Newspoll: 51-49 to Coalition

Fortnightly results from Newspoll and Morgan both record shifts to the Coalition, in the former case giving them the lead for the first time in over three months.

GhostWhoVotes reports that the latest Newspoll has the Coalition in the lead for the first time since late November, their lead of 51-49 comparing with Labor’s 52-48 lead in the poll of a fortnight ago. The primary votes are 43% for the Coalition (up three), 34% for Labor (down two) and 11% for the Greens (down two). More to follow. UPDATE: Tony Abbott’s net approval improves slightly with approval steady on 40% and disapproval down three to 47%, while Bill Shorten is respectively down five to 31% and down one to 42%. There is also a less decisive result on preferred prime minister, with Abbott down two to 41% and Shorten down three to 33%. The Australian’s report here.

Morgan had its fortnightly face-to-face plus SMS poll out today, encompassing 2869 respondents over the past two weekends. It too has Labor losing ground on the previous poll, down from 54-46 ahead on respondent-allocated preferences to 51.5-48.5 (and on previous election preferences, 53.5-46.5 to 52-48), from primary votes of 34.5% for Labor (down four), 38.5% for the Coalition (up half a point), 12% for the Greens (up one point) and 5% for Palmer United (up half).

UPDATE (Essential Research): This week’s Essential Research fortnightly average records very little change, with Labor maintaining its 51-49 lead from primary votes of 43% for the Coalition, 38% for Labor, 9% for the Greens and 3% for Palmer United, the only change there being a one point drop for Labor. Also featured are the monthly leaders ratings, which have Tony Abbott up a point on approval to 41% and steady on disapproval at 47%, Bill Shorten up two to 32% and down one to 38%, and Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister up from 39-33 to 42-32. Other questions find 25% support for the privatisation of Medibank Private and 46% opposition, 61% expecting it would cause health insurance fees to increase against just 3% who think they would decrease, and 25% approving of the sale of government assets to fund new infrastructure against 58% disapproving. A semi-regular question on climate change finds 56% thinking it caused by human activity, up five on January, with 34% favouring the more skeptical response, down five.

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.

1,095 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Coalition”

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  5. [And? You’re dismissing the opinion of those people, why? A good reason would be nice. Was the “more” they wanted unreasonable?]

    Because Labor’s former Trade Minister said the deal was as good as it could be.

  6. [805
    Jackol
    Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2014 at 1:30 pm | Permalink

    davidwh – there is a middle ground that most of us inhabit.

    No one is perfect.

    As you say, the purpose of language is communication, and if what is being said is clear then the primary purpose is being met whether or not spelling or grammar is perfect.

    However, there is also no question that when errors become frequent and obtrusive that, as a reader, it gets to a point where the level of confusion introduced by the errors makes reading a chore. Yes, you can struggle through to extract the meaning, but if reading something is actually confronting due to its errors and there are many things to read, people will choose to read the stuff that is well presented and skip over the stuff that is poorly presented. That’s just the way the world works.

    Of more significance in the issue of communication is where some subtle point is being made. When you are using the natural redundancy of language to correct (as a reader) the superficial spelling/grammar errors it means there is no certainty or confidence left over to confirm more subtle/deeper points being made.

    People can dismiss criticism of apostrophe usage or spelling or word usage all they like, but ultimately the more rigorous and accurate you are in constructing what you write, the more effort people will put in to trying to really understand what it is you are trying to say.]

    Or, restated, it depends on the message and the recipient. Sometimes complete clarity is essential. At other times, not so much…

  7. Dio @ 855
    How do you know they’re not more qualified than Labor’s former Trade Minister and you should be taking their opinion over his?

  8. And not just retail management either.

    [David Jones takeover: The foreign brands are here because Australia is rubbish at retail

    You’ve been told it was the internet, that it was the economy, it was high wages, the government, the consumer, that it was the strong Australian dollar or maybe the weak Australian dollar.

    It was anything but second-rate management and dull boards that were responsible for Australian retail’s poor performance – yet it turns out it was poor management all along.]

  10. DN

    Because they are a lobby group for vested interests who weren’t involved in the talks. Emerson was involved in the talks and knew the big picture.

  11. Are they expecting to find the plane more or less intact or is it just the black box they think they have found?

    [“I can now tell you that Ocean Shield has been able to reacquire the signals on two further occasions; late yesterday afternoon and late last night,” Houston said.

    The smaller area would make the task far more manageable and would allow searchers to “plan much tighter search patterns”.]

  13. It was anything but second-rate management and dull boards that were responsible for Australian retail’s poor performance – yet it turns out it was poor management all along.

    This is what I don’t get about media reporting of what passes for microeconomic debate in this country.

    The figures are clear – Australian management is shite and getting worse.

    But somehow it’s all about Australian wages and conditions or Australian regulatory burden …

  15. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5e4023b6-be43-11e3-b44a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2yMSMzWiC

    “High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5e4023b6-be43-11e3-b44a-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2yMU6n2vE

    “The current administration has said repeatedly to Diet members and farmers’ groups that they would obey the resolutions of both houses,” said Kazuhito Yamashita, a former agriculture ministry official now at the Canon Institute for Global Studies, a think-tank. “So prime minister Abe has overturned his previous statement; the same thing could happen to the TPP.””

    Abe can backflip.

    “High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5e4023b6-be43-11e3-b44a-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2yMUDZQMX

    But Australian farm groups normally close to the conservative ruling coalition were less effusive. The Cattle Council of Australia said it was “disappointed” that “substantial tariffs” would remain in place after the 15-year transition, something that was “unlike in previous free trade agreements”. The National Farmers’ Federation, meanwhile, bemoaned the fact that sectors such as rice were left out altogether”

    Not just lobby groups davidwh.

  17. Reality is that you will never get a trade deal where every sector or sub-sector will end up happy. Regardless of that reality it should not stop you from getting a deal as long as it is considered to be overall good for Australia. Picking bits and pieces of the agreement that supports a particular argument is really pointless.

    At the end of the day we are relying on the government, DFAT and the relevant officials and not the politicaly party, to make secisions they believe are in the best interests of Australia. If they do that then that is all we can really expect from them.

  18. poroti

    Emo did have a slight disclaimer. The full twitter quote was “From what I understand of it, the trade agreement with Japan in the best Australia could have achieved. Well done A Robb and PM.

  20. Yes david, we’ve heard your heresy before – that there are public servants who do the real work come sun, rain or politicians of any stripe.

    If you’re not careful it will be the torches and pitchforks.

  22. I’m going to agree broadly with Jackol and Briefly above. What’s acceptable depends enirely on the needs of the audience that communicator is trying to engage.

    Sometimes, communicators misapprehend their audiences’ needs, or are indifferent to them and not so much communicating as making declarations about how they feel, but the needs of the audience (and of course their may be more than one) ought to be in the front of the communicator’s mind.

    This applies not merely to matters of orthography or syntax, but communication more broadly. Watching that advertisement for watching football on Fox where the subjects’ obsesssion with footbal induces them to become reckless with wrecking balls or abandon their significant others trying to call them when their car is on fire in some desolate area, I found myself becoming more and more annoyed and scandalised. Really, I wondered — is that the kind of person they want to buy their product?

    As hubby pointed out though, we are neither interested in football nor likely to buy anything with Murdoch’s fingerprints on it, so we aren’t the audience. They can afford to annoy us.

  24. William

    If your about my PB Crikey group subscription is all sorted out so thanks for that. They emailed me yesterday.

  26. Chinese report “multiple floating objects” near the suspected MH-370 plane wreck.

    That settles THAT.

    If they’re still nearby the plane, they can’t be from it. They’d have drifted by now.

  28. [FB/..Watching that advertisement for watching football on Fox where the subjects’ obsesssion with footbal induces them to become reckless with wrecking balls or abandon their significant others trying to call them when their car is on fire in some desolate area, I found myself becoming more and more annoyed and scandalised.]

    But you remembered the ad. Maybe the whole idea of it is to stimulate attention per se, in which case it worked with you. Since I’m a Fox-free zone, I can’t speculate any further about the matter. Happily, however, my supply of apostrophes is inexhaustible.

  30. [Because Labor’s former Trade Minister said the deal was as good as it could be.]

    Let’s face it. You can call it a “deal”, or a “Trade agreement”, but not a “FREE Trade Agreement” when the other side gets to basically keep most of its tariffs, and we give up ours.

    The official name might be a “Free” trade agreement, but it’s more like something cobbled together at the last inute to make the seven previous years of negotiation look inept.

    Emerson may have liked it, may have even said it was the best they could get.

    But with his intimate knowledge of the negotiations that might just mean Abbott didn’t improve much on the Japanese sticking points that were stopping Emerson.

    Note that we haven’t heard anything about WHAT the problems were.

    It seems to me that Abbott told them to cut a deal, on the spot, to make himself look good.

    In the process he’s upset just about everyone involved.

    That is, of course, if you’re not watching ABC-24, who seem to be too scared to report anything but the “official” line of “brilliant success”.

    Sugar farmers who baulked were apparently “told” in no uncertain terms to shut up by Andrew Robb.

    Labor’s biggest failure in office was rolling with the punches, especially from the media. There were very few exceptions to this rule.

    The Coalition are completely different. If they get upset at the ABC they publicly – one might use the word “brazenly” – threaten ABC funding.

    A sugar guy speaks out. The minister phones him up and then goes public, bragging about how he silenced the complainer.

    Pour encourager les autres, of course.

    Public Servants are now no longer allowed to publicly express their views, even anonymously, and in private. They can actually be dobbed-in if they do.

    There’s Free Speech for you.

    These Coalition types are standover thugs. They make no bones about it at all.

    That’s what I mean about Labor weakness: the media knew that in a free society all Labor could really do was express dismay.

    However, with the Coalition, the media know what will happen to them if they dare to differ.

    It’s a rotten state of affairs.

  31. Turkey the culprit re chemical warfare in Syria
    ___________
    Seymour Hersch Pulitzer Price winning journo,writing for the NY Times finds that the chemical warfare charges levelled against the Syrian regime…which some hoped would see a US bombing campaign…were in fact carried out with sarin gas supplied by Turkey
    The effort failed
    He lists othert”false flag” operations carried out to deceive people and give an excuse for war…Like Blair’s claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
    He exposes the liars in this article

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/04/nato-member-conducts-false-flag-terror-try-whip-war.html

  32. Bushfire Bill@876

    Chinese report “multiple floating objects” near the suspected MH-370 plane wreck.

    That settles THAT.

    If they’re still nearby the plane, they can’t be from it. They’d have drifted by now.

    Unless there are objects floating up from down below.

  34. briefly

    [But you remembered the ad. Maybe the whole idea of it is to stimulate attention per se, in which case it worked with you. ]

    Well yes, assuming the only purpose of the ad was to have it recalled. OTOH what it communicated to me was

    a) very negative
    b) in keeping with an OTT description I might have of typical football viewers or consumers of Fox fare — selfish, reckless people obsessed with banality

    Admittedly, I’ve never considered taking their feed, but ads like this remind me how wise that decision is. I’d hate to be thought to be anything like their target audience.

  35. [Evidently this trade agreement has been 10 years in the making. That means just about everyone has had a hand in it.]

    If that’s so then why did Robb say yesterday that Labor was appalling at negotiating the deals. Surely you can’t put a new deal together in just a few months so why couldn’t Robb be gracious enough to acknowledge Emerson’s part in it.

    Difference between Liberal and Labor – Emerson gave them credit for getting it signed. Kelly O’Dwyer this morning on Sky was also extremely vindictive towards Labor about doing nothing.

    The little respect I had left for any Libs is fast evaporating.

  36. guytaur

    [Well thats a new public transport option to overcome travel times just shown on 24.

    Cable Car networks]
    With flying foxes instead of pedestrian crossings ? 🙂

  37. Bemused
    Not likely , given its 30 days & naturally buoyant sections would have floated free within a few days.
    Or broken off on impact
    Just my reasoning

  38. Vic

    That lot are a disgrace. They impugn everybody else and accept all the benefits for themselves.

    Eddie excuses everybody else and assumes no responsibility for himself and his family.

    Stewart Littlemore will be very very wealthy by the time this is over.

    They and their contacts are a bloody disgrace.

    They have along with others destroyed the Labor brand in NSW and maybe all of Australia.

  39. Vic

    That lot are a disgrace. They impugn everybody else and accept all the benefits for themselves.

    Eddie excuses everybody else and assumes no responsibility for himself and his family.

    Stewart Littlemore will be very very wealthy by the time this is over.

    They and their contacts are a bloody disgrace.

    They have along with others destroyed the Labor brand in NSW and maybe all of Australia.

  43. sceptic@887

    Bemused
    Not likely , given its 30 days & naturally buoyant sections would have floated free within a few days.
    Or broken off on impact
    Just my reasoning

    Only explanation I could think of that would fit.

    Could ‘few days’ extend to 30? I don’t know.

  46. Thanks DN

    They just disgust me! They are beyond contempt.

    I have said this before but it is worth noting again:

    Way back in 1989 Daryl Melham won the preselection for the seat of Banks. His parents were from Lebanon.

    We were at Daryl’s house one day sorting out pamphlets and all the things you do when elections were in the air.

    His mother spoke broken English and the phone rang it was Obeid.v He was running a Lebanese paper.

    When he put down the phone Daryl’s mother said to him “don’t you ever take phone calls from that man again he is a bad man.”

    She was right!

  48. Abbott had the luxury of dropping tariffs on Japanese cars, because his Govt had just destroyed the Australian Car Industry.

    Did he do it to get more Beef into Japan?

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