Nielsen: 53-47 to Labor

One of the last polls we will get from Nielsen finds the pollster returning the pack, after reporting a particularly big post-budget blowout last month.

GhostWhoVotes relates that what I believe will be Fairfax’s second final monthly Nielsen poll has Labor leading 53-47 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 39% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor and 13% for the Greens. While being well on trend, this marks a big improvement for the Coalition on last month, which was their worst poll result of the post-budget blowout: 56-44 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 40% for Labor, 35% for the Coalition and 14% for the Greens. Leadership ratings to follow shortly.

UPDATE: The Nielsen poll has Tony Abbott up a point on approval to 35% and down two on disapproval to 60%; Bill Shorten down five to 42% and up two to 41%; and Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister down from 51-40 to 47-40. Questions on preferred party leaders found Malcolm Turnbull favoured to lead the Liberal Party by 40% compared with 21% for Abbott and 11% for both Joe Hockey and Julie Bishop, while Bill Shorten led the Labor pack with 25% to 19% for Anthony Albanese, 17% for Tanya Plibersek and 7% each for Tony Burke and Chris Bowen. A question from the previous poll concerning whether the budget was fair was revisited, again finding 33% agreeing that it was, with disagreement down two points to 61%. On the question of sending Australian soldiers to Iraq, 31% said they would be in favour with 66% opposed.

Other recent polling snippets:

• The Sunday News Limited papers report that a Galaxy Research poll of 1010 women aged between 18 and 44 found 60% thought the government’s proposed paid parental leave scheme was fair, with 29% thinking it not fair and 6% believing it was not enough.

• The Conversation reports a JWS Research poll conducted for the Climate Institute finds a 10% increase in belief in (presumably anthropogenic) climate change since 2012 to 70%, together with a range of negative results for the government: a net rating of minus 18% for the present government’s performance on climate change compared with minus 1% for the previous government in the earlier poll, and a slight majority of 34% to 30% in favour of the carbon pricing laws, a dramatic reversal from the 28% and 52% recorded in 2012.

• Roy Morgan has a phone poll of 638 respondents on the biggest problems facing Australia, which has “politics and leadership” up seven points since February to 18%, the economy up three points to 42% and “religion/immigration/human rights” down seven to 9%.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The weekly result from Essential Research records a move back to the Coalition, who are up one on the primary vote to 40% with Labor down three to 38%, while the Greens and Palmer United are steady on 9% and 5%. Labor’s two-party preferred lead has narrowed from 54-46 to 52-48. Further questions relate to Iraq, with 25% thinking the 2003 invasion the right decision versus 50% for the wrong decision, 53% nominating “to support the USA” as the Howard government’s main reason for getting involved, 39% saying they would approve of US action to support the Iraq government in its current crisis with military action with 31% opposed, and 54% saying they would disapprove of Australia sending troops with 30% approving.

The poll also finds 28% felt the Greens holding the Senate balance of power was good for Australia versus 37% for bad, with 26% and 39% responses for the looming circumstance of Palmer United and micro-parties holding the balance of power. We also get the regular arsenal of “leaders attributes” questions applied to Clive Palmer and Christine Milne, with the former turning up rather poorly, with high rating for arrogant, aggressive and erratic. Christine Milne breaks 50% on “out of touch with ordinary people”, but otherwise seems to have made less of an impression. Both rate quite highly on intelligent and hard-working, but successful politicians nearly always do.

Finally, the poll finds only 19% agreeing with Tony Abbott that no election promises were broken in the budget, with 72% disagreeing.

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.

2,075 comments on “Nielsen: 53-47 to Labor”

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  6. Tony Windsor ‏@TonyHWindsor 2m

    @CliveFPalmer @algore Well done Clive .The RET and climate initiatives keep Aus open for this century’s business -watch your arse he’s angry

  7. Palmer has no leverage on Abbott at all that I can see. He’s going to pass the carbon tax repeal – he might have a “protect the consumers!”fight first, but he’ll pass it – then he’s got some vague plan to legislate a future ETS…which will never pass the lower house.

    Think Gore’s been sold an absolute turkey here. I’m astonished by how credulously the Bludgertariat and Twittersphere is taking this.

    Having said that, saving the CEFC and the RET are unambiguous wins, so it’s not all bad.

  8. [The one thing I will give him credit for is that he has more or less guarantee that his party not only exists at the next election but will exist after it as well.]

    Unless the next election is a DD that was already likely to be the case, since the 3 PUP Senators have 6 year terms starting next week.

  10. On twitter

    [@vanbadham Rumour Palmer wants Turnbull as PM and will do anything to undermine Abbott to get rid of him #auspol]

    Anyhoo night al

  11. Thanx for saving the RET & CEFC Mr Palmer..

    No thanx for repealing the Carbon Pricing mechanism …and replacing it with a mirage …rather than an ETS. You managed to fool Laura Tingle, & Bushfire though …so kudos for that

    WTF were you doing at Mr Palmer’s side, Mr Gore?!!

  12. [He added his conditional ETS description as specifically tied to the (non-)repeal of the CCA as amendments to the Climate Change Authority repeal bill (which doesn’t make sense and I would say simply can’t be done – you can’t amend legislation that does one thing to do something utterly different). ]

    Yes, that’s the (really) weird bit. Since he presumably wants to defeat the CCA repeal bill it doesn’t make sense to amend it, unless the original repeal bill is first turned around entirely.

  13. If it gives Abbott some sleepless nights, then there is positive in this for the ALP. I watched the Lateline i/v and I have no idea what Palmer is doing or is going to do.

    Nor does Tony. 😆 :devil:

  14. Craig Emerson @DrCraigEmerson

    “Right, PUP won’t insist on its ETS bill passing in scrapping the carbon price. So no carbon price, no ETS. No wonder Govt happy” #lateline

  15. I watched Lateline too.

    No idea either, of Clive’s intent.

    ‘Think Gore’s been sold an absolute turkey here. I’m astonished by how credulously the Bludgertariat and Twittersphere is taking this.’

    Desperate hope, that would be.

    Watching Lateline, one could gain only the impression that Clive is winging it.

    TJ did whatever to point out Clive’s backflips and inconsistense.

    This method doesn’t work in the Clive case.

    Because clearly Clive is willing to suggest that he will change his position at any given moment.

    Hardly unusual.

    Suggest we all bombard him about whatever climate boeuf we have.

  20. I’d be surprised if there hadn’t been a little advance warning of sorts to Shorten from Gore’s people before the PR circus today. Shorten’s position statement today was pretty good and not at all out of whack with potential outcomes that can flow from the Palmer statement.

    What a classic re: Palmer and Gore. I haven’t chuckled this much reading PB page after page for ages.

    Palmer looked to have been briefed at least to a reasonable extent about a lot of the issues and it was very kind of Jones to put ARENA on his list to review. I’ve got some neat stuff to send him re: the benefits of keeping ARENA. Thought ARENA was gawn but now maybe not?

    Speaking of gawn… team Abbott / Credlin are only hanging in there with support from News Ltd and an assortment of spivs.

    Murdoch will try even harder to nuke Palmer. Question is now whether US seriously investigates Murdoch empire. While we in Australia are helpless against the News Ltd evil, my guess is that his influence in the polity of this country must be being taken increasingly seriously by collectively far more powerful worldwide interests.

    Fingers crossed we will not have to wait too much longer for his empire’s demise.

    As for concerns re: Palmer and whether he’ll back down – he won’t. It appears the equivalent of what BB suggested – ie locking him in a room with people who can articulate the issue – has occurred and worked. Gore would not have rocked up today for the announcement otherwise. Obama’s people will be keeping a close eye on where this goes.

    Would love to be a fly on the wall at the Palmer / Abbott breakfast. But that will just be the next little circus event. This is going to play on for a fair while yet.

  21. 1999

    Al Gore side by side with Palmer and not the Greens – that must be devastating for the Greens.

    Hardly. Everyone wins that way, including us. Gore and Milne would not have been a story, precisely because Palmer represents rightwing voters.

    I would imagine that if Gore were to side with the Greens, the right-wing would just dismiss the whole thing as a climate change circle jerk.

  22. I still think Rudd should have pulled the DD trigger on CPRS to eliminate crossbencher opposition in the Senate, rather than have to water down CPRS to appease the Libs.

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