GhostWhoVotes reports that the first Nielsen poll of the year for the Fairfax papers shows the Coalition leading 52-48 on two-party preferred, its first lead in a telephone poll since November and a reversal of the result in the previous Nielsen poll of November 21-23. The primary votes are 44% for the Coalition (up three), 33% for Labor (down four) and 12% for the Greens (up one). More to follow.
UPDATE: Personal ratings corroborate Newspoll in finding Bill Shorten’s strong early figures vanishing – he’s down eleven points on approval to 40%, and up ten on disapproval to 40% – while Tony Abbott is little changed at 45% (down two) and 47% (up one). Also reflecting Newspoll, this has made little difference to the preferred prime minister result, with Abbott’s lead up only slightly from 49-41 to 49-39.
UPDATE 2: Full details including state and gender breakdowns.
Spur212 had it his way and Rudd was reinstated — it didn’t work.
The ALP will do well to give the leadershit musings of Spur and others a wide berth.
I’ve said it before; Bill Shorten does not set me on fire as a leader and I am 100% ALP. He might have the caucus behind him at the moment but with all the bad news that the LNP is generating, politically Shorten is not laying a finger on Abbott. If this is happening now the final year of this parliament will be a walkover for the LNP with all their bullshit and News Ltd’s help.
Is Dog on there side?
[Whereas I’ve looked at ten weekly results since Bill Shorten became Opposition Leader and he’s placed second only twice. The week before last he fell to number eleven, behind Abbott, Hockey, Morrison, Joyce, Napthine, Stone, Newman, Turnbull, Pyne and Macfarlane]
Jobs will certainly turn this back around – but it has to be messaged, and the above quote says it all about Shorto’s small target strategy.
Its no good.
It’s two plus years to the election. The Tories policies are yet to bite. You dont sack the coach in preseason
Tens of Thousands of extremw Rightist Jews demonstrate against Kerry and Obama and call for the explusion from Israel of ALL Palestinians…and expansion of all illegal settlements
_______________________
As the ancient Greeks said…”Those wh,m the gods would destroy…first they make mad ”
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/02/israeli-extremist-movement.html
Did Abbott acheive saturation coverage as LOTO because he made himself available or the media were simply eager to give it?
Is Shorten playing a “low target” approach or are the media ignoring him?
This is a very big deal – it would tie future governments hands on many critical areas of public policy, and no one knows about it. Back in 1996 this was called the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) and we defeated it then, in Howards first year. Has to be done again.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/transpacific-partnership-is-a-big-deal-but-hardly-anyone-knows-20140215-32sf6.html
So in other words he is invisible William.
But does that explain his dramatic drop in approval rating?
If I was his adviser I would suggest he get a sharper suit, drop a couple of kilos, get a smart haircut and get on the front foot more. It plumbs the depths of shallowness but the punters have always wanted style over substance.
Centre
“Well don’t be a wimp, name them so we know if they will be posting or not in a while.”
As much as I like public denunciation and all, I’m bad with names.
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes 15s
#Nielsen Poll Preferred PM: Abbott 49 (0) Shorten 39 (-2) #auspol
I am surprised at that. I thought it would be 50/50. The Govt has a consistent narrative largely driven by Hockey. Its good politics.
Things are never as good nor as bad as they first appear.
I thought the earlier polls were overcooking the slide in support for the coalition, and this one is probably close to an “outlier”.
I suspect things are about 50-50, two years from an election, and where only a small part of the population are thinking about politics. For people who don’t like the coalition, the most comforting thing is that it’s pretty likely the coalition is less popular now than when they won, which is a start.
No need to panic.
Although I was a little surprised at the magnitude of the lead, I can’t say that I was surprised that the Coalition are doing OK.
Its not just “the boats have stopped” schtick.
I know many in my circles are quite impressed that the govt didn’t do the cheap and superficial knee-jerk rescue packages for unsustainable industries (or when the money should come from somewhere else). Shorten went the low road, but Abbott did not.
If Abbott becomes assured in his position (as he seems to be currently), the perpetual expectation that he is imminently about to implode might turn out to be a fools paradise.
I cannot see Bill Shorten becoming Prime Minister.
This is not going to be the golden era for the Union movement….not in the next 5 years at least. Shorten is Union, through and through, everyone knows that.
If Shorten can remain until 2020, I will be astounded, but he might have a chance then. I just can’t see it in 2016/7.
…also, I wouldn’t but a used car from him as I have said before! :devil:
P.o.M. @3 I must be living in an alternate Universe.
Maybe some of us are. Most Australians get their information about how things are travelling in Australia and the wider world from commercial TV New and Current Affairs, Commercial radio and tabloid newspapers, the latter mostly owned by guess who? The political reporting they see is either very shallow or actively biased to support a right wing political agenda.
I get my news mostly from ABC Radio and sites like Crikey. The only things I watch on commercial TV are The Big Bang Theory and reruns of Seinfeld. I don’t buy newspapers any more and I don’t listen to commercial radio except for music stations. So I see an incompetent, deceitful and venal Government blundering about, repudiating its commitments, trashing our relationship with Indonesia, trashing our manufacturing indistry, trashing jobs, trashing the environment and getting ready to trash Medicare. It’s set up committees headed by its big business to tell them to cut what they want to cut and sell what they want to sell. Other mates, who purport to disdain the ‘public teat’, are given plumb jobs on the public payroll.
Maybe that puts me in a different ‘universe’.
Gorilla
I for one never foresaw Labor being anywhere near this close, yet alone 50/50 or hell LEADING at this point in the game. The recent polls show there are a sizeable number of people out there who are very open to Labor and what they have to say. In spite of the typical and oh-so-predictable “OUT OF POWER FOR A GENERATION” claptrap passed around by the usual suspects in September.
Like you said, a good start.
From the previous thread
The road in front of the ASIO building is being dug up to remove asbestos. As yet the building is still unoccupied, I believe.
[absolutetwaddle
….Like you said, a good start.]
Shorten’s approval appears to be mirroring Nelson and Crean.
A good start? Depends on where you think he is going to end up!
Mod Lib,
The attack on Unions is just to hide the actual issues, the fact is many multinational or LARGE companies are outsourcing workers, thus less tax revenue.
Coalition Government is allowing this to happen.
Jobs will be downfall.
[zoidlord
Posted Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 10:37 pm | PERMALINK
Mod Lib,
The attack on Unions is just to hide the actual issues, the fact is many multinational or LARGE companies are outsourcing workers, thus less tax revenue.]
Why? Because it is too expensive to do the same thing here. What is the best solution to this situation? Giving the Union movement more power to set stricter terms and conditions, or allow greater flexibility between Business and worker dealings?
It is more expensive to do business here because of all the red and green tape and because the ALP put an extra tax on business here that isn’t reciprocated in our main trading countries (e.g., the carbon and mining taxes) and kept changing things every few seconds (sovereign risk issues). Abbott is going to change all of this. This is why I have a tendency to prefer Liberal governments to ALP governments in the Australian setting….better economic managers IMO.
[Coalition Government is allowing this to happen.]
Rubbish.
Everything
All Shorten needs to do is bring his approval ratings up somewhere above Abbott’s. This is hardly a Herculian task I would think, and he has plenty of time to do it.
@Mod Lib/70
Who said anything about giving the Unions more power, that’s just bullshit coming from you, the fear campaign.
Businesses with the so called red-tape/green is nonsense.
And then you had to put the extra rant on Carbon/Mining Tax, when the Mining Boom has been slowing down since China.
Don’t bull shit me.
He could do it and he has plenty of time, I just don’t think it is going to happen.
He is smarmy- not charismatic like Hawke, or mesmerising, like Keating. Australian’s don’t like smarmy.
Darren Laver @51
The ALP’s value proposition to voters demands the leader of the party be a personality larger than themselves that leads the community and defines it’s values rather than react to what the conservatives are doing day to day. If the ALP leader doesn’t have this quality, they generally do not win elections. It doesn’t matter how good the policies or the processes of government are, it is the leader who embodies all of it to the community!
In regards to Rudd Mark 2, the PEFO announcement created uncertainty which was amplified by immediately going to an election with the themes of trust and the NBN Murdoch conspiracy. Had he held his nerve and understood what was driving his appeal instead of listening to brain dead idiots like Bruce Hawker and Lachlan Harris, he’d be in the lodge today. In any case, the dog barks and the caravan moves on and if you don’t learn from these mistakes you are destined to repeat them.
Mod Lib:
I know you were watching Insiders and Scott Morrison this morning because you left several approving comments here indicating as much.
Did you hear Morrison’s callous disregard for the Indian visa overstayer who took his life in detention? I don’t remember you chipping him for it at the time, yet I’d bet London to a brick if it had been a Labor minister you’d be squealing like a banshee if s/he’d been so dismissive of the person’s death.
From previous thread.
Firstly in response to the moderator of this blog I apologise without reservation to any offence caused or implied in regards to my comments concerning the PM and his wife.
Secondly I resent being called a ‘malicious douchebag’ William… pot kettle black. As some other posters have noted if I had stepped outside the boundaries of appropriate commentary then yes give me a warning and a public smackdown within the spirit of your blog.
To state that my comments are considered defamatory is laughable considering many of the comments about politicians and others in public life posted on your blog would I would argue sail very vert close to the wind.
I enjoy reading the lively discussion and debate on your blog sir, but after your response to me which was nasty and unnecessary I am reconsidering.
Steven
Melbourne
The carbon tax imposes costs on business here that are not imposed on their international competitors.
The mining tax was fine theoretically, but the ALP completely stuffed up the implementation and it became an absolute farce.
Everything
I don’t get ‘smarmy’ from Shorten at all, in fact he makes a very neutral impression on me.
But we’re hardly neutral observers, I’m sure you’d concede.
I guess your circle don’t mention Cadbury handouts mod lib?
@ 63
Steven
Just accept your little comment made you look like a douchebag and move on.
[confessions
…..Did you hear Morrison’s callous disregard for the Indian visa overstayer who took his life in detention? I don’t remember you chipping him for it at the time, yet I’d bet London to a brick if it had been a Labor minister you’d be squealing like a banshee if s/he’d been so dismissive of the person’s death.]
Yes I did watch and your reference was not the way I saw it.
Cassidy made a statement about the fact that he had overstayed his visa and then immediately asked whether this could have been avoided.
Morrison was confused and clarified whether Cassidy was asking about whether the visa overstaying could have been avoided.
If you had quoted the rest of the response, you would have seen Morrison made further comments. Here they are:
“This is a very complicated and tragic case and it’s one that, you know, you would always hope to be avoided. But to I think bring this down to a simple baseline of people being in detention would be to completely misunderstand and over-simplify a very tragic and complicated situation.”
A 10% swing in Shorten’s ratings simply doesn’t make sense — he’d have had to basically kill a puppy on national television to trigger a swing of those proportions – which suggests that this poll is an outlier.
There MAY be an element of over hyped expectations coming off the leadership ballot, but even then 105 seems extreme.
Some of the other figures seem a little unlikely, too.
That said, there does appear to be a trend away from Labor at present, but nothing to worry about.
There’ll be a lot of swings and roundabouts over the next two and a bit years. It’ll be making things a lot more exciting than they deserve to be if every time there’s a dip in Labor polling we start another round of leadersh*t.
The carbon tax mod lib is a domestic tax and has nothing to with international trade.
Show me where it inhibits international trade from Oz.
The entire transcript:
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2013/s3945746.htm
confessions:
The self-reassuring demonisation of Abbott and Morrison is why you guys are blindsided when the polls don’t conform to your preconceived views of how you are right.
@Mod Lib/77
Rubbish, it does add a tiny bit to the business, but it’s not the entire fault.
Take the electricity sector, the average annual bill for NSW for Carbon is $172 out of $2,073, the largest component of that bill is Network Costs.
https://twitter.com/andypbray/status/434855505974943744/photo/1/large
Water bill for my area in the Redlands where Newman has been ripping us off, is was a surplus last year, due to continued hike in costs.
Agree with you to a point zoomster but Newspoll said much the same about Sahorten’s approval ratings.
But lets not forget it is only Abbott that is in negative approval ratings, not Shorten.
@Mod Lib/84
It’s school time if you haven’t noticed, I think more people have better things to do than lame duck politics.
2016 is Labor’s to win or lose. While the last one term Federal Government was Scullin’s over 80 years ago, there is no hard and fast rule saying that Governments get at least two terms. Howard came close to being a one termer in 1998, as did Rudd/Gillard in 2010. Gough whitlam had two ‘mini terms’ adding up to just under three years.
Of course it won’t be easy, especially with all the money being with the Conservatives. Labor needs to bypass the mainstream media to get its message across. And play negative as well as positive politics. Labor should tell its positive story while assigning a couple of attack dogs onto our thuggish, lying, incompetent oaf of a Prime minister and his team of clowns.
[Henry
Posted Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 10:47 pm | PERMALINK
I guess your circle don’t mention Cadbury handouts mod lib?
@ 63]
I agree, it was probably a mistake. I am not convinced by the “tourism” angle spin. However, a few million to win votes in Tasmania is not as great a mistake as continuing to poor (intentional spelling) good money after bad in the car industry. Facing the reality is better IMO.
Supporting the farmers is another matter entirely in my view. We SHOULD stay in agriculture. We are the best in the world, we have the land, we have a couple of billion poor folk just next door and the need for food is only going to increase over time.
Mod Lib:
I didn’t see Insiders and am reading the transcript. If you want to defend the govt and the minister for its/his response, then that’s fine and entirely your perogative. But don’t ever try to pretend that you are abhorred by harsh measures to deter boats.
[Firstly in response to the moderator of this blog I apologise without reservation to any offence caused or implied in regards to my comments concerning the PM and his wife.]
Thank you.
[To state that my comments are considered defamatory is laughable considering many of the comments about politicians and others in public life posted on your blog would I would argue sail very vert close to the wind.]
Then you don’t know much about defamation law. Defences against defamation exist for even very robust expressions of political opinion. They do not extend to making up crap about people’s marriages. Also, it seems to have escaped your attention that Margie Abbott is not a politician.
[I enjoy reading the lively discussion and debate on your blog sir, but after your response to me which was nasty and unnecessary I am reconsidering.]
What Absolutetwaddle said.
Scott Morrisson is one of those fabled moderate Liberals, right?
I’m asking because it’s rather difficult to tell.
[zoidlord
Posted Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 10:52 pm | PERMALINK
@Mod Lib/77
Rubbish, it does add a tiny bit to the business, but it’s not the entire fault.]
It does add “a bit” eh? Try $7 billion.
That is $7 billion that other people making the same stuff in other countries don’t have to pay because their governments have not imposed a carbon tax.
That makes it harder for us and easier for them.
Nothing perceptible happens to the climate/temperatures/CO2.
Lose-lose.
[The self-reassuring demonisation of Abbott and Morrison is why you guys are blindsided when the polls don’t conform to your preconceived views of how you are right.]
Really? I’m seeing it as your continued refusal to criticise the harsh measures this coalition govt deploys to an issue you’ve attempted to make your own (but only while Labor was in govt), as a beacon of your own hypocrisy.
I don’t like Morrison and I don’t like the current asylum seeker policies.
If I took your advice and went to Bolt’s blog I would be taking everyone on there on that. Here, there is unanimity (now!!!) that it is bad. What amazes me is that just a few months ago, with an ALP government, all of this was GOOD. Now, apparently, its BAD.
If, however, you want to demonise Morrison as being callous and showing no compassion for the tragedy of the case of the recent death, presumably suicide, then it is reasonable to actually quote Morrison so there is no doubt (see my link above). Morrison intimated that there were mental health issues, and I have no reason to suspect that there would not be truth in that statement given what I know of this area myself.
Did you rant and rave when children cut themselves and men sewed their lips together in the mandatory detention centres that you supported when you piggy backed Gillard’s lurch to the right?
@Mod Lib/93
Other countries are being abandoned too now you know to make same stuff.
-IBM 15,000 Jobs cut in multiple countries.
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/corporates/article-ibm-to-cut-15-000-jobs-globally-lay-offs-start-from-bangalore-report-380649
-Sony billions of dollars lost, jobs cuts.
http://www.brecorder.com/company-news/235/1152161/
-Civil Service Cuts in UK – 1 million by 2019.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/civil-service-job-cuts-more-3143284
Are some of the examples, and yet Obama/USA are pushing for TPP which guaranteed job losses.
Bill Shorten = “Your Job Security”
That’s all I’d be running with at this point if I were the ALP. No other words outside of this like “job losses” or “job cuts.” Just “your job security” … Over and over and over again until it’s seared into everyones brain
Gee you talk crap mod lib.
I will ask again, show me where the carbon tax has restricted Australian international trade?
Me thinks you will be disappearing again in 3, 2, 1…
[Me thinks you will be disappearing again in 3, 2, 1…]
Yep, you got me. Early start tomorrow and you guys are never in very good moods when the polls are bad.
What part of $6 to 7 billion additional costs on business do you struggle to understand? Even if some of that is refunded, as it was, it always has an impact when you impose costs on business. It makes them less profitable. Less profits mean less employment.
Bye bye…. 🙂
[zoidlord
Posted Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 11:04 pm | PERMALINK
@Mod Lib/93
Other countries are being abandoned too now you know to make same stuff.]
GOSH, Abbott is doing really well then based on the international comparison you have shown- isn’t he! :devil: