in the area of corporate governance partly because it has the resources to explore every possible form of best practice in managing a modern corporation, but its leadership in this field has suffered some serious blows because of the board’s interpretation of accountability.

    Albanese and his right hand man, Doug Ritchie, have lost their jobs to take responsibility for massive write-downs.

    But no director has lost their job…]
    http://afr.com/p/business/chanticleer/massive_change_for_rio_uNW72pJXIIRlQ7TcYmC3FK

  50. Toorak Toff 3423, I may have agreed with you up until 1 July last year, but now that an incresing number of average voting punters who rarely think about politics are realising that TA’s rolled gold scare about carbon pricing was as fake as Lance Armstrong’s many (angry)claims to be drug free was a massive hoax on them, it won’t take much for Labor to cast doubt on all the other fantastically false claims made by him about pink batts, school halls, etc.

    In fact, I can feel a couple of clever one liners coming on that will make all those wild and misleading claims become an albatross around TA’s and the Liberals’ collective necks – ‘Abbott and his claims? Well, he’s made himself into the Lance Armstrong of Australian politics, hasn’t he?!’

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