After a steady drip of Newspoll chatter over the past two hours, GhostWhoVotes finally reports the headline figure: 54-46 to the Coalition. The primary votes are 34% for Labor (down one), 47% for the Coalition (up one) and 9% for the Greens (down two). Tony Abbott has now comfortably surpassed Kevin Rudd on net approval, his approval rating up three to 41% and disapproval down one to 51%, while Kevin Rudd is down three to 35% and up two to 54%. Rudd however maintains a 43-41 on the head-to-head preferred prime minister rating, down from 46-37. A question on best party to manage the economy has both parties down three points, Labor to 33% and Liberal to 45%.
UPDATE: And now the weekly Morgan multi-mode poll. This one records only slight shifts on last week, but last week was Labor’s worst result yet in this evidently Labor-leaning series since Kevin Rudd’s return, and the movements this time, slight as they may be, are in the Coalition’s favour. Labor is steady on the primary vote at 36.5%, with the Coalition up half a point to 44.5% and the Greens down one to 9.5%. Distributing preferences as per the previous election, the Coalition lead widens slightly from 51.5-48.5 to 52-48. On respondent allocated preferences, it’s out from 50-50 to 51-49 in the Coalition’s favour. State breakdowns are available at the above link.
UPDATE 2: Essential Research bucks the trend in having Labor at 50-50, up from 51-49 a week ago. Both major parties are up a point on the primary vote, Labor to 40% and the Coalition to 44%, with the Greens steady on 8% and others down two to 8%. There is also a question on most trusted media outlets for election coverage, which as usual shows public broadcasters far more trusted than commercial ones, and papers which had traditionally been broadsheets more trusted than tabloids. Four times as many respondents (28%) had “no trust at all” in the Daily Telegraph as “a lot of trust” (7%). The Australian, recently heard hectoring the ABC for being too biased to be trusted as a host of leaders’ debates, scored well below the Fairfax papers. Also featured are results on firmness of voting intention and party and leader attributes, which you can read all about here.
UPDATE 3: Now newcomer automated pollster Lonergan makes its first entry in the national polling stakes (UPDATE: Not quite – turns out they did one just after Rudd’s return), and it’s about in the middle of the overall trend at present in having the Coalition’s two-party preferred lead at 52-48. On the primary vote, the Coalition leads 44% to 35%. Lenore Taylor of The Guardian provides the following further detail:
It found Labor’s primary vote in Queensland was 34% compared with the Coalition’s 50%. In NSW, Labor’s primary vote trailed 33% to 47% and in Victoria 32% to 44%.
It also found the Coalition’s lead was bigger with men (46% of the primary vote compared with 35% for Labor) than women (42% to 34%).
The only age bracket in which Labor was in the lead was 18- to 24-year-olds, where it attracted 42% of the primary vote compared with 37% for the Coalition. The Coalition was slightly ahead among 25- to 34-year-olds (39% to 34%) but strongly ahead among 35- to 49-year-olds (44% to 33%) 50 to 64-year-olds (44% to 38%) and the over-65s, where the Coalition leads 53% to Labor’s 30%.
UPDATE 4: And now AMR Research, an online pollster which has published two previous federal voting intention results that were broadly in line with the national trend, echoes the methodologically similar Essential Research in finding a result of 50-50. The primary votes are 38% for Labor, 41% for the Coalition and 10% for the Greens. There are also a series of head-to-head responses comparing Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott on various attitudinal measures. The poll was conducted between Friday and Sunday from a sample of 1134.
Gee whiz, you wouldn’t have known that Essential brought out a 50/50 poll just listening to the radio/news today..
Now I understand why there was a slight shift in language on the abc from “massive plunge in the polls” to something more like “labor still losing”.
god I hate the bias on ABC.
Hey William,
Weren’t you saying not so long ago that Essential had for some time developed a Liberal bias of a point versus the average of the other pollsters.
Has that gone completely with Rudd, or too early to tell?
CC, I don’t think Essential’s peculiarity can be described in terms of “bias”. It’s that it seems to stay the same when other pollsters change. When Labor appeared to recover late last year, with even the odd 50-50 Newspoll appearing, Essential kept causing weekly dismay in PB-land by coming in at 54-46 every week. The Rudd “sugar hit” from Essential wasn’t as pronounced as in the phone polls, but it isn’t fading off (indeed, Labor have picked up a little over the past few weeks).
Essential might include some delay, but you might have noticed that Essential went UP today, as if its still chasing an event that happened 4 weeks ago. That’s not possible if its simply a two week running sample.
I am idly playing cards.
Alone.
Hark!
I hear Chopin on the TV.
Somewhat more appealing than whomever persuaded Aled Jones into a rushed and breathless nothing piece on Wagner and Bayreuth.
crikey,
In times gone by, I’d simply go for a walk and talk to the cows.. Why am I here now? Urgh.. Fucking Abbott..
soz William.. I think I need sleeeep..
‘I don’t know much about Tony Abbott’s daughters. That said, is it possible that this proposal – that goes against LNP political philosophy – is simply to benefit his own’?
http://thehoopla.com.au/tonys-zeal-paid-parental-leave/
I will go to sleep as well. I am to participate in a 9.00 am meeting. Expect I am assumed to be slightly alert.
William. Keep watch.
Just had a go at mathematically projecting Labor’s chances of polling a 2PP>50% based on historic polling analysis, with the possibility of continued leadership-change-bounce deflation factored in.
I get 12%.
Truth be told when they write the obits – 2 things will stand out.
Never ever knife a first term prime minister AND if you do don’t half finish the job, the ALP having chosen Gillard should have booted Rudd from parliament in 2010.
Now the ALP will reap the harvest.
New thread.
Wombats the lot of them.