Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor

The latest fortnightly Newspoll finds majority support for repeal of the carbon tax, but otherwise brings the Abbott government little cheer.

The Australian has come good with Newspoll a day earlier than we have recently been accustomed, and it has Labor’s two-party lead at 54-46 after an above-trend 55-45 result a fortnight ago. The primary vote has the Coalition up a point to 36%, Labor steady on 37% and the Greens down two to 11%. Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten are both unchanged on approval at 31% and 34% respectively, but Abbott is down two points on disapproval to 60% while Shorten is up two to 43%. The poll also finds 53% want the carbon tax repealed, versus 35% who want it retained. Preferred prime minister ratings to follow shortly (UPDATE: Abbott narrows the gap from 44-34 to 41-36). Hat-tip: GhostWhoVotes.

Also worth noting that the Courier-Mail is unrolling Galaxy results from the Queensland state seats of Pumicestone, Gaven, Hervey Bay and Maroochydore, which I presume to be automated phone polls from samples of about 550. The only numbers available at this point are for Pumicestone, where the Liberal National Party is credited with at 52-48 lead in a seat it holds on a margin of 12.1%. Primary votes are 41% for the LNP, 37% for Labor and 13% for Palmer United. More to follow here presumably as well.

UPDATE (Galaxy Queensland electorate polls: Queensland poll results from the Courier-Mail here, showing the LNP leading 56-44 in Gaven, 54-46 in Hervey Bay and 58-42 in Maroochydore, for respective swings of 13.1%, 17.7% and 12.9%. Pumicestone was in Labor’s hands prior to the 2012 election, Gaven and Hervey Bay were gained by the LNP in 2009, and Maroochydore has consistently been conservative. The current member for Gaven is Alex Douglas, who since the last election has thrown his lot in with Palmer United. The poll result is not encouraging for him, showing Palmer United third placed in Gaven with 21% to 40% for the LNP and 29% for Labor.

UPDATE 2 (UMR Research electorate polls): Mark Kenny of the Sydney Morning Herald also relates results from robo-polling conducted for the National Tertiary Education Union by UMR Research, chiefly noted as Labor’s internal pollster, encompassing 23,176 respondents over 23 electorates. The overall picture of a double-digit swing to Labor is hard to credit, but it is nonetheless interesting to learn of a particularly heavy swing against Christopher Pyne in his Adelaide seat of Sturt, and that the best net approval ratings of the incumbents in the electorates polled were recorded by Darren Chester (Nationals, Gippsland), Alannah MacTiernan (Labor, Perth), Kate Ellis (Labor, Adelaide), Anna Burke (Labor, Chisholm) and Matt Thistlethwaite (Labor, Kingsford Smith). FURTHER UPDATE: The NTEU has published the full set of results here, and they show Labor ahead in every single electorate targeted, including such unlikely prospects as Dunkley and Gippsland.

UPDATE 3 (Morgan): This fortnight’s Morgan result, combining its last two weekends of face-to-face and SMS polling, has the Coalition losing further ground with a one point drop on the primary vote to 34% and a two point increase for Labor to 38.5%, while the Greens and Palmer United are respectively down and up half a point, to 11.5% and 7.5%. Using preference flows from the previous election, Labor’s lead is up from 54.5-45.5 to 56-44. However, the Coalition gains slightly on respondent-allocated two-party preferred, on which it now trails 56.5-43.5 rather than 57.5-42.5,

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.

986 comments on “Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. Bird of paradox@716

    Kevin: there’s certainly some rounding weirdness going on there. For example, in Bass Labor’s primary vote has apparently risen from 35% to 40%, a swing of 6%. There’s a bunch of irritating little off-by-one errors like that. Whether the net effect of those errors is neutral or favours one side would show whether it’s a house effect or just sloppy rounding. (Or a bit of both.)

    Labor’s primary at the election in Bass was 34.65 which they’ve rounded up to 35. So if their polled result for Labor in Bass was between 40.15 and 40.5 then they would have rounded the Labor vote in Bass down to 40 but the difference up to 6. There’s a similar case in Adelaide where the Green vote goes from 10 to 10 but with a swing of 1 point. The actual Greens vote at the election there was 10.12 so the polled Green vote would have had to be from 9.5 to 9.62 to make it fly.

    I think that’s all they’ve done there but it is quite odd compared to how other pollsters present swings in similar cases.

  2. I like this on twitter

    [Carbon Tax Price Guide Ready Reckoner:
    If it did not go up: it will not come down
    If it did go up: it will not come down
    #auspol]

  3. For those interested, the RC into trade unions continues today in Sydney. The focus will be on the CFMEU, Labor hire, scaffold hire and CBUS

  4. [Ray Hadley storms out of Karl Stefanovic interview on Today show]

    These pompous arrogant old white males really don’t like the blowtorch being turned back on them.

    I think deep inside they know that the tide of history has now irreversibly turned and is bringing their time at the top of the heap to an end. And it messes with their heads. 🙂

  5. Raaraa

    The total irrelevance and insignificance of the Minister for the Environment on an issue which should be at the heart of his job.

  6. psyclaw @ 265 yesterday.

    Whatever…

    You are wrong, its completely normal for some people to end up filthy at a controlled burn and others not to. especially people responsible for …. whats the point you’ll think what you want.

    While its clear Abbott publicises his fire fighting activities for a political gain (probably in breach of section 3.3(e) of the service standard 1.1.6 – the one that refers to media comments) its also obvious he was actually fighting a fire.

    [Said Credlin to the firies just before the shoot “have you got a dirty suit for Tony to put on ….. it’d look more realistic, and help us to con the punters when they see it …..]

    Maybe that works on the north shore of Sydney. If she tried that in my brigade she’d be told to fuck off in no uncertain terms and so would he. I reckon that would happen in every brigade I know of.

    Its actually reasonable to criticise Abbott for publicing his fire fighting in a way that may contravene service standards – he always publicises his activity when he needs a boost in the polls and it seems he often gets one as a result of the publicity.

    Its fair enough to wonder if the incident reported on the RFs website yesterday at cottage Point was a result of the HR burn Abbott was involved with not being done properly and if so whether or not the faffing about with the PM in photos contributed to the fire not being put out the way it should have been.

    Its downright stupid to invent conspiracies and raise Credlin to the level of an ascended illuminati master controlling the whole world and everything we see from behind the scenes.

  7. Raaraa @ 752

    [I wonder what’s the reference in portraying Hunt in being that tiny.]

    Apart from his stature it may well relate to him sounding like a jockey.

  8. @759

    Ah, I get it now. I was thinking more about his media appearance, which he gets a lot of, while saying nothing, really.

  9. [
    New conditions attached by Clive Palmer to the activation of his proposed “dormant” emissions trading scheme (ETS) mean it is unlikely to ever happen and will now be opposed by Labor, even though it supports emissions trading.
    ]

    Anyone know where Al Gore is and what he thinks of these developments.

  10. Any comments on this:
    Recently Formed Center-Left Party Wins Slovenian Parliamentary Election:

    [A recently formed center-left party in Slovenia, started by a newcomer in politics, scored a landslide victory in a parliamentary election Sunday amid voters’ distrust in established parties and unease over state asset sales…

    Mr. Cerar, whose father is the country’s well-known Olympic medalist, launched his eponymous Party of Miro Cerar just five weeks ago.]

  11. victoria

    [“based upon the actions of our leading trading partners China, the United States of America, the European Union, Japan and Korea”.]
    This may not be a very high hurdle. From the beginning of next year , when Korea moves, all will have ETS schemes of some sort up and running. There is a global summit next year in Paris where I reckon some deal will be reached. Obama just after making his big carbon move in the US spoke during John Key’s visit of putting forward “robust plans” at the summit.

  12. [@smh: Ray Hadley storms out of Karl Stefanovic interview on Today show http://t.co/3szvW8CO1s ]

    The Fans are all phoning in to Hadley’s show to make sure he’s OK… at this fragile time in his life.

    However, just the other day Hadley was laughing and joking about going out on a group date with a bunch of “honies”, teaming up with “Singo” (John Singleton) and – of all people – Geoffrey “Geoffrey Edelstein)… new bachelors, apparently.

    He also went ballistic a couple of days ago over Clive Palmer “storming” out of the 7.30 interview the other night, and about Palmer’s harassment of the Clerk of the Senate.

    This is the bloke who has a defamation judgement debt out against him for impugning the motives of an innocent fish & chip shop proprietor, for sticking by her husband.

    He didn’t have any trouble sooling his listeners onto her, at her Carlingford shop.

  13. With Clive’s amendments does the emissions cap remain ? Originally it would under the PUP plans but not sure now. If it has then that will be an important piece of furniture saved.

  14. poroti

    [
    “based upon the actions of our leading trading partners China, the United States of America, the European Union, Japan and Korea”.
    ]

    That was what he said with Al Gore. This is the situation now

    [
    But now the Palmer United party (PUP) is insisting trading partners meet their emissions reduction promises with an emissions trading scheme, and has added India to the list at the last minute.

    These changes mean the “trigger” is unlikely to be met for many years, because even if other countries adopt ambitious greenhouse targets they may not choose to implement them with a nationwide ETS. The EU and Korea have a carbon price. The US has a price in only some states after Barack Obama failed to get his cap-and-trade scheme through Congress. Obama is now moving to meet emissions reduction targets through strict regulations, including on power station emissions. China has some regional emissions trading schemes but no national scheme. India has a small tax on coal, but as a developing country is unlikely to take on similar policies to Australia and its other trading partners.
    ]

  15. zoom
    Regarding future engagement with other parties such as the Greens. Obviously a lot will depend on the configuration of parliament.

    Should Labor
    a) do as a few here (e.g. Centre) suggest and stay the hell away from them?
    b) continue to interact (e.g. leave them uninvolved) as you have suggested has been normal procedure in the past?
    c) something else?

    We continually hear of the “long game” here. This or that person or party is playing the “long game”. Surely covering your bases and making sure your position is solid in as many contingencies as is practical (e.g. preventing the party begin caught out by events such as happened in 2010) would be playing the “long game”?

    It may seem unnecessary but surely it’s good practice to cover your own weaknesses – such contingencies may not even come to pass and indeed, one often formulates strategy based on possibilities expected never to occur precisely because one has already countered them in advance*.

    * Action on AGW being an example of this. In the event we succeed in preventing AGW, I can already hear people saying “nothing happened, did we really need to do all that, then?”

  16. victoria

    India may not be too far out of reach .For purely economic reasons renewables have been part of the push to get power to remote and poor villages across India.

    Modi is a true believer in climate change and is red hot on solar energy. He has been banging on about it for years.

  17. Both Abbott and Shorten are attending the funeral of Soldier in Central coast today. Doubt they will be available for QT today

  18. [There is a global summit next year in Paris where I reckon some deal will be reached. Obama just after making his big carbon move in the US spoke during John Key’s visit of putting forward “robust plans” at the summit.]

    For the first time in the history of this issue, I think there is a better than even chance we will see a concrete and substantial global agreement, and Clive’s trigger threshold being reached a lot sooner than perhaps he, and certainly Tones, might have wished.

  19. DisplayName@778

    zoom

    We continually hear of the “long game” here. This or that person or party is playing the “long game”. Surely covering your bases and making sure your position is solid in as many contingencies as is practical (e.g. preventing the party begin caught out by events such as happened in 2010) would be playing the “long game”?

    It may seem unnecessary but surely it’s good practice to cover your own weaknesses – such contingencies may not even come to pass and indeed, one often formulates strategy based on possibilities expected never to occur precisely because one has already countered them in advance*.

    * Action on AGW being an example of this. In the event we succeed in preventing AGW, I can already hear people saying “nothing happened, did we really need to do all that, then?”

    You seem sceptical about the term “long game” as often bandied around on PB. Well I agree.

    It just seems to be a term used to cover up short term setbacks and provide self reassurance even when without any substance.

    In short, as often used here, it is bullshit.

  20. Tonight there will be a celebration of 50 years of The Australian. Rupert will be in attendance together with Abbott. Shorten is also expected to attend as Labor leader

  21. victoria

    I think Clive will have his cake and eat it too. He can wave to the denier crowd about how he got rid of the “carbon tax” and wave to the consumers about how he looked after them . Then when ,as I believe is inevitable , a global agreement is reached, wave to the crowds about how he preserved the mechanism for an ETS and emissions cap.

  22. victoria

    I see Abbott going to a DD because rejection of a majority of his budget.

    Its not a case of wanting to but being forced to politically. For him his agenda destroyed a second budget unworkable. No ability to come up with that surplus sweetener con the Liberals do.

    So its cut losses time. That is why a DD will happen and the only reason.

  23. poroti

    My point is why is he making it conditional on more countries having to be part of it before Australia participates?

  24. Rex

    Good question. He is LOTO and I daresay he gets invited to a lot of functions he would rather not attend but protocol and manners required that he does.

    Image the field day the Tory cheer squad would have if missed this function.

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