The first Newspoll in four weeks has Labor leading 53-47, compared with 51-49 in favour of the Coalition last time. Primary votes are 38% for the Coalition (down five), 34% for Labor (steady) and 14% for the Greens (up three). Tony Abbott is down five on approval to 35% and up nine on disapproval to 56%, while Bill Shorten is up four to 35% and down one to 41%. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister has shrunk from 41-33 to 40-38.
This is the latest in a polling avalanche which has followed the interruption of Easter and Anzac Day, to which Essential Research is still to be added tomorrow. Three other polls published over the past two days have produced strikingly similar results on the primary vote, from which Newspoll differs in having Labor lower and the Greens higher:
• Galaxy, for the first time adding an online panel component to its live-interview phone polling to produce an enlarged sample of 1391, has the Labor lead at 52-48, with primary votes of 39% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor, 11% for the Greens and 6% for Palmer United.
• A ReachTEL poll conducted on Saturday, also from a larger-than-usual sample of 4016, has Labor’s lead at 54-46, with primary votes of 38.9% for the Coalition, 39.6% for Labor, 11.2% for the Greens and 6.0% for Palmer United.
• Morgan’s multi-mode face-to-face plus SMS poll, conducted every weekend but compiled fortnightly, has Labor leading 53.5-46.5 according to the conventional two-party preferred method that allocates preferences as per the result of the previous election, increasing to 55-45 when preferences were allocated by the respondent. The primary votes are 37.5% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor, 12% for the Greens and 5.5% for Palmer United.
UPDATE: And now Essential Research comes in entirely unchanged on last week, with Labor leading 52-48 from primary votes of 40% for the Coalition, 38% for Labor, 10% for the Greens and 5% for Palmer United. Questions on the deficit tax show the importance of wording in these situations – just as carbon tax questions got a more favourable response when the rationale for them was laid out, inquiry about “a temporary ‘deficit’ tax on high and middle income earners aimed at bringing the budget back to surplus” has support and opposition tied at 34%. However, 48% favour the proposition that “introducing a new ‘deficit’ tax would be a broken promise by the Abbott Government” versus 33% for “it is more important to reduce the deficit than stick to pre-election promises”.
Other findings have “management of the Australian economy” all but unchanged since a year ago, with a total good rating of 40% (up one) and total bad of 31% (down one), but with results by party support having changed beyond recognition; Joe Hockey favoured over Chris Bowen to manage the economy by 33% to 27%; Labor better than Liberal at “representing the interests of working families (47-20), Liberal a lot better than Labor at “representing the interests of the large corporate and financial interests” (54-13), and Liberal better at handling the economy overall (40-26); 23% very concerned about job losses, 34% somewhat concerned and 29% not at all concerned; 77% believing the gap between rich and poor to have increased over the last 10 years, with only 3% for decreased; 29% thinking their own financial situation good versus 26% for poor; “the cost of living” rated by far the economic issue of most concern (56%, with unemployment in second place on 11%).
Thanks victoria. Some of the tweets on screen while that was happening were hilarious!
I does me best but I cannot find any article that mentions just how much the Deficit Levy is projected to raise.
Anyone? Please
[The government’s Productivity Commission says a proposal by the National Commission of Audit to cut unemployed people off welfare if they refuse to move closer to jobs won’t work.
Overall, Australia’s labour force is fairly responsive to employment demand in different geographic areas, the commission says in a final report on labour mobility, and this is helping the economy adjust to the end of the mining boom.
Personal reasons such as family demands are the biggest impediments to people moving, rather than factors under the government’s control.]
http://www.afr.com/p/national/cutting_dole_for_jobless_who_won_TKidvWIxVPnMLM67SublEK
AA:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/23245374/line-yet-to-be-drawn-on-deficit-levy/
They are still trying to work it all out.
Darn @20 – don’t want to rain on yours or anyone else’s parade, I just think that the govt’s performance in the last fortnight, combined with ICAC and the CoA has been SO bad for them that they should be further behind. I have to agree with some of Psephos @ 35’s sentiment.
It is however becoming increasingly clear that this government don’t have the shrewd political operating skillz of Howard & co, so maybe things will just get worse for them and they’ll be unable to turn it around. Chris Pyne’s got a question last night on Q&A from a teenager in the ‘Youth Connections’ program (alternative to VCE/HSC trade skills starter program for marginalised yoof) asking why the (apparently very successful) program was going to be cut.
He responded by calling the program a ‘nasty little landmine left to us by Labor’ to this kid’s face. He was talking in a budgetary sense, but ffs! How much more out of touch can you be?
See also Matthias Corrmann turning up to 7:30 last Thurs not prepared to say anything about anything, and being miffed at the suggestion that he should be prepared to talk about the CoA given that he is Finance Minister of Australia and agreed to be interviewed about it, and also that the deficit tax is a broken promise.
So who knows, maybe 53-47 will turn out to be an unassailable lead – I certainly don’t see any Lib ministers sending their vote north at the mo.
William, I thought that one of the interesting things out of the most recent Neilsen was that the majority of the Coalition’s drop in primary vote came from rural/regional areas (-8% outside of cap cities from memory). Have any of the polls since published that city/country split in the primary numbers?
Nick of Melbourne
I think the more telling aspect of Pyne’s answer was that he started talking about replacing programs like Youth Connections with easier paths to University — scarcely top of mind for a kid struggling to stay at school full stop.
[There is no further information about the extra passengers, but there is speculation that they may be the two asylum seekers who were taken to Christmas Island for “urgent medical treatment” after another tow-back operation in February. The third may be an Indonesian crew member.
If the two were medically treated on Australian soil then loaded onto the next available boat to be pushed back to Indonesia, it would represent a controversial new turn in Australia’s tow-back policy.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-navy-turns-back-asylum-seeker-boat-to-indonesia-after-loading-three-extra-people-20140506-zr55k.html#ixzz30st6tuIG
zoomster
As usual, Pyne took a swipe at baaad Labor debt, then spoke off the subject in a flurry of unicorn excreta.
Good Morning
No huge attacks on “ratbag” students so far. My initial doubts about length of time unfounded.
One thing I did neglect to mention at the time. The arrogance of the LNP was on show as Pyne ignored the message.
“@firstdogonmoon: Not breaking the people smugglers business model, adopting it! I wonder what we charged them?”
“@political_alert: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is in Adelaide today and will hold a doorstop in Elizabeth South at 9.15am (SA time) #auspol”
Zoomster & Lizzie, I agree. The ‘blame Labor’ line has sounded bad since they assumed govt and sounds worse with each day they’re in charge. They’ve made a very poor transition from opposition. It looked particularly bad when said to a 17 year old who doesn’t care who funds the program, he just wants it to run.
And yes, his answer about paths to Uni was absolutely the wrong one to kids in programs like that one.
Context is everything I suppose.
Backtrack a few months with a minority Labor government, on the edge and the polls were front and centre in the news….either declaring death and destruction for Labor (if polls down for Labor) and/or how wonderful Abbott would be, if and when the LNP came to office.
Today – not one mention of this current Newspoll on ABC this morning that I heard, nothing in the local West (no surprises there)and one poster here warning us about living in an echo chamber.
What a difference a big majority in the House makes, not to mention the fact that the elections are still some two years away.
Mind you, some people here would not be satisfied until the polls were 60-40 in favour of Labor and even then some would be adding that Bill Shorten is not the man to lead Labor.
The reality is that this current government has never really been popular nor its leader.
Whether this will convert into just one term is another matter. We will just have to wait and see.
I have watched too many Labor leads of 5-6 percent a few weeks out from an election evaporate so, in some respects, the current polls are of limited value in either cheering or booing.
Nonetheless, that this current government had next to no honeymoon and seems to have no idea of how to address its phoney “budget crisis” is kind of perversely reassuring.
(From previous thread)
Cost of concessions to superannuationis now running at over $32 billion p.a, i.e. About $2000 for each taxpayer. More than third of that goes to the top 5% of earners, who would never have qualified for the age pension.
So there’s an easy $10 billion or so that can be returned to the budget bottom line in the next 3 years without impacting the elderly or students other than those who are well and truly capable of looking after themselves. That could easily be wound back over 10 years or so by a further $10 billion, which would wind the cost of concessions back towards the amount saved by means testing the pension.
Tricot
News 24 had the poll results as their main political story. Maybe different editorial for them?
I think Adam contradicts himself, I agree where he says wtte effect that those outside the political fascination bubble see and say different things, but that is inconsistent with them moving votes because the things we see have happened.
I think Abbott’s underlying problem is too many people believed him when he said Labor was a bad wasteful government, and that he could return us to Howard wealth and good government with two fewer taxes and no new or increased taxes.
You know the good Howard years where pay rises just rolled in the house increased in value by at least $50k a year and we got to use the equity to fund holidays in Europe and come home to an income tax cut or some new middle class welfare. Good times.
Abbott promised them back.
That he can’t deliver undermines both his trashing of Labor and his reason for being in Government.
Inside the bubble we can see that taxes need to rise and middle class welfare should be phased out (including negative gearing which must go).
But Abbott didn’t say this, he said Labor was bad and he could return us to the beer and skittle days just by changing government.
Now where is my better NBN connection. ROFL.
To be fair – Newspoll was coming off a different base than any of the other polls and showed the bigger swings away from the Government and Abbott. So I get the hand-wringing about how much badly they’re supposed to do, but a 4% change is not that common.
[The reality is that this current government has never really been popular nor its leader.
Whether this will convert into just one term is another matter. We will just have to wait and see.]
I agree. Labor has most to gain from being grown up.
Is Joe still with his lawyers?
guytaur – Did you notice Shorten having a 5%+ was described as a small increase?
Re Zoomster @107: I think the more telling aspect of Pyne’s answer was that he started talking about replacing programs like Youth Connections with easier paths to University — scarcely top of mind for a kid struggling to stay at school full stop.
He probably means easier paths for would-be students whose families can afford full fees.
Steve777 – the super concessions for the wealthy will be low-hanging fruit for labor at the next election – but the libs will never touch them. They all want cushy finance industry directorships when they leave office. That’s a big plus for labor. In an article the other day, Michael Pascoe called the superannuation industry an “on-shore tax haven for the rich”. Got that right.
WWP
Exactly the reason I think Shorten and team have been doing the right tactics. Abbott behaved like a child as Loto and promised the earth. (In case of carbon pricing literally) Now the reality is his undoing.
In contrast Labor has been adult steady as you go pointing out facts.
Thus letting students doing the outrage amongst others. On QandA Pyne still seemed childish and by contrast Anna Bourke very adult.
From now on, we should call Newspoll “the Grassy Poll”
Ctar
Yes. I did notice that. Still happy 24 highlighted the slump. Most will not have noticed Shorten’s increase let alone how big it was.
WWP – Voters have been hearing for four or five years now that their internet connections are going to get better. Expectations have slowly built up. But for the vast majority, it’s still crap. They won’t thank this Govt for that.
K17
Especially as countries worse than us leapfrog in performance by installing Fibre like the US
[ @jonkudelka: Look, protesting is for cheapskates. Do it like a grownup and give a politician a bag of cash.]
That’s the point… the ALP doesn’t need to go all feral. Let the LNP keep scoring own-goals, the ALP just needs to highlight them and attack them for their impacts.
This is the sort of stuff that makes me sick. So many things wrong with their morals and their judgement.
[The head of corporate affairs for a mining company at the centre of an environmental dispute has been in charge of developing policy on the environment for Queensland’s ruling Liberal National Party (LNP) since 2012.
James Mackay also worked full-time for the LNP during the 2012 election, while he was being paid $10,000 a month by the company, QCoal.
QCoal is embroiled in controversy over plans to divert Coral Creek in north Queensland to mine the coal underneath.
The company’s owner, reclusive billionaire Chris Wallin, is one of the LNP’s biggest donors.
The ABC’s 7.30 program revealed last week that farmer Garry Reed faces financial ruin after losing a legal battle to stop the creek diversion and having costs awarded against him.
The diversion was approved by the State Government without requiring a new or amended environmental impact assessment, despite being classed as an assessment that carried “risk of serious harm”.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-05/qcoals-james-mackay-developing-environmental-policy-for-lnp/5431008
Re K17@123: just saw John Hewson on ABC24 pushing the need to reform super tax concessions. He also mention a figure of ‘tax transfers’ in Australia (i.e tax concessions if one sort or another) being 8% of GDP (about $120 billion p.a.), about double the level for comparable countries. That was also linked from the previous thread. There’s more than enough room to fix the budget there without attacking students, the disabled, the sick, the aged or the unemployed.
@washingtonpost: The best place to be a mom? Finland. http://t.co/C8oOJLRyMa
Is Minister for Education Christopher Pyne the most unpopular politician in Australia?
IS CHRISTOPHER Pain — sorry, Pyne — the most unpopular politician in Australia?
Even a radical student protest couldn’t save the Minister for Education on QandA last night, after he was slaughtered on social media and in studio for the Liberal Party’s proposed changes to the education system, which include modelling the Australian system off the United States.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/is-minister-for-education-christopher-pyne-the-most-unpopular-politician-in-australia/story-fnjwmwrh-1226906987051
“@_AdamTodd: Bill Shorten on @1395FIVEaa “Collingwood’s hitting its straps…” Then he pauses, and remembers he’s on ADELAIDE radio.”
Oops sorry my comment @ 135 dropped off.
So what people will respect the loyalty to his team. Sometimes the journos really show they are out of touch.
“@NickRossTech: 77in 4K UHD OLED TV here by the end of the year.”
Re Lizzie @131: one could see all sorts of opportunities for the LNP to outsource the tedious business of policy development. They could ask:
Representatives of the private health funds to write their health policy
Defence contractors to write the defence policy
News Corporation to develop their NBN policy
Touts for private schools and colleges to write their education policy
A lobbyist for US Intellectual property interests to write them a policy on data retention
Fossil fuel companies to write their Climate Change policy
The possibilities are endless.
Steve
..they could adopt the US system, in other words…
[ MINIMUM wage earners would need to work more than 80 hours a week to afford to rent in Perth’s outer metropolitan area. ]
Yup, and with their proposed changes to Newstart, your child could wind up in a crappy sharehouse, a long way from home, spending ALL their Newstart on rent while they look for a minimum wage job. 🙁
@cathywilcox1: The questions. http://t.co/4JA8nej2WR
Thanks Guytaur@116
I have only been hearing radio stuff and it is as though all the overseas news is really important.
It is true the West rarely mentions any polls – other than its own – directly – but they do kind of throw in the “fall in the polls” a few days later if from another pollster.
I guess I am harking back to the days – not so many months ago – when every twist and turn in any poll was viewed as manna from heaven for the conservative press if it showed that Labor was doomed.
For as much as “anecdotal evidence” is of any consequence, many people (that is many who used to have a lot to say about Gillard/Rudd) now “don’t want to talk about politics” and are “worried about how it is all going to go”.
I suspect this lot have not got to the point of rounding on Abbott, but he is not seen as any kind of saviour, despite claiming people will “thank him” in times to come.
Relaxed and comfortable the electorate does not seem to be – anecdotally of course.
[
I guess I am harking back to the days – not so many months ago – when every twist and turn in any poll was viewed as manna from heaven for the conservative press if it showed that Labor was doomed.
]
Labor didn’t exactly help themselves on this front. They did chuck a first term PM for the perceived (rightly or wrongly) reason that he was doing badly in the polls. They then pulled the same stunt when they chucked Gillard for Rudd. Perhaps if the Coalition start to look like they are panicking the press will start to ramp up the poll coverage.
Having said that, the way Galaxy was reported in News Limited papers on the weekend you would think the Coalition was behind 60-40, not 52-48.
[131
lizzie
This is the sort of stuff that makes me sick. So many things wrong with their morals and their judgement.]
This is so disheartening. They are more and more detestable.
I cannot seat this newspoll is especially out of wack. IF they managed to get a goodly swag of younger voters then you would expect a bit of a bias to the greens.
it is assumed that they allocate preferences by the last election and I suspect (William is this so?) that one of the reasons reachtel is high is that their phone polling forces allocation by respondent preference .
I rather think that the difference between the respondent allocated preference and the traditional last election form of allocation picks up voter sentiment and may be a trend predictor.
@seanparnell: PM @TonyAbbottMHR could have been at #OGPBali today, or even delegated to other ministers also invited. Instead, they reconsider OGP stance.
OGP is Open Government Partners
News just in.
Packer brawl has police investigation started.
Qld Health has stood down two staff members over medical procedure in Rockhampton
[@washingtonpost: The best place to be a mom? Finland.]
The worst? Craster’s Keep.
“@Kate_McClymont: The cache of new material received by #icac implicates Mike Gallacher in “serious funding irregularities.” ICAC to adjourn end of next week.”
“@sarahgerathy: #ICAC advised report into alleged Liberal party slush funds would be handed down b4 christmas. That’s less than 3 months b4 state election”