Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

Newspoll continues its recent volatile form to deliver the Coalition its best result since September.

The latest fortnightly Newspoll in tomorrow’s Australian gives the Coalition its best result since September, with Labor’s two-party lead of 51-49 comparing with 55-45 last time. The Coalition is up three on the primary vote to 41%, Labor is down two to 37%, and the Greens are down one to 11%. Amid a general picture of weakening personal ratings for Bill Shorten, Newspoll has him down three on approval to 36% and up five on disapproval to 47% after a spike in his favour a fortnight ago. Tony Abbott is up one to 29% and down two to 61% – dismal as those figures are, they’re his best since Australia Day. Bill Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister has closed from 44-33 to 41-36.

Also today, Morgan’s latest poll combining face-to-face and SMS polling from the past two weekends has Labor up on last fortnight and level with the fortnight before, leaving the intervening poll looking like something of an aberration. On the primary vote, Labor is up two to 40% with the Coalition down one to 38%, while the Greens and Palmer United are both down half a point to 11% and 1.5%. There’s a big shift to Labor on respondent-allocated preferences, their lead widening from 53.5-46.5 to 56-44, but a surprisingly modest one on previous election preferences, from 53.5-46.5 to 54-46, some of the difference evidently being obscured by rounding.

UPDATE (Essential Research): To reinforce the point that polling moves in mysterious ways, the normally sedate Essential Research fortnightly rolling average has moved two points to Labor, putting its lead at 54-46. Labor is up two on the primary vote to 41%, with the Coalition steady on 40%, the Greens up one to 10% and Palmer United down to an all-time low of 1%. The poll also finds a big downturn in the assessment of Joe Hockey’s performance as Treasurer even since the months after the budget, with approval at 27% (down eight points since August) and disapproval at 51% (up seven). Chris Bowen has all but caught up with him as preferred Treasurer, Hockey’s 34-23 lead in August now at 26-25. Relatedly, there is a poor result on economic sentiment, with 27% describing the state of the Australian economy as good (down 10% since last August) and 33% as poor (up 7%).

A question on data retention suggests dissatisfaction with the protections provided in the government’s policy, with 58% believing a warrant should be required to access data in any case, only 10% considering it should only apply to journalists and 12% believing no warrant should be required. Also featured are a semi-regular question on climate change, thought to be caused by human activity by 54% (down three since December) with 31% favouring the skeptical option (up two); 52% professing greater concern than two years ago (up one) with 8% less concerned (down one); 45% favouring incentives for renewable energy in response (up five since September), 12% an emissions trading scheme (up two), 10% the government’s direct action policy (steady) and 11% believing no action is required (steady). The 20% renewable energy target is thought too high by 8% (down five since last July), too low by 33% (up four) and about right by 32% (down four).

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.

1,293 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. I do suspect that there’s a certain amount of static from the NSW election in the federal polling at the moment. In relative terms, the Coalition’s federal NSW polling is 1% higher now than it was at the start of the year. You can see from the sidebar charts that the New South Wales election in March 2011 and Queensland election in March 2012 were bad times for the Gillard government, and you can see ” rel=”nofollow”>here that there was a big surge to the federal Liberals in Tasmania at the time Will Hodgman had his landslide win in March 2014, which certainly wasn’t being replicated anywhere else.

  2. Yep imacca,

    And I’m sure the list is longer than that… perhaps the sensible people are busy getting out of the shower or sitting down to dinner when Newspoll calls 🙂

  4. Billions on welfare that even Abbott could see was a wrecker to the budget and is reversing.

    The same changes in the family tax benefit that Labor proposed to commence at $150,000 and Abbott, cheered on by the righties called the change “class war fare”. But that was when he was in Opposition. In government he made the changes commencing at $100,000. What happened to that ‘class warfare” – out the window with his credibility- he’s proved himself a hypocrite.

    Then there is the baby bonus, the changes planned by Labor were, according to Abbott the Hypocrite, were being made by a government that didn’t understand the cost of second and subsequent children…that was his rant in Opposition. But in government his more radical cut was prudent…again his hypocrisy is on show.

  5. guytaur @ 48

    I am constantly amazed by that. Astonished even. Like you could still conjure up leadership instability by fantasising a challenger or two. Jeeeez

  6. [GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes · 36m 36 minutes ago
    #Newspoll Shorten: Approve 36 (-3) Disapprove 47 (+5) #auspol

    GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes · 36m 36 minutes ago
    #Newspoll Abbott: Approve 29 (+1) Disapprove 61 (-2) #auspol]

    Abbott has an approval within 7 of Shorten and a disapproval within 14….not good for Shorten at all given everyone concedes that Abbott is so unpopular.

  7. [Imagine if Howard had spent the money from the mining boom buiding all the infrastructure business keeps telling us Australia desperately needs.]

    Yep. Abbott and Hockey wouldn’t have needed to increase Australia’s debt to record levels.

  9. Great to see the SMH who never mind flogging a dead horse even after the bones have turned to dust still going hard

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/backdown-on-foreign-aid-cuts-flagged-as-tensions-rise-between-julie-bishop-and-joe-hockey-20150323-1m5k7i.html

    Of course there may not have been any view to cut the foreign aid anymore and the anonymous source maybe complete horse-radish, but why not push the line Hockey and Bishop fight line anyway?

    “Hockey agrees with Bishop on not cutting Foreign Aid anymore” doesn’t have quite the same tabloid spin about it.

  11. AA:

    Anyone reading your posts might conclude that the problem was too much middle class welfare and that now you are critical of Abbott for doing more than the ALP to reverse middle class welfare.

    ….but you are still angry at him for doing exactly what you think needs to be done, and doing more (by your own admission) than the ALP was going to do.

    Do you want to get your thoughts together and then come back?

  12. [49
    Happiness

    Could you please pass on this gem “The money has to come from somewhere” to your ALP colleagues]

    How much is the LNP going to borrow this week? How much did you say? Oh, $5.2 billion, yes, that’s right. How much will they borrow this year? Did you say $60 billion? Sounds right.

    Did you mention the LNP have doubled net debt since they came to office?

  13. Victoria

    Yes nightmare is the right description

    See we have all of them now tonight, will disappear again soon when the polls change again 😀

    Perhaps Sean Tisme will put in an appearance or the waiter fellow???

  14. Happiness 61

    Not angry with for doing what Labor had planned…angry at his hypocrisy, his lies…you obviously are such a fan boy you avoid reading the facts about his hypocrisy

  15. mari

    I cannot fathom how support for abbott and co has increased this fortnight. They have been embarrassingly bad. I just dont get it

  17. [“Anyone reading your posts might conclude that the problem was too much middle class welfare and that now you are critical of Abbott for doing more than the ALP to reverse middle class welfare.”]

    The ALP are shameless.

    The other day they were gloating about the Libs not being able to post a surplus, knowing full well THEY are the ones to blame for it.

    Hey they had 6 Years and failed so now they are going to sabotage any efforts of the Abbott Government to do what they have a mandate to do and bring the budget back to black.

  20. Victoria

    Neither do I, I as I put on twitter could accept 53 to 47 ALP which I think is about correct. but some very strange sampling has occured by the look of it, the opposite to the 57 to 43 ALP a couple of polls ago which I couldn’t believe either

  21. TBA as with Happiness focus on the dollars (typical right wing only see things in monetary value)in my comment, when if they had any cognitive skills they would understand my comment was about the character of Abbott, or more accurately – the lack of character

  23. TBA 67,

    But all you need to post a surplus is to be a grown up. Forget realities like the GFC, and that the ALP have only “sabotaged” broken promises.

  25. TBA
    failed so now they are going to sabotage any efforts

    Abbott has said the job is done.

    I dislike repeating myself but it appears necessary for the right wing

    Abbott is asking us to believe several contradictory things at once.
    First, that the Coalition inherited a budget emergency.

    Second that its job of responding to that emergency has been relentlessly sabotaged by the opposition and other senate riff-raff.

    Third, that in spite of this relentless blocking, the budgetary repair job has somehow been done. Turns out the opposition weren’t blocking terribly much. Or that the stuff they were blocking was unnecessary to fix the budget, anyway, in which case they weren’t as irresponsible as we were being asked to believe.

  27. Abbott has been a total douchewad all fortnight, and the Libs have been a complete mess on all policy fronts, especially education.

    Forget this poll: statistical noise. Look at the pan-poll trend. There a minor trend back this year to the Libs, to about 52.5 ALP, mainly cos voters are realising the LNP cant do anything nasty to them, because theyre too rubbish at Senate negotiations. Education reforms now on scrap heap too.

    The is a government in theory only. Everyone’s taking a snooze as a result. And yes, I wouldnt be surprised if there’s some pro_LNP bleed from NSW state issues as well.

  28. Abbott needs to go. I don’t want Shorten becoming PM by default. Didn’t work out with the last guy that happened to…

  29. Of course, the various RW slime who have oozed out of the woodwork at this Newspoll should be aware that there was a run of such (according to BludgerTrack praise be to William), in September/November last year. Abbott and Co resolutely dragged that back to their more familiar territory. 🙂

    Never underestimate the Incompetence of The Politicians of Entitlement or the Smarts of their Supporters.

  31. [Whenever the coalition seem to be more shambolic, their polling improves. Go figure]

    Actually, Morgan has them losing ground. I know which I think is right.

    Hint: it isn’t the one going 57, 51, 55, 51 like a bell off a hinge.

  32. Polls go up and down. If the sample size for Newspoll is about 1,000, the margin of error is about 3%. If about 2,000, it’s about 2.2%. The MOE for Morgan (sample size over 3,000) is about 1.7%, although that poll seems to have, for whatever reason, a systemic Labor bias.

    So the week by weeks ups and downs of the polls don’t mean much. It’s probably about 52-53 for Labor, which would be whittled back by 1 or 2 if an actual election were to be held (media bias, incumbency, pre-election budget, beatups involving ‘security’ and/or ‘border protection’, etc.)

  33. victoria:

    It’s only a matter of time before he’s removed. I’d prefer he was voted out, but alas I suspect the partyroom will act before voters can.

  34. Last election the Nationals got only a shade over 400,000 votes. The Greens, around 3 times as many votes.

    When people talk about a Party being irrelevant the Nationals are at the fore front and bordering on obscurity

  36. The UBS report will feature in NSW ALP advertising over privitisation of electricity. Thats the report saying how economically bad it is according to the Financial Review.

  39. I’m off. I’ll return tomorrow and read that list of the last Labor government welfare payments that Happiness is going to provide so there can be a comparison with Howard…….hahahahahaha

    (never gunna happen – is it Happiness?)

  42. The UBS report was changed to remove the bits that Baird didn’t like…wonder what Baird threatened them with.

    UBS were looking to get millions from the privatization of the polies/wires.

  43. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11489115/Leaders-of-Greece-and-Germany-due-to-meet-for-debt-talks.html

    [The Greek Prime Minister will on Monday make his first official visit to Berlin to discuss his country’s tumultuous finances with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has pushed for Greece to honour its commitments to the rest of the eurozone.

    The closely-watched meeting between Alexis Tsipras and his German counterpart comes as both sides snipe over Greece’s financial obligations under the new anti-austerity government.

    Greece has pledged to adhere to the terms of a February 20 agreement among the eurozone’s finance ministers that extends its bail-out package until June, but until last week insisted that its reforms and debt management plans did not require approval from its creditors.

    Ms Merkel has stressed that “every paragraph counts” in the deal, leaving Greek officials racing to produce a plan that can command the support of Europe.]

  45. NSW Labor need to point out that the ‘lease’ of the poles and the wires is for 99 years, effectively forever so effectively a sale. Mike Baird’s ads claiming that the poles and wires remain in public ownership are literally true, but, to put it kindly, guileful. Further, what’s being offered is a great deal for whatever rent-seeker acquires the ‘lease’ and a crappy deal for the owners – the people of NSW.

  48. And on the subject of the NSW election, Martin Ferguson should be expelled from the ALP once the election is out of the way.

  50. From previous thread
    [
    Simon Katich

    Posted Monday, March 23, 2015 at 8:47 pm | Permalink

    Barney
    Today, the top temp here in the Ade Hills was 15deg, and drizzle. I am not looking forward to 6 months of winter. ]

    I think that’s what they’ve got the fridge set on.

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