Nielsen: 52-48 to Labor

The latest monthly Nielsen poll finds Labor regaining the two-party lead, and the Greens at an all-time record high.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the monthly Nielsen poll in tomorrow’s Fairfax papers has Labor leading 52-48, after trailing 51-49 last time. The primary votes are 40% for the Coalition (down four), 34% for Labor (down one) and, remarkably, 17% for the Greens (up five). The latter is three points higher than the Greens have scored in any Nielsen result going back to the 2010 election (UPDATE: It turns out 15% is their previous record in Nielsen, and 16% is their record in Newspoll). Stay tuned for leadership ratings and state breakdowns.

Further results from the poll indicate strong opposition to the government’s policies with respect to the Racial Discrimination Act, with 88% disagreeing with the contention that it should be lawful to offend, insult or humiliate on the basis of race, as per the provisions of 18C of the act, and 59% opposed to George Brandis’s contention that people have the right to be bigots, with 34% supportive. Opinion on knights and dames is more finely balanced than might have been expected, with 35% supportive and 50% opposed.

UPDATE: The poll has Tony Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister down from 48-43 to 45-44, which equals the Newspoll of February 21-23 as the narrowest lead yet recorded (ReachTEL may or not be an exception, as I don’t track it due to its unusual methodology). Abbott is down two on approval to 43% and up one on disapproval to 50%, while Bill Shorten is up one to 43% and down one to 41%.

UPDATE 2: GhostWhoVotes has full tables. By far the most striking results are from Western Australia, where the Greens lead Labor 27% to 20% – remembering this is from a sample of 150 with a margin of error of 8%. The lesson I would take from this is that static from the WA Senate election is making federal poll results less reliable than usual just at the moment.

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.

1,024 comments on “Nielsen: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. [The Australian public has become so used to our elected politicians breaking their word that new revelations of double-speak are greeted with little more than a shrug.

    With the Abbott Government not only breaking repeated election promises around the National Broadband Network (NBN) – but also this week engaging in unconscionable hypocrisy about its planned expenditure of $41 billion without appropriate oversight – it’s important that even the most jaded political observer take note.]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-14/braue-nbn-hypocrisy-confirms-contempt-for-process/5384464

    Why are they not accused of lying? It’s not breaking a promise if you had no intention of fulfilling those promises at all in the first place.

  2. [guytaur@329
    @PeterFosterALP: Australian carbon price scrapping seen as ‘backwards step’, says IPCC author http://t.co/sGAMcTsRms #auspol
    Backward move from a backward government, so what else is new ?]

    We can’t really complain about this people knew this would happen when they voted.

  3. [KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN
    Posted Monday, April 14, 2014 at 1:38 pm | PERMALINK
    I’m a balmain basket-weaver, so will someone tell me whether I should vote Firth or Byrne?]

    I wouldn’t trust anyone with the surname Byrne.

  8. victoria@355
    Yes, $98B over 55 years ( less than $2B/year) for rent of the ducts.

    Expect it to go up if MT decides to rent the copper, too.

  9. I’m wondering if the ALP should go hard on their existing political advantage on health. Combined with resistance to the government’s current movements on the pension, would be a great way to win support from Australia’s aging population…

  10. guytaur

    Chief Scientist Chubb is far too soft in his “criticism”. He listed programs that cuts would affect, but then spent the last minutes of his interview repeating how reasonable it was for CSIRO to assess its programs every few years and make sure that the public is getting value for money. That sounded far too much like the Coalition line to me.

  13. Fran Barlow

    Should qualify that statement; I refer, of course, to the Catholic branch of the Byrne family.

    Much like Abbott: “To seek forgiveness, rather than permission” – sums up the hypocrisy of Confession, the religion itself, and the poor suckers who were baptised shortly after birth. And gives all an excuse for wrongdoing.

  15. [ Sorting the national schizophrenia cobbled together by the Ukraine state will be far, far more difficult.

    It is not as if common sense appears to be a highly-regarded commodity thereabouts. ]

    I think the Ukraine and the West are on a hiding to nuthin here.

    I suspect that a lot of this is because people who live there think that if they become part of Russia, again, they wont be living in a country with a basket case economy and will be better off.

    Why Russia wants any more of the Ukraine than the Crimean Peninsula makes no sense at all and may be just to cause grief for the US and the EU.

  16. kezza2@364

    bemused

    What do you mean download ‘drivers’ to both computers?

    I mean, install the drivers on both computers.
    Obviously to do that you need to get the install files onto both. If you can transfer the files you previously downloaded from one computer to the other, then do it that way.

  18. imacca@365

    Sorting the national schizophrenia cobbled together by the Ukraine state will be far, far more difficult.

    It is not as if common sense appears to be a highly-regarded commodity thereabouts.


    I think the Ukraine and the West are on a hiding to nuthin here.

    I suspect that a lot of this is because people who live there think that if they become part of Russia, again, they wont be living in a country with a basket case economy and will be better off.

    Why Russia wants any more of the Ukraine than the Crimean Peninsula makes no sense at all and may be just to cause grief for the US and the EU.

    It is quite simple.

    The Russians do not want Nato bases on their borders and thought they had an understanding that this would not happen.

    Now Nato has been trying to expand right up to Russia’s borders and the Russians have reacted.

  21. bemused

    Ah, I see. I’ll ask my son how I should go about it.

    As you say, or I think you’re saying, both computers are linked, so should be easier to transfer files from my old, very old, computer to my son’s old, much younger computer, which is apparently under my administration.

    I think I’m going to have to go back to computer basics, somewhere, somehow, to understand it all.

    I obviously missed out on this knowledge during my misspent, over-crowded, parenting, mid-years. Probably something to do with disliking computer games and needing to get things done in a hurry!

  23. [confessions
    Posted Monday, April 14, 2014 at 2:51 pm | PERMALINK
    guytaur:

    I wish I could recall something pleasant to remember about him, but I can’t.]

    He was 20 years younger than Bob Santamaria, if that’s any help.

  27. Immaca 365 Re The Ukraine_________Lies and realities
    from Counterpunch…._
    __________________________
    I agree with you /Counterpunch has a rather depressing and revealing piece,by a US writer who with a Ukrainian journo travelled across the Ukraine from KIev to Oddessa last week ..the great seaport on the Black Sea…across a great heartland plain, with derelict infrastructure and poverty stricken villages and collapsed industrial towns
    The scene is worse than I could have imagined,and people are in dire straits

    The elderly surviving on tiny pensions and the food from their vegie gartdens as their only food..health services have collapsed and hospitals closed in many town
    The Govt in Kiev barely exists in terms of services
    Many lament the end of the Soviet Union when they see that times were so much better
    The Russian speakers wopuld welcome Putin,as wages in the Ukraine are often ony a quarter of their Russian equivalent
    The writer says that Putin has no wish to take over a failed state and will leave it’s vast economic problems to the US and The EU…that is after all what they wanted

    The US should remember that old chinese saying..”be carefull of your wishes…for they might come true”

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/11/ukraine-lies-and-realities/

  28. [ “The proposals put forward by nations so far have been unacceptable and they only meet 10 per cent of our goal.”

    Mr Hockey says many other countries also have deficits which need to become surpluses. ]

    The Master of Hokeynomics when he goes to the international Treasurer’s meeting can explain to them how Australia could have small debt and deficit if all the other members of the G20 turned to surpluses and slashed their debt.

    Meanwhile when we attend the next G20 meeting I am sure one of the junior bureaucrats might explain to Bishop/Hokey,Abbott that China, Europe, Japan, USA etc massive money printing, stimulus and debt accumulation on the grandest scale in history….is why Australia can keep itself out of recession, depression, high unemployment and large deficits.

    Now hokey poky nomics has that if everybody cuts spending returns to surpluses, sacks all the public service, military, aid …..and slash debt….that the massive global contraction that would follow wouldn’t bother Australia.

    Would also be interested to hear from Hokey how if all major nations are buried gargantuan government and corporate debt in order to try and stoke growth…..how would he propose (outside of WW3) stoking growth. The ftard must think that for the past 5 years none of these nations has been trying to get growth going? Hokey thinks they have been sitting in their hammocks with Costello….

    Abbott has extreme arrogance toward Indonesia and now Hokey to the entire G20. What a total embarrassment this guy is.

  30. kezza and confessions

    At least you knew where you were with Harradine.
    Surely better than Fielding or even the PUP senators.

  31. Good piece by Geoffrey Thomas in today’s West criticising Abbott’s use of the MK 370 tragedy for political advantage (in veiled language but still quite pointed)

  32. The boss of the CIA arrived in Kiev a few days ago under an assumed name, but that secret last two minutes since the Ukrainians were bragging about it.

    There are 150 blackwater mercenaries in the Ukraine, no doubt under the guidance of the CIA as well. Not to mention whatever mercenaries were sent there in the beginning to engineer the coup to oust the elected govt in favour of a bunch of nut cases…who however were pro European and willing to donate Ukraine’s 40 tons of gold to the USA as payment. I guess that covers the $5bn cost of staging the coup as stated by nuland.

    Now a German minister stated the other day that Russia energy supplies could not be replaced by other sources in any short/medium time frame (i.e. Europe and especially Germany will feel it badly if supply gets cut).

    Ukraine owes Russia a huge amount for gas already supplied, and at heavily discounted prices at that. Urkraine is bankrupt, an economic basket case which the US will make a hundred times worse by fomenting the coup and subsequent chaos.

    One wonders if the US is thinking of Ukraine in the same way as Iraq, after their resources (which has never worked out well for an incompetent US). No doubt they thought they could take over Ukraine with puppets, install their own bases (aka Cuba) and steall all the resources both oil/gas and agricultural. But as usual the US will turn the country into a pigsty trying to do all these, as is usual for them.

    Any statement on the Ukraine (or Syria and most things) from the USA you have to assume is mostly lie until shown to be true.

  33. Why Russia wants any more of the Ukraine than the Crimean Peninsula makes no sense at all and may be just to cause grief for the US and the EU.

    As bemused has outlined above, my understanding is the Russians are being driven by their security concerns.

    It has suited them to maintain a ring of more-or-less neutral states as a buffer between Russia and the West, and Ukraine’s moves to side with the EU/NATO made the Russians very nervous indeed.

    The Russians remember the cold war, but more they remember the German invasion in WW2. They are not willing to passively let a potential aggressor set up shop on their border.

    I don’t excuse the Russians in their very bad and provocative behaviour, and Putin is a thug of the worst kind, but the West has certainly played the situation very badly, and worse stupidly, indeed.

  34. What I find amusing with these “commentators” is their sense of surprise that despite Tiny Abbotts “best week eva..” the polls show the LNP’s support going backwards.
    Don’t these “commentators” get it ?
    The punters couldn’t give a flying f**K about how many “free”(?) trade agreements monkeyboy signs, or how many % a new Corrolla will end up being, what the Punters really care about are Jobs, and Job security.
    When they see that Tiny Abbott has done, and is prepared to do, sweet f**k all about Jobs etc, then it’s really no surprise that his polling is going backwards.
    Christ, it’s not rocket science, so why are the commentators so up their arsk stupid not to realise it ?

  35. Speaking of today’s Crikey, a good explanation of why negative gearing should be removed from existing housing stock, and why doing so should not cause any problems for housing construction or the rental market:

    (paywalled)
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/04/14/chop-negative-gearing-and-theres-savings-for-buyers-and-the-budget/

    As we approach the federal budget witching hour, reports have emerged over the past week that the government is seriously considering reforming Australia’s negative gearing rules, by grandfathering arrangements for existing investors and potentially only allowing negative gearing on newly constructed dwellings.

    …

    Reserve Bank of Australia data clearly shows that the overwhelming majority of investors — almost 95% — buy pre-existing dwellings, not newly built dwellings, and that the proportion of investors buying new dwellings has fallen spectacularly since negative gearing was re-introduced in September 1987

    …

    Similarly, if we deflate the above series by CPI, in order to remove the effects of inflation, we again see that rental growth over the period when negative gearing was last quarantined was nothing special, with periods of higher rental growth recorded both prior to and subsequently

    If the government follows through with this (and of course it will take courage heretofore unseen from this government with respect to their business mates) I will have some good things to say about Hockey and Abbott, finally.

  36. Hairy nose

    Thomas was spot on. All through abbott’s speech about how close “we” were to finding the black box I wondered who the hell the “we” was.
    Do “we” now get the blame if the search turns up nothing?

  37. All of this realpolitik analysis overlooks the issue of principle, which is that the Ukrainian people should be allowed to decide their own fate in free and fair elections, and Putin has invaded a sovereign country without any justification whatsoever.

  39. kezza2@371

    bemused

    Ah, I see. I’ll ask my son how I should go about it.

    As you say, or I think you’re saying, both computers are linked, so should be easier to transfer files from my old, very old, computer to my son’s old, much younger computer, which is apparently under my administration.

    I think I’m going to have to go back to computer basics, somewhere, somehow, to understand it all.

    I obviously missed out on this knowledge during my misspent, over-crowded, parenting, mid-years. Probably something to do with disliking computer games and needing to get things done in a hurry!

    If both your computers can access the internet, they will be networked by a cable running from each into a router. The printer can be plugged into another port on the router and can then be shared.

  40. lizzie

    [At least you knew where you were with Harradine.
    Surely better than Fielding or even the PUP senators.]

    And that’s somehow comforting?

    A bloke who believes in a sky fairy, who supposedly believes in a fair go (the sky fairy, that is) wants to impose a rigid, sanctimonious, puritanical set of beliefs on his constituents, just because he has the balance of power in the Senate, AND who manages to convince a bloke bereft of integrity to do the same, in return for mammon is beneath contempt in my book.

    By the by, anyone who read anything about Fielding knew where he came from, too.

    As for the PUPs, who knows. If you’re going to buy democracy then there’s not much left in the integrity stakes. I mean, so what if Palmer has a conflict of interest and excuses himself from voting in the HoR, by that logic but the PUPs in the Senate should also not vote on those particular bills.

    By washing his hands of them and pretending they are beholden only to themselves, and as you say – who are they? – PUP has no integrity either.

  41. [At least you knew where you were with Harradine.]
    You knew where you were with Hitler, too.

    I’d rather have a two faced moderate than a consistent bigoted psycho.

  42. Oh, and it should go without saying that I think the ALP should support any such move (obviously provided there are no devils hidden in the details).

  43. bemused
    [If both your computers can access the internet, they will be networked by a cable running from each into a router. The printer can be plugged into another port on the router and can then be shared.]

    Okay.

    Can that happen if only one computer has the drivers? Or do both have to have them?

    My problem is I have Word 13 on one computer (the one where it won’t download), and Word 98 on the other (where it already has) – and I want to use Word 13.

    I was thinking of transferring the files to the old computer (and moving the damn printer as well), but I wasn’t sure if the old computer would read the newer Word version.

    I am sick of thinking about it.

  44. Confessions

    Once again you hold that the RDA matter and the knights n dames matter are of equivalent gravitas to the electorate. That is crap.

    The RDA matter was widely seen by electors across the spectrum as a really undesirable direction.

    I guess you think that the cabinet rolled Brandis on it just for fun, since you hold that it was not really at issue for the electorate.

    IMHO your insight into that matter is minimal.

  45. [If the government follows through with this (and of course it will take courage heretofore unseen from this government with respect to their business mates) I will have some good things to say about Hockey and Abbott, finally.]

    me too – scary to think.

    it might be a way to let air out of the re-inflating property value bubble (although this seems now to be driven by chinese investment). If they limit gearing and make it only apply to new housing (I can’t imagine them scrapping it unfortunately), they’ll strike a blow for housing affordability. now they just need to close family trust and superannuation loopholes, and tax avoidance schemes where the wealthy can write off deliberate losses in the first five years on a rapidly appreciating asset that they sell in a year where they hide other income and pay the profit to their trust as franked dividends paying 30% tax instead of 39-45% and we’d be getting somewhere.

  46. What ‘knights and dames’ and repeal of 18c have in common is they are clearly part of the Conservative Culture Wars.

    Of course there are people who feel strongly about 18c one way or the other, but fundamentally it’s a front in our public policy discussion that didn’t need to be opened up (just like knights and dames).

    I take confessions’ point that in contrast to engaging in their culture wars, this last week looked a lot more about what (I am led to believe) Australians think a government should be doing: economic issues, trade issues, employment etc.

  48. psyclaw

    confessions, has on numerous occasions, said her co-workers have no interest, well actually are seemingly ignorant, in political matters.

    And she seems to rely on Mumbles to reinforce her stance. Not that that’s a bad thing.

    But, when you’re surrounded by people who take no interest in anything political, it’s difficult to get a grip on what is really exercising the populace at large.

    On the other hand, confessions has a great deal of insight to offer regarding WA, especially the south-west corner.

    I find what she has to say illuminating. And while I disagree with some things she has to say, I find I agree with her more than not.

    Obviously, the same can be said for all of us.

    What I find the most amusing, though, is the myriad differences between all of we Labor supporters on here. And we’re very vehement about where we’re coming from. Whether in power or not.

    Compare that to the LNP supporters. All wishy-washy, daren’t rock the boat support.

    Labor voters know that united we stand, divided we fall, but we can’t help ourselves.

    You know, I can sort of understand ModLib’s stance to a degree. While he was against Abbott, and who wouldn’t be – he’s so bloody embarrassing – once his team got into power, he’s not rocking the boat. davidwh never does; he must have a sore bum, to be polite.

    Yet, likewise, I couldn’t stand Rudd from the start; he just seemed such a fake to me, but I didn’t say anything about that until he was rolled.

    ModLib has only himself to blame for all the flak he’s getting. Because he has proven himself to be a flake.

    Now, where was I?

  49. I like how the Putin-lovers here are so scared of the CIA but see absolutely no issue with kissing an ex-KGB colonel’s ass whenever the opportunity presents itself (and often when it doesn’t, just for good measure).

    This really is the ugly side of knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Aside from occasionally making you look like a wild-eyed, tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, it also provides you with some utterly bizarre bedfellows.

  50. [I take confessions’ point that in contrast to engaging in their culture wars, this last week looked a lot more about what (I am led to believe) Australians think a government should be doing: economic issues, trade issues, employment etc.]

    Yes, that is precisely my point.

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