Newspoll: 53-47 to Coalition

From a glass-half-full Labor perspective, this week’s Newspoll shows an encouraging three-point lift on the primary vote. But it still corroborates the result of the most recent Nielsen survey in suggesting a solid win for the Coalition.

This week’s Newspoll finds Labor making a minor gain on two-party preferred, from 54-46 to 53-47. It comes despite a three-point improvement on the primary vote to 37%, with the Coalition and the Greens steady on 47% and 9%, and the balance coming off others. The disparity is down to a set of numbers last time which suggested the rounding to two-party preferred had favoured Labor. The personal ratings are the first in a while where Kevin Rudd’s position hasn’t deteriorated, although this may be due to a bad sample for Labor last week. His approval rating is up one to 36% and his disapproval down two to 52%, while Tony Abbott continues improving steadily with approval up one to 42% and disapproval down two to 49%. Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has increased slightly, from 43-41 to 44-40. The sample is back to its normal size of a little over 1100, after being bumped up to over 1600 last week to allow for fortnightly aggregated state-level results from decent sample sizes.

The weekly Morgan multi-mode poll has the Coalition leading 52.5-47.5 on previous election preferences and 51.5-48.5 on respondent-allocated, up half a point on both measures. On the primary vote, Labor is down two points to 34.5%, the Coalition is up half a point to 45% and the Greens are up 1.5% to 11%. Full details including state breakdowns here. Here too the poll is back to a normal sample size, of 3419, after blowing out to 4515 for some reason last week.

The addition of Newspoll and Morgan to BludgerTrack finds two-party preferred moving 0.2% in the Coalition’s direction, but Labor gaining one on the seat projection. This is down to the confounding pattern of strong numbers for Labor in state breakdowns for Queensland, the latest examples being a 37% primary vote from last week’s Newspoll aggregate, 39% from Saturday’s Nielsen and 36% from today’s Morgan, compared with 33.6% at the 2010 election. This is flatly contradicted by all seat-level polling, most notably Saturday’s large-sample Newspoll of the eight most marginal Liberal National Party seats, which had the Labor primary vote down 4.5% from 2010. Due to the probability that seats selected for such polling will not be representative of the state at large, the model can only use the statewide results. So while the BludgerTrack vote and seat numbers look broadly in line with expectations in the other states, I suggest the projection of a three-seat gain in Queensland be treated with considerable caution.

Finally, Adelaide’s Sunday Mail brought us a Galaxy poll of 586 respondents in Hindmarsh, Labor’s most marginal seat in South Australia, which had the result at 50-50, a swing to the Liberals of 6%. I’m not sure if this was a live interview poll like Galaxy normally does, or an automated one such as they did last week for the first time with marginal seat polling in Sydney and Victoria. UPDATE: The poll was automated. The primary votes were 41% for Labor (44.7% at the 2010 election), 44% for the Liberals (38.6%) and 10% for the Greens (12.2%).

UPDATE: Essential Research is still at 50-50, but Labor is down two on the primary vote to 38% with the Greens surging three points to 11%, and the Coalition down one to 43%. The poll also finds 60% of Coalition supporters saying they will “definitely not change my mind” against only 46% for Labor, while 17% of respondents rating it “quite possible I will change my mind” against 11% of Coalition. Since I started paying attention a few years ago, I have never seen the Coalition fail to do better than Labor on this measure. I’m not sure whether this is a Coalition/Labor thing, or if it’s to do with the fact that every election I’ve been observing has been a bad one for Labor. Kevin Rudd’s net approval has moved into negative territory since a fortnight ago, his approval down four to 41% and disapproval up two to 45%. Tony Abbott is steady on approval at 37% and up one on disapproval to 52%. Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 47-35 to 43-34. Two points of encouragement for Labor: their parental leave scheme is favoured over the Coalition’s by 35% to 24%, and respondents were slightly more inclined to believe Labor rather than the Coalition would be able to pay for its commitments without spending cuts (41% thinking it very unlikely the Coalition could do so against 35% for 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.

1,645 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47 to Coalition”

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  3. As I posted earlier. Public Servants, and in fact a number of workers under different Awards, have PPL. This is an Award condition that is negotiated with the employer and in most cases factored against pay increases and other conditions. Award also have a PPL that covers the partner, so the mother can have time off after the birth of the child, and the father can have time off also.

    There are also Awards that cover adoption and grandparent leave for assisting with children.

    Abbott’s PPL is a welfare payment. And as much as is possible welfare payments should not discriminate of earnings or social status etc.

  9. cud chewer @1443

    You obviously haven’t heard that the more you hear and know Messiah Kev the LESS people seem to like him. Obviously 2007-2010 has now been completely erased from ALP drone memory.

  10. Let’s apply invert and multiply maths to ALP cultism:

    1. Everything that Centre-right panellists said on Q&A kicked Arse tonight.. The others all sucked completely
    2. The ABC is part of a conspiracy to quell debate from the conservatives, it should be muzzled, banned, broken up, have its money taken away and a big smack on the bottom.
    3. I love Tony, no Malcolm, no, Tony, no, Malcolm, the opposition had lost its way but found it, then lost it but the old way is back and better as a new way, so we love T

  11. Sean Tisme

    Posted Monday, August 26, 2013 at 10:47 pm | Permalink

    Why are Public Servant babies worth more than a Janitors baby??
    ——————————————————–

    Under Abbott scheme the public servant baby will be “worth” more than the janitors baby because they will paid their wage….

    jeez its hard working with the shallow end of the gene pool at times

  13. [Unions had a place in Australia in the 60′s and 70′s

    Now they are a liability]

    you’ve excelled yourself in exposing your ideological stupidity with that one.

    The market only works if the less financially powerful can even the playing field. Collective bargaining is the only option workers have. Without unions and with total labour market deregulation (the IPA and ‘modern’ LNP dream) workers would be exploited. Australia’s success as a society is largely built on the living wage, arbitration and unions. If anything unions in the 60s and 70s were by far more confrontational and militant than they are today – Hawke reforms put an end to that and put the focus on productivity and wage restraint in exchange for superannuation which has unwritten massive investment in the nation. Unions today are pretty constrained in what they can do, and generally do what they should so – promote their members’ collective bargaining position. I’ve been in workplaces where the union has been doing out enterprise agreements and others where this has not happened, and we did so much better under the union. Unions need to be there to protect everyone’s working conditions and it unfortunately most workers free-load off their work.

  14. cud chewer @ 1430

    Ok so $622.10 per week.

    So if you earn, what, less than about $60K you’re better off under Labor’s PPL, at least in per week terms?

    Nope. If you earn less than the minimum wage you get paid at the minimum wage, plus superannuation entitlements. For 26 weeks; not 18 weeks.

  15. I’ve explained why I don’t agree with the LNP PPL scheme, PPL should be paid by employers and be a working condition. Actually it’s a prime example of why unions are still necessary today. A good union will negotiate a good PPL scheme.

    Put simply I agree with AA- PPL should be a workplace condition like holiday pay, and sick pay. Should the government pay those too?

  18. Paying one woman more than another for having a baby is the ‘class war’ Sean.

    Aren’t both of them equal? Why should the taxpayer accept an argument that one is worth more than another?

  20. zoidlord @1443

    And just think how much you could do with the $100M that the public servants are double dipping on tax payer funded PPL. And think how much you could do with the billions from the public PPL entitlements if they had to use the same scheme as those working in the real world.
    Why are the drones being so elusive ? Why is the public service PPL FAIR ? Why couldn’t the forehead , oops, I mean Shorten, answer a simple question regarding PPL for low paid workers. What was he hiding ?

  21. under the liberals PPL you get more welfare the more wealthy you are. think of it as the reverse of the tax system. it is the type of policy ideally suited to a budget emergency. in your guts you know he is nuts.

  22. Turnbull is only stating the bleeding obvious. There are far more crucial programs we could be spending $4 billion (new less old cost) per annum on. Regarding the class argument well that’s just rubbish basically.

  25. 1350
    Thomas. Paine.
    [If Rudd god forbid wins…first Bill without fail should be a Media concentration bill to break up the domination of one owner in the Australian market, rid us of this gross corruption of news and opinion.]

    Yep. A massive reduction in media concentration, and forbidding foreigners (including multi passport holders) from owning any Oz media at all, followed up by finishing off the NBN proper to forever seal the deal.

    Way past time for a swift, stark, and very public political decapitation of Sith Lord Murdor.

    And make sure we never ever allow anybody to get such media dominance again.

    Totally on side with you there, brother Thomas. He is easily one of the most destructive humans I have seen in my lifetime. We will never be safe while he has such a profoundly corrupting influence on our public debate and political class.

  27. Abbott’s PPL is a welfare payment. Plain and simple. Its a benefit paid by Government from taxpayer money….welfare.

    Why should a lawyer get so much more as a welfare payment than the janitor?

  28. It’s funny how all these rugged individualists who say they are in favour of enterprise and individual effort and risk taking believe they need handouts and concessions from the government, whether corporate lawyers voting for taxpayer funded PPL or self funded whingers retirees insisting that they not pay tax after decades of generous concessions or executives who think tax payers should help them pay for their cars. I am not against any of those groups, I just don’t see why they need welfare and concessions from the Government.

  29. [I’ve explained why I don’t agree with the LNP PPL scheme, PPL should be paid by employers and be a working condition]

    What about small business owners that have 1 employee who gets preggers??

    They should pay wages for 2 people and send them broke?

    And isn’t increasing the company tax making “Business pay”??

  30. shellbell@1215

    shellbell,

    Not all the dwellings with asbestos were built in Cooma. Canberra had several growth spurts in the second half of the C20.


    Yes.

    The Snowy Hydro workers’ huts were though as far as I know.

    As were a lot of huts used to accommodate members of the armed services until at least the early 1970s and possibly beyond. Many were left over from WWII.

  31. Blah.. Boogedy boogedy blah blah bloody Tony, Aaaaahh! Slavery back! Eek. Boogedy Boogedy, angry man… Blah blah boogedy boogedy..Recession coming tonio no no tonio, boogedy you lose with bloody boogedy boogedy blah blah.. Whinging wendy… Blah blah… Don’t vote tonio or she won’t put down her knife!!!! Boogedy Boogedy AAAAAGH! Tony eats babies.

    Authorised: anyone in the ALP, articulate attack ad 101

  32. @Sean/1479

    Are you not going to send them broke anyway since Abbott’s PPL Policy is part funded by big business? Top 3,000 if I remember correctly?

  33. [Abbott’s PPL is a welfare payment. Plain and simple. Its a benefit paid by Government from taxpayer money….welfare.]

    Oh whereas Labors PPL… it’s paid by… who again?? Whats that?? Gone a bit quiet over there?

  34. [It’s funny how all these rugged individualists who say they are in favour of enterprise and individual effort and risk taking believe they need handouts and concessions from the government]

    In my experience the most vociferous opponents to welfare hand outs are usually the first to put their hands out for government pork.

  35. cud chewer @1473

    Full wage for 6 months.

    AussieAchmed @1453

    WHat a load of horse shit. I hope you didn’t write that with a straight face. Public service PPL is a work entitlement but the coalition plan isn’t ? PPL IS A WORKPLACE ENTITLEMENT no matter who is doing it. If you are stupidly using the reason that its tax payer funded that that applies to the public service PPL. Stop trying to justify the unjustifiable.
    SImple question. Why is someone working for Messiah Kev entitled to a much better PPL than a worker in a factory ?????

  36. It’s not ‘class warfare’ which is what the right throws at people who suggest that maybe government support should be given to people who need it. The issue that people have with this is that it is, in essence, a welfare payment, which gives you more, the more you have. It’s completely counter to the basic concept of a government support payment.

    Basic issue is, the Libs are calling this a workplace entitlement… which it isn’t. A workplace entitlement is provided for by the employers… and if the Libs PPL is a workplace entitlement, then they should legislate for it to be exactly that. But since it comes from the public purse (only 50% from the “levy”) then it should be means-tested and given equally.

  41. despite the partisan Liberal hacks comments, I thought Bill Shorten did ok getting the key Labor messages accross in a difficult format.

    and he did a fair job in rallying the party’s supporters to keep fighting.

    which is why morpheus and SeanT went apoplectic – their reason for being here is to dishearten by repetitive slag ans bag efforts

  44. [Are you not going to send them broke anyway since Abbott’s PPL Policy is part funded by big business? Top 3,000 if I remember correctly?]

    If a Small Business has 1 employee and makes over $5 Million a year which is the requirement to pay Abbotts 1.5% Tax increase… then no they won’t go broke. Sounds like they are doing quite well, quite well indeed.

    A business that only makes $100K a year with 1 employee and owner/operator… well they might just go under with some of the Labor posters Class Warfare Bullshit “employer pays” scheme.

  45. The worst thing about Abbotts policy is the way it lets employers off the hook. The ALP scheme is a safety net version for those who miss out on it altogether. It was never designed to replace more generous employer mat leave

    Abbotts means employers no longer have to try: the taxpayer will foot the bill to make them attractive to women employees.

  46. 1401
    lefty e
    [Greg Jericho ‏@GrogsGamut 3m
    If the ALP really wants to slaughter the Libs on PPL, they need a “wow” child care policy. #qanda

    Absolutely!]

    Absolutely Plus! Good quality, affordable, reliable childcare is far more important than paid parental leave.

  47. [PPL IS A WORKPLACE ENTITLEMENT no matter who is doing it. ]

    The current scheme is designed for people with no access to PPL.

    By contrast, the Abbott scheme uses taxpayer funds to pay anyone, regardless of whether they have it or not.

  49. sproket @1491

    Well, its easy to spin shit if you are NOT actually answering any of the questions. He was completely evasive on pretty much any question that he didn’t feel comfortable answer. Sure, its a typical political ploy but for the king and queen maker with ambition to manhandle the crown, he was completely pathetic.

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