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”

Comments Page 3 of 30
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  1. The Government made a huge fuss about the previous Government allegedly not having a proper process for large projects, e.g. the NBN, Australia Network. So Conroy’s amendment to have a competitive tender for the Submarine project exposes the Coalition’s hypocrisy if they don’t accept it. And yes, it’s a stunt, but a good one.

  2. The $60,000 Abbott saved on his daughter’s tertiary education would buy him several long summer family holidays.

    Unfortunately many other families will be unable to enjoy a holiday of this sort if Abbott’s higher university fees ever get through the Senate.

  3. [ confessions
    Posted Tuesday, December 2, 2014 at 9:20 am | Permalink

    Peter van Onselen @vanOnselenP · 16m 16 minutes ago
    I just don’t understand how after a full year in power, with debt ballooning & spending going up the govt can blame Labor for it. Move on… ]

    PvO should know, with one tune tony there is one major rule –

    *Its always someone else fault – never him*

    Yesterday’s presser was just theatre. Ignore what they say, look at what they do.

  4. lizzie

    [
    Abandoning support for manufacturing might be excusable if the Coalition were encouraging research and alternative energy projects]
    I heard a feature on RN yesterday and in Denmark they have an employment guarantee. Lose you job and you get training and re-skilling if required. An example came up where a large shipyard was having to close down. The government helped set up a renewable energy center and the required retraining. It is now a leading place for wind/solar power research and production.

  7. Re Poroti @99: Permanent Floating Crap Game

    A good description of the Abbott Government, although hopefully not permanent but ending in two years.

  8. poroti

    According to the IPA gurus and Abbott, unemployment opens up future possibilities for you, stimulates your efforts. But govt doesn’t hold out a hand to help.

    I hear that DAndrews is reopening the education centre in Lilydale that Napthine closed down. :claps hands:

  9. [“Look at the way we have handled the foreign policy issues like MH17, MH370. Look at the way we have handled the foreign fighters threat, the ISIL death cult threat,” he said.]

    Just don’t look at domestic issues…

  17. Nicholas Stuart, who has been assiduously following the Subs Saga and who has close links to defence industry, the ADF and the ministry, has a scathing article in today’s CT in which he describes the Abbott Cabinet as ‘a small, bizarre group of repressed men’.

  19. Cheviot Beach

    Well, the Abbotts are unlikely to meet any nasty Labor lowlife there, but that’s the spot where Harold Holt disappeared.

    Will that be Tony’s final reboot?

  20. Here’s hoping Lambie sticks to her guns & Abbott doesn’t make a deal.

    BTW, I seem to recall he promised not to make deals…..

  21. In any case, Abbott HAS taken holidays. I remember one to the ski fields of France to be with his daughter. That was WELL inside 5 years ago.

  22. Steve777

    Palmer said yesterday no to current bill. Wiggle room yes. However makes more likely a PUP no vote. Muir is the 64 000 question but on past voting record I think its not looking at all good for Abbott.

    Could explain Abbott going with blackmail and feral Labor rhetoric.

  24. The item in the bin shows the letters vic ection = ? vic election and hence why it is in the bin. The shadow could therefore be a metaphor for the Vic electorate??

  25. Report in the CT that around 50,000 soldiers in the Iraqi Army did not exist.

    They were ‘ghost soldiers’.

    Someone has pocketed a lot of pay.

    Is it nice to know that Australians are now paying for this monstrous corruption by way of ADF forces fighting in Iraq?

  29. This link http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/tax-the-rich-not-the-poor-corporate-advisers-tell-tony-abbott-20141201-11xo8q.html
    As posted by BK is worth reading, a business lobby group is advising the government that any change to the tax system must include higher taxes on the wealthy and/or removing concessions.
    Very interesting.
    My reading of the polling figures is that the LNP primary is soft not yet ready to back the ALP.
    In time the ALP need to address this, no need yet to provide any distraction to the Libs control-alt-delete

  31. A clever tweet I saw yesterday was that you can reboot a commodore 64 its still a commodore 64. Out of date and ability to deal with today’s world.

  32. ltep@81

    Whoops just realised triton was posting that question as a quote and answering it. Apologies.

    No problem. It looks confusing when quoting puts answers in italics.

  34. I just had an interesting conversation on the phone with NBNco.

    First the background.
    We went away in mid-late July and when we returned home there was a bloody great pole stuck on the horizon across the river.
    NBN had arrived!

    So we waited for a while, talked to the locals, looked up our address on the net and we are at step 2 of 3 steps.
    The last step is contact a provider.

    So who are our providers and when will we be able to access their services taking into account the infrastructure was well under way in early August?

    Estimated waiting time is ..6 to 12 months.

    Pissweak.

  35. JR – I’ve always had the view (prejudice) that once Tony loses a vote, it doesn’t come back. Now the electorate is waiting with baseball bats. I would say the steady march of the polls against this govt, with an extraordinary lack of volatility, seems to support this.

  36. Liked this from Leyonhjelm

    Liberal Democratic Party senator David Leyonhjelm has told Sky News the government needs to do a better job of cultivating a relationship with the cross bench.

    “They’re like teenage kids,” Senator Leyonhjelm said of the government. “They only want you when they want some money or to borrow the car.”

    Reminds me of Russell Savage, former policeman who won seat of Mildura as an independent in 1996 – Kennett and his cronies made life really hard for him (because he had the gall to “steal” a safe Coalituon seat). Three years later the chickens came home to roost when two more independents were elected and they all sided with Bracks and Labor and turfed Kenntt out of office.

    I really do feel for independents/cross benchers in the h=House and Senate – it is a very hard workload without a major organisation and staff behind you. The “sneering resentment” from Abbott and his cronies cannot alter the fact that all these people have just as much right to sit in Parliament as they do. Ignore that at your peril.

  42. 😀

    [Tony Abbott will not be needed during the Queensland election campaign, Premier Campbell Newman said.

    All he needs is his “strong” LNP team.

    Speaking to the ABC on Monday afternoon, Mr Newman said he didn’t “need anyone else to stand by my side other than members of my team, because we have a very strong team”.

    The “Abbott effect” is largely being blamed for the Liberals’ election loss in Victoria last weekend, which relegated them to a one-term government.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/queensland/tony-abbott-not-needed-for-queensland-lnp-election-campaign-campbell-newman-20141201-11y883.html

  46. Two of my biggest smiles this morning is when I heard reported that Abbott has described the Opposition (wtte) that they had gone ‘feral’.

    The second was to bemoan that fact that the government was doing really well in the Foreign Affairs area – where parliament (wtte) did not interfere!

    Talk about pigeons coming home to roost.

    Finally, the ABC, in its efforts to be even handed has not, this morning, in the 6 am news in Perth, or Early AM, made recognition of the overnight Newspoll. It is still absent from on-line last time I looked as well.

    Same poll was mentioned several times on Fairfax radio news in Perth.

  47. Doing well at foreign affairs?

    We’ve pissed off the EU, the US, the Indonesians, the Chinese, the Russians and the Nauruans; we are at war with half the islamic world, and we have rolled over in one FTA after another to the cost of Australian workers and the Australian environment.

  49. Fran the Victorian Liberals achieved a budget surplus of $2 billion by –
    cutting TAFE funding by 80%
    fighting with ambos
    firing 400 environmental scientists in DSE
    cutting CFA funding by 20%
    cancelling domestic violence prevention programs
    starving state schools of funds
    cutting hospital funding by 20% -not sure about this figure

    They found time to waste money by letting the chosen 4 families graze their cattle in the Alpine National Park
    and give those same families leasehold in National Parks to build hotels, because not everyone wants to camp.

  50. Tricot

    [Two of my biggest smiles this morning is when I heard reported that Abbott has described the Opposition (wtte) that they had gone ‘feral’.]

    What is Abbott’s IQ? He is great at summing up the characteristics of others but apparently never looks in the mirror at himself.

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