Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor

Newspoll strays from the pack with an unexpectedly moderate lead for Labor, although Tony Abbott’s personal ratings remain diabolical.

James J relates in comments that Newspoll in tomorrow’s Australian is a good deal better for the Coalition then its recent polling form, with the Labor lead down from 57-43 a fortnight ago to 53-47. The major parties are tied at 38% of the primary vote with the Greens on 12%. Tony Abbott’s approval ratings have not improved, with approval on 25% and disapproval on 68%. The surprise is the poor ratings for Bill Shorten who is on at 35% approval and 49% disapproval, although he maintains a 43-35 lead over Abbott as preferred prime minister.

UPDATE (Morgan and Essential): Roy Morgan and Essential likewise record movement back to the Coalition, although not nearly as much. The Roy Morgan result, which combines two weekends of face-to-face plus SMS polling from a sample of 2639, has Labor down a point on the primary vote to 40.5%, the Coalition up two to 37.5%, the Greens down two to 10% and Palmer United steady on 2%. Labor’s two-party lead is down from 57.5-42.5 to 56-44 on respondent-allocated preferences, and 57-43 to 55-45 on previous election preferences.

After failing to join in with the other pollsters in registering a post-Australia Day Coalition collapse, Essential Research now finds itself in alignment with Newspoll as Labor’s lead narrows from 54-46 to 53-37, from primary votes of 40% for the Coalition (up one), 41% for Labor (steady), 9% for the Greens (down one) and 2% for Palmer United (steady). The result combines two weeks of polling from a sample of 1836.

This week’s tranche of the Essential survey also inquires about economic management and foreign relations, recording substantial change in sentiment on both counts since the questions were last asked in October. The government’s “good” rating on economic management is down five to 34%, while “poor” is up two to 30%. Respondents are found to have become less concerned about various cost of living measures, particularly and understandably in relation to petrol, but more concerned about debt and deficit.

The Abbott government is being marked down even further on trust in handling international relations, the positive rating down seven to 33% and negative up nine to 62%. For Indonesia specifically, the government’s “good” rating is down eight to 24% with negative up three to 42%. Relations with other countries appear to have become less important to respondents generally, the “very important” ratings for Indonesia, the United States and Britain down by about 10%. However, the results for China and Japan are down a good deal less.

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.

968 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. Meanwhile, out in the real world, the world largely unknown to those in Canberra:

    Wage growth has dropped to its lowest level since the current data series began in 1997, adding to chances that the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut interest rates again.
    The Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday the wage price index for the fourth quarter last year grew at 0.6 per cent, the same as in the September and June quarters, leaving the annual rate at 2.5 per cent.
    This is the lowest annual rate in 17 years.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/interest-rate-cut-chances-increase-as-wage-growth-stagnates-20150225-13o08c.html#ixzz3SjAxNzXx

    No doubt Hockey and Abetz will use this information as proof wages are too high.

  2. Mr Hockey has just denied that the Coalition is considering euthenasing everyone over 70 in order to address Australia’s structural budget problems.

    Joe reckons Tony formally suggested it to George but His Eminence said it was against the rules.

  3. [Scott Morrison is an ambitious minister in a big portfolio brimming with policy possibilities. He has hit the ground running. First childcare, and now the much-awaited second McClure review into social security payments. With McClure’s recommendations he should hasten slowly. The UK has tried to implement pretty much the same policy over the last four years – reforms recently described by the Guardian as a failure.

    In 2010 the UK elected a Conservative-led government. The new secretary of state for work and pensions was Iain Duncan-Smith, a former party leader intent on ushering in a “welfare revolution”. The revolution’s centrepiece was a universal credit that would simplify and streamline benefits, better reward work, cut benefit fraud and save taxpayers.
    ]
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/25/morrison-should-see-the-dangers-as-well-as-the-possibilities-in-the-mcclure-review

  4. [Dreyfuss has Brandis’ nuts on the chopping block.]

    Dreyfus is a real QC, earned while at the bar. Brandis organised one after he entered politics because he thought he would sound more learned.

  5. I discovered this blog a few days ago and I’m enjoying the ideas, but I can’t figure out the abbreviation “SSO”.

    [Relevance obviously does not apply in SSO discussions??]
    [After that ‘spirited attack’ in the SSO]

    Help for a newcomer?
    Thanks

  6. pedant
    [The contrast with some of the legendary past senior managers at Attorney-General’s – Bailey, Harders, Dennis Rose, Brazil, etc – is considerable.]

    And which one of these genii advised then AG Robert McClelland, who in turn advised Julia Gillard, that Assange, by publishing “leaks” was in breach of the law?

    Seems to me they do their master’s bidding.

  8. Sorry if this has already been posted.

    [The process to select our new submarines announced on Friday by the Defence Minister is completely inadequate. If it sticks to it, the government will choose our new submarines without having nearly enough information to make the decision properly. And it will be setting up our biggest defence procurement disaster ever.

    That is because the three contenders – Japan, Germany and France – have been given only 10 months to design the boat, decide how and where to build it, and come up with a price. These are all immensely complex tasks, and 10 months is simply not long enough to take them beyond the back-of-the-envelope stage, and provide answers on which the government can rely. ]

    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/submarine-selection-process-a-disaster-in-the-making-20150225-13m1q5.html

  9. [The Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday the wage price index for the fourth quarter last year grew at 0.6 per cent, the same as in the September and June quarters, leaving the annual rate at 2.5 per cent.
    This is the lowest annual rate in 17 years.]

    Yep, then when you factor in the coming forex depreciation — given that US average wages are US$28k (AU$35k), in the UK its about £27k (AU$53k) and in Germany €25k (AU$36k), while here they are $70k — it’s only going to get nastier.

  10. lefty e
    its not just Gillian issue Mal differs on it’s also ..

    Mr Abbott has described the emails as a “storm in a tea cup”, but in a coded rebuke, Mr Turnbull said the Liberal Party should “set a very high standard in accountability and transparency”.

    More & more points of product delivery differentiation on display ( under Mal the product would also change .. bit)

  12. [I discovered this blog a few days ago and I’m enjoying the ideas, but I can’t figure out the abbreviation “SSO”.]
    A suspension of standing orders in parliament.

  15. From Bernard Kean today

    Don’t hold your breath waiting for the AFP to decide Moraitis has a case to answer. First, there’s a legal issue. The requirement is “dishonestly” offering a benefit. The legislative term “dishonestly” has a long and storied history in our legal tradition that Crikey’s criminal lawyer readers are better placed than myself to explain, but in effect means Moraitis would have had to have known he was acting without any legal right in making the offer.

    Be difficult to explain how a lawyer head of AG department didn’t know offer an indusment was a criminal act

  18. TPOF

    [Dreyfuss has Brandis’ nuts on the chopping block.

    Dreyfus is a real QC, earned while at the bar. Brandis organised one after he entered politics because he thought he would sound more learned.]

    Is that true?

    I think the ALP should be giving both Dreyfus and Ed Husic much more rope.

  25. Hugh de Kretser, executive director of the Human Rights Law Centre this afternoon:

    [Attacks on our Human Rights Commission are part of a broader disturbing trend

    The federal government is actively undermining a range of vital checks and balances and stifling criticism of its actions. This is corrosive for democracy and human rights.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/attacks-on-our-human-rights-commission-are-part-of-a-broader-disturbing-trend-20150225-13o6e8.html

  30. Oh goody:

    On the eve of the announcement of the date of the first auction for the the federal government’s controversial Emissions Reduction Fund, there was an equally significant change being made to national climate change policy.

    But if you blinked, you would have missed it. Hidden away in an otherwise inconsequential piece of legislation dealing with the bland subject of public service governance and financial management was the revelation that the government is taking away the independence of the Clean Energy Regulator and the Climate Change Authority.

    In introducing the bill, parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer did not emphasise the significant changes hidden within it.

    And I hadn’t heard anything of this from anyone.

    ($) http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/02/25/how-the-government-is-sneakily-taking-over-the-climate-change-authority/

    Good government. Transparent, accountable, adults-in-charge. Lying, tricky (but boneheadedly stupid) bastards the lot of them.

  36. Bloody hell! Everything must be politicised.

    [the government is taking away the independence of the Clean Energy Regulator and the Climate Change Authority]

  37. lizzie & mike

    Timmy Wilson has a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Diplomacy and Trade from Monash University.

    What more could you want to become an HR commissioner?

    A law degree perhaps?

    Nah, just friends in high places.

  39. kezza2 @ 787

    I always thought that Brandis appointed Wilson to show his (Brandis’s) contempt for the commission and its work. Nothing has dissuaded me from that view.

  42. TPOF

    [I always thought that Brandis appointed Wilson to show his (Brandis’s) contempt for the commission and its work. Nothing has dissuaded me from that view.]

    And I always thought Timmy’s appointment was to undermine the commission from the inside, given his seven years at IPA and his and the IPA agenda was to abolish the HRC.

    Yet, Timmy had no qualms about accepting a $350,000 pa sinecure from an agency he vowed to abolish.

    And, just who was that person from the HRC who conveyed to Brandis that the president was feeling threatened?

    Couldn’t be Timmy, could it?

  43. Make no mistake, Abbott is loving this back to the wall stuff. It’s like he’s been let off the leash and is revelling in the unfettered aggression and bullying.

    He is truly a sad and sick individual, and it is an indictment on this country that he has been allowed to become its PM.

  44. TPOF

    Thanks for the link re Brandis. I don’t like the man at all he speaks like he is the absolute authority on everything.

    Arrogance writ large!

  47. adrian
    [Make no mistake, Abbott is loving this back to the wall stuff. It’s like he’s been let off the leash and is revelling in the unfettered aggression and bullying.

    He is truly a sad and sick individual, and it is an indictment on this country that he has been allowed to become its PM.]

    Absolutely agree.

    Abbott loves nothing more than a punch-up.

    That’s why Shorten’s refusal to buy into a punch-up has led to Abbott’s woeful ratings.

    But, there comes a time when a rampant bully has to be taken down – until now it’s been his own party – by the best in the business.

    And that’s the workers. And the women.

    The blue-tie brigade needs to be taken down a peg or two. And that means “MEN” have to stand up and be counted.

    But, who are those MEN?

  49. I saw a pic of Tony’s front bench today and Malcolm was the only one other than Tony with a blue tie. Given that Turnbull has stuck with Abbott for 6 years, it is likely that they have a lot in common.

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