Nielsen: 50-50

The first Nielsen poll since the leadership change follows the general trend in finding Labor drawing level with the Coalition after spending a long period in some place lower than the doldrums.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the first Nielsen poll since the leadership change has Labor bouncing from 57-43 behind to dead level, from primary votes of 39% for Labor (up 10), 44% for the Coalition (down three) and 9% for the Greens (down two). Kevin Rudd’s personal ratings are 51% approve and 43% disapprove, while Tony Abbott is on 41% (down three) and 56% disapprove (up three). Rudd leads as preferred prime minister by 55-41. More to follow.

UPDATE: Full tables plus leadership attributes results, courtesy as usual of the ghost with the most.

UPDATE 2 (Essential Research): The ever inflexible Essential Research still has the Coalition lead at 52-48, although Labor is up a point on last week to 39% with the Coalition steady on 46% and the Greens down one to 7%. Also featured are personal approval ratings, with Kevin Rudd on 50% approve and 35% disapprove against 39% and 51% for Tony Abbott, with Rudd leading 50-35 as preferred prime minister. There is also very strong support for Kevin Rudd’s notion that party leaders should be chosen by members as well as caucus, with 56% approval and 19% disapproval. A question on the state of the economy finds a sharp deterioration since April, with good down nine points to 36% and poor up four to 30%, with the usual huge disparities according to voting intention. Thirty-eight per cent thought the economy headed in the right direction, up two since July, against 42% for the wrong direction, up three. There is also a question on respondents’ personal involvement in the past week, showing 56% had watched federal politicians on television, 50% discussed federal politics with friends and family, and 43% had seen television advertising by the parties.

UPDATE 3 (Morgan): Morgan has both Labor and the Coalition up on the primary vote, respectively by half a point to 42% and 1.5% to 41%, with another bad poll showing for the Greens who are down 1.5% to 7%. This causes last week’s attention-grabbing 54.5-45.5 lead on two-party preferred to rein in to 52.5-47.5, but the size of Labor’s lead last week was inflated by a blowout in respondent-allocated preferences which has come down somewhat this week. On the stable measure of two-party preferred using preference flows from the previous election, the change is from 52.5-47.5 to 51.5-48.5. And bless their hearts, they are continuing to provide weekly state breakdowns, which find the position in Queensland returning to a believable situation of parity between the two parties after last week’s blowout of 57-43 to Labor.

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.

2,530 comments on “Nielsen: 50-50”

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  1. So many 50-50 polls now, including when Gillard was leader. Just can’t quite get in front.

    BK, I wasn’t aware if this Turnbull quote in the Kenny article:
    [“There are a lot of people out there who would rather I was leading the Liberal Party; it is ridiculous to deny that that’s not happening,” he told the Nine Network.]
    He could have refused to comment at all. This is enough for me to believe that he wants the job back before the election. He has very slightly dipped his toe in the water.

  5. [“The Government is moving in this direction because a floating price takes cost of living pressures off Australian families, and still protects the environment and acts on climate change,” Mr Rudd said.]

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/prime-minister-kevin-rudd-continues-push-to-dump-carbon-tax-at-cost-of-6-billion/story-fni0cx12-1226679252041

    For those questioning my post last night that Rudd had linked cost of living to the carbon tax

  6. Gas is the immediate (10- 20 years) solution to radically reducing CO2 emissions. An ETS may be part of the solution although I’m doubtful.

    1. Only 6-7% of world emissions are currently covered by an ETS or carbon tax. We are stupid to be in the forefront of this.

    2. At around $5- $6 per tonne CO2 there will be little difference between coal and gas. What’s needed is direct action to promote, develop & bring on gas as the major component of our energy needs over the next 10- 20 years. Other, less expensive, more carbon neutral energy technologies will be developed in the meantime to take over from gas in 10- 20 years.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/forget-subsidy-bloated-feelgood-energy-gas-is-the-solution/story-fni1hfs5-1226679297638

  8. Looks like Rudd is going after regional QLD with his itinerary this week

    [Yesterday, Rudd jetted out of Cairns headed for Papua New Guinea, reliving those heady days of December 2007.

    He returns late today before hosting a Community Cabinet meeting in Rockhampton on Tuesday and then travelling to Gladstone, Mackay and Townsville.]

  9. Morning All

    Shame about the cricket but we did well to get as close as we did – hoping to see some changes to the batting line up before the second test.

    Nice poll, 50-50 now is good – get to the election though, the second honeymoon won’t necessarily last OR if it does, a Liberal leadership change would become a real chance of happening if they have time. Call the election imo

    Can’t believe the Liberals are trying to get away with calling the ETS a “tax” – it was a stretch, but a reasonable one, to call the carbon tax a tax – doing the same with an ETS is just stupid.

    Question now is – how will Rudd pay for the change??? There were suggestions last week that all technical EL2’s in DHS were told to either accept a reclassification to EL1 or take a package – will the public service be forced to take the hit??? http://www.cutshurt.com.au

  10. Ah, the 8.00am Black Hole that spaghettified my post. Luckily I’d copied it!

    Guardian Another article by Lenore Taylor: The real politics behind a floating price on carbon Discussion has been locked in fact-free debate for so long it’s easy to forget reducing emissions is the point of the exercise

    [Starting a “floating” carbon price one year early is not such a big deal, really. The fact that every political party is screaming about it just proves how twisted the politics of this issue has become.

    For Kevin Rudd, it’s a way to reboot a debate Labor has been comprehensively losing, and provide businesses and households with some very short term cost relief…

    For the Greens it’s an opportunity for product differentiation ahead of an election that’s looking very difficult for the minor party.

    But Christine Milne’s argument that Australia’s economic transformation will be somehow fundamentally interrupted by allowing the price to drop to international levels just one year earlier than planned doesn’t make sense.

    And for Tony Abbott it turns back against him his own successful blurring of the difference between a carbon tax (which Julia Gillard promised not to have) and a floating price emissions trading scheme (which has always been Labor’s policy in one way or another, and until Abbott became leader was the Coalition’s policy as well). A one year shift in the start of the floating price could never have resulted in front page headlines proclaiming “carbon tax to go” if it hadn’t been for Abbott’s own hard work decrying the fixed price “tax” for the last three years.]

  11. Morning all. BK thanks for the links. I hope Obama does go after Zimmerman; I am amazed he was not at leat convicted of mamslaughter, given that Trayvon Martin was unarmed. You have to wonder about the jury selection and police investigation.

  12. [wow Sean! You have been repeating that we are at “peak Rudd” over and over to yourself for the last 2.5 weeks.

    Now you are predicting Rudd will win.]

    No I’m predicting Rudd COULD win.

    But I’m hoping that this is like the many polls when Beazley was in front and the Laboristas were celebrating how popular their guy was when come election day the punters made the right choice and voted the Coalition again.

  13. Regarding the polls and the question of the “others” vote %, could others include those not registered to vote? We know there are over one million of them, as those defenders of democracy at Menzies House point out.
    http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2013/07/australias-orwellian-democracy.html

    Incidentally, while I would not recommend Menzies Hose as reading for political advice, their ability to inadvertently insult their own candidate is remarkable:
    [And the irony is that these countries often have higher voter turnouts than we do. This is because in a democracy, leaders need to inspire people to vote. Here, our leaders only need to be slightly less repulsive than the other guys and compulsory voting does the rest. At 81% our VAP (voting age population) voter turnout is lower than Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and many others.]

    They may be more honest than they ever meant to be 🙂

  15. Christine Milne will end up being a disaster for the greens. Although I wasn’t a fan of Bob Brown he came across as reasonable. Milne comes across as a radical that refuses to compromise. I suspect the greens will go the way of the democrats, at some point in time they will make a deal with the devil. They may get an environmental outcome but at a political cost that destroys them. If you can’t be politically pragmatic you will eventually fail.
    The democrats crossed the line from a minor party that “kept the bastards honest” to thinking they were major players. The electorate quite rightly treated them as major players at the next election.
    The greens risk the same thing, you are either a single issue party that influences policy or you are a major player. Milne seems to want to be both.

  16. Good Morning

    @MrDenmore: Abbott’s ‘direct action’ policy on climate change is unaffordable, incoherent and inferior to Rudd’s market-driven ETS, says @AlanKohler

  17. Think I agree with you Smaug

    I think the Green’s decision to form an alliance with the ALP was foolish – of course they could agree to support them for government – that is to be expected but the whole “alliance” made BOTH sides look weak.

    Milne is not at all charismatic and the greens need to move her on.

    My problem is that I am not wrapped in Adam Bandt. He seems to me to be a bit of a single issue (gay rights) person and I have NOT seen much breadth of vision.

  18. I hope Bowen and Rudd sort out their messaging before their announcement tomorrow – pretty stupid to say the change from the carbon tax is about easing cost of living pressures when they’ve argued for years that most have been over compensated.

    I hope the savings are sensible ones and mostly relate to winding back industry compensation – I won’t hold my breath though

    Anyways, best get to work – have a great day all

  21. [ But I’m hoping that this is like the many polls when Beazley was in front and the Laboristas were celebrating how popular their guy was when come election day the punters made the right choice and voted the Coalition again. ]

    Well truthie – point to an example where a LOTO with a disapproval rating of 56, which keeps increasing – then went on to win the election.

    You miss the point the electorate has never liked abbott.

    If he is going to change all this he better be darn quick.

    If the tories are going dump him for turnbull, they had better be quick as well.

  23. Morning all.

    [Quote of the year! “Kevin Rudd is running scared from Tony Abbott.”]

    Pyne hasn’t gotten the Textor talking points yet. He’s supposed to be ‘Tony Abbott lite’, not running scared of him.

  25. [Tony Abbott says the coalition’s anti-carbon tax campaign has been vindicated as the Rudd government fast-tracks a move to an emissions trading scheme.

    The government looks set to scrap the tax and shift to an ETS a year early, in July 2014.

    This will result in the fixed $24.15 per tonne tax being dumped in favour of a floating price that could be as low as $5.90.

    Mr Abbott says the decision “vindicates” the coalition’s campaign against the carbon tax.]
    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/17998361/coalition-vindicated-on-carbon-tax-abbott/

    Better messaging from Abbott who has obviously been re-programmed and rebooted overnight.

  27. The Coalition are still favourites to win in the betting market.

    Seems the punters agree this is a Rudd sugar hit and the real Rudd will be exposed shortly(actually starting to happen now)

    Gotta Zip, i’m off to my talkfest in PNG on the Kev 747

  29. [Hundreds of thousands of WA households could be hit with higher electricity prices under a proposed shake-up of bills aimed at recovering the massive cost to the system caused by the popularity of rooftop solar panels.

    WA’s energy chiefs are understood to be pushing for a change in the structure of bills to make customers pay more in fixed charges.

    At present, most of a householder’s electricity bill stems from the amount of electricity used. Fixed costs, such as the supply charge, make up about 15 per cent of the bill. However, solar panels have slashed consumption for those households, cutting revenue to State-owned power companies, including retailer Synergy and network operator Western Power.]
    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/17996196/power-supply-shake-up/

    This is why I don’t believe anyone who tells me that getting rid of carbon pricing, or lowering the amount of the actual price electricity suppliers pay will have flow-on effects to consumers.

  30. Good morning day one of retirement.

    I don’t think the Greens will go the way of the Democrats, because they are a much more ideologically motivated party, with a defined and probably enduring core vote. The inner city elite which is their demographic base is still growing. I think their vote will permanently fluctuate around 10% – that is, 8% in bad years, 12% in good years. That’s enough to retain a Senate presence but not to break through into lower houses. This year will I think be a bad year for them. Milne is a poor leader and Rudd is drawing the alienated Labor voters back – ironic since he’s the most right-wing leader Labor has ever had.

  31. tAustralia ‏@GuardianAus 11m
    Top story: Kevin Rudd’s return prompts significant bounce for Labor in polls http://gu.com/p/3hacx/tw

    Hide summary Reply
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    The Guardian tp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/14/kevin-rudd-la

  32. Gauss

    [Gas is the immediate (10- 20 years) solution to radically reducing CO2 emissions.]

    If The Oz printed that, I’m a bit gob-smacked; because, much though the Greens scream, it IS correct, especially as a way of fast-tracking Carbon Pollution Reduction in the most cost-effective way.

    Queensland’s “Green” – gas, landfill, biomass, hydro etc – Power Stations, and types of fuel they use

    FACT: Not all “natural gas”, or “Coal Seam Gas” require “fracking” so forget fracking for the moment!

    1. In Qld’s Surat & Bowen Basins, most fracked gas will be piped to Gladstone & exported (lots of very nice Carbon Credits in that for Oz!)

    2. Surat Basin also produces Natural/ CSG (ie non-fracked) gas – the gas that first lit Roma over a century ago; the gas Brisbane’s been using for almost half a century & much of the rest SEQ and other Qld areas using for many years.

    3. Natural Qld (& WA) Gas has been lowering vehicle emissions, and fuel costs, also for decades.

    4. Qld has been switching its power stations to gas (inc landfill & biomass) for quite some time. List of power stations in Queensland identifies which Power stations are:

    *still coal-fired (fewer than a dozen)

    *gas turbine: type of gas used – natural(4-5), CSG (4-5), coalbed methane (2-3), oil (2) & kerosene (1) NB-as the fracking process is very very recent & still little used; the CSG used in powerhouses is (so far) Non-fracked!

    Reciprocating gas: NB the number where gas comes from recycling Landfill Gas (8), sewage gas (1), naturas gas (1), CSG (2), coalbed methane (1)

    Gas (recriprocating) Landfill gas (8), sewage (1), CSG (2) natural gas (1), natural gas/diesel (1) coalbed methane (1)

    OTHER: Hydro (7), Wind Farm (2), Biomass combustion (27) – mainly to power sugar mills, Suncoast Gold Macadamias, Visy Paper, Brisbane.

  33. Psephos:

    Great speech by the way.

    At uni we were taught that Australia led the way in its public health response to HIV/AIDS, with the establishment of self-determining Aids Councils (along with treating AIDS as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue) among the ways in which we differed from countries such as the US.

    You must feel very proud to have been a part of something so defining, and with a lasting legacy 30 odd years later.

  35. Qanda

    [Tonight’s Panel
    Stephen Smith – Minister for Defence
    Julie Bishop – Deputy Opposition Leader
    Scott Ludlam – WA Greens Senator
    Narelda Jacobs – WA’s first indigenous television news presenter
    Mitch Hooke – CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia]

  37. [Australia captain Michael Clarke says he needs to improve his use of the decision review system (DRS) after conceding his failed appeals contributed to the side’s 14-run first Test defeat.]

    I’d suggest the top order batsmen would be better off working on consolidating the starts they’ve gotten than worrying about working the DRS system.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-15/clarke-aims-to-improve-his-use-of-drs-after-first-test-defeat/4819658

  40. Morning all. Grizzling weather here but no real rain. We need an inch over 24 hours.

    The magpies have begun building their nests so they must reckon spring is sprung.

    Is it a false spring? Have they, too, been dudded by the Rudd Delusion?

  42. One of the less commented upon aspects of the current political settings is the way that Labor has, increasingly, become the party best representing the interests of business.

    * As underscored by Alan Kohler’s comment linked above, the ETS is a market driven mechanism – the very essence of a business-based approach. The LNP policy, as he notes, is expensive, inefficent, dumb.

    * The Abbott paid parental extravaganza is a heavy impost on big business, absurdly unaffordable, and a nightmare to those on the right of the party. Labor’s, by comparison, is affordable, sensible and much the preferred option for business

    * Rudd is making it very clear he is prepared to put productivity gains right near the top of his economic agenda. He will not mess with workplace laws – but then does business really want the uncertainty that comes with the introduction of extremist legislation such as WorkChoices, only to see it torn down? Surely the preference is for a sensible policy that takes everyone along in the spirit of consensus. That creates that Holy Grail of the business world : Certainty

    * Another aspect of certainty, again little commented upon, is that while Labor has had a famously fractious personality dispute in recent years, the policy gulf within LNP ranks is far more unsettling to business in its potential implications. You have a potential alternative LNP leader, Malcolm Turnbull whose preferred policy approach on a whole raft of issues is wildly different to Abbott’s.

  43. Confessions, thanks, and yes I do.

    My say, no I’m not 65, but I will be 60 in September, and I have quit my job, so I think that constitutes retirement. I’m not saying I’ll never been in paid employment again, but I don’t need to, so it’s likely I won’t.

  45. Looking at the Nielsen Tables, the 55+ age demographic is obviously very Abbottesque in preference. I guess it figures ….. the older you get the more you might tend to live in the past, and that’s what Abbott offers. Old wankers! 🙂

    And the youngest group and women stand out as Rudd afficionados.

  49. Everyone remember when Dillard knifed Kev in the back? We were seeing polls of 50% TPP for Gillards honeymoon and she was going to “save” Labor at the election.

    Everyone remember that?

    Now we are meant to be impressed by a sugar hit 50% poll for Rudd during his honeymoon. Wow, so impressive!

    Give it time… give it time..

  50. The coalition have already put Abbott’s mug in all the papers yesterday advocating real solutions. Surely if they are considering a switch to Turnbull, they would not have gone down this path just yet

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