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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  1. MartinB

    and the argument for something sooner rather than later is precisely because we can’t predict the future, and events often pan out in ways we don’t expect.

  2. For all the commentary about Gore standing next to Palmer he wasn’t totally laudatory. He specifically noted that he would be disappointed to see the carbon price reduce in the short term which was a pretty clear criticism of Palmer’s intention to repeal the current legislation.

  3. Gore is to CC…what Billy Graham was to sin

    Having heard Gore in Chicago I felt at the end of the night that I should stand up and confess my enviromental sins to the breathen

    I had never made as much compost as I could have…..
    and I once burned rubbish in an incenerator,and probably failed to save enough containers…

    I thought we should have closed with a Green Hymn too

  4. deblonay

    Gore is here for about three days, I think – something to do with training people to spread the word about climate change.

  5. [It was a very strange dinner in the member’s dining room of parliament house. Former US vice president Al Gore. Mining millionaire Clive Palmer. Former chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Don Henry. Former chief of staff to Bob Brown and Christine Milne Ben Oquist. Former adviser to retired independent MP Tony Windsor, John Clements. And Palmer United party senator-elect and former rugby league player Glenn Lazarus. And Gore and Palmer’s staff.]
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/how-coal-miner-clive-turned-climate-crusader

  6. I see the Senate has established a Select Committee to trawl for the next 2 years over Abbott cuts in the Health sector

    [*295 Senator Moore: To move—
    (1) That a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on Health,
    be established to inquire into and report on health policy, administration
    and expenditure, with particular reference to:
    (a) the impact of reduced Commonwealth funding for hospital and
    other health services provided by state and territory governments, in
    particular, the impact on elective surgery and emergency department
    waiting times, hospital bed numbers, other hospital related care and
    cost shifting;
    (b) the impact of additional costs on access to affordable healthcare and
    the sustainability of Medicare;
    (c) the impact of reduced Commonwealth funding for health promotion,
    prevention and early intervention;
    (d) the interaction between elements of the health system, including
    between aged care and health care;
    (e) improvements in the provision of health services, including
    Indigenous health and rural health;
    (f) the better integration and coordination of Medicare services,
    including access to general practice, specialist medical practitioners, pharmaceuticals, optometry, diagnostic, dental and allied health
    services;
    (g) health workforce planning; and
    (h) any related matters.
    (2) That the committee present its final report on or before 20 June 2016, with
    interim reports as the committee sees fit.]

    It was agreed to by the Senate

  7. Tonight on #Lateline we’ll be joined live by Clive Palmer to discuss the PUP’s surprising new climate change policy. ABC1 10:35pm AEST

  8. [
    Fran Barlow
    Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 9:51 pm | Permalink

    Frednk

    To get to your destination you have to take the first step, wishing you were there doesn’t work.

    Yes, but the first step has to be forward rather than backward
    ..
    ]
    Very few roads take a straght line; you often head south to go to a north destination.

  9. [and the argument for something sooner rather than later is precisely because we can’t predict the future, and events often pan out in ways we don’t expect.]

    That’s entirely reasonable but I would be quite surprised if you could show the implications articulated in 2009 as they are now construed. With 55/45 polls against a divided opposition the political future looked as certain as it ever does. That the Greens may have been wrong about that is hardly to their detriment: as I said every party would have played their cards differently had they known, and not knowing, every party would have reacted almost exactly as the Greens did in the situation.

  10. [..and not knowing, every party would have reacted almost exactly as the Greens did in the situation.]

    Sorry, I’m lost…are you saying that the Liberals and Labor would have acted exactly as the Greens did if they DIDN’T know the future? Because they didn’t, and they didn’t.

  11. From Facebook’s Victorian Storm Chasers, picking up on my earlier observation about the low pressure system, currently forecast to hit us tomorrow, and Victorians and Tasmanians at the weekend:

    [ With yesterday still fresh in our minds, Mother Nature looks set to inflict more severe weather on the weekend with yet another intense low pressure system moving in. Tonight a front is moving through bringing another burst of cold winds, showers and snow on the hills. But our attention is focussed on Saturday with models showing another intense low pressure system heading our way.

    This system is currently positioned south west of WA with the associated front expected to affect south west WA tomorrow morning. If you’ve got family or friends in WA, head over to Steve and the gang at Perth Weather Live for updates.

    Latest models (below) have this system behind a strong front with the front hitting the west of the state around midday Friday and the low moving into Bass Strait Saturday morning driving damaging winds across the state. Winds will begin to fire up on Friday as the front approaches. The alpine region is again in for heavy snowfalls and most of the south will get decent falls too.

    We’ll continue to monitor the situation and should any changes in the outlook occur we’ll post updates. It’s safe to say though it won’t be a calm weekend!]

  12. There seems to a zombie myth which just can’t be killed which says that, in 2009, if the Greens had supported the CPRS bill in the Senate then it would have been passed. This would only have occurred if 2 liberal senators had also crossed the floor to vote for the bill. When it came to the crunch, when it was clear that the Greens would vote against the CPRS bill, the 2 Lib senators squibbed it and voted along with their party against the bill. There was never any real prospect of the CPRS bill being passed even if the Greens had voted for it.

    Rudd obviously thought that the CPRS would be secured into the future if it also had support from the Libs. That’s why he didn’t even bother to talk to the Greens. Unfortunately the compromises he made to get their support weakened the product and the Libs retracted anyway. It was his lack of nerve to go straight to any election then which lost him a lot of credibility and support.

  13. For Fulvio:

    Many analysts see the task of getting an international agreement to reduce carbon pollution as akin to the Prisoners’ Dilemma from game theory, in which it’s notoriously hard to ensure cooperation. A recent novel method of getting cooperation in Prisoners’ Dilemma problems is called “program equilibrium,” which is an alternative to the well-known Nash equilibrium.

    Whether he knows it, Clive Palmer has proposed that Australia implement a “program equilibrium” strategy. As such, if the trading partners that Palmer lists agree to the same terms, or just to unilaterally reduce emissions, then cooperation will ensue.

  14. [Sorry, I’m lost…are you saying that the Liberals and Labor would have acted exactly as the Greens did if they DIDN’T know the future? Because they didn’t, and they didn’t.]

    In the situation of party A: where party B refuses to negotiate with party A and instead negotiates with party C, but where A, B and C all expect that B will need A after the next election. Should A pass legislation negotiated by B and C, or wait?

    I don’t think it matters who is A, B and C. The rational and expected course of action is clear.

  15. [Neil Chenoweth
    Would Al Gore have done Clive Palmer deal without talking to Obama? And wld Obama have agreed without Abbott’s Canadia play? #auspol]

  16. Rudd couldn’t negotiate with the Greens on carbon pricing as the Greens through Milne made it crystal clear that their targets (of 20% by 2020 from memory) were NON negotiable.

    That is a FACT!

    Palmer on Lateline should be a beauty.

  17. Troeth and Boyce did actually cross the floor and personally I think it is likely they were genuine, and would have done so if all Greens voted for it and this passed the bill.

    But it is worth remembering that this is in fact an assumption, and not the unquestionable fact that it is always presented as.

  18. I’m a bit suss about the AMA’s supposed concern about the suggested co-payment – for the benefit of the patient.

    I saw an excerpt of Q&A a week or so ago, where a doctor, while invoking his allegiance to the LNP, portrayed himself as the champion of the poor.

    I couldn’t help but notice that most of his examples centred round aged people.

    Way back in 1996, I often visited my elderly great aunt. She was an inmate of a nursing home in Pakenham. And aged 95 at the time. She died a year later.

    She was smart as a whip, but her body was failing.

    Anyway, one evening while I was visiting, her doctor poked his head round the corner, said gedday, and told her that he wouldn’t interrupt while she was receiving a visitor; he’d pop back in later.

    She said: “OK, duck.” And turned to me and said what a lovely man he was.

    I couldn’t help but agree. He was my GP too, after all. I also knew he owned the nursing home.

    Some 40 minutes later, a nurse poked her head into my aunt’s room, asked if the doctor had seen her, and when my aunt said “Yes” she was asked to sign a document on the nurse’s clipboard.

    I asked what my aunt was signing. It was a medicare form. I asked when Doctor X would be back. Oh, he’ll be back in the morning.

    I talked to my aunt about the doctor’s visits and how often she had to sign to verify his visit. Oh, she said, duck, every morning and every night.

    I knew the particular nursing home had 19 beds. And it was fully occupied. That meant every morning and every evening, this particular doctor booked a medicare consult for saying “hello.”

    That was 38 hellos per day. Quite a bankable amount before he sat in his local surgery.

    I’m guessing the AMA is upset about the health of their nursing home easy street earnings, rather than the health of their patients.

  19. Have we really reached the stage where we accept a 49% risk of an asylum seeker being attacked if they are sent home?

    I think I’m going to throw up. I just can’t believe what this country is coming to.

  20. @tveedercom: Al Gore “was able to enlighten me on a number of aspects about climate change which I wasn’t fully familiar with” #LateLine

  21. Diogs
    [I’m sure there is some truth to that.]
    Nice little rort, eh what?

    Don’t even have to worry about bothering the ATO. Signed, sealed and delivered.

  22. “@DrCraigEmerson: .@trevorlong PUP won’t get its ETS bill legislated. Government will block In the House. PUP won’t insist on it. So bill dies. #lateline”

  23. [Have we really reached the stage where we accept a 49% risk of an asylum seeker being attacked if they are sent home?]

    Yep, it’s a bloody disgrace.

  24. If PUP were really serious about having this zero-capped ETS in place they could try to amend the repeal bills so that instead of repealing the existing legislation holus-bolus, it instead neuters it into their preferred form.

  25. lol.

    Lady Van Badham ‏@vanbadham 1m

    “I’m not a politician” “I’m just a member of parliament” Clive, thank you. Bringing the LOLS. SO. MANY. LOLS. #lateline

  26. guytaur

    I thought Palmer said at earlier that ETS stays but not enacted until other trading oartners are on board. Now it seems it is not the case.

  27. victoria

    Yes I thought the same. Mr Palmer did repeat about that too.

    @lyndalcurtis: So (no.2) Clive has legisltn ready to go on a thing he was convinced of today by Al Gore and announced at a presser flagged a few day ago

    As you can see I think we are going to have to wait for Labor and the Greens sort it out before the voting happens

  28. Guytaur,

    Doesn’t his plan, as it sits now, entail him not paying for his emissions for an indeterminate, or permanent, period of time. Or perhaps until he divests from the resource sector.

  29. [Have we really reached the stage where we accept a 49% risk of an asylum seeker being attacked if they are sent home?

    Yep, it’s a bloody disgrace.]

    I think Abbott has played this wrong – I think we are racist but not that racist.

    If it is a test necessary to weed out the pretenders it essentially undermines the ‘economic refugee’ lie / line of many including some self appointed experts in everything here.

  30. Clive.

    The Dealer, the Joker, the Bank.

    Raise yer Abbott and Harper.

    Against my three of a kind.

    President, Vice president and me.

  31. Clive Palmer commenting on The Australia “it’s just fish’n’chip paper”. Never a truer word.

    Did the Bludgers spot the contradiction in Palmer’s comments?

    On one hand Palmer will not accept any parts of the current legislation that converts to an ETS.

    On the other, Palmer will not rewrite the legislation to introduce his own ETS but will only make amendments to the current legislation.

    Hmmm?

    *night

  32. [@lyndalcurtis: So (no.2) Clive has legisltn ready to go on a thing he was convinced of today by Al Gore and announced at a presser flagged a few day ago]

    He’ll have forgotten about it tomorrow. 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.

  33. Centre

    Yep. Not real impressed right about now. Night to you

    Anyhoo on twitter

    [Now @CliveFPalmer & @TurnbullMalcolm dinner makes sense. #ets #auspol]

  34. If you pay attention to exactly what Palmer said at his presser this afternoon, and repeated in that Lateline interview, he made it quite clear that PUP would support the full repeal of the current carbon price.

    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). Regardless of those nonsensical elements, Palmer made it quite clear that the new Palmer-ETS would be dealt with separately to the repeal of the carbon price and that repeal of the carbon price was not going to be conditional on any agreements from the government to support the Palmer-ETS. ie the Palmer-ETS, if it ever exists in legislative form, will never get up, and Palmer shows no particular commitment to getting it up.

    ie as far as it goes the carbon price still appears dead with no replacement, based on what Palmer said today.

  35. To clarify, yes, Palmer only wants an ETS if it participates with Europe, China, Japan, USA and South Korea.

    He’s still got the Monkey by the marbles who is against any form of carbon pricing.

    *crashed

  36. Well it goodnight from me.

    Still happy with Palmer with what he has done. Its more than I expected him to do on carbon pricing.

  37. [To clarify, yes, Palmer only wants an ETS if it participates with Europe, China, Japan, USA and South Korea.]

    If he’s arguing for a unified one across all these jurisdictions, then it’s designed to fail, which, as I believe Jackol is saying, is probably his plan. Our carbon price is already linked to the European one, why wouldn’t that be good enough.

    Side question, if there is a fixed price on Carbon emissions of zilch, would the tariffs and excises, etc that the EU places on companies coming from jurisdictions without carbon prices still be levied?

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