Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

After the last result gave Labor its biggest lead of any poll since the election of the Abbott government, the latest fortnightly Newspoll has come in closer to trend.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the latest Newspoll has Labor’s lead at 51-49 after a blowout to 54-46 a fortnight ago, from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition (up two), 35% for Labor (down four) and 11% for the Greens (up one). More to follow.

UPDATE: The Australian’s report, which just maybe reads excessive political import into what’s actually statistical noise. Although it could indeed be telling that Bill Shorten’s ratings have again gone down despite a better set of numbers for Labor on voting intention.

UPDATE 2: Leader ratings have Tony Abbott up two on approval to 38% and down two on disapproval to 50%, while Bill Shorten is down two to 33% and up four to 43%. Tony Abbott makes a solid gain on preferred prime minister, his lead out from 38-37 to 42-36.

UPDATE 3 (Essential Research): Essential Research is 50-50, after the Coalition hit the lead 51-49 last week. The Coalition is down two on the primary vote to 42%, while Labor and the Greens are steady on 38% and 8%, and the Palmer United Party up one to 4%. The monthly personal ratings have Bill Shorten up two on approval to 32% and up five on disapproval to 39%, Tony Abbott down one to 40% and steady on 47%, and Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister down from 40-30 to 39-33. A question on Qantas shows respondents react negatively to the words “jobs being sent offshore”, 62% pressing the “disapprove” button despite the qualification of it happening improving the airline’s “profitability and long-term success”, while only 25% opted for approve. Fifty-nine per cent think foreign ownership would be bad for Australian jobs and 46% bad for the economy, versus 16% and 24% good. However, it would be thought good for Qantas profits by a margin of 48-19, and good for air travellers by 30-25.

UPDATE 4 (Morgan): The latest Morgan poll, conducted over the last two weekends from a sample of 2903 by face-to-face and SMS surveying, has a bounce in Labor’s lead from 50.5-49.5 to 53.5-46.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, which is a slightly more moderate 50.5-49.5 to 52.5-47.5 on previous election preferences. The Coalition is down 1.5% on the primary vote to 39.5%, Labor is up 1.5% to 37%, the Greens are up 1.5% to 12%, and the Palmer United Party is up half a point to 4%. Morgan has taken to including state breakdowns on two-party preferred, the latest set having Labor ahead 55-45 in New South Wales, 57-43 in Victoria and 51.5-48.5 in Queensland, while the Coalition leads 54.5-45.5 in Western Australia, 52.5-47.5 in South Australia and 52.5-47.5 in Tasmania.

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.

1,524 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor”

Comments Page 2 of 31
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  4. WB, is Shamaham ok?

    Shamaham is spinning the new numbers like the good foot soldier that he is.

    Shorten goes backwards.

    Tony never “went backwards”

  6. Abbott to look in China:
    http://www.afr.com/p/business/million_visas_for_chinese_rich_could_3ONDMrp1gXSxUYoIx33PJP

    “The Abbott government is reviewing and plans to expand the significant investment visa program, which has granted four-year visas to 116 foreigners in just over a year.”

    “The review will seek ways of speeding up approvals and will consider expanding the assets the $5 million can be invested in beyond bond and commercial property funds, possibly to venture capital and start-ups.”

  9. For those of us who like a feel good story, from the left-populist side of the spectrum …

    http://n.pr/1e2ey6C

    And now for some DIY art …

    http://twitter.com/TheWorldStories/status/442763023347093504/photo/1

    And a cute nature pic or two …

    http://twitter.com/CuteEmergency/status/438879917758218240/photo/1

    http://twitter.com/Iearnsomething/status/441714792730877953/photo/1

    The setting at parliament most likely to boost the net sats of Abbott and Shorten …

    http://twitter.com/Marcdawson/status/436316972695814144/photo/1

  10. Morning all. Bill Shorten is not a control freak who has centralised power to a group of four ministers. He has done it for one minister, himself. Rudd critics must want him removed 🙂
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/troubleshooter-appointed-as-bill-shorten-faces-internal-unrest-20140310-34hvx.html

    This highlights the transparent falseness of stated reasons for past leadership tensions. The fact is, most political leaders run a tight ship to control the message. The failure to respond to issues in time to make the press is more serious. We have heard little from Shorten since christmas. It is now March.

  11. Zoidlord

    Thanks for reporting the intention to raise the pension age to seventy. Finally some honesty in this debate. On current policy we will wind up the Greece of the south.

  12. More snouting.

    [POLITICIANS have been given the green light to hide the identities of family members who spend millions of taxpayer dollars annually flying around Australia in business class.

    In a case that may set a precedent, the Abbott government has hidden records of taxpayer-funded family travel for a Liberal MP Jane Prentice after her family members racked up $20,000 worth of airfares, including business class, between Brisbane and Canberra in her first term in parliament.]

  13. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
    This is hardly surprising.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/lost-jobs-cost-budget-600m-20140310-34hy7.html
    And who would have thought this?
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/manus-island-riot-full-report-by-australian-official-may-not-be-released
    Greg Jericho exposes Abbott’s PPL for what it is.
    http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/mar/10/abbotts-paid-parental-leave-will-do-little-to-bring-women-to-the-workforce
    What has caused this? Is he playing games?
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/royal-commission-cardinal-george-pell-says-child-abuse-victims-should-be-able-to-sue-catholic-church-20140310-34go3.html
    Peter Martin on the farce that is “red tape day”.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smoke-and-mirrors-with-redtape-ghosts-20140310-34hnq.html
    Royal Commission now!
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/political-donations-worth-75000-disputed-by-federal-labor-party
    It figures!
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/conservative-former-us-republican-presidential-candidate-rick-santorum-endorses-lessons-from-hardliner-tony-abbott-20140310-34gn3.html

  14. Section 2 . . .

    Ron Tandberg seems to have been inspired by the Wizard of Id with this beauty.

    Alan Moir and a pensive Bill Shorten.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/alan-moir-20090907-fdxk.html
    Cathy Wilcox on education policy.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/cathy-wilcox-20090909-fhd6.html
    MUST SEE! David Pope hands Abbott the ridiculing he deserves on CC.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/david-pope-20120214-1t3j0.html
    Brilliant! Matt Golding on privacy and supermarkets.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/matt-golding-20090907-fdh2.html
    ABSOLUTELY MUST SEE! David Rowe on media ownership and behaviour. And look at the shadow on the wall.
    http://www.afr.com/p/national/cartoon_gallery_david_rowe_1g8WHy9urgOIQrWQ0IrkdO

  16. And from the Land of the Free –

    Bill O’Reilly excels himself on International Women’s Day.
    http://americablog.com/2014/03/oreilly-theres-gotta-downside-woman-president-right-video.html
    Well done anti-vaxxers and those that give them air!
    http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/thanks-anti-vaxxers-measles-outbreak
    Guns in the home.
    http://www.newser.com/story/183546/state-trooper-accidentally-shoots-kills-pregnant-wife.html
    Look who’s turned up at a Florida gun show.
    http://www.wesh.com/news/central-florida/orange-county/george-zimmerman-signs-autographs-at-orlando-gun-show/24881564
    More troubles for the troubled Chris Christie.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/chris-christie-subpoenas_n_4936605.html
    Justin Bieber. What a little shit he is!
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/10/justin-bieber-deposition_n_4934270.html

  17. Morning all

    I guess letters to all pensionsers telling them about the pension increase due on 20th March did the trick in garnering support for team coalition

  19. Good morning

    victoria

    Just as letters sent out before elections about pension changes reducing income will decrease LNP support. 😛

  24. Goodness me. Two weeks ago when newspoll was 54/46 to Labor. Did not hear any reportage on radio. This morning, i have already heard several times that labor and Shorten have gone backwards in support blah blah blah.

  25. victoria

    Of course not. There are elections happening. The LNP being up front and honest before the election is not going to happen.

    Shorten is right with his 900 pages of nasty surprises. He needs meat on the bones for voters. Just one nasty surprise he can turn into a slogan like Abbott did with carbon pricing.

  26. [Just as letters sent out before elections about pension changes reducing income will decrease LNP support. ]

    They wouldn’t be that stupid.

  27. victoria

    i would go with something like

    [The LNP A Pandoras Box of Nasty Surprises. You are never going know what nasty surprise awaits until you open the box]

    Then use existing knowledge of what has happened with the LNP before and after government.

  30. Arrghh. 8 am gremlins.

    Soc, the reason we haven’t heard from Shorten is the old problem of media reporting. He’s done a couple of superb parliamentary speeches (one I thought was at least as good as Gillard’s misogyny one), lots of sound pressers, etc. but they don’t make the radar.

    Partly this is simply a return to reality after the minority government – the kind of attention Abbott received as LOTO was unprecedented – and partly this is media bias.

    For example, someone posed the question a couple of days ago about why Shorten hadn’t said anything about the Morwell situation. Within a few minutes, others were able to prove that he had — but reportage of this had been limited to a throwaway quote or two at the end of articles.

    Shorten doesn’t have to dazzle the world at the moment, and I’d rather he didn’t, either. He needs to show himself as a safe pair of hands. If voters walk into the polling booths in two and a bit years time with the fixed perception that Shorten is a bit boring but he stands up for Australian jobs, that’s job done.

    No one ever turned off the TV and turned to the OH saying, “That John Howard. What an inspiration.”

  33. And a quick read of that article — a problem has been identified with the way Shorten’s office has been operating and he’s taken steps to fix it.

    I’d have been gobsmacked if a new leader (particularly one in Opposition after several years of government) didn’t encounter problems. That he has acted to fix them basically as soon as they arose would normally be seen as a good thing.

    Interestingly, the sources for the article are ‘a Labor source’ (which could be someone like me, for example) and ‘one Labor MP’. If that’s all the media can find willing to b*tch about the leader at this stage, he’s travelling well.

  34. zoomster

    Btw you may have missed it, but the CPG thought those speeches by Shorten were miscalculated and served him no purpose.

  35. confessions

    Interviewing Buswell now only serves to reinforce the fact that the police failed to do their job in the first instance. Question is why?

  36. Troy’s been framed!

    The cause of Troy Buswell’s erratic driving through the leafy suburb of Subiaco a couple of weeks ago is down to the machinations of the maverick feminist driver-seat in his government-supplied Holden Caprice.

    Troy is rightfully claiming that the rogue driver-seat, consumed by hatred of him for sniffing many of her comrades to death over the years, bounced repeatedly up and down when he was at the wheel, causing him to lose control of the vehicle on a number of occasions during his journey home to Subiaco.

    Troy is so serious about proving his innocence, he has reformed his old band, Sniff and the Tears (now changed to Sniff and the Beers), and has re-released their old hit, “Driver’s Seat”. So sing along with Sniff as he tries to put the record straight.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SCzVEUlqqA

    Doing all right
    A little jiving on a Saturday night
    Then midnight came
    Couldn’t dance the day away
    :- )
    My time of life
    Can’t cope with any trouble or strife
    Got in the auto
    Headed home to old downtown Subiaco
    :- )
    The news is blue (The news is blue)
    How’d I ever get into this stew?
    What can I do? (What can I do?)
    My drivin’s caused a cry and a hue
    :- )
    This might sound weak
    But it’s all down to the driver’s seat
    Kept jumpin’ around
    Made me drive like a loon ‘cross old Subi town
    Damn driver’s seat, driver’s seat, yeah
    :- )
    Was givin’ me jip
    For all the seats I had fetishly sniffed
    Had me well beat
    A bucking bronco in heat
    Bloody driver’s seat, driver’s seat, yeah
    :- )
    Beat up the fence
    The panel-beater’ll charge more’n a few cents
    Career’s dead meat
    Shoulda parked out on the street
    Friggin’ driver’s seat, driver’s seat, yeah
    Driver’s seat, driver’s seat, yeah
    :- )Driver’s seat
    In a Caprice
    Totally fleeced
    Sheesh

  41. Has Shorten’s speeches been posted on youtube. As we saw with Senator Ludlum and PMJG they can go viral and prove the gallery wrong.

  46. mari

    It is behind paywall, but this is the gist of the report

    [The Australian Securities and Exchange Commission will investigate possible insider trading in the shares of Leighton Holdings last week ahead of a $1.15 billion takeover bid by shareholder Hochtief.]

  47. lizzie

    Go to centrelink website and click on “older australians” and you will see the latest information relating to payments etc. i know my parents have received correspondence in the mail

  48. zoomster
    [Soc, the reason we haven’t heard from Shorten is the old problem of media reporting.]
    The number of times you have claimed wtte Where are the Greens, they have said nothing on..?

    Apparently, the Greens are not the target of biased media reporting even though The Australian editorialised that the “Greens must be destroyed…”

    The Greens factor media bias into their landscape. Labor needs to stop using it as an excuse and ‘get on with it’.

  50. 24 showing smiles in Shepparton.

    New contract with Woolworths. SPC it was the best $25 million they missed out on as consumer demand rose to save SPC’s bacon.

    Company saved with no thanks to Tony Abbott

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