Newspoll and Nielsen have both published results this evening, so together with yesterday’s Galaxy the broad outline is as follows (UPDATE: Essential Research and Morgan are now included as well):
• Newspoll is steady at 56-44, from primary votes of 31% for Labor (steady), 46% for the Coalition (down one) and 9% for the Greens (down one). Julia Gillard is up two on approval to 31% and down two on disapproval to 59%, while Tony Abbott is up one to 37% and up three to 54%. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister narrows from 42-37 to 40-39.
• Nielsen is at 54-46 compared with 57-43 last month, with Labor up three on the primary vote to 32% and the Coalition down five to 44%. Julia Gillard is up three on approval to 40% and down three on disapproval to 56%, with Tony Abbott down one to 42% and up one to 54%. The two are now level at 46% all on preferred prime minister, after Abbott led 50-42 last time.
• Galaxy has the Coalition leading 54-46 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 34% for Labor, 46% for the Coalition and 10% for the Greens, all recording little change on last time.
• Essential Research is unchanged at 55-45, from primary votes of 35% for Labor (up one), 48% for the Coalition (steady) and 8% for the Greens (down one).
• The Morgan multi-mode poll has Labor steady on 32%, the Coalition down a point to 45.5% and the Greens up half a point to 10%. On both respondent-allocate and previous election preferences, the Coalition lead is down from 56-44 to 55-45.
There’s also a wealth of attitudinal polling concerning the budget and such:
• Nielsen asked if the budget would be “good for Australia”, and got 44% yes and 42% no. Newspoll has 35% believing the budget will be good for the economy (the lowest result since 2000, according to Dennis Shanahan) and 37% believing it will be bad (equal last year, which was the worst result since 1993). Morgan has the budget rated as good by 15%, average by 49% and bad by 29%.
• Nielsen has 15% expecting the budget to make them better off against 52% worse off, while Galaxy has it at 14% and 48% and Essential Research has it at 13% and 36%.
• Newspoll has 41% believing the Coalition could have produced a better budget, and an equal number believing it could not have.
• Abolition of the baby bonus has received strikingly strong support: 68% from Nielsen and 64% from Galaxy, with opposition at 27% and 22%.
• Essential Research shows 20% believing the budget cut spending too much and 34% believing it didn’t cut enough, with 21% opting for the right amount.
• Newspoll has 35% rating Wayne Swan the better treasurer against 39% for Joe Hockey, respectively down two and up one on what I presume to be budget time last year. Similarly, Galaxy has 32% rating Swan “better economic manager” against 36% for Hockey.
• Nielsen asked about constitutional recognition of local government, finding 65% supportive and 18% opposed with little variation between the states. However, I’d be very careful about translating that into likely support at a referendum.
• Essential Research shows 51% believing an Abbott government would “return to WorkChoices”, up three from March, which 26% rate a matter of concern against 15% who do not. Eighty-one per cent of respondents believed workers should be paid more for working outside normal hours.
r
Hah!
frednk@46
That’s quite a striking thing, how sensitive troll density on here is to individual polls.
rummel
Its all MOE. However an up is better than a down. It just shows what we have been saying.
Its not over until we get results on election night.
Look out walls.
I don’t find PB particularly trolly. I would suggest most of the conservative trolls that appear here are those who have been successfully trolled by Meguire Bob’s satirical posts.
4% change in PPM is more than the MOE.
Nielsen
54/46 is better for Labor than I thought considering the events of the past week.
[
….
I remind Bludgers that this question gave no option for “neither better nor worse” but presumably 31% of us replied that way or didn’t answer at all.
And with that my brief flickering political power in persuading the nation, evaporates.]
And the ABC reported this as a vote against the government economic management. You can conclude you will be worse of but still believe it is the right thing to do. The ABC has become very two dimensional.
[14 seats?
I make a 4% swing about a 92-58 seat HOR]
Yes. 72 minus 14 is 58. Top marks.
[Is there reason to believe Newspoll will be tonight]
No, there isn’t. I’ve toned down the language in my post …
Strange Ghost’s Twitter account seems to have been eaten by the Gerbils.
[So what result do you expect to happen on Sep 14th?]
I expect Labor to lose, by about this margin. Just as I expected Keating to lose in 1993.
[Psephos
Posted Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 9:46 pm | PERMALINK
14 seats?
I make a 4% swing about a 92-58 seat HOR
Yes. 72 minus 14 is 58. Top marks.]
Haha! Fair enough. I took:
[and a loss of 14 seats?]
…to mean a “margin” of 14 seats.
I would settle for a 92 to 58, or 34 seat margin, anyway….
Liberal trolls starting to panic, good we can just about see the whites of their eyes.
I wonder if the resilience of the govt vote is due to the quality of some of the candidates. People like Deb O’Neal and Mike “the bristle” Kelly are very good operators and well respected in their electorates.
Perhaps they are shoring up things somewhat.
Still, I am not surprised at the narrowing, the opposition are hopeless, their few released policies barely pass the laugh test.
A tough budget, Bonkers Tony doing his USA campaign speech in the BIR (Team Abott must have been annoyed to not have the Aussie flags and Tony-head placards in the gallery) and still he loses 4?
Maybe Aussies just don’t like that shyte?
Briefly,
I think what has been clear for months is that a lot of people who almost always vote Labor are very unhappy with their party but, at the end of the day, their flirtations with voting against their grain are usually short lived and we keep coming back to this magic number of between 54/46 and 55/45.
I think most neutral people would agree that Labor aren’t going to win this election. I feel it could go either of two ways. Election time might come and people will subtly drift back to their usual allegiances and the Coalition will win with about 53% of the 2PP — this is the best result I can see for Labor — OR, they may scent blood in the water and we could end up with a NSW-style rout on our hands. As a moderate conservative I am hoping for the former. Labor needs to go but I don’t want to see Abbott as a long-term PM. Labor’s ineptitude may be responsible for delivering four terms of Tony Abbott as PM – not something that I’m particularly keen on.
I’m going to predict 55/45 for Newspoll.
A disturbance in the force.
Both Galaxy and Neilsen showing a slight recovery for ALP – when the avalanche of opinion was that it was all over red clown rover.
NewsPoll will be held over till Monday night so Shanahan and co can extract out the worst possible polling vignette – like more people think they are worse off in the budget – rather than soberly report the slight trend evident.
Would like to see the Neilsen net satisfactions for Abbott to see what demographic has given up on him….
Boerwar
I understand the Eurovision comments were not intended as spoilers, thanks.
Gauss 43
Colin Powell had some equally impressive charts about WmDs in Iraq that were just as obviously wrong. What the Liberal party fails to comprehend is that in the next ten years in Australia people are going to get older. Some will retire. Two million extra jobs are not possible
Before Laborites get caught up in the Neilsen, it is prescient to remind that Newspoll has been erratic of late, and could well return one of those erratic results tomorrow.
Gauss, Abbott is no more likely to create any new jobs than to stop the boats. He has clearly just plucked a number from thin air and turned it into a “Promise.”
So far, all we can see is that the LNP have no policies for the economy. They are both going to raise spending and cut it. They are going to raise taxes and cut them. They are going to cut the deficit and not cut it. They are going to do everything, but not until a second term.
Were Abbott to win, the most likely reaction from the private sector and business will be to withdraw into their shells while they see what he actually intends to do. They will be asking themselves….Will he put company taxes up? Will he chop social spending? Will he cancel investment spending? Will he raise taxes for his idiotic DAP? Will there be a Double Dissolution election? And all the while, they will be watching the dollar fall and the terms of trade come down, and they will be asking themselves….can these hooligans really handle the situation?
The chances are the LNP will muff it. The Fraser Government couldn’t cope. Howard couldn’t cope either until the credit bubble saved his skin. An Abbott Government will not be able to cope….and they know it. We all know it.
William,
Coyness does not become you. Tell us what you really think.
Was just about to say, Newspoll could throw up 57-43 or 52-48 with the way they’re going.
Nemsapy
If you are a moderate conservative then you would be voting ALP.
There are no moderate conservatives in the L/NP. They were put against the wall and not even offered blindfolds or a final cigarette.
So if you vote LNP you are joking about the moderate bit and the conservative bit.
[Psephos
Posted Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 9:48 pm | Permalink
So what result do you expect to happen on Sep 14th?
I expect Labor to lose, by about this margin. Just as I expected Keating to lose in 1993.]
Well I think this victory is going to be a lot sweeter (Hewson was not a nutter that would plunge Aus economy into recession-PK had already done that).
There will not be enough eggs to go around. Abbott’s concession speech should be a doozy. Fun to be had by all I reckon.
briefly @ 71
Yes I know; 2 legs bad, 4 legs good. And Wayne Swan is an economic genius.
‘Any other Shots in the Labor locker?’
Just really good policy which improves peoples lot now and into the future.
fess
[could well return one of those erratic results tomorrow.]
We could a Tom getthefreckoutamyhouse and bet on it!
Ducky
[Have any entrails handy?]
Visiting the Oracle at Delphi leaves a smaller carbon footprint.
[sprocket_
Posted Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 9:53 pm | Permalink
NewsPoll will be held over till Monday night so Shanahan and co can extract out the worst possible polling vignette – ]
Won’t get reported, definitely won’t make the front page.
[The chances are the LNP will muff it. The Fraser Government couldn’t cope. Howard couldn’t cope either until the credit bubble saved his skin. An Abbott Government will not be able to cope….and they k
now it. We all know it.]
Interesting.
Questions ensue such as why bother with an alternative destined to fail?
Seriously, why?
Seems little more strange on PB tonight.
If the general belief that Labor is going to get wiped out in Sydney is true, then to produce this result there must be virtually no swing anywhere else. A 10% swing in Sydney and the Central Coast would cost Labor 13 seats: Greenway, Robertson, Lindsay, Banks, Reid, Parramatta, Dobell, Kingsford Smith, Werriwa, Barton, McMahon, Fowler and Watson.
Seems pretty normal to me Zoidlord 🙂
not a bad poll, I’d obviously rather it was closer but there’s still time and Abbott being beaten is within reach
i think the policy debate is helping – look what the Libs are offering
Fraudband – widely condemned as an expensive stop gap measure
PPL – whacked by all but a few feminists – hated by business and some now vocal members of the back bench
IR (being outsourced) – goes too far for those on the left, not far enough for those on the right
Education – it’s fine as it is, yeah right!!!
Budget reply – cut pension supplement, delay super increases, cut super concessions for the poor, cut school kids bonus, cut the humanitarian intake of refugees
Tax reform – puts the GST on the table, does anyone really trust them to get the compensation right???
Direct Action – no one knows what it is, business calling for an ETS
It’s no wonder they are starting to struggle
Puff:
Indeed. 🙂
I am not talking about “moderate conservative” on the world political landscape, I refer to the Australian one. I’d place myself somewhere between Hockey and Turnbull.
Psephos,
I don’t think whatever of persuasion realizes that statistics really do work.
[I expect Labor to lose, by about this margin. Just as I expected Keating to lose in 1993.]
I think you are being overly pessimistic. I think there will be a Narrowing but it won’t be enough.
[Diogenes
Posted Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 10:02 pm | PERMALINK
Ducky
Have any entrails handy?
Visiting the Oracle at Delphi leaves a smaller carbon footprint.]
I go and ask the Oracle at Delphi regularly 😀 But not this year!
Socrates @ 69
Not possible? That’s ridiculous. Is it a cert? By no means. The retirement age is increasing & the population (base) is higher than in 1996 when Howard was elected. Didn’t the number of jobs in his 12 years in government increase by 2 million?
I think the key determinant re jobs will be the direction of the Labor productivity variable over the next 10 years
Diogenes but Keating won in 1993!!!
@Davidwh/84
I did say more strange, normal would just be normal 😛
Oh look, a budget bounce!
Not really
Not sure about “the narrowing”. When Labor government’s lose elections, they’re more often than not landslides
[Psephos
Posted Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 10:04 pm | PERMALINK
….. A 10% swing in Sydney and the Central Coast would cost Labor 13 seats:]
Had a little play with Antonys calculator:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2013/calculator/?mode=regional&overall=0&nsw=-5.5&vic=0&qld=-3.9&wa=0&sa=-0.2&tas=-0.1&act=0&nt=-0.1&retiringmps=false&lyne=nat&neng=nat&kenn=lnp&ocon=lib
The LNP can get to 90 seats with just a 5.5% swing in NSW and 3.9% swing in Qld, with no swing anywhere else in the country by my calculations…
mari
I didn’t know there was anything left of the Oracle’s hangout.
Pardon, federally
[66
Nemspy
Briefly,
Labor needs to go but I don’t want to see Abbott as a long-term PM. Labor’s ineptitude may be responsible for delivering four terms of Tony Abbott as PM – not something that I’m particularly keen on.]
Four terms?
I don’t think Abbott will last more than one term. The world is moving very quickly, but the LNP are not moving at all. To the contrary, they want to take us all back to Nursery Land.
Seriously, not so long ago Hockey addressed a gathering of Chartered Accountants in Sydney. He made a virtue of saying he had no plans to change fiscal policy at all. His justification was that everyone was worn out by change.
Obviously, he cannot stretch to thinking about the budget. His main goal, if elected, is to have a long bludge.
He has not come up with even ONE idea for budgetary reform. Not even an inkling. Not even a hint of an idea. He doesn’t want to change anything, when, as is perfectly obvious, the fiscal settings really must be changed. He is so bereft of ideas that he is going to get someone else to “audit” the budget first. He could be expected to have even a small notion of what he might like to do and to have the confidence to allow us into his thinking. But no, there is nothing going on upstairs for Joe Hockey.
Funnily enough, the best chance for Tony to create two million extra jobs is for him to keep the boats coming. I say again, two million extra jobs even over ten years, is impossible.
Our population growth now is the highest on record, and highest in the developed world – 1.7% pa. that would increase the workforce about 200,000 per year. So if our record population growth continued, if they all got jobs, then that would be two million. Problem is, that assumes that nobody retires. Rubbish. If our population returns to long term averages, this cannot be done.
[Psephos
Posted Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 10:04 pm | PERMALINK
If the general belief that Labor is going to get wiped out in Sydney is true, ]
Talking with many friends in Sydney over the last 6 months or so one gets the “it’s inevitable” comment over and over again. The excruciating demise of the State labor govt is the benchmark people are using, it was so bad that the inevitability was rightly confirmed come Election Day
Is the Federal government as bad? When you start delving a bit deeper with the same inevitable people, the short answer is no. They have jobs, they have money, they have wealth and they like the social, environmental and nation building policies. They don’t like Gillard, and they don’t like Abbott – one is seen as a ruthless politician who has gotten there by fair means or foul, the other a weird fool.
My gut feeling is that with a good campaign, Sydney won’t be too far off status quo come September.