Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor

As other pollsters find support for Labor trending downwards, Newspoll breaks ranks with the Abbott government’s worst poll result since it came to power.

The second Newspoll of the year is a wildly off-trend result that has no doubt made life difficult for a) whoever has been charged with writing up the results for The Australian, and b) anti-Murdoch conspiracy theorists. The poll has Labor leading 54-46, up from 51-49, which is the Coalition’s worst result from any poll since the election of the Abbott government. The primary votes are 39% for the Coalition (down two), 39% for Labor (up four) and 10% for the Greens (down two). Despite that, the personal ratings find Bill Shorten continuing to go backwards, his approval steady at 35% and disapproval up four to 39%. However, things are a good deal worse for Tony Abbott, who is down four to 36% and up seven to 52%. Abbott’s lead on preferred prime minister shrinks from 41-33 to 38-37.

Elsewhere in polldom:

Roy Morgan is more in line with the recent trend in having the Coalition up half a point on the primary vote to 41%, Labor down 1.5% to 35.5%, the Greens steady on 10.5%, and the Palmer United Party steady on 4.5%. Labor leads by 50.5-49.5 on both two-party preferred measures, compared with 52-48 on last fortnight’s respondent-allocated result and 51-49 on previous election preferences. The Morgan release also provides state breakdowns on two party preferred, showing the Coalition leading 52.5-47.5 in New South Wales and 55-45 in Western Australia, while Labor leads 54.5-45.5 in Victoria, 52-48 in Queensland, 53.5-46.5 in South Australia and 50.5-49.5 in Tasmania.

• The Australian National University has released results from its regular in-depth post-election Australian Election Study mailout survey, the most widely noted finding of which is that Tony Abbott scored the lowest rating of any election-winner going back to 1987. The survey asks respondents to rate leaders on a scale from zero to ten, with Abbott scoring a mean of 4.29 compared with 4.89 for Julia Gillard in 2010; 6.31 for Kevin Rudd in 2007; 5.73, 5.31, 5.56 and 5.71 for John Howard in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004 respectively; 4.74 for Paul Keating in 1993; and 6.22 and 5.46 for Bob Hawke in 1987 and 1990 respectively.

The Age reports that a poll of 1000 respondents by UMR Research, commissioned by the Australian Education Union, finds Malcolm Turnbull (a net rating of plus 12%) and Joe Hockey (plus 2%) to be rated more favourably than Tony Abbott (minus 8%).

UPDATE (Essential Research): The weekly Essential Research has Labor’s lead steady at 51-49, with the Coalition up a point on the primary vote to 42%, Labor down one to 39% and the Greens up one to 9%. Also featured: “government handling of issues”, showing neutral net ratings for the government’s best areas (economic management, asylum seekers, foreign relations) and strongly negative ones for welfare, service provision and industrial relations. Worst of the lost is “supporting Australian jobs”, at minus 19%. The existing renewable energy target is broadly supported (39% about right, 25% too low, 13% too high); opinion of Qantas has deteriorated over the past year (11% say they have come to feel more positive, 25% more negative), and there is support for the government buying a share of it or guaranteeing its loans; and opinion on government moves to crack down on illegal file sharing is evenly divided.

UPDATE 2: The West Australian reports that a Patterson Market Research survey conducted before last week’s High Court ruling from an undisclosed sample size suggests the micro-party vote would wither if a fresh Senate election was held. The poll has the Liberals on 45%, up six on its Senate vote at the election, Labor on 32%, up five, and the Greens on 12%, up three. The Palmer United Party collapses from 5% to 1%, with all others halving from 20% to 10%. However, one wonders how good polls are at capturing the sentiment that causes indifferent voters to plump for micro-parties at the last minute.

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.

1,845 comments on “Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. ru

    it’s a nice circular argument.

    Either this drought is a consequence of climate change, and the farmers have thus been hit with an unexpected event, or it’s part of the normal cycle, in which case farmers should have been prepared for it.

    Most of my neighbours have at least two years’ worth of hay in their sheds.

  2. Kezza

    [Oh well, perhaps I should have investigated more. It was obviously an ongoing joke, so Australian, about having a got a you, instead of revealing that you actually saved people at the time you ruined the truck.

    So, I am sorry for casting that aspersion on you.]

    Yes, it has been a running joke and i happily take most barbs.

    [No, rummell, I’m not an angry person, but I don’t trust, and never will, people who make a commitment and then don’t keep their promise.

    I feel sorry for you.]

    Thank you Kezza, you are not that bad.

  3. fred

    a farmer friend of mine was outraged when she became a councillor – she had to pay tax on her allowance ($12k).

    “I’m a farmer,” she said to me indignantly. “I’ve never paid tax in my life.”

    (Four kids educated at private schools, multi million property, hob nobbed with the elite….but never paid a cent of tax….)

  4. DTT

    Re Sydney Funnel Web.

    I remember the hullabaloo about Sydney Funnel Webs, when I was about 15 years of age.

    That was 1969. There’d been a couple of deaths in NSW.

    Not to be outdone, Melbourne suddenly trumpeted the same.

    Anyway, Victoria’s antidote to that was to scare the living daylights out of the population with stories of the Trapdoor Spider.

    Suddenly, every funnel web (descriptor of web) was the web of a Trapdoor. We were jumping jackasses. Thanks Sydney. We were looking high and low, not on the ground, where the actual Trapdoors made their trap.

    It was as bad as the times when jail escapees were always in the headlines. Always on your metal.

    And for a kid who’d grown up on a diet of communist overrunning our simple society, it was almost too much.

    Apart from nightmares of Japs coming across the paddocks with bayonets drawn, we also had to suffer the terror of unspeakable black spiders with funnelly-trapdoory webs to imprison us.

    I don’t know how we survived.

  5. [ Bit surprised though that the ABC has taken him on, because he doesn’t pull his punches]

    Kevin Absolutely none pulled in that I/vw. Couldn’t believe I was listening to the ABC

  6. [zoomster
    Posted Wednesday, February 26, 2014 at 6:58 pm | PERMALINK
    fred

    a farmer friend of mine was outraged when she became a councillor – she had to pay tax on her allowance ($12k).]

    Im not a country folk.
    Perhaps someone can inform me why Farmers who survived ten years of drought in the 00’s have not implemented business plans to get them through at least 2 years worth of drought?.

  7. daretotread

    As its a kiwi spider it is far friendlier and does not want to kill all and sundry. The Sydney funnel web and its habit of running out and attacking “all and sundry” would be a l worry.

  8. [Im not a country folk.
    Perhaps someone can inform me why Farmers who survived ten years of drought in the 00′s have not implemented business plans to get them through at least 2 years worth of drought?.]

    Because they hoped making it a political issue would get them a few bucks as it normally does when the Nationals are on the Treasury Benches.

  9. [Perhaps someone can inform me why Farmers who survived ten years of drought in the 00′s have not implemented business plans to get them through at least 2 years worth of drought?.]

    derr…Because they know your lot will bail them out. Given that it why would they invest in drought proofing their operations? Remember, privatise the profits and socialize the losses is the mantra. 🙂 Its just good business after all.

  10. BH – Wait till Verrender gets onto the banks. He froths at the mouth.

    I’m starting to get worried out these Huntsman things. Any chance they might organise and attack Balmain?

  11. fredex

    I did the “books” for my parents for nearly 30 years.

    They never paid a wink of tax. EVER. Before or after my involvement.

    Yet, they complained mightily about tax evasion.

    I used to say to them, why are you complaining when you never pay tax? Always the same reply, “We’re looking after the small businesses in the town. If they have to pay tax, then we’re shot for credit.”

    It was weird. They never accepted that they should pay tax. It didn’t matter that everybody else’s taxes paid for their benefit.

    We were producing the food for Australia. We shouldn’t have to pay anything else.

    I think my parents were stuck in wartime Australia.

    On the plus side, my parents donated so much of their time, effort and money to the community, I’m sure it worked out in the end. That is, their contribution to the local community equalled the tax they should have paid.

    I suppose, they made sure their taxes worked for the local community rather than get squandered for something they didn’t agree with.

    There you go. I am my parents’ daughter.

  12. Hmmm…it’s just occured to me that the various shouty performances on the part of various Liberal frontbenchers this week in Question Time this week are auditions for the leadership.

    So far, on this episode of ‘Australia’s Got Talent”, I’d be sending all the contestants home.

  13. Zoomster @1440
    Gillard made an agreement with Wilkie over poker machines, then broke her word when she thought she did not need him any more. She and her Labor colleagues presumably thought that the support they got from the gambling lobby was worth Wilkie’s undying enmity which he will quite understandably demonstrate at every opportunity.

  14. Oh Dear what’s Hartcher been upto?

    [The New South Wales government has been forced to defend the Planning Department’s backing of a central coast coal mine that the Coalition promised would never go ahead.

    In Opposition, Barry O’Farrell spoke to a rally against the Wallarah 2 coal mine and promised that a Coalition government would ensure that mining would not occur in the water catchment.

    “No ifs no buts a guarantee,” he said at the time.]

  15. rummel

    presumably because they believed it when they were told that climate change was a load of crap. Usually droughts run in cycles, and when one’s over, there’s no reason to expect another for a decade or so.

    …but it’s still wise to have a couple of years’ worth of feed in the shed…

  16. Kezza

    The Sydney Funnel web was a very real threat growing uo. There was at that time no vaccine.

    Now one story I was told about a FW was that the last lady who died down in Jarvis Bay was effectively killed by the racist attitude of her husband.

    A Black ranger at the camp site saw the spider on the woman’s chest. He approached the woman to gently remove the spider. Hubby says “Not having black bastard touch my wife’s breast” and slapped the spider hard. Venom went into woman and she died. Told to me by said black ranger.

  17. [MagicPudding
    Posted Wednesday, February 26, 2014 at 7:13 pm | PERMALINK
    Zoomster @1440
    Gillard made an agreement with Wilkie over poker machines, then broke her word when she thought she did not need him any more. She and her Labor colleagues presumably thought that the support they got from the gambling lobby was worth Wilkie’s undying enmity which he will quite understandably demonstrate at every opportunity.]

    That’s not true. Wilkie was on board with the ‘limited’ pokies (because of the hung parli situation) legislation.

    He had to get Tony Crooks on board. He’d done nothing, no negotiation whatsoever.

    Once Tony Crooks pulled out, it was all over red rover.

    Wilkie pulled up the drawbridge. He thought he could force Labor’s hand. What he didn’t understand was that Labor had the Slipper speakership up its sleeve.

    Because Wilkie was a lazy bastard and expected Labor to do all the running on his pet issue, as well as govern the country, he sat on his laurels.

    Then blamed everyone but himself for not getting it through.

    He even grandstanded the day he changed his mind, after meeting in Melbourne with Jenny Macklin and promising support for Labor.

  18. [Perhaps someone can inform me why Farmers who survived ten years of drought in the 00′s have not implemented business plans to get them through at least 2 years worth of drought?.]

    Not a definitive response -OK?

    Farming is a patchy business.

    By patchy I mean there is a great variety and difference in:
    -the places where it occurs eg coastal tropical QLD cf inland QLd cf around here [almost semi-desert] cf Tassie cf say Eyre Peninsula or the Wimmera.
    -what is farmed – animals, trees [which have to last years to get a crop, also viniculture], crops of a bewildering variety on an annual basis,
    -by various methods eg monoculture sugar on a small holding, monoculture trees with irrigation [me and most of my mates], broad acre [say 1000 acres plus]wheat sheep [that which most people equate to farming] extensive large scale
    -family business, extended family business, corporate holding

    You get the idea.

    And prices are an issue – my advice to you is never ever raise the topic of prices [as in wheat or wool or wine, whatever, prices] to a cocky in a pub – you’ll be bored shitless.
    Mind you prices in general have been bloody good the last decade or so. As one fella said to me, “We had lousy rains last year but made a mint [prices were high].”
    In ’07 when SA has widespread drought farm income rose because of high commodity prices and low AUD.

    So they were not happy with the high $ even tho’ the harvester cost less which doesn’t really matter too much cos debt is good.

    We can have drought in one part of the country and floods elsewhere, hey we were cut off here for a couple of days 2 weeks ago when the storm hit SA. We had 70 mm in 2 days. That’s a lot here, QLDers would giggle at that.
    Patchy.

    I/we had a business plan when we started here 22 years ago.
    Still have.
    It included debt but not drought, irrigators don’t do drought cos water comes from a pipe, not the sky.

    So maybe drought relief, high debt and tax *cough* *relief’ is the business plan, well for some.

  19. BK – Shortie was brilliant, wasn’t he. Always helps, of course, to be on the right side of an argument. With Tone as PM the electorate craves authenticity. Shortie gave it in spades.

  20. Seems Abbott meant Morwell, not Whyalla. 🙁

    [Plans are being made to evacuate the Victorian town of Morwell as a fire at a nearby open-cut mine continues to spew thick smoke over the Latrobe valley area.

    The state’s chief health officer, Rosemary Lester, said an evacuation plan was being prepared for Morwell and authorities had handed out 25,000 face masks.

    The Environment Protection Authority issued a high-level smoke alert for the valley on Wednesday. Its air quality index for Morwell south was 828 on Wednesday afternoon. Anything over 100 is rated poor, with 150+ very poor.]

  21. [TPP Talks are 80% complete says Andrew Robb.]

    They have been 80% complete for the last 15 years. The 20% is the tricky bit. Robb was lucky with Korea the agreement was in place just needed signing.

    China is a whole 10 degrees of difficulty different.

  22. victoria@1483

    BK

    Have to say Shorten was quite impressive. I got the sense that the coalition members may have felt a fleeting sense of shame.

    Not with abbott’s tories. Never – they wouldn’t know how to spell shame, let alone feel it.

  23. I saw Shorten’s speech this arvo as it happened. Must say I was worried, as the ALP clearly weren’t expecting it. He caucused furiously with his frontbench and was mocked for doing so by Julie Bishop in her speech supporting Wilkie’s motion.

    But cometh the hour …. He was quite magnificent in his oratory and by the end of the speech the government benches had fallen silent.

    Two take out messages. First don’t underestimate. Shorten. This was a new Opposition leader who under the most difficult circumstance turned the tables on the Gov. Second, it wont win any votes, but it clearly lifted Team Labor’s spirits and I think was a wake up call to the Press Gallery that he shouldnt be underestimated. In Parliamentary terms it was an excellent day for the ALP.

  24. Victoria

    If you are still tuned in, thank you so much for posting Shorten’s speech. He was magnificent. It was very noticeable how the government members were reduced to almost total silence the longer he went. I think he will gain a great deal of confidence out of it and will be a much more formidable opponent from now on.

  25. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN@1488

    Dave – that doesn’t matter. This will give Shortie confidence, and his team confidence. That’s the important thing.

    I hope it does give him and caucus confidence, but they need voter support and what the ABC put to air won’t help.

    Besides – they just didn’t report the issue accurately, as per usual.

    Very few will see the YouTube clip, apart from the likes of us.

  26. Ruawake @ 1482

    ABC reports that Morwell residents are considering taking class action re the ongoing smoke issue and that a protest is being planned on Sunday.

    Reports also indicate that the fire may have been deliberately lit.

    CFA hope to get the upper hand within 2 weeks depending on the weather.

    Having lived in the Latrobe Valley for several years even I can only imagine what the residents must be enduring at the moment.

  27. REx has joined Virgin in demanding the same debt guarantee that is mooted for QANTAS.

    This is all Abbott can offer, he needs to amend the QANTAS sale act to do what he thinks the donors oops sorry management of QANTAS demand from him.

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