Newspoll and ReachTEL: 52-48 to Coalition

ReachTEL has opened the election campaign polling account in very short order, while Newspoll has published a poll following its normal Friday-to-Sunday schedule. The two concur on two-party preferred, with the latter finding Kevin Rudd taking a hit on his personal ratings.

As we enter the first full day of the September 7 federal election campaign:

• Newspoll, conducted between Friday and Sunday, has the Coalition’s lead unchanged on its poll of a fortnight ago at 52-48, from primary votes of 44% for the Coalition (down one), 37% for Labor (steady) and 9% for the Greens (down one). Equally worrying for Labor is a significant drop in Kevin Rudd’s personal ratings, his approval down four points to 38% and disapproval up six to 47%. However, he still leads Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister 47-33, down only slightly from 50-34 a fortnight ago. Abbott has had remarkably constant personal ratings from Newspoll since Rudd’s return: after three successive polls at 35% approval and 56% disapproval, this time he’s down one to 34% and steady at 56%. Full tables from GhostWhoVotes.

• More current still is the result from ReachTEL, which conducted an automated phone poll of 2949 respondents for the Seven Network in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s election announcement. This too showed the Coalition leading 52-48 on two-party preferred, compared with 51-49 in the ReachTEL poll of a week ago, from primary votes of 37.5% for Labor, 45.7% for the Coalition and 8.2% for the Greens. ReachTEL continues to find Tony Abbott doing well on preferred prime minister, this time leading 50.9-49.1, which is bafflingly at odds with other pollsters (notwithstanding the methodological difference that the survey is only deemed completed if all questions put to respondents are answered, hence the totals adding up to 100). On the question of effective management of the economy, 60.7% favoured the Coalition compared with 39.3% for Labor. While the sample on the poll is certainly impressive, it’s considered better practice to conduct polls over longer periods.

• The BludgerTrack poll aggregate has been updated with these two poll results and some further state-level data that has become available to me, and while the 50-50 starting point from last week slightly blunts the impact of two new 52-48 data points, there has nonetheless been a weighty shift to the Coalition on the implied win probability calculations. On the seat projections, the latest numbers find air going out of the Labor balloon in Queensland (down four seats), together with one-seat shifts to the Coalition in New South Wales and Tasmania. However, the projection of a second gain for Labor in Western Australia, which I looked askance at when it emerged in last week’s result, has stuck. I will resist the temptation to link this to unpopular recent actions of a state government which is flexing its muscles during the early stages of a four year electoral cycle, at least for the time being.

Tomorrow will presumably bring us the regular weekly Essential Research online poll and the Morgan “multi-mode” result, at around 2pm and 6pm EST respectively. The Poll Bludger’s regular guide to the 150 electorates will, I hope, be in action by the end of the week.

UPDATE (Essential Research): Essential Research has two-party preferred steady at 51-49 to the Coalition, from primary votes of 38% for the Labor (down one), 43% for the Coalition (down one) and 9% for the Greens (steady). The survey finds only 44% saying they will definitely not change their mind, with 30% deeming it unlikely and 21% “quite possible”. Respondents were also asked to nominate the leader they most trusted on a range of issues, with Tony Abbott holding modest leads on economic management, controlling interests rates and national security and asylum seeker issues, and Kevin Rudd with double-digit leads on education, health, environment and industrial relations. Kevin Rudd was thought too harsh on asylum seekers by 20%, too soft by 24% and about right by 40%, compared with 21%, 20% and 31% for Tony Abbott.

UPDATE 2 (Morgan): Morgan has Labor down half a point on the primary vote to 38%, the Coalition up 1.5% to 43%, and the Greens up one to 9.5%. With preferences distributed as per the result at the 2010 election, the Coalition has opened up a 50.5-49.5 lead, reversing the result from last week. On the respondent-allocated preferences measure Morgan uses for its headline figure, the result if 50-50 after Labor led 52-48 in the last poll.

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.

2,158 comments on “Newspoll and ReachTEL: 52-48 to Coalition”

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  1. gutaur,

    Doug Cameron made a good effort to get out the facts about Labor’s good economic performance.

    Unfortunately, his frustration showed in the end and he tends to push too hard.

  2. [ I still cannot fathom how any intelligent person can have any faith or trust in Rudd. He’s such an obvious and dangerous egomaniacal fake but to each his/her own.]

    I have made my views on Rudd extensively clear here 🙂

    My advice now is that he is under close adult supervision and is being a good boy so far. Of course if he wins the election that will be harder to maintain. But he must know that even if he wins, if he behaves the same way he behaved last time, it will end in tears again – 75% rule or not.

  8. Actually I read the Martin article differently. I’ve long been of the view that the claim of a $70b black hole in the coalition costings is conservative, given that the costs with direct action are largely unknown – previous economic modelling of soil carbon for eg suggests their costings on that aspect of DA alone are some 20 times under the real cost.

  13. @Confessions/2058

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/coalition-stumbles-over-its-70-billion-black-hole-20110811-1iotv.html

    “THE Coalition will have to find $70 billion over four years to pay for its promises, including $27 billion to cover the cost of scrapping the government’s carbon price scheme and up to $8 billion in pledged tax cuts, its own internal documents reveal.

    The internal minutes, leaked to Channel Seven and confirmed by the Herald, were circulated during a round of recent meetings at which the shadow cabinet’s razor gang looked at how to pay for its promises.”

    —

    etc.

  18. Psephos@2067

    The uncut version of the Diaz interview is even worse.


    This is the product of ethnic branch stacking. Both parties do it, but we’re better at it.

    Nothing to be proud of.

    It is a disgraceful practice which should be stamped out in the ALP. 😡

  20. [TP
    Ether makes me vomit??
    Man, how old are you?]

    Went under ether in around 1961 and 1963. I recall in the recovery room they had nurses ready for your reaction when you woke. I still recall Technicolor waves.

  23. [THE Coalition will have to find $70 billion over four years to pay for its promises, including $27 billion to cover the cost of scrapping the government’s carbon price scheme and up to $8 billion in pledged tax cuts, its own internal documents reveal.]

    Yes, but the point is that with the actual costs of direct action largely unknown, and potentially far more than what the Liberals are letting on (or possibly even know themselves), this could well blow out their budget black hole by even more than what is being reported now.

    I saw on twitter that there were no questions about DA put to Hunt by the Qanda audience, presumably because, like the Greenway Liberal candidate, they don’t understand what it means, and so have no appreciation of the massive scale of govt bureaucracy involved to manage it, and the knock-on costs to taxpayers as a result.

  28. interesting day 2 and the focus is the economy and 70bn black holes austerity and debt and deficits. exactly where ALP need it to be with QLD and Cambell Newman as the litmus test. the coalition should be concerned about where this going. what did Abbott offer today repeal of a tax which will not exist no wonder Joe looked unhappy.

  31. I think it is way over $70 bn. Maybe Penny can enlighten the populace in next Monday’s Q&A.

    BTW, what happened to the Minister versus Shadow Q&As we were promised / threatened with?

  32. guytaur:

    What I found interesting today was the Essential finding that 3/5 Coalition voters are set in stone versus only 2/5 ALP voters (and 53% of ALP voters say they might change their mind vs. 39% of LNP voters).

  33. [It is a disgraceful practice which should be stamped out in the ALP.

    Yes, I agree. But it doesn’t have the same dire effects in terms of candidate choice as it does for the Libs. Their stacking is religious as well as ethnic, in this case Filipino happy-clappers. More generally, the Libs have a long history of picking weirdo candidates in safe Labor seats – that’s how we got Pauline Hanson. Every election they have to disendorse someone for saying something dumb. Whereas Labor candidates in safe Coalition seats are usually ambitious Young Labor types who (usually) don’t say and do stupid things.

  36. Austerity = economic destruction
    Austerity if for the good times.
    Australia needs to keep the fires burning whilst the economy transitions and the world slowly recovers.

  37. [So the LNP won’t win that……..and?]

    Except that you thought you would win it at the time this idiot was chosen to run – and you knew quite well he’s an idiot, because he’s run before and also said idiotic things.

  39. glory

    Dont feel sorry for Diaz

    [Councillor Jess Diaz is also voting to destroy the lives of residents by forcefully removing them. Jess Diaz is the father of Jaymes Diaz, the Liberal Federal Candidate for Greenway, the country’s most marginal seat.

    These residents who face forced eviction are part of Jaymes Diaz’s electorate. It seems a bit hypocritical that Jaymes is hoping to represent these people in Federal parliament while his father is making every effort to throw them out of their homes and onto the street. Jaymes likes to claim he and his family care for the community, but given his father’s actions on council I fear he is being a bit Liberal with the truth.]

    http://wixxyleaks.com/2013/04/18/no-shelter/

  41. Psephos:

    By “you” I take it you mean “Liberal Party”?

    I had nothing to do with the Liberal candidate for Chifley and right now cannot even name the candidate!

    If the LNP won Chifley, the election result would be something like 130 to 20 :devil:

  42. Psephos@2087

    So the LNP won’t win that……..and?


    Except that you thought you would win it at the time this idiot was chosen to run – and you knew quite well he’s an idiot, because he’s run before and also said idiotic things.

    It’s in the Liberal DNA.

    Just look at some of the stupid things Mod says about wanting to drown people. 👿

  43. I thought Bowen’s response to Emma A on Lateline well measured. In terms of the Daily Tele.

    Not angry, like me. Leaving it with the people.

  50. My advice now is that he is under close adult supervision and is being a good boy so far…

    But where are the adults to supervise Abbott?

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