Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor

Another fortnight, another dire Newspoll for Tony Abbott.

The fortnightly Newspoll in The Australian brings the government little respite, Labor’s lead down from the 55-45 blowout last time to 54-46, from primary votes of 37% for the Coalition (up one), 37% for Labor (down two) and 13% for the Greens (up two). Tony Abbott’s personal ratings continue to deteriorate, with approval down three to 33% and disapproval up two to 57%, while Bill Shorten’s remain broadly stable as they have for so long, with approval unchanged at 39% and disapproval up two to 43%. Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister widens just slightly from 43-37 to 43-36.

Also out today was the regular fortnightly face-to-face plus SMS poll from Morgan. This has the Coalition up a point to 39%, Labor down one to 37.5%, the Greens steady on 12%, and Palmer United down half a point to another new low of 2%. Two-party preferred moves two points in the Coalition’s favour on the respondent-allocated measure, from 55.5-44.5 to 53.5-46.5, and previous-election preferences moves one point from 54-46 to 53-47.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The latest fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research ticks a point in Labor’s favour, from 52-48 to 53-47, with the major parties tied at 40% on the primary vote (Labor up a point, the Coalition steady), the Greens down one to 9% and Palmer United steady on 3%. Further questions:

• Opinion on the balance of power in the Senate is found to be unchanged since July in being slightly favourable, with 37% reckoning it good for democracy, 29% bad and 18% indifferent. When asked if the Senate has been right to block or reject various items of legislation, yes outpolls no in every case.

• A little surprisingly (to me at least), 42% think the 1.5% pay increase for defence personnel fair, versus 47% for unfair.

• Fifty-six per cent disagree with the Prime Minister’s contention that his government has “fundamentally kept faith with the Australian people” with respect to election promises, with 31% in agreement. Opinion is inevitably divided along party lines, but Greens voters are found to be even more negative than Labor ones, albeit that the sample for the latter is extremely small.

• As Essential does from time to time, respondents were asked for their view on various attributes with respect to the two leaders. The last time this was done was at the height of the Coalition’s post-budget poll collapse, and the latest survey finds Tony Abbott’s position very slightly improved, most noticeably with respect to “hard-working” (up five to 62%) and “good in a crisis” (up seven to 42%), the latter being an interesting bit of residue from his now vanishing poll recovery on the back of MH17 and terrorism concerns. However, he has dropped a further four points on “visionary”, to 27%. Reflecting his long-standing poll stasis, Bill Shorten’s readings are little changed, although he is down five on “a capable leader” to 46%.

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.

1,484 comments on “Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. bw

    I can’t help but agree with lizzie. I find your posts in general very astute & entertaining, much better than I can pull off. The Green’s attack posts are however boring.

  5. Re Greens vs Labor. If I were a strong Labor supporter as BW appears to be (although I do recall him exhorting us all to vote informal in Sept 2013), I’d be worried about the apparent inroads the Greens are continuing to make among educated, upwardly-mobile Gen X and Ys, especially in inner city areas. The Vic election results illustrate this trend: sure, across the board the Greens were slightly down, but they consolidated their vote in inner city areas, even the inner east.

    The trend is even more stark where I live in Tassie: Labor and, to a lesser extent, the Libs dominate among the less educated and/or less thoughtful voters: Labor monopolizes the welfare-dependent of working age, the Libs the older welfare-dependent or wealthy, and the self-employed.
    The educated – even including a growing proportion of professionals like doctors and lawyers – are Greens.

    I mix in upper middle class circles in Hobart and most people I know vote Green and a minority vote Liberal. Several also vote for Wilkie. I know virtually no Labor supporters other than a couple who are actually politicians.

    Tassie and Vic are leading the way, but this trend is emerging in other areas.

    It’s something for Labor to be very concerned about and makes a bit of a mockery of your smug attitude. The educated middle class who flocked to Labor from 1969 onwards helped to make it a majority-winning party federally. Labor has lost much of the upper stratum of the working class to the Libs. It can’t afford to lose too many more areas of its support base.

  7. Hey William, can we please have a Fisher by-election thread soon? Even though it’s only about a state by-election, it’s still infinitely more interesting than the boring Labor v Greens pissing match.

  10. Have the Greens reached their Zenith?

    Is an entertaining read by William Bowe in today’s Crikey. I offer the last few paras:

    [With the gain of Melbourne supplemented by the expansion of the Greens’ upper house domain from three seats to four or possibly five, the party would seem to have a fair deal to crow about.

    But none of this is apparent if we step back and look at the statewide primary vote, on which the Greens have made no headway at all on their 11.2% showing in 2010 — the first Victorian state election of which this could be said, since the party first fielded a handful of candidates in 1992.

    What the result instead points to is a widening in the gap between the inner-city bohemia that delivered a critical mass of support in Melbourne and the suburban and regional marginal seats that constitute the battleground between Labor and Liberal.

    As such, the result bodes well for the party’s longer-term prospects in maintaining the federal seat of Melbourne as a permanent fixture, of continuing to strengthen in the inner-city Sydney state seats of Balmain and Marrickville, and of securing the corresponding federal seat of Grayndler when the eventual retirement of Labor Left stalwart Anthony Albanese makes it winnable for them.

    But as encouraging as all that may be, it remains an open question whether the Greens will be the beneficiary of an ongoing process of disaffection with the two-party system, or if the low double figures represents a ceiling of support for a party locked outside the process of government formation.]

  11. It’s quite comical to see Latika Bourke actually attempting to write “analysis” after Andrew Elder gave her the title of “worlds most expensive mic stand” last week.

  13. Sir Pajama …

    [ It’s quite comical to see Latika Bourke actually attempting to write “analysis” after Andrew Elder gave her the title of “worlds most expensive mic stand” last week. ]

    LOL! I hadn’t seen that! – Very apt.

  16. mb

    IMHO, it is worth reading the rest of William’s article in Crikey for a breakdown on the issues you raise.

    Is your Hobart Upper Middle Class cohort really the lair of latte sipping Trots?

    FWIW, I am fairly left to very left on just about everything.

    I didn’t think either of the majors were worth a vote in the last Federal election, and have commented several times that the Labor Party has yet to undergo the fundamental reforms needed to clean up its act.

    The Labor Party has papered over some of the cracks. Perhaps the worst outcome of the truly atrocious Abbott Government is that it has stopped the impetus for genuine Labor Party internal reform in its tracks.

  18. [Alannah MacTiernan added 2 new photos.
    3 hrs ·
    Let’s get rid of the Lib’s black tape: Today Professor Fiona Stanley presented parliamentarians with a monster climate change petition – 70,000 Australians trying to snap the Government out of its climate change-denying torpor.

    Spoke in Parliament on the Liberal’s black tape that is destroying emerging energy efficiency businesses in Australia and leaving us condemned to housing that has a large carbon footprint and expensive to run.]
    https://www.facebook.com/AMacTiernan/photos/pcb.10152923940847700/10152923933337700/?type=1&theater

    Good on them both!.

  19. [Pity the Government haven’t been able to get us a new Secretary.]

    The candidates must be reluctant with the ‘being tarred with the same brush’ as Shockey and Cormann.

  22. [Is your Hobart Upper Middle Class cohort really the lair of latte sipping Trots?]

    Maybe its changed since the days when they were racist criminal scumfucks. (Disclaimer – this is just a biased generalisation.)

  23. BW. It’s not just a simple question of left vs right: the ALP leaders in Vic and Tas (Andrews and Bryan Green) are from the Labor “Left”, but are closely linked to the CFMEU, whose environmental credentials are a bit shaky (although, to be fair to them, they are trying to change). Some Green voters and some mainland Green pollies could fairly be described as Trots, but a much larger number -especially in Tassie – give a high priority to environmental issues: in many cases they (quite rightly in my view) put the environment ahead of all other considerations.

    As do I, although I don’t much like the Greens because their economic policies are naive nonsense. But even I sometimes feel I have to hold my nose and vote for them because I reckon the environment is that important. Call me single issue if you like, but I’m sure as hell not any sort of a Trot.

  27. Just catching up with some Vic election news

    Can somebody enlighten me about the Andrews cabinet selection please

    The story I read said he allocates the portfolios. Are the ministers chosen by caucus with the spoils divided up by the factions?

  28. “You’ll be let out of class only when you do as I tell you.”

    [THE government will move to hold back senators from their Christmas holidays and extend the year’s last sitting week until several bills are dealt with.

    THURSDAY was due to be the Senate’s last day for 2014, but the government will move a motion to extend sitting late into the night and into Friday if needed.

    Senators would then have to come back every day, including weekends, until six mandated bills are dealt with.

    However, the Senate must agree to the motion, meaning it could be knocked back or changed.
    ]

    (News.com.au breaking news)

  32. I think we have been down the ‘Senate does not go home’ until….as ordered by someone other than a Senator.

    As I understand it, no one but the Senators themselves decided how long and how long for they will be in session.

    Certainly not the Reps.

  34. [However, the Senate must agree to the motion, meaning it could be knocked back or changed.]

    The Govt tried this before, the Senate said get nicked.

  35. [THURSDAY was due to be the Senate’s last day for 2014, but the government will move a motion to extend sitting late into the night and into Friday if needed.
    ]

    The mood the Senate is in, Abetz and co may well get the big FU in this motion.

  38. [The receipts were leaked to News Ltd in what appears to have been an effort to damage Senator Johnston and Mr Costello.

    They reveal, among other things, the purchase of bottles of wine costing $190 each and meals totalling up to $300 a head.]

    Looks like the embattled (beleaguered?) Senator Johnston liked to live high on the hog with taxpayers money.

  40. [ Are people here not fans of the TPP? ]

    No-one who has read even a superficial summary of the TPP (and who is not a US citizen) could possibly be in favor of it.

    However, the LNP has already agreed to sign the TPP, even though the negotiations – presumably with the other participating countries – are still proceeding. And these negotiations are top secret, and cannot be divulged by the countries involved to their own citizens.

    One of the key aims of the TPP is to make schemes such as the PBS unlawful.

    So … draw your own conclusions.

  41. The TPP was so bad John Howard ran from it at a 100 miles an hour when some of the terms leaked out and the GG started to highlight the deal.

  42. BK

    There are numerous possibilities:

    (1) A Liberal with an eye on the Defence portfolio

    (2) Some of his staffers who are pissed off with having to work with an incompetent boss

    (3) ADF personnel who would rather maintain their real pay and who do good revenge

    (4) A sub building competitor who doesn’t like their chances with Johnston

    (5) Credlin is just sooooooooooo sick of him.

    (6) Johnston f**ked up again and posted the receipts to Fairfax.

  45. Anyone see this in News Ltd rags?

    [The receipts were leaked to News Ltd in what appears to have been an effort to damage Senator Johnston and Mr Costello.

    They reveal, among other things, the purchase of bottles of wine costing $190 each and meals totalling up to $300 a head.]

    Seems Defence is a cushy number.

  46. [In parliament on Tuesday, it was confirmed the office of Finance and Transport Minister Dean Nalder had been asked for names of potential guests to attend the August meeting, which included high-level state bureaucrats.

    On that list was Darryll Ashworth, the chief executive of property company Metier Asia, in which Mr Nalder has invested $400,000.

    Mr Nalder has conceded the meeting wasn’t private as he initially claimed, saying that portrayal was inappropriate.

    And at a press conference on Wednesday, Liberal leader Colin Barnett described the conduct as “a serious error of judgment”.

    “It was a mistake,” he said.

    “It mixed up his ministerial role with his private business interests.”

    Mr Barnett said he had no problem with the issues that were discussed at the meeting, claimed to be Australia-China trade relations.

    “The error was to invite people who had a commercial relationship with the minister,” Mr Barnett said.]
    https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/25680648/nalders-judgment-error-serious-barnett/

    I thought MPs these days, esp if they are ministers, receive governance training, in particular around conflicts of interest. It’s astounding that a senior minister can try to claim some kind of naivety with something so obvious, even more so if he’s had the training.

  49. Boerwar
    The possibilities are endless. Obviously Johnston is widely admired.
    I can’t wait to hear Abbott’s words after Johnston is removed.

  50. [Seems Defence is a cushy number.]

    Didn’t Johnston also deploy the RAAF to fly WA Liberal MPs to Canberra instead of taking commercial flights?

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