The Abbott government’s mediocre post-election polling record takes a considerable turn for the worse today with the publication of the first Fairfax/Nielsen poll since the election, which is the Coalition’s worst result from Nielsen since the 2010 election campaign, or from any poll at all since the months immediately following. The poll has Labor with a two-party lead of 52-48, from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor, 11% for the Greens, 5% for “independents” (an unorthodox inclusion) and 6% for others. Bill Shorten scores remarkably strongly on his debut personal ratings, with approval at 51% and disapproval at 30%, while Tony Abbott manages a tepid 47% approval and 46% disapproval. However, Abbott holds a 49-41 lead as preferred prime minister.
Full tables including state breakdowns are available courtesy of GhostWhoVotes, and they offer at least some ammunition for those of a mind to be skeptical about the result. With due consideration to the fact that an element of wonkiness can be expected from small state-level samples, there are approximate two-party preferred swings to Labor of 2% in New South Wales, 4% in Victoria and 1.5% in South Australia, all of which are easy enough to believe. However, in both Queensland and Western Australia the swings are 11%, the former result coming less than two weeks after an 800-sample poll by Galaxy showed no swing at all. It’s tempting to infer that Nielsen struck Labor-heavy samples in these states, and that had it been otherwise the result would have been more like 50-50.
A more technical observation to be made about the result is that the two-party preferred figures are based on respondent-allocated preferences, whereas Nielsen’s topline numbers are usually based on preference flows from the previous election. This no doubt is because the Australian Electoral Commission still hasn’t published Coalition-versus-Labor two-party results from the 11 seats where other candidates made the final count (I’m told they are likely to do so later this week). However, I have one model for allocating preferences based on the information available from the election, which gets Labor’s two-party vote to 51.7%, and Kevin Bonham has two, which get it to 51.2% and 51.4%.
The Nielsen poll also probed into the hot topics of asylum seekers and abolition of the carbon and mining taxes. Only 42% expressed approval for the government’s handling of asylum seekers versus 50% disapproval – though as Psephos notes in comments, this fails to disentangle those who support their objectives from those who don’t (a ReachTEL poll conducted on Thursday night asked whether the policies were working, and found only 28% thought they were compared with 49% who thought they weren’t). The results on the mining tax were evenly balanced, with 46% saying Labor should support its repeal in parliament versus 47% opposed. The carbon tax at least remains a winner for the government, with 57% saying Labor should vote for its abolition and 38% saying it should oppose it.
In other news, Christian Kerr of The Australian reports on Newspoll analysis of the effect on polling of households without landlines. This was determined through online polling between March and August of nearly 10,000 respondents who were also asked about the state of their household telecommunications. In households without landlines, Coalition support was found to be 1.4% lower, Labor 0.2% lower, the Greens 1.3% higher and “others” 0.2% higher. However, Newspoll’s online polling itself seemed to be skewed to Labor, who came in 4.7% higher than in Newspoll’s landline polling over the same period. This was mostly at the expense of others, which was 4.7% lower, while the Coalition was 0.6% higher and the Greens 1.0% lower. By way of comparison, the online polling of Essential Research over the same period compared with Newspoll’s phone polling as follows: Labor 2.1% higher, the Coalition 3.2% higher, Greens 2.8% lower and others 2.5% lower.
UPDATE: Channel Seven reports that long-awaited ReachTEL result has the Coalition leading 51-49, but unfortunately no further detail is provided. Results earlier released by Seven from the poll include the aforementioned finding that only 28% believe the government’s new policies to stop boat arrivals were working versus 49% who don’t; that 56% say the government should announce boat arrivals when they happenl that 53% think the Prime Minister should deliver the explanation for spying activities demanded by Indonesia, while 34% say he shouldn’t; and that 38% support Australia’s bugging activities with 39% opposed. The poll is an automated phone poll conducted on Thursday evening, presumably from a sample of about 3000.
UPDATE 2: And now Generic Leftist relates on Twitter that Peter Lewis of Essential Research relates on The Drum that tomorrow’s Essential poll will have Labor up a point on the primary vote to 36%, but with two-party preferred steady at 53-47 to the Coalition.
Rather than ‘Light on the hill’ we are seeing –
[‘light on the Dill’]
Bushfire Bill @ 94: As long as the PM wasn’t on the hypothetical plane, he/she could request a prorogation of the Parliament until after the relevant by-elections.
Newspoll is due tonight yeah?
Will be interesting to see their take on things.
Oh and WORST GOVERNMENT EVA.
“Not sure what Abbott can do as nobody really loves him or respects him as has been his lot for some time.”
You’re right Tricot. That’s true. The party would be better off with someone else. The spying debacle has proved it. Although it was Mr Rudd’s fault, it doesn’t matter to voters, it’s Tony Abbott who must wear it. C’est la vie.
I guess in the context of all of this, a second senate election in WA could be very interesting. Didn’t the LNP get three senators in ‘round 1’, while the ALP only got one (Sport and Greens getting the remaining two). The senate could turn into a nightmare for Abbott if, in the event of a second senate election in WA, he bleeds too many votes to PUP, Greens and ALP and ends up with senator or even two less than ‘round 1.’
Just thinking further to the general debate about the ETS isn’t there already energy futures being traded which would be a similar trading system to an ETS.
If so doesn’t that highlight the weakness of the opposition to an ETS as there is already a futures trading system in place and it isn’t classed as a tax
Mortlock – of course! Nobody is suggesting we will see a Federal Labor government in the near future. However, for a new government to start so poorly with a poor leader is a surprise.
JWH did come in, it is true, on the government loses election bandwagon, but Big Kimbo should have won a following election on the TPP.
Merging Ausaid into DFAT was never a smart idea.
What it was intended to achieve was removing any independence in our foreign aid delivery and making our foreign aid program a pure political-goal-delivery program.
Personally I’d rather our foreign aid program focused on helping as many people as possible with the limited money we provide.
PO
I think Mr Abbott is a two-edged sword.
He was a tenacious LOTO but his transition to PM, despite lots of encouraging noises from his cheer squad, has tended to show up his hypocrisy rather than is skill.
The electorate are still not convinced about him as yet.
More attacks on the Welfare!
http://theconversation.com/cut-welfare-to-older-australians-to-balance-the-budget-report-20649
“The Grattan Institute’s package of suggested reforms to help balance the budget also includes broadening the GST to include fresh food and private spending on health and education.”
–FFS!
[Labor would have a temporary majority (until by-elections could be arranged).]
Parliament would be prorogued pending the by-elections. Go to bed.
Tricot@67
Truthie grabs what he can from bolt and posts it here and has been caught out on various occasions.
That’s funny… no stentorian 10pm rushed-out op-ed from Peter Hartcher telling us this means doom for the government.
@zoidlord & @Tricot
Don’t get me wrong, I think this may well be a record breaking poor showing for a new government at the federal level. And given my personal political outlook, I read the news and polling with some glee – however, I thought Abbott would be a complete failure as opposition leader (and while I was not completely wrong – he was a poor, but nevertheless effective, opposition leader) he managed to surprise me ….
I will be more interested in seeing what the polls look like in 3-6 months from now, and, if Abbott continues to poll badly, what internal discussions will start arising in the LNP about his leadership
I’m sure this result, if not a rogue, is reflecting mostly temporary factors associated with the Indonesian imbroglio that will pass fairly shortly, and the government is likely to recover some of their lost support in due course.
However, to me the significance of this kind of polling is that it shows the government has used up its ‘grace’ with the public. No honeymoon to speak of, and now they’ve used their ‘get out of jail’ pass up on Indonesia.
The public doesn’t give the government of the day its ‘grace’ back without significant game-changing events that no political party can engineer for themselves.
Perhaps Abbott and Co will get lucky and there will be a major international event or the economy will start shitting gold eggs …
If not, the LNP are facing 3 years of tough going.
Jackol @ 108: My reference to smart ideas was of course in jest. For mine, the real stupidity of the move is that having aid under the control of DFAT actually lessens its political impact. For all the talk about poverty alleviation, elements of the aid program undoubtedly have been pursued over the years with political as well as development aims. For example, the massive injection of aid to Indonesia in the aftermath of the Aceh tsunami was seen as an opportunity to mend fences after the East Timor rift in 1999.
But the political objectives are legitimate ones, of building goodwill rather than twisting arms. And that works so much better if it is unstated: if on the face of it our actions are purely altruistic. Putting aid within DFAT stuffs that up completely.
BB: And I presume Alan Jones will be organising a Caravan of No Continence any day now.
[Parliament would be prorogued pending the by-elections. Go to bed.]
You don’t know that.
What if the crash happened on the morning of a sitting day?
If the Labor leader was bolshie enough he or she could organize a No Confidence motion quickly, before the GG could prorogue parliament.
Fraser worked the timing in 1975, down to the minute. Why couldn’t it happen again?
You’re talking through your hat.
[on various occasions]
‘various’?
Numerous.
[But it’s not “buyer’s remorse”. It’s more of a gag reflex.]
I think it is a more visceral, gut-liquefying terror going the other way as people realise we are stuck with them for three years.
Is this a record short honeymoon for any party anywhere in the world? (seriously – william? phsephos? others?)
Unfortunately the tea party loons who now own the libs will not ditch abbott in a hurry and will never go back to turnbull.
I fear they’ll decide to use their majority and control of the senate from July 1 next year to go out in a vindictive blaze of neo-con ‘glory’ – selling the Medicare, ABC, SBS, NBN, Australia Post, CSIRO, HECS debt, etc; sell off schools, hospitals and unis in tory states (they’ll have all of them for a few months after the SA and Tas elections and until the Vic November election); and legislating to weaken unions and their capacity to fund Labor – the IPA wish list will be delivered in full – if they are going to be one termers then they’ll go hard.
They’ll use the funds from selling everything to claim the budget is in surplus and to pay electoral bribes wherever they can.
The Murdoch media will sing praise to their economic genius.
If newspoll has a similar result, can I bet the Australian reports abbott’s improved ‘preferred PM’, and that ‘shorten fails to impress’, and continues the lie that left wing media have conspired to break the spying story to damage abbott (he did most of the damage through his meanly mouthed ‘regret’ rather than an apology)?
Personally I feel most sorry for Andrew Bolt: Now voters have joined the leftist conspiracy against Abbott.
He will need extra layers of tinfoil to cope with this.
prettyone@92
Bring it on then.
abbott just doesn’t have the ticker to do it.
What I want to know is…
Where’s Meguire Bob? 😀
Mortlock@81
For a new government elected from opposition I’ll open the bidding at 10 months for Whitlam. But I have no data between June and October 1973 so it was probably less than that.
A bizarre outcome of this poll is that my aggregate briefly reads better for Labor with Morgan out than in, though Morgan were out because of an assumption that their new methods were Labor-skewed. So I reincluded them until Essential (most likely) kills that irregularity off.
Sean Tisme@98
Another cut n paste from bolt.
sf
[I think it is a more visceral, gut-liquefying terror going the other way as people realise we are stuck with them for three years. ]
Yup.
[However, to me the significance of this kind of polling is that it shows the government has used up its ‘grace’ with the public. No honeymoon to speak of, and now they’ve used their ‘get out of jail’ pass up on Indonesia.]
I was serious about the pensioners being up in arms.
Listening to 2GB on Friday, retiree after retiree was on the talk-back machine whingeing to the shock jocks.
No amount of attempted mollifying – “Tony wouldn’t do that”, “It’s only a recommendation” etc. – would silence them. They were ropeable.
It’s probably a combination of factors – rorts (remember them?), the media stonewall, the debt limit hypocrisy, and yes, Indonesia. It may be all of those, and probably a few more factors.
The point is that Buyer’s Remorse kicks in suddenly.You try to convince yourself that you made the right purchasing decision, and then suddenly, when it becomes apparent that you didn’t (and the trigger can be trivial like someone saying, “That new TV you paid a fortune for sure is dim isn’t it?”) then Whammo! Buyer’s Remorse sets in big time.
Couple this with the rogueish aspect of Nielsen over the past couple of years, and you have a perfect storm.
I fully expect Essential tomorrow to show a much more modest change, if any change at all.
Bushfire Bill @ 118: It’s not the case that the GG is required to sack the government whenever a no-confidence motion is carried. As A V Dicey pointed out long ago, the critical issue is really whether the government can get supply. Typically a government which loses a no-confidence motion is one which has definitively lost the confidence of the House, and it goes because it knows that ultimately supply will be refused. That’s not the case in your scenario.
prettyone
its hard to respect a Government that sees a surplus as more important than providing money to help fix this.
Abbott took $4.5 billion from foreign aid to help build a surplus. How many children must die for a surplus?
[What if the crash happened on the morning of a sitting day?]
After a condolence motion, Parliament would adjourn, and then be prorogued. Take your cocoa and go to bed.
CTar1@119
Fair enough.
Won’t it be wonderful when we have a giant coal port where the Great Barrier Reef used to be. Thanks Tony!
“Bring it on then.
Abbott just doesn’t have the ticker to do it.”
I agree Dave. I’ve said it here a couple of times, a DD is the only way and it’s inevitable now.
Mr Bowe, thanks for putting up new banner. although perhaps Mr Abbott is waving goodbye now. Funny how things work out!
Note that re-elected governments have fairly often been behind in the odd poll after this short a time, an odd one being Howard’s second Newspoll back in 1998 which was obviously rogue. Howard ’01, Hawke ’90, Gillard ’10, Menzies ’61 all trailed at least once within a few months.
It’s pleasing to think that Mark Textor may have had a hand in this excellent result.
Time for bed…ELECTION NOW!!!
BB –
Yes, there are a number of factors, you’re right. I just mentioned Indonesia because it may have tipped the public over the edge to not having confidence in the government.
We know all governments destroy their own support, and it’s a process that happens progressively over their time in power – lots of individual decisions or actions that get sections of the population offside. Over time it’s a corrosive process that eats away at a party-in-power’s support steadily.
The ALP suffered from an accelerated form of this due to endless leadershit – what should have been an easy 3 terms was only just barely 2.
The LNP seem to peddling down that road to perdition even faster, which I didn’t think possible. Maybe that’s what you’re describing as “buyer’s remorse” … but if so, it is a new phenomenon with regards political parties elected to government as far as I’m concerned.
[No amount of attempted mollifying – “Tony wouldn’t do that”, “It’s only a recommendation” etc. – would silence them. They were ropeable.
It’s probably a combination of factors – rorts (remember them?), the media stonewall, the debt limit hypocrisy, and yes, Indonesia. It may be all of those, and probably a few more factors.]
The biggest factor IMO, and one I’ve experienced here with seniors I encounter that the election of the Abbott govt hasn’t immediately ameliorated their hardships.
This in and of itself can be directly sheeted home to Abbott, who made all sorts of promises in opposition, and is continuing to do similarly in govt.
They are yet to hand down their first budget, which is expected to be nasty. Interesting times indeed.
Firstly, from AWelder
http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/
[The government has not made its members any more available than they have, retreating to a model of government not seen since the 1960s – with the addition of a stable of pseudo-spokespeople whom nobody elected (and who can’t be gotten rid of), while affording easy deniability]
Yet another example of one of the stalking horse ‘pseudo-spokespeople’,in this case the Grattan Institute, can be seen at #110 from zoidlord above.
Secondly, this Nielsen result, whilst surprising in that it is outside the line of the other polls, is not surprising in itself.
However whitewashed and hidden behind the media wall of silence by Murdochia there is no doubt Abbott and his mates have stumbled and lurched from mismanaged crisis to worse on a daily basis since election.
The verdict is in – for today amyway.
[I sentence you to be exposed before
Your peers.
Tear down the wall!]
prettyone@133
But PO –
[ prettyone
Posted Friday, October 11, 2013 at 8:05 pm | PermalinkAnyhow
the prime minister is really gorgeous. Elegant intelligent man. ]
He is not gorgeous, not elegant and he is showing he is far from being intelligent.
But he has a long track record of being a bully – a very nasty one at that!
I think we know who is the ‘rogue’. No useful replacement.
Welcome to the next 3 years.
[After a condolence motion, Parliament would adjourn, and then be prorogued.]
Your precedent please.
I’ve supplied both a plane crash and a timing precedent. All you’ve supplied is plonking arrogance.
Consider a situation where the government is most definitely on the nose, in the polls if you like.
The GG is related to the Labor leader and was appointed by Labor.
The Speaker is inexperienced in the job, and incompetent anyway due to advanced age. A motion of dissent in one of the speaker’s rulings. It is moved and carried. A new Speaker is appointed.
It could all happen in half an hour.
The GG is away, out of touch, in a plane somewhere, incommunicado.
Anything can happen.
We’re still trying to get over 1975 (some of us, anyway). It was a precision hit. Ante-rooms, timing down to the minute.
You and Psephos are talking about a scenario where there is time to consider things, and that they are considered soberly, in accordance with convention and propriety. A properly organized Opposition could subvert all that.
And 1975 WAS a double-dissolution election, brought on by an Opposition turned government, that adivsed the GG… all in the space of minutes.
The final point: the DD was based on Labor legislation that had not been passed.
My 22 year old was polled by Neilsen yesterday, and progressive that he is, answered all questions to the maximum advantage of the ALP.
Except for one – on Shorten approval he gave a neutral answer, on the basis that he hadn’t been in the job long.
They also asked on Carbon Tax repeal, Mining Tax repeal and government’s immigration policy. So we may get some insights when the aggregates come out.
Where is Hartcher and his usual late Sunday evening piece on how the government is doomed because of the Nielsen poll?
“He is not gorgeous, not elegant and he is showing he is far from being intelligent.
But he has a long track record of being a bully – a very nasty one at that!”
He’s not a bully and has just defended Ms Bryce who has bitten the hand that feeds her.
I think he’s great. But if he’s not / his policies are not what Australians want – a DD is the best way to settle things.
Don’t know if this is legit?
Purports to be Tony Abbott’s academic transcript from Oxford…
@Bill, I’m not bothering further with this silliness.
@Prettyone: You can’t just “have a DD.” There has to be a trigger, and there won’t be one until the second half of next year.
[He’s not a bully and has just defended Ms Bryce who has bitten the hand that feeds her.]
He wants to keep her sweet in case of the million-to-1 chance a DD has legs before July next year.
She won’t fall for it.
She doesn’t need Tony Abbott to tell her it’s a free country and that people can say what they like.
[@Bill, I’m not bothering further with this silliness.]
Because you lost the argument.
The question was “Could”, not “would”.
There are ample precedents – plane crashes, oppositions in collusion, delicate timings, sheer bloody-mindedness – to justify the possibility.
The Constitution is no bar.
Fraser got a DD based on Labor legislation that had been blocked, blocked by Fraser himself.
[Don’t know if this is legit?]
There’s nothing in it which is obviously wrong. Joyce Millar is the administrator of Queen’s College.
http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/current-students/administration/college-office/