Bit of a difference of opinion this week between Essential Research, a series renowned for its stability, and the Morgan multi-mode poll which, until now at least, has adhered very closely to the overall polling trend. The former has the Coalition ahead 52-48, as it did last week when it took the unusual step of publishing a figure for the polling period immediately following the leadership change, instead of its usual fortnightly rolling average. The major parties’ primary votes are also unchanged, with Labor on 38% and the Coalition on 46%, while the Greens are down a point to 8%.
Morgan on the other hand gives Labor an eyebrow-raising lead of 54.5-45.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, up from 51.5-48.5 on last time, although on the more trustworthy measure of previous election preferences the result is a slightly less striking 52.5-47.5, up from 51-49. This is the first time the Morgan multi-mode series has produced a substantial disparity between the two measures, and it’s in the opposite direction of the issue which bedevilled the old Morgan face-to-face series, in which preferences flows to Labor were unrealistically weak. The primary votes are 41.5% for Labor (up two), 39.5% for the Coalition (down one) and 8.5% for the Greens (unchanged).
The Essential poll also gauges views on the leaders’ attributes, which should make enjoyable reading for Kevin Rudd, who is widely rated as intelligent, hard-working and capable, and not seen as narrow-minded, intolerant or out of touch. His worst results on negative measures were for arrogant and erratic, while his weakest on positive measures were for honesty, trustworthiness and being visionary. Abbott rated well for hard-working and intelligent, as political leaders generally do, but also scored high for narrow-minded, arrogant and out of touch. Fewer than a third of respondents thought him trustworthy, honest or visionary.
Forty-nine per cent of respondents thought Labor would be more united in the wake of the leadership change, against 14% for less united. Other questions found a general view that the election should be held sooner than later, and produced unsurprising results on asylum seekers, the NBN, mining tax, carbon tax, disability insurance and the education reforms formerly known as Gonski.
Dee
Mud.
This Newspoll is in outlier territory.
[Will we deluged with policies from the Coalition?
Or will Rabbott’s Coalition stay on form and start throwing mud to slow the momentum?]
They’ll pursue Option 2.
In fact they have been doing it already. It has bee batts & boats, batts & boats for the last 2 weeks.
The depression induced by an Abbott victory is beginning, slowly, to outweigh the unseating of Julia in this brutal Australian political landscape. The ALP will always be greater than the sumof its parts, or its leader, and with the likes of Wong and Albo, the ALP still has a beating heart.
I had hoped that Rudd would go to the election in October, once he had governed for a while again. Now I think he’s going to have to go soon to ensure he keeps Abbott as his opponent.
Zoidlord
Thanks and, hehe :). Looking forward to the 2pp. I expect Labor is now at 50/50 or better.
[This Newspoll is in outlier territory.]
Which way?
Outlier.
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes 2m
#Newspoll Election timing: Before Sept 14th 24 On Sept 14th 25 After Sept 14th 9 #auspol
One problem that I see with the Libs is that they have used ‘stability’ as a line of attack so heavily towards Labor.
If they now themselves change, then they have rendered one of their attack lines redundant.
Saying that I so hope that they don’t change.
[I had hoped that Rudd would go to the election in October, once he had governed for a while again.]
I thought late September was the best idea.
[Now I think he’s going to have to go soon to ensure he keeps Abbott as his opponent.]
Rudd V Abbott is a much better match up for Labor than Rudd V Turnbull.
The Liberals are a compassionate lot at heart. I am sure they will give Abbott another chance if they do not win this time. 🙂
If the Labor MP’s can overcome their dislike of Rudd there is no reason the LNP can’t do the same with Turnbull. The problem is there is insufficient time for all the necessary factors to play out. Unless the polls get too bad for the LNP then there will be a period when they feel the polls may swing back.
Still as MB has been saying for quite a while there is only one poll that counts and we aren’t there yet.
[One problem that I see with the Libs is that they have used ‘stability’ as a line of attack so heavily towards Labor.
If they now themselves change, then they have rendered one of their attack lines redundant.
Saying that I so hope that they don’t change.]
I think the Libs are stuck with Abbott including his idiotic policies.
[The Liberals are a compassionate lot at heart. I am sure they will give Abbott another chance if they do not win this time. ]
No way, he will be gone. He won’t even re-contest the leadership.
ModLib @ 738
We are in the ALP 65 to 85 seat territory now and if the current leaders stay, it will depend on how they perform, and how tightly those behind them stick to / with them.
=====================
Most days I ride my bike past the front gates of the Gov generals joint. I’m expecting to see the C1 car rolling up anytime soon.
Rudd has taken back the agenda from Abbott and co who just have nothing except boats, boats, boats… He’s communicating effectively and with meaning to the voting public and they want that. It just makes Abbott look like an annoying little whinger.
If I were Tony Abbott I’d be trying to get off the narrative he’s been bleating for the last three years. Try saying yes to something constructive for once. Try being ‘prime-ministerial’.
[ This Newspoll is in outlier territory. ]
Quite likely, yes. Also possibly peak “honeymoon” territory.
One has to wonder at the timing of this NewsPoll, however.
Has Murdoch decided that having successfully rolled Gillard, they now also need to roll Abbott?
I predict interesting times ahead!
Agree Showy. The Libs are pretty well locked in I feel.
The way things are going I may yet be able to vote for Wyatt and keep the youngster.
ShowsOn 764
I was being sarcastic about the Liberals being compassionate. I agree there will be no third chance for Abbott.
Our T is going to need the weakest opponent to face in the election, support this easily gained can very easily be lost. Voters pressing the sms to vote for the next Aussie Political Idol is a fickle business.
There is a lot of hubris here, based on KRuddPM being hailed as the saviour of the masses from the Ogre Julia.
What the mob confers the mob can easily take back.
[Quite likely, yes. Also possibly peak “honeymoon” territory.]
Why? There are still a lot of undecideds for Rudd on approval.
What happens if he gets more of those people onside?
[I predict interesting times ahead!]
A profound observation. No-one else could have predicted that.
[I really doubt this is the case. They are trying to reconfigure the national campaign which up until 2 weeks ago had given up trying to win any seat on a margin under 6 or 7%.]
If Labor have their nose in front going into an election campaign I don’t fancy Abbott Coalition doing well against a Rudd campaign….even with the MSM on their side.
Sorry try to keep the youngster. Presently he would be in extreme doubtful territory.
Curious stance from Abbott on 7.30 Show, referring to his party addressing the future by offering a return to the Howard years. Might win a few of the over 70s vote, but I suspect the rest of Australia just yawned. Looked like a loser who has been caught in the headlights of a Double B.
If the MSM decide to role Abbott they better be quick..so it will be obvious from this moment on if it is the case.
Player One@766
Easily explained in hindsight: Nielsen is due out next week and Newspoll likes to avoid clashing with Nielsen. But if Newspoll skipped next week and this week it would be going three weeks between releases at a time of great interest, which would be silly. Hence the decision to poll this week.
[davidwh
Posted Monday, July 8, 2013 at 11:58 pm | Permalink
The 50/50 isn’t too bad but the Coalition won’t win with a primary vote around 42%. I don’t trust that Others will split 60/40 to the Coalition.]
I think that’s a good call David.
William we deserve a new thread 🙂 to make the natives happy chappies.
[738
Mod Lib
Oils aint oils as they say, and a 50:50 cannot be assumed to mean that every seat is a toss-up and we will end up with another 73 all result.]
I’m still a believer in the power of the “demonstration effect”. That is, as it becomes quite clearly socially acceptable to express dislike for TA by declaring support for Labor, Labor’s PV will tend to rise further. “Soft” or only “provisionally attached” LNP support will erode quickly, as voters act on their feelings on Rudd-vs-Abbott.
It is way too early to know if the electorate will divide 50/50. In fact, what we should say is the electorate is in rapid flux (again), and that support for Rudd-Labor could climb a lot further, in just the same way as Howard shifted opinion in 2001.
The reasons for this include the messages from Rudd-Labor on the key issues, but also the desire to flee the negativism that permeates the Abbott-LNP product.
Player One,
The more interesting question is, did Kevin Rudd have any meetings with Murdoch when Murdoch was last in Oz? Has there been any contact between Kevin Rudd and Murdoch prior to the replacement of PMJG?
And…
Has anything been said about the future NBN by KRuddPM, including endorsing it to proceed unchanged?
If he has endorsed the NBN, then my mind can be at rest, he being a man of his word.
Oh, ditto ABC.
“Curious stance from Abbott on 7.30 Show, referring to his party addressing the future by offering a return to the Howard years. Might win a few of the over 70s vote, but I suspect the rest of Australia just yawned. Looked like a loser who has been caught in the headlights of a Double B.”
Why would you want to go back in time ?
Darn sometimes I’m not as silly as I look.
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes 28s
#Newspoll Abbott: Approve 35 (0) Disapprove 56 (0) #auspol]
Stuck in his rut where he belongs.
[I’m still a believer in the power of the “demonstration effect”. That is, as it becomes quite clearly socially acceptable to express dislike for TA by declaring support for Labor, Labor’s PV will tend to rise further. “Soft” or only “provisionally attached” LNP support will erode quickly, as voters act on their feelings on Rudd-vs-Abbott.]
And doesn’t Abbott have some serious expectations to live up to?
2 weeks ago it was EXPECTED that he was going to romp home in a massive landslide. Won’t the fact that the polls seem to now be tied on the 2pp shift a lot of attention back onto Abbott and some pressure as well?
Wait until the reporting of this Newspoll tomorrow, he is going to say that now things are tied and Kevin Rudd is the preferred PM. That will re-frame the next week leading up to the Neilsen poll.
@Puff/780
That was before his call to younger voters.
He supports NBN fully as does Albo.
[If he has endorsed the NBN, then my mind can be at rest, he being a man of his word.]
Oh FFS! Only in the advert that Labor put on TV on Sunday night!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8M0Sf7a34g
I plugged this in this morning before these three polls came out. Basically, it’s Bludgertrack with Green’s election calculator giving a state-by-state breakdown..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/calculator/?mode=regional&overall=1.5&nsw=1.5&vic=-5.3&qld=5.0&wa=2.3&sa=-3.4&tas=-12.6&act=-4.3&nt=-4.3&retiringmps=false
Basically Labor loses seats in Victoria and Tasmania but picks up a lot more in Queensland, and a few in NSW, and WA.
It’ll be very interesting to plug in the figures for the next Bludgertrack.
[781
Yesiree Bob
“Curious stance from Abbott on 7.30 Show, referring to his party addressing the future by offering a return to the Howard years. Might win a few of the over 70s vote, but I suspect the rest of Australia just yawned. Looked like a loser who has been caught in the headlights of a Double B.”]
What is even more peculiar is believing that Abbott – who is obviously nothing like Howard – can defeat Rudd, who was able to defeat the genuine article.
The public decided in 2007 that the Howard era needed to be brought to a close, and did so quite emphatically. The LNP might be nostalgic for that episode, but most Australians were very happy to move on.
Heh, just watching Q&A on iview now, and Turnbull made the mistake of defining what it was KR was doing as trying to democratise the ALP. What a softy! Thanks Malcom, always useful to have your enemies frame things positively for you. Abbott and co. would have been talking about ALP window dressing or some such.
[This little black duck
Posted Tuesday, July 9, 2013 at 12:06 am | Permalink
This Newspoll is in outlier territory]
Outlier for whom?
[davidwh
Posted Tuesday, July 9, 2013 at 12:20 am | Permalink
Darn sometimes I’m not as silly as I look.]
I’m sure you look just fine David 😆
Nobody expects any Labor gains in Vic or SA (except Melbourne back from the Greens.) However, holding the line there will be key and maybe just trying to scare the Libs in their razor-thin marginals.
The key to a Rudd victory will be getting NSW and QLD seats back. Also a couple of seats from NT and WA wouldn’t hurt either.
Tasmania is basically damage control but Rudd could probably limit it to the two traditionally marginal Tasmanian seats of Bass and Braddon.
Lev Lafayette@787
Actually you don’t need to do that, except to see which seats will drop, because William has his own state seat estimates and his methods are superior to plugging things into Antony’s calculator.
One issue with plugging things into Antony’s calculator is that sometimes you get a distribution where the ALP wins the most seats but wins a lot more very close ones than the Coalition does. In practice Labor would probably lose some of those very close ones and William’s model takes account of that. That’s one reason why for the same figures William gets 74 seats but the calculator gets 78. (Another is the calculator can’t handle double-digit swings in Tas.)
Same problem with the projection using Antony’s calculator and showing 77 that was doing the rounds not long after the shift.
Not an outlier for anyone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier
[784….ShowsOn]
There is another factor at play that I think is relevant to your observations. The public are really VERY unhappy with the content and conduct of politics of the last few years. There is a lot of frustration and even feelings of disgust that politics has become so personal, negative and trivial. I think voters have been attaching some of these feelings to both TA and, whether fairly or not, particularly to JG.
Now that JG is out of the picture, it is possible that TA is going to get the blame for the lamentable state of our political discourse. Deep down, voters may be hoping that by rejecting TA, they are reclaiming a more optimistic, reasoned and respectful politics. Certainly, in WA, where we like our politics to played according to a fairly cordial code, there is a very strong reaction against the bitterness of the last few years, and this appears to be working against TA.
He’s still talking about today’s applications w.r.t. to broadband, even if he’s good at talking about it :).
Btw, Rudd’s Disapproval is almost Abbott’s Approval rating….
50-50 is completely unsurprising and, TBH, Labor needs to get higher than that.
I suppose one solace to take away from it being at 50-50 is nobody in the ALP is going to be complacent about this election. I feel that was one thing we did wrong in 2010.
I must say it’s strange seeing a leader with positive net approval ratings. It’s been a while.