GhostWhoVotes reports the latest Nielsen has come in at 57-43 to the Coalition, up from 56-44 last month. On the primary vote, Labor is down two points to 29%, the Coalition is up two to 49% and the Greens are up two to 12%. The lead Tony Abbott opened up as preferred minister in the last poll has widened slightly, from 49-43 to 50-42. His personal ratings are unchanged at 43% approve and 53% disapprove, with Gillard down one to 37% and up one to 59%. Gillard has however gained on Kevin Rudd as preferred Labor leader, up four to 35% with Rudd down five to 57%. Full tables including state and age breakdowns here. Nielsen also finds 52% opposing the proposed tax on high-earning superannuation accounts against 45% in support, and has head-to-head leader attribute ratings that generally have the two leaders fairly close together, with the notable exception of “has confidence of party”.
We also had in this morning’s News Limited tabloids a Galaxy poll which had the Coalition lead at 54-46, compared with 55-45 in the last such poll which was conducted in the immediate aftermath of Labor’s leadership crisis three weeks ago. On the primary vote, Labor was up a point to 33%, the Coalition steady on 47% and the Greens steady on 12%. The poll also found 45% saying they would more trust Tony Abbott on superannuation policy than Julia Gillard, against 34% vice-versa; 57% supporting cuts in “middle class welfare” to fund schools and the National Disability Insurance Scheme against 36% opposed; and 46% saying Gillard better represented “blue-collar workers” against 39% for Abbott.
UPDATE: Essential Research has Labor up two points to 34%, the Coalition down one to 48% and the Greens steady on 9%, with the Coalition’s two-party lead down from 56-44 to 55-45. The monthly personal ratings have Julia Gillard down two on approval to 34% and steady on disapproval at 56%, with Tony Abbott steady on 37% and up one to 52%. Abbott leads on preferred prime minister for the first time since September, moving from 39-39 to 39-37. The government’s superannuation policy gets a similar result to Nielsen’s, with 40% supportive and 46% opposed. Labor’s broadband policy however is much preferred to the Coalition’s, by 54% to 23%. There are also questions gauging awareness of Julian Assange and what contribution he could make to parliament (32% broadly positive, 50% broadly negative).
UPDATE 2: The weekly Roy Morgan multi-mode poll, whose bouncy sample size is back up to 3835 after falling below 3000 a fortnight ago, is largely unchanged on last week, with both parties up a point on the primary vote (Labor to 32% and the Coalition to 47.5%) and the Greens up half a point to 10.5%. Labor has narrowed the gap from 56.5-43.5 to 55.5-44.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, but previous election preferences are steady at 56-44. The polling glut will continue in an hour or so when Channel Seven goes to air with ReachTEL’s first ever national poll (UPDATE 3): Or rather, not. My guess is that Seven’s chosen to hold off on it for another night.
UPDATE 3: Channel Seven has now come good with the ReachTEL result, which has the Coalition leading 57-43 from primary votes of 31% for Labor and 50% for the Coalition. Tony Abbott leads as preferred prime minister 62-38 among men and 52-48 among women. The government’s superannuation policy is opposed by 43% and supported by 33%. Forty-six per cent support the National Broadband Network against 40% for the Coalition’s broadband policy. The sample on the poll was 1924. Full results here.
MB agree. I was being a bit cheeky. I have often been called a fence-sitter because I generally try to look at more than one side over issues.
DWH
I knew you were but then looking at sites like this one you sometimes need to be a bit cheeky
Briefly I agree with some of what you say but I can’t agree that Howard/Costello did nothing good in 11 years. I agree with the financial market reform, IR reforms up to Work Choices, the GST reforms, the fiscal repair measures, the Future Fund. But there were a number of policies I didn’t agree with including border protection measures that demonized refugees, Iraq, Work Choices and a failure to properly reform taxation and compliance.
As with most governments it was a mixed bag.
mimhoff
[All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to stop blaming Gillard.]
Well since we don’t want evil to triumph I suggest we good people keep blaming her.
davidwh, the reshaping of incomes and capital gains taxes combined with the negative gearing concessions and the distortions in the Super system encouraged millions of wealthy citizens to divert their savings into the property market rather than into productive enterprises. Housing, from an economic perspective, is not investment. It is consumption. So H&C encouraged wealthy citizens to borrow $1.4 trillion dollars and spend it on consumption. As a result, this economy does not and cannot balance its external income account, and we are almost certain to experience a severe recession. The only way to avoid a recession will be for the Commonwealth to run deficits – deficits that are growing faster than the economy is growing or is able to grow. So we are faced with years and years of fiscal and/or financial instability. This is inevitable. It is a direct consequence of the failures of Howard, Costello and Rudd.
Wow, today has been a real ‘bash Julia’ day on PB. One phone poll and the marionettes dance prettily.
Sobering comments briefly. I’ll contemplate the views but for now I need sleep. Night all.
Not me, Puff, I blame her predecessors 🙂
Abortion reform has just passed the Tasmanian Lower House 13-11, on a so-called conscience vote but in practice on party lines except for Speaker Michael Polley voting with the Liberals. This vote is identical to the vote on state-based same-sex marriage. Some of the Liberals made a big noise about pro-choice views they claimed to hold but found pretexts to scuttle back to a no vote.
The reform:
* eliminates the requirement for a woman to consult 2 doctors and be at wellbeing risk in order to have a termination before 16 weeks (in draft was 24 weeks but watered down)
* slightly expands the criteria doctors can consider in making decisions after 16 weeks.
* removes abortion from the Criminal Code.
* bans protests, harassment etc within 150 m of clinics.
New thread.