Nielsen: 51-49 to Coalition

The latest Nielsen poll strengthens the impression from last month’s result that the series may be leaning to the Coalition relative to the other pollsters.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the monthly Nielsen poll in tomorrow’s Fairfax has the Coalition leading 51-49. I’m not clear if this is based on respondent-allocated or previous election preferences, but the respective results in last month’s poll were 51-49 and 52-48. The Coalition primary vote is steady on 44%, Labor is up two to 35%, and the Greens are steady on 12%. Tony Abbott’s approval is steady on 45% and his disapproval is up two to 49%, while his lead as preferred prime minister is down from 49-39 to 48-43. More to follow …

UPDATE: James J in comments relates that the poll also shows 52% support a means test for Medicare bulk billing versus 46% opposed, and the following results on what the government should do about Qantas: 30% remove foreign ownership restrictions, 20% provide debt guarantee, 3% both, 41% neither.

UPDATE 2: Full tables here.

UPDATE 3 (Essential Research): After a week at 50-50, Essential Research has the Coalition back at 51-49 in front, their primary vote up a point to 43%, Labor’s down two to 36%, the Greens up one to 9% and the Palmer United Party steady at 4%. Other questions find respondents tending to oppose relaxing restrictions on the media, with 31% favouring more regulation, 15% favouring less and 36% thinking the present situation about right, while 43% are opposed to relaxing cross-media ownership laws with 29% supportive. Twenty-six per cent say they would prefer having the same party in government at both federal and state tiers against 24% who would prefer different parties and 36% who say it makes no difference. Respondents were asked if they would prefer the federal or state government to be responsible for various areas of policy, with the federal government favoured for everything except roads, regional investment and public transport.

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.

2,109 comments on “Nielsen: 51-49 to Coalition”

Comments Page 40 of 43
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  1. Apparently Crimea has returned to the “motherland”… With Putin organising a photo op bash on the infamous Red Square.

    Where is Rudd when you need him? Wasn’t he going to solve this crisis?

  3. Boerwar
    Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2014 at 4:56 pm | PERMALINK
    So the AWH was essentially a structure for creaming water payments from every Sydney sider and giving it to sundry Liberal spivs and the Federal Liberal Party itself.

    Flew home from Sydney and what do I see another of your gems. edited it to fit and put it on twitter going crazy at the moment. Good on you Sir

  5. The damage to the Abbott government from this affair is so far superficial. Few outside of NSW and beyond the corridors of power would have even heard his name before.
    And Abbott did his best to ensure his reputation was protected, praising his minister’s decision to stand aside as another example of his exemplary character.
    Yet Labor also has a scalp – a top-shelf Liberal insider with impeccable conservative connections.
    And this story has a way to run yet in ICAC and in the Parliament.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/rapid-departure-of-arthur-sinodinos-ensures-damage-to-tony-abbott-will-be-superficial-20140319-352ef.html#ixzz2wOmVGnwi

  6. [Where is Rudd when you need him? Wasn’t he going to solve this crisis?]

    Only in the demented and obsessed minds of the rather large PB Rudd haters who are so clearly living in a fantasy world.

  8. [Yup, that is a bit of a worry. Will be interesting to see where this line of inquiry from ICAC goes, how many figures from both sides get implicated and whether similar arrangements in other states get outed.]

    NSW would be aghast to think any other state was rivalling or emulating its corrupt pedigree

  9. A friends of mine, when she was a highly ranked public servant, worked with Arthur Sinodinos.

    She has told me on several occasions that he was a head-kicking bully, someone on the inside who believed he had total power over anyone who came across his path.

    So, for him to now pose as a naive, incurious, sinecure-heavy (but obscenely well-paid) nodding head – unaware that the company of which he was Chairman was paying money to the political party of which he was Treasurer, and that the aforementioned company was controlled by a cabal of greedy lurk merchants and spivs from across party lines – is utterly, completely, irrefutably incredible.

    The one consolation we should all enjoy is that of all the boofheads that could have been the first real scalp of the Liberal-run and Liberal-inspired Obeid/Labor witch hunt, it just *had* to be a Liberal, and a connected, cosseted one at that. One of the real “boys” has been snagged.

    He’ll never be back. After this there are a couple more corruption investigations involving Sinodinos in the ICAC pipeline. Joe Hockey is now involved.

    They were ALL in it, from both sides. Old school mates with their snouts in the trough.

    And this, as has been alluded to above, is only the tip of the iceberg.

  10. Possum Comitatus ‏@Pollytics 52s

    It should *never* have come to this. Just incredible RT @emmykubainski: 1500 of Qld’s most Snr Doctors ready to vote. pic.twitter.com/dRdm2SlH8c

  11. [ Does Sinodinis get paid as a Minister while he “steps aside”?]

    I read he was “foregoing” his ministerial salary and allowances.

    I pity the poor payroll clerk working it out, given no formal resignation, but I am sure they will get there.

  14. [The damage to the Abbott government from this affair is so far superficial.]

    “superficial”?

    They WISH.

    Remember, Mark Kenny is the man who had Abbott organizing peace-in-our-time with Indonesia, within days of being sworn in.

    They can state it as much as they like, repeat how wonderful everything is, how “superficial” are the fewe landed blows, but no-one believes them.

    The live in a bubble of their own making.

    And Kenny is one of the worst.

  15. Darren,

    My understanding is that saying you are forgoing and actually forgoing are different things.

    The Bureaucrats organising the pay will pay people to the scale they are “entitled” under law not what they say.

  17. [Does Sinodinis get paid as a Minister while he “steps aside”?]

    No, he has lost all Ministerial allowance and “perks”, it is as if he resigned. (Which in reality he just did).

  18. poroti
    Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2014 at 8:16 pm | PERMALINK
    mari

    Speaking of bagpipes and the Ukraine .

    Scottish and Ukrainian Bagpipes Battle

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUo3Mdk4Zkc

    Loved the end

    When I was up in Shetland watched a band practising one would start by tapping his feet on the floor and the others would join in without any music of course

  20. BB,

    You live in NSW. While you might think this is a rivetting issue, I can assure you that no one has ever heard of Sinodinis anywhere else, most would identify ICAC as something to do with personal ablutions and really the rest of the Australia has been hearing about NSW corruption since the Rum Corps arrived with the First Fleet.

    Very Ho hum.

  24. [So it is actually a resignation and not some confected twighlight limbo concoction?]

    Yep, he is now a Senator. Thats it. Cormann is doing his job.

    I doubt Sinodinos will be in the Senate in July.

  25. I’m personally disappointed because I strongly believe Sinodinos was one of the best minds in the government management team. I think the government is weaker as a result of this which isn’t good for the country generally. But the cards have fall where they fall.

  26. [ most would identify ICAC as something to do with personal ablutions and really the rest of the Australia has been hearing about NSW corruption since the Rum Corps arrived with the First Fleet.]

    GG

    LOL!

    Sadly true.

  28. NSW courts have hardened their resolve with white collar crime. This is now the standard approach to sentencing:

    [… the requirements recently restated by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal for a sentence, (are) particularly in market matters, to punish the offender, denounce his conduct and provide sufficient disincentive to others who may be tempted to offend.]

  32. [What ever happened to Ms Rhiannon’s Senate enquiry report? Was it ever published or did it lapse due to the election?]
    The Greens initiated inquiry was set up in 2012 with the support of the Coalition to review the federal Lobbying Code of Conduct. The inquiry was opposed by Labor.

    The inquiry resulted in no recommendations being made.

    Senator Rhiannon on behalf of the Greens produced a dissenting report that included eight recommendations for reform:
    http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Finance_and_Public_Administration/Completed%20inquiries/2010-13/lobbyingcode2011/report/d01

    [It was clear from the start that the government lacked an appetite for reform. The Australian Greens brought on this inquiry after the government sidestepped its obligation to initiate a review recommended by the same Committee in 2008.]

  33. David

    Having just read an account of evidence at ICAC today I reckon the best possible construction you can put on Uncle Arthur’s involvement in AWH is that he was naive and dumb. You might also say he was wilfully blind to what was going on or you could say he is a crook.
    Any one of those makes him unsuitable to be a Minister of the Crown.

  36. p
    The New Zealanders have an independent foreign policy so they are worth courting. Under Abbott, Australia is New South Japan.

  37. Pegasus,

    As always, the Greens are only interested in criminalising normal political behaviour.

    Their whole political narrative is sanctimony, moral outrage and smearing every one else.

  39. Does anyone think that, given the behaviour of NSW officials, elected or otherwise, and NSW business types, that we should have a Royal Commission into NSW?

  43. Boerwar

    [The New Zealanders have an independent foreign policy so they are worth courting. Under Abbott, Australia is New South Japan.]

    When I was young we were New South UK, then and now New South US and now NS Japan?

    It is hard to keep tract of to which nation we are a “traitor”.

    I am sure Erica Betz and The Australian will tell me, but probably post factum.

  44. [Andrew Greene ‏@AndrewBGreene 59m
    Former Minister Arthur Sinodinos has kept his appointment tonight with the ACT Liberals, as keynote speaker for $250/head fundraiser]

  45. Interesting piece by Quentin Dempster

    [In one devastating opening address on Monday, an animated Geoffrey Watson SC wiped away a five-year political advantage enjoyed by the Liberal Party in New South Wales on corruption, influence peddling and slush funding.

    The Independent Commission Against Corruption, a creation of the 1988 Greiner Coalition government, and now with added resources (forensic accountants, IT specialists, telephone interception and covert surveillance) has exposed the evidentiary leads. They go from the Labor Party directly across to the Liberal Party with allegations of bastardry, venality, vicious reprisal against public servants and the audacious scamming of a public utility, Sydney Water.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-19/dempster-the-icacs-destruction-hits-both-sides/5330040

  46. GG

    [As always, the Greens are only interested in criminalising normal political behaviour.

    Their whole political narrative is sanctimony, moral outrage and smearing every one else.]

    LOL As usual, you offer up an own goal.

  47. Victoria

    [Interesting piece by Quentin Dempster

    In one devastating opening address on Monday, an animated Geoffrey Watson SC wiped away a five-year political advantage enjoyed by the Liberal Party in New South Wales on corruption, influence peddling and slush funding.

    The Independent Commission Against Corruption, a creation of the 1988 Greiner Coalition government, and now with added resources (forensic accountants, IT specialists, telephone interception and covert surveillance) has exposed the evidentiary leads. They go from the Labor Party directly across to the Liberal Party with allegations of bastardry, venality, vicious reprisal against public servants and the audacious scamming of a public utility, Sydney Water.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-19/dempster-the-icacs-destruction-hits-both-sides/5330040%5D

    It is to me a very real reason why Australia must abandon this corrupt two party system beloved of the more venal members of the major parties (the majority, I would think).

    It is ironic, but not surprising, where both the two major parties purport to worship “the Market” and the heroic virtues of “level playing fields” that the last place they will support real competition is in the political area.

    The ALP would much prefer the Nats get double the number of MPs they are entitled to (by their votes) and lose an election than interrupt the corrupt duopoly they have with their bosom mates on the other side.

  48. davidwh

    Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2014 at 8:46 pm | Permalink

    I’m personally disappointed because I strongly believe Sinodinos was one of the best minds in the government management team. I think the government is weaker as a result of this which isn’t good for the country generally. But the cards have fall where they fall.
    ===========================================

    As Sheldon Cooper would ask; sarcasm???

  49. GG

    [As always, the Greens are only interested in criminalising normal political behaviour.]

    I agree corruption and using your public office for private gain is normal political behaviour in Australia.

    I would like it to be criminalised.

  50. The problem the Libs have is that Abbott needs everyone of his Ministers and MP’s to be dumber than him.

    There are only so many people with an IQ smaller than their shoe size, the “good” thing is they are all Liberals

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