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. Mod Lib @205

    You constantly seem to see things through simple eyes, seeing one to one causality/explanations everywhere. Or are they just pretty weak efforts to spin!

    Rudd is bringing forward the ETS to primarily negate Abbott’s “carbon tax lie” platform.

    This is appearing to be successful given that your mob are now referring to an ETS as a “tax” as the wildly cast around in panic trying to retain a semblance of a foothold in this issue.

    Now given this, do you expect Rudd to not point out that this might bring a benefit to the cost of living. Give us a break!

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

    It’s certainly possible that this is “peak Rudd” and the Labor vote will fall back. It’s equally possible that it’s not. Even Gillard, damaged though she was, managed 50% in two Newspolls late last year. The difference between 2010 and 2013 is (a) Abbott is a better known quantity now, and the voters don’t like him, and (b) no-one is going to be sabotaging Rudd’s campaign the way Rudd sabotaged Gillard’s.

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

    Speaking of spring, I am happy to report a real spring in the step of my local candidate. I spoke to her on Friday and she is feeling reasonably confident about winning the seat back.

  4. Psephos

    [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.]

    Congratulations (for September), and Best Wishes on Retirement.

    I recommend promising yourself you won’t make any decisions for 2 years, and you likewise steel yourself & go “Cold Turkey” on anything to do with your previous occupation, also for 2 years.

    Take up something you haven’t done before – filming & editing short films; do a Charles Dodgson (and many ex/whatevers) & write a crazy novel completely devoid of self-reflection/ a spy story/ crime series/ feelthy novel, SciFi; do 2 years with an OS Aid programme etc

    It takes more than a couple of years to get over the compulsion to fill, with “real” work, the massive time your paid work demanded of you; for me, 7 to scale down from 14 Hr days, to the first day I did none at all – without being conscious of “wasting” a whole day.

    It took 9 years, JJ’s Board & the possibility that Howard could be beaten, to go back to political & policy analysis that had ruled my study & work life from the mid1960s to retirement.

    Whatever you do, Psephos, I hope you find it as enjoyable as it is fulfilling.

  5. Psephos

    [and (b) no-one is going to be sabotaging Rudd’s campaign the way Rudd sabotaged Gillard’s.]

    you obviously are not giving BoerWar’s efforts any creedence then?

  6. crikey whitey@178

    Kevin Bonham.

    Optimism aside. The scarey bit is along the lines of something which you, Kevin Bonham pointed out, some time ago.

    Something along the lines that Labor does not have (and is unlikely to get, don’t think you said that bit though)

    enough seats already and need to gain some one or few.

    To obtain a majority?

    If Labor wants a majority they’ll probably need to take three more seats from the Coalition than the Coalition takes from them. That’s assuming Labor wins Melbourne.

    But if the Queensland swing is high enough, it’s plausible. My concern at the moment is that the Queensland swing is good for only about five or six seats, not a massive heap of them. It’s very hard to hold net losses in the rest of the country to two or three.

    After what they have been through though I think Labor should be happy with any hung parliament they can get, even if they have to depend on both Wilkie and Katter (that is, assuming Katter will still support Rudd post-election for the sake of stability).

  8. Victoria

    [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]

    Liberals are hoping to bully Rudd into an early election; if that fails, to create a situation where costs involved in dumping Abbott for Turnbull would be so great, and time for re-setting the campaign so short, there’s no real alternative to “locking in” Abbott.

    Note: the second alternative (above) and the Beginning of 1983’s ALP conference, were what sent Fraser driving to the Lodge to ask the GG to dissolve Parliament & issue Writs for Election83, in the hope the seemingly unelectable Hayden was “locked in” as ALP Leader.

  9. [you obviously are not giving BoerWar’s efforts any creedence then?]

    I don’t think so. I’m sure I speak for the great majority of disgruntled Gillardites when I say that I haven’t changed my mind about Rudd, but I am 100% committed to defeating Abbott.

  10. Psephos@230

    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.

    I agree with all of this (and congrats re retirement). Another advantage the Greens have is that they do not have the Democrats’ stupid leadership ballot system which led to spills being forced with ridiculous ease and, from Powell on, constant undermining of the elected leader.

  12. OPT

    The coalition have already kicked off their campaign a few weeks ago in Melbourne at Flemington Racecourse. Now they are going with their real solutions assault in the papers and their television ads. It does make it more difficult to switch to Turnbull at the 11th hour.

  13. [Psephos
    Posted Monday, July 15, 2013 at 9:53 am | PERMALINK
    you obviously are not giving BoerWar’s efforts any creedence then?

    I don’t think so. I’m sure I speak for the great majority of disgruntled Gillardites when I say that I haven’t changed my mind about Rudd, but I am 100% committed to defeating Abbott.]

    Most definitely

  14. On the 50-50 polls thing, it’s worth bearing in mind that while Gillard did get a few 50-50 Newspolls late last year, the trend was not 50-50, it was 48-ish, and those Newspolls were generous. The 50-50s we are getting now are real; it may very well not last because it is a bounce, but for the time being it is genuinely even.

  15. looks like the Liberals in WA are about to punish people who have solar panels..

    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.

    demand for solar panels as a “game-changer”, saying it was growing at 20 per cent a year despite the withdrawal of the Government’s feed-in-tariff two years ago.

  17. I really thought Labor would be in front now and was a little surprised by this result. It will be harder for Labor to get too much more momentum unless Abbott goes into meltdown.

    I just hope it doesn’t stay where it is now as I don’t want to think about a government where Katter has the BOP regardless of who he supports.

  20. from grass opinion, I don’t see wilkie holding his seat

    hope this right as Jane Austin,, will really get things done for the state..
    she motivated by being behind a party

    wilkie seems to have his own policies

    hospitals a pokies,

    correct if I am wrong have not seen much else he has actually don’t for the electorate

  21. With the polling about 50:50 the it will come down to undecideds and how they respond to the campaign.

    I’m pretty much convinced the momentum thing isn’t real and is largely just the media getting swept away in a tide of their own egos.

    It is the economy stupid and you don’t get much stupider than Abbott and Hockey on that count.

  23. WWP

    Well, noone wants to admit it out on the street but a lot of it is just schoolyard personal prejudice and personality stuff. And the bounce to Rudd is just that – its all about personality.

    Takes time for people to sit up and think about the fact that the Liberals have no real policy and thanks to the war against Gillard most people in the street wouldn’t have heard the word “policy” mentioned up until now.

    Now there’s an opportunity for people to stop hating and to start thinking. Now is the time for the message about how incompetent the Liberals are to sink in.

  24. I don’t think it will stay 50/50

    hoping for 55.45 am to optimistic

    david it is just on three week since rudd came along
    or is it two

    I was surprised at the quick turn around from that date

    now if your people in qld get their head out of the sand

    and realise rudd may be able to protect them from
    newman

    but then again some polls say you up like losing your jobs
    and uncertainty.

    hard to believe though,, must be different to southerners.

  25. Not to mention Hunt who was trying to argue that an ETS was the same as a carbon price.

    A guy from the Grattan Institue that was on later clearly explained how beneficial this step could be for the environment and also for individuals, at least in the short to medium term.

  26. Kevin B

    If you’re still tuned in I have a question regarding the Morgan Multi Modal Poll, which I also want to put to William also when he is on line:

    The new Morgan methodology seems to be producing a significantly better outcome for Labor than the other major polls. Naturally as a labor supporter I would like to think that Morgan is right and all the others are wrong, but realistically one has to suspect that Morgan is overstating the Labor vote a bit.

    Nevertheless, because it is a new way of doing things and is a much bigger sample than the others I am still tempted to believe that Morgan just might be picking up something that the others aren’t. For example, other PBs have suggested that relying only on land lines to contact people is old hat and that including MSM and mobile polling as (I think) Morgan does will tap into the younger set who are very much pro Rudd. On the other hand his face to face method, which he is still using as part of the multi has traditionally been skewed in favour of Labor.

    So what do you think? Is it possible that Morgan has in fact produced a better “mousetrap” than the others, or is it more likely it’s just a case of Morgan still overstating the Labor vote – or is it still too early to be making any judgements of that kind yet?

    It’s a difficult question I know, but to me it seems a very important one, given the prominence that polls of that size will have on seat predictions state by state. I will be most interested in your views.

  27. If the overwhelming majority of the reason for Labor’s poor polling was simply personal hatred for Julia then its not surprising the polls turned so quickly.

    In a way that’s a good thing. Maybe they don’t hate the Labor brand as much as one would think. Maybe it was just personal. Or maybe Labor has some more points to recover.

  29. http://www.news.com.au/national-news/opposition-leader-tony-abbott-changes-line-says-he-never-supported-ets/story-e6frfkvr-1226098237952

    never supported carbon tax or ETS – Abbott
    • Campaigned for ETS while cabinet minister
    •The Punch: Debunking Monckton’s bunkum

    tony abbott

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott addresses a people’s forum on carbon tax in Brisbane last week. Picture: AAP Source: AAP

    Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

    Related Coverage
    The Punch: Debunking Monckton
    Australia-Europe carbon link wrong: Abbott
    Carbon taxes ‘higher abroad’
    Climate stance: everyone stakes claim
    Europe applauds our carbon tax
    Abbott in ‘reckless’ warning to business
    . .

    End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

    OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has switched position on climate change by saying he has never supported an emissions trading scheme to reduce global warming.

    However, he campaigned for an ETS while a cabinet minister and publicly endorsed one up until he took the Liberal leadership in December, 2009.

    Mr Abbott insists “it’s always been my position” that action had to be taken against human-induced global warming.

    =================================================================

  30. [davidwh
    Posted Monday, July 15, 2013 at 10:13 am | Permalink
    I really thought Labor would be in front now and was a little surprised by this result. It will be harder for Labor to get too much more momentum unless Abbott goes into meltdown.

    I just hope it doesn’t stay where it is now as I don’t want to think about a government where Katter has the BOP regardless of who he supports.]

    David
    I have the opposite view. I was greatly relieved when Neilsen produced a 39 pv for Labor and a 50/50 TPP, because Neilsen has been the worst of the polls for labor over the past few months. It would not have surprised me at all if they had come in with a 36 or 37 pv for labor and a 51-49/52-48 TPP to the Libs.

    I agree though with your comment about Katter.

  31. [Do Nielsen and Newspoll exclude people who do not have landlines?]

    Most pollsters rely solely on landlines, apparently.

    Not sure how Essential does it tho.

    I have been polled by Morgan a number of times online. Never by Newspoll or Neilsen … I do have a landline but it is ‘silent’ (not sure if pollsters have access to silent numbers).

    Most people I know under 35 now do not have landlines, just mobiles, and as far as I know they don’t get polled at all.

  32. cud chewer@277

    If the overwhelming majority of the reason for Labor’s poor polling was simply personal hatred for Julia then its not surprising the polls turned so quickly.

    In a way that’s a good thing. Maybe they don’t hate the Labor brand as much as one would think. Maybe it was just personal. Or maybe Labor has some more points to recover.

    In some cases you are correct to use the word hatred. It was just irrational and over the top. But mostly it stopped short of that visceral hatred and was more distrust and dislike.

    It was quite evident in those polls which asked questions about preferred Labor leader and popularity of leaders but many on PB simply closed their eyes and refused to see what they did not want to see. The poor ALP intended vote was largely a result of it being dragged down by a very unpopular leader.

    Now, as I expected, the air is cleared. Labor has a popular leader and policy issues plus the inept Liberal leadership are being seriously examined.

  34. [cud chewer
    Posted Monday, July 15, 2013 at 10:37 am | Permalink
    If the overwhelming majority of the reason for Labor’s poor polling was simply personal hatred for Julia then its not surprising the polls turned so quickly.

    In a way that’s a good thing. Maybe they don’t hate the Labor brand as much as one would think. Maybe it was just personal. Or maybe Labor has some more points to recover.]

    Cud

    It’s quite possibe that they don’t hate the Labor brand as much as the Libs would like to think. The Essential poll always asks an interesting list of questions about people’s attitudes and it’s quite clear from the responses that Labor’s policies are generally very much in favour.

  35. Darn @ 276

    The Morgan Multi Mode polling is certainly a new methodology, combining as it does, the Morgan Face to Face, SMS and Online Panel polling to yield a greater number of interviews (around 3500 to 3700) per week, and theoretically at least, a greater degree of accuracy, with these survey numbers yielding a margin of error of around +/- 1.5%.

    It has been recognised in the past that the Morgan face to face survey tended to show the ‘shy Tory’ effect, that is, it overstated the ALP vote slightly due to respondents being reluctant to say they would vote for the conservative parties in a face to face interview. The inclusion of SMS and Online panel sample to this new methodology should add some degree of balance, as the harder to contact younger cohorts usually under-represent in polling samples, necessitating weighting of the results to an ABS nominal age/gender/location profile, and the bigger sample sizes in this new Morgan methodology should provide larger numbers in the quota cells that normally have very few completed surveys, ie: country areas in the smaller states and terrorities.

    On balance, there is probably no reason to doubt this new Morgan methodology any more than other polling companies, and some reason to give it a bit more weight than we may have done for Morgan in the past because of the larger number of surveys.

  36. I wonder whether there are any Labor members who are planning to do to Rudd and the Labor Government what Rudd and Tanner did to Gillard and the Labor Government in the last election – indicate by leaking that they are prepared to destroy a Labor leader and a Labor Government if they don’t get their way?

  37. Jen the under 35s are overwhelmingly supporting Rudd. for labor to be even or even leading in the the polls is an excellent result

  38. An interesting, balanced & hype-free research article on ice-sheet melting Massive ice sheets melting ‘at rate of 300bn tonnes a year’, climate satellite shows The Grace satellite measures tiny fluctuations of the Earth’s gravity field resulting from the loss of ice into the sea

    [The melting of the world’s two great ice sheets is one of the greatest unknowns in climate-change science. Together, the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica contain about 99.5 per cent of the Earth’s glacier ice, which could increase average sea levels by 63 metres if they were ever to melt completely – an event that would in any case take many centuries.

    Trying to predict how much they are likely to contribute to sea-level rise over the coming century has been notoriously difficult because of a lack of reliable and widespread ground observations from these remote and inaccessible places.]

    And, before people do take a turn for the hysterical, it pays to remember that:

    1. The climate shift from Ice Age to mesolithic “hothouse”, whilst raising sea-levels, would prove very beneficial to all life on Earth; except, perhaps, Neanderthal humans, whose biological advantages during the Ice Ages saw them wiped out early in the “hothouse” climate.

    2. In C21 AD, the (probably most) significant problem is posed by rising sea-levels (though not, necessarily, to life, unless temperatures rises accelerate rapidly), and that so many of our species have made their homes in areas the sea will cover later, if not sooner. So the threat’s more to property than life on Earth.

    2. The exceptionally swift Climate shift from hot to cold during the Bronze Age devastated flora & fauna populations (inc human), esp in Northern Europe & UK (though very recent excavations & analyses provide evidence it was far more widespread, inc in South America, than previously believed).

    IOW: Hot The Naked Ape can survive (& already has); Cold is far more threatening to all life, inc The Naked Ape Homo Sapiens.

  40. I suspect Bludger Track’s got it about right – a narrow Labor 2PP lead and the prospect of a small but workable outright majority. My hunch is we haven’t yet seen peak Rudd and the election outcome will very much be dictated by events during the campaign. Rudd has played his cards very well over the past 3 weeks and if he keeps on the game(as he has proved in the past he can) I now believe he will win. The anti-Abbott mood has hardened as a result of Rudd’s re-positioning and whilst I have my fingers metaphorically crossed as I write this, the real pressure is now on Abbott, and based on past performance this is not something he deals with well (ie, as in 2007). Maybe wishful thinking? All will be revealed over the next 2 months!!

  41. View summary

    Sir John Howard,CBD

    Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk 1h
    House prices up 0.9% in July so far: Up 3.9% so far in 2013 and on track for a 10% rise this year

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    Guardian Australia

  42. ‘Bemused …. you are STILL projecting your own private biases onto ‘everyone’.’

    Not really – the poll numbers speak for themselves.

  43. jenauthor@283

    Bemused …. you are STILL projecting your own private biases onto ‘everyone’.

    Not at all.
    The hard evidence was in the polls.

    I never said ‘everyone’, but there was certainly widespread dislike of Julia Gillard in the electorate. Certainly enough to ensure a crushing defeat if she led Labor into the election.

    I am not arguing it was just or rational or anything like that. It was simply a measurable and observable reality.

  44. [The responsibility should be on journalists to explain why they aren’t telling us for whom they vote, rather than claiming it’s a private matter that would only open them up to dismissal by partisan players or exclusion by politicians who don’t believe they’ll receive a fair hearing.

    This already happens today. The vast majority of “exclusives” in our media are nothing of the kind but sanctioned leaks to favoured reporters. A 2010 report by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (disclosure: I’m a research associate there but I had no involvement in this study) found that over half of the stories in the mainstream media over a five-day period in late 2009, across major media, was spin and connected in some way to public relations.

    Significantly, the authors commented, “when there was no media release, if it was clear from the positive, promotional tone of the article or there was a focus on one source only with no indication of independent questioning, it was coded as ‘PR driven’”. We are long past journalists being able to say with a straight face that they’re simply reporting the news as they see it. Objectivity only ever existed in the minds of the deluded.]
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/15/journalists-should-declare-vote

  45. Evan Parson @ 278

    Neither Nielsen or Newspoll would exclude landlines (as they are both telephone surveys) but they may also augment their sample frame by including Mobile numbers. It is possible to obtain commercially what is called RDD Mobile sample, ie: ‘random digit dial’ Mobile sample where the last 6 digits of the number are randomly generated, then ‘pinged’ by an autodialler, or some such fast contact device, and thus can produce a set of contactable mobile phone numbers.

  47. [Boerwar
    Posted Monday, July 15, 2013 at 10:49 am | Permalink
    I wonder whether there are any Labor members who are planning to do to Rudd and the Labor Government what Rudd and Tanner did to Gillard and the Labor Government in the last election – indicate by leaking that they are prepared to destroy a Labor leader and a Labor Government if they don’t get their way?    ]

    BW

    Presumably you’d be quite happy about it if they did.

  48. my say

    I can vouch for house price increases. I commenced house hunting in February on behalf of son, and house prices in my area have risen dramatically. We missed out at a couple of auctions on the weekend, as the prices went over my son’s limit.
    Very frustrating

  49. Boerwar

    Two possible leakers/saboteurs for the election campaign are Confessions and Boerwar from PB.

    They are having great difficulty moving on and seem preoccupied with criticising Rudd at the expence of detrimenting the Labor cause.

    Pretty selfish and vengeful really!,,,,

  50. my say

    Posted Monday, July 15, 2013 at 10:42 am | Permalink

    http://www.news.com.au/national-news/opposition-leader-tony-abbott-changes-line-says-he-never-supported-ets/story-e6frfkvr-1226098237952

    never supported carbon tax or ETS – Abbott
    • Campaigned for ETS while cabinet minister
    •The Punch: Debunking Monckton’s bunkum

    tony abbott

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott addresses a people’s forum on carbon tax in Brisbane last week. Picture: AAP Source: AAP

    Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

    Related Coverage
    The Punch: Debunking Monckton
    Australia-Europe carbon link wrong: Abbott
    Carbon taxes ‘higher abroad’
    Climate stance: everyone stakes claim
    Europe applauds our carbon tax
    Abbott in ‘reckless’ warning to business

    Mr Abbott insists “it’s always been my position” that action had to be taken against human-induced global warming.
    ——————————————————-

    And that’s why he stated “climate change is crap”.

    Same as he lied and back flipped about having a carbon “tax”.

    Abbott is on record as stating “the best way to price carbon is with a tax”

    This guy has more positions than the karma sutra

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