Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor

Newspoll runs against the recent trend in recording a bounce in Labor’s lead. Other big news: Fairfax set to return to the polling game following Nielsen’s recent shutdown.

A tale of four pollsters:

Newspoll

GhostWhoVotes relates the first Newspoll in four weeks has delivered Labor its best poll result in some time, with a two-party lead of 53-47 that compares with 51-49 last time. The Coalition is off three points on the primary vote to 38%, but the direct beneficiaries are the Greens, up three to 14%, with Labor steady on 34%. Tony Abbott is down three on approval to 38% and up one on disapproval to 53%, but Bill Shorten’s numbers have also declined – his approval is down three to 35%, and disapproval up three to a new high of 46%. On preferred prime minister, Shorten closes the gap from 41-37 to 39-38.

The poll also has 63% saying Tony Abbott should “confront” (not “shirt-front”) Vladimir Putin over MH17, against 27% who don’t.

Morgan

This fortnight’s result from Morgan, encompassing 3131 respondents from its last two weekends of face-to-face and SMS polling, is little changed on last fortnight, which was the Coalition’s best result from this series since February. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down half a point to 39.5%, Labor is up half a point to 35.5%, and the Greens and Palmer United are unchanged on 12% and 3.5% respectively. On two-party preferred as measured using preference flows from the 2013 election, the Labor lead increases just slightly from 51.5-48.5 to 52-48. On respondent-allocated preferences it goes the other way, down from 53-47 to 52-48, minor party preferences evidently having been a little more favourable to the Coalition this time out. Keen poll watchers will be aware that Morgan has lately taken to including two-party preferred breakdowns by age. These results appear to indicate that Morgan’s noted Labor skew is being driven by the younger respondents. I mean to get around to taking a closer look at that some time.

Fairfax Ipsos

The big news in polldom this week is that Fairfax has announced Ipsos, a major international market research concern whose local operation Iview has done some scattered online polling around the place this year, will fill the void created by Nielsen’s shutdown earlier in the year. Best of all, it will replicate Nielsen’s methods in conducting live interview phone polling from 1400 respondents each month. State polling will also be conducted, starting with a Victorian poll which we can expect very shortly.

Essential Research

It will, as always, publish its weekly result at around 2pm EST. Watch this space.

UPDATE: Essential concurs with Newspoll in having Labor’s lead at 53-47, which is up from 52-47 last time, although the primary vote numbers suggests there’s not much in the shift: the Coalition is down a point to 40% and everyone else is steady, Labor on 39%, the Greens on 10% and Palmer United on 3%. Some indication as to why the Coalition is in this position is provided by a further question on perceptions of economic indicators, with very large majorities finding everything has gotten worse except for “company profits”. Forty-four per cent think their own financial situation is worse versus 16% for better, and the economy overall fares similarly. Other findings are that 66% favour voluntary euthanasia with 14% opposed, and 58% believing Australia is doing enough to fight Ebola versus 21% for not enough.

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.

1,268 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. [GhostWhoVotes ‏@GhostWhoVotes 34s34 seconds ago
    #Newspoll Primary Votes: L/NP 38 (-3) ALP 34 (0) GRN 14 (+3) #auspol]

    the Burqa BellyFlop

  4. Interesting news about Fairfax Ipsos.

    Seems you can’t be a ‘serious’ reporter of federal politics these days without having a polling outfit amongst your kit.

  10. Well that buggers up my prediction of 49 or 50 for the ALP.
    This is good new tho’ – the ‘look over there a terrorist’ scare isn’t working.
    Seems to be working in favour of the Greens.
    Principles rewarded.

  11. Forget Murdoch Poll, William, I’ll continue my (good-natured) campaign against the 1.5% house bias for Morgan.

    Am I understanding this correctly and, if so, Morgan’s ‘true’ result is about 50.5 to 49.5?

    If so, how does Newspoll’s latest result line up with that?

  12. Rossmore – don’t feel too bad. Newspoll wobbles at any time. Makes it hard to pick. I suspect a little bit of improvement for the left, and a little bit of MOE.

  15. It’s good to see the Greens rewarded for their principled arguments about the counter-terrorism laws and the military operations in Iraq.

  16. [If so, how does Newspoll’s latest result line up with that?]

    Rather oddly. Not that this is any great mystery. Look at any of those colourful poll trend charts to your right, and you’ll see outliers.

  19. I’m not greatly surprised by this result,

    Abbott seems to insult new groups every day and he’s looking like a ‘boy who cried wolf’ more and more.

    No doubt Essential will be ‘steady’ tomorrow.

  22. Crikey the only way Captain Tone and Team Australia can turn this around would be what.

    They have tried declaring war on Russia

    They have tried declaring war on the Muzz-a-lums

    They have declared war on the deathcults and sent in the army and airforce to spearhead the assault.

    Capatain Tone has called on Vlad for a flogging

    Can they get anymore mileage out of the Boats.

    What will Peta do next ????

  26. The short teaser article before the main one at midnight

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/coalition-hits-threemonth-low-labor-flatlining-newspoll/story-e6frg6n6-1227096630763
    [Coalition hits three-month low, Labor flatlining: Newspoll
    The Australian
    October 20, 2014 10:45PM
    Phillip Hudson
    Bureau Chief
    Canberra

    SUPPORT for the ­Coalition has dropped to a three-month low, while Labor continues to flatline and the Greens have received a bounce in primary vote, the latest Newspoll shows.

    Bill Shorten has marked his first year as Labor leader with his approval rating dropping to a three-month low and disapproval with him at its highest level.

    The Newspoll, taken last weekend, reveals support for the Coalition has dropped three points to 38 per cent, the lowest since July. It has been below last year’s election result of 45.6 per cent for every Newspoll this year. Labor’s primary vote was unchanged at 34 per cent, virtually the same as its election result of 33.3 per cent.

    The Coalition vote appeared to transfer to the Greens who received a rise of three points to 14 per cent, significantly higher than their 8.7 per cent result at the election. The strong support for the Greens has underpinned Labor’s two-party-preferred lead which has increased to a three-month high of 53-47 per cent, up from 51-49 per cent in the previous survey. Eighty per cent of Greens preferences flow to Labor based on the 2013 election result.

    Mr Abbott’s satisfaction fell three points to 38 per cent while his dissatisfaction rose one point to 53 per cent. Mr Shorten took the biggest hit in the poll with his satisfaction down three points to a three-month low of 35 per cent as his dissatisfaction rose three points to 46 per cent, the highest since he won the Labor leadership a year ago.]

  27. It was an extraordinary federal government program. That would be the justification for ex gratia payments for the small number of deaths in this one program which was an emergency response to a global financial castrophe.

    I disagree that the approach I outlined was taken. Kevin Rudd tried to do a Peter Beattie and apologize and get credit for the apology. Instead he should have emphasized the fact that a government cannot prevent every act of irresponsible behaviour in society. He didn’t make that point often if at all. He also didn’t spend enough time emphasizing the benefits of the program: the 1.2 million homes which had insulation installed with no problems; the immense energy savings which this achieves; the hundreds of thousands of jobs saved; the large scale misery which the nation averted; the fact that the rate of deaths and fires per 1000 insulations was lower during the program than it was before the program. He didn’t think he could make a complex argument (a weakness which characterized his actions on emissions trading) so he just declared defeat and expressed remorse as though it was all the government’s fault.

    Today the home insulation program is a byword for incompetence. That proposition isn’t even contested because Kevin Rudd chose not to contest it. Every single time the damn thing is reported it’s with the adjective “failed”. He could at least have ensured that the word would be “controversial”. He could have given Labor voters the arguments and facts to use to defend the program. But no – it was all too hard. He cut and ran from his own highly successful initiative.

  28. A “Putin put down” effect! Morgan was taken over the last 2 weekends and may be underestimating the backlash to Abbot’s stupidity. most people do not want their PM behaving like a thug.

  32. Raaraa @ 18
    [Was Big Ship closest on this estimate at 52-48?]

    Predicting Newspoll is usually a fool’s errand, but you’ve gotta have a go!

  33. The ‘lost’ Coalition vote probably didn’t transfer to the Greens. It would have gone mostly to Labor, while Labor lost about the same on the left to the Greens, who have been eschewing all this ‘security’ crap.

  34. Nicholas

    You’ve misunderstood my original response – I said that all of those measures had been taken, but I made it clear that I didn’t mean they had been taken by the Prime Minister.

    I agree that Rudd handled it wrongly but what he should have done was let Garrett continue to defend the program, which he was doing very well.

  35. Nicholas@27

    It was an extraordinary federal government program. That would be the justification for ex gratia payments for the small number of deaths in this one program which was an emergency response to a global financial castrophe.

    I disagree that the approach I outlined was taken. Kevin Rudd tried to do a Peter Beattie and apologize and get credit for the apology. Instead he should have emphasized the fact that a government cannot prevent every act of irresponsible behaviour in society. He didn’t make that point often if at all. He also didn’t spend enough time emphasizing the benefits of the program: the 1.2 million homes which had insulation installed with no problems; the immense energy savings which this achieves; the hundreds of thousands of jobs saved; the large scale misery which the nation averted; the fact that the rate of deaths and fires per 1000 insulations was lower during the program than it was before the program. He didn’t think he could make a complex argument (a weakness which characterized his actions on emissions trading) so he just declared defeat and expressed remorse as though it was all the government’s fault.

    Today the home insulation program is a byword for incompetence. That proposition isn’t even contested because Kevin Rudd chose not to contest it. Every single time the damn thing is reported it’s with the adjective “failed”. He could at least have ensured that the word would be “controversial”. He could have given Labor voters the arguments and facts to use to defend the program. But no – it was all too hard. He cut and ran from his own highly successful initiative.

    If you believe that you are simply gullible.

    It was purely a financing program which left the onus on the householder to select their supplier and, as is perfectly normal, rely on the state consumer affairs departments if there were problems.

    Naturally, normal OH&S regulations applied and no exemptions were granted by the Fed Govt as you seem to think.

    Rudd’s apology was stupid and un-called for. He should have toughed out all the hypocrisy and bleating from the opposition.

  36. If I had to pick an issue to explain this result, the government losing ground to the Greens, it would be the decision to commit forces to Iraq. I doubt burkas has had anything to do with it. Of course it could just be normal noise.

  39. Re Nicholas @27: the Home Insulation Program was a success. A few dodgy private operators failed to meet their basic obligations with regard to worker safety while another worker died of heat exhaustion in a way that could hardly be blamed on the funders of the program. Double digit unemployment by the end of 2009 would have caused many more deaths, as would the 2014 Budget if allowed to pass.

  41. These are great numbers for Labor.

    As pointed out, where to for Abbott & co from here?

    They won’t win the next election on these figures. They have 2 budgets to come & an economy that’s tanking.

  42. Hasn’t been that apparent lately but this is a good time to remember that Newspoll is bouncy and will often spring a couple of points one way or the other through sheer random error. This one is already generating way too much excitement from the usual suspects who could well be harshly deflated in a fortnight.

    But it is interesting that it bounced up for Labor instead of down.

  43. David

    I would see there being a few big issues which explain the shift from Liberals straight to greens

    1. The security legislation. Real liberals value free speech and must be quite appalled at both parties. i see this group, lawyers and journalists etc moving directly to greens.

    2. Shirtfronting – bad look – made Abbott appear rude and a buffoon. Since Labor nearly as bad again a straight shift Liberal to green is to be expected

    3. China’s coal tariff – I imagine quite a few worried by this. They may shift to labor

    4. The economy stupid!!!

  45. Re Silentmajority @41: a biased mainstream media is probably a handicap of about 2% for Labor. A large proportion of voters get all their info from the Daily Rupert in their town, plus commercial radio and TV. And the Liberal Dirt Units will be in overdrive. They don’t need to find anything, just assert loudly and often enough that they have: exhibit A: the AWU ‘Slush Fund’ affair.

  46. dtt

    More likely that a group of Liberal votes went to Labor and a group of Labor votes to the Greens (or any one of numerous permutations of that…)

  47. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsId=49108

    [17 October 2014 – Survivors of Ebola who have developed immunity to the virus are being trained to care for children in Liberia and Sierra Leone, a United Nations official today announced.

    People who survived Ebola at these “interim care centres” can give small children the love they need in a world where touching is feared.

    “It’s strange, a very unhuman experience,” Sarah Crowe, Crisis Communications Chief at UNICEF told journalists in New York following a five-week mission to Liberia, where “fear of contagion, contamination has eroded that sense of compassion.” Liberia, along with hard-hit countries Sierra Leone and Guinea, is on the frontlines of efforts to stop the outbreak.

    The virus has “hijacked” every aspect of life and “changed the way people live…and how people die,” said the UN official, beginning her presentation by disclosing her temperature and showing a bottle of hand sanitizer to the gathered reporters.]

  48. “Others” has been static around 14% for a long time but probably changing internally is interesting.
    PUP down possibly, not that Newspoll would tell us.

  49. Zoomster

    I am quite sure there is a largish group of ‘Dr’s wives” or middle class educated “liberals” who will swing between Liberals and Greens. The issues I raised, especially the security legislation and the “shirtfronting” are exactly the sort of issues to shift this mob.

    My gut feel is probably we are both right, with about 1-2% of the shift being liberals going to Greens and another 1-2% being Labor to Greens, relaced by some LNP to Labor.

  50. From Steve
    [Re Silentmajority @41: a biased mainstream media is probably a handicap of about 2% for Labor.]
    I’d put it much higher than that, particularly over the long haul of many years with embedded ‘perception’ of the COALition being better at economic management and security for example.
    Its an interesting exercise to ponder how much Rupe and his mates are worth to the conservative agenda.

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