Fairfax-Ipsos: 53-47 to Labor; Newspoll: 52-48

Two new polls tell a number of familiar stories, with the Greens up, two-party preferred steady, and both Prime Minister and Opposition Leader sinking on personal approval.

Two new polls, including the first Newspoll conducted under the wing of Galaxy, show no signs of change in the relative standings of the two major parties, and record both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten sinking on personal approval.

The latest monthly Ipsos poll for the Fairfax papers also adds to the weight of surging support for the Greens, but is otherwise largely unchanged on last time. Both major parties are down on the primary vote – Labor by two points to 35%, and the Coalition by one to 39% – making room for a two point increase for the Greens to 16%. Labor’s two-party preferred support is at 53% on both respondent-allocated and previous election measures, respectively amounting to a one-point drop and no change. Both leaders have taken a hit on personal approval, with Tony Abbott down four points on approval to 36% and up five on disapproval to 59%, while Bill Shorten is down six to 35% and up eight to 55%. Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister has nonetheless widened from 42-41 to 43-39. The poll was conducted from Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1402.

The Newspoll result for The Australian has Labor leading 52-48, from primary votes of 40% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor and 13% for the Greens. Tony Abbott’s personal ratings of 33% approval and 60% disapproval are the worst he has recorded from any pollster in about two months, while Bill Shorten’s respective figures of 28% and 54% slightly shade the last Newspoll as his worst numbers ever. The two are level on preferred prime minister at 39% apiece. Given that this is the result of an entirely new methodology, combining automated phone and internet polling with a sample of 1631 (compared with the old Newspoll’s interviewer-administered landline phone polling and samples of around 1150), comparing it with previous results is more than usually unilluminating.

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.

1,425 comments on “Fairfax-Ipsos: 53-47 to Labor; Newspoll: 52-48”

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  1. Guytaur,

    Sarah Hanson a Young was the chair of a multiparty senate committee that made a bipartisan finding that doctors and others who spoke out would be covered by whistleblower provisions under the Border Protection legislation.

    I asked you to comment on that fact. You replied that you were not listening to the views of politicians but those of doctors etc.

    So I will ask you again albeit in a different way

    Did Sarah Hanson Young and the greens get it wrong in supporting the findings of the Senate committee or were they complicit in hiding the truth ?

  2. It started off wtte “We must stop the boats because people might die”. Then it just became “stop the boats”.

  3. guytaur

    You miss the point. Dawn Fraser obviously feels comfortable expressing views she probably always held. That is the point

  4. Doyley

    You are doing deflection by saying the Greens did this the Greens did that.

    This after I pointed out to you I was listening to a union.

    Deflection deflection deflection must be a weak argument you have to support secrecy

  5. guytaur @ 1311

    I don’t have much respect for Sheridan, even when he says something that I agree with – such as his comments re Bill Shorten on QandA last night. Hapless says pretty much the same things about asylum seekers here, but that does not make his/her opinions more worthy of consideration generally.

    In regard to your comment at 1308:

    [All well and good but when do principles count?]

    There is nothing inherently ‘right’ or correct about one’s principles. My first principle is that national cohesion is essential. Apparently unconstrained arrivals of self-selecting unscreened immigrants in large numbers threatens that cohesion fundamentally, despite the real sympathy due to the circumstances of many of them. And if you think the threat of unauthorised and unconstrained boat arrivals is hysterical nonsense, I’m sure Indigenous Australians would beg to differ.

    My view is one that I think is shared by most Australians, regardless of political leanings. This was something that Howard captured with his ‘we will decide who comes to Australia and the circumstances in which they come’.

    The question to me is one of how we can provide the most humanitarian response to the genuine refugee crises in the world today while maintaining internal cohesion. The Coalition approach seems to be not to worry about humanitarian responses unless they can be monetised and turned to Australia’s advantage and, even then, as little as they can get away with. Labor had a more generous approach – including lifting the humanitarian intake by 7,000 (if I recall correctly) – something Scum Morrison immediately reversed on coming to office with barely a whimper from the bleeding hearts. Both are far too mean with international aid.

    On the other hand, there is very little public support for uncapped refugee arrivals (whether authorised or not) which appears to be the Greens policy. This may be the most heartwarmingly generous approach but it is utterly wrong. The Greens seem to have some sort of faith that if we are nicer with how we handle the offshore caseload, none will try and come directly here. It will not work; it cannot work.

    So that’s my principle. Unauthorised arrivals need to be shut down for the sake of social cohesion. But we can be a hell of a lot more humane – both in terms of aid in situ and in greater migration – than we are being with this government. But stopping those boats arriving can only be achieved by nasty methods. We are willing to tolerate nastier methods if we don’t know what they are. In the same way that the German population was able to tolerate Nazi nastiness against Jews and other ‘enemies’ of the Reich because they did not know what they were.

    As a first step, we need to know what this government is making our military and customs people do. Then we are in a position to decide how far we are prepared to go as a nation in dealing with this problem. But that is not to disagree with the objective and not to even disagree with some of the methods used to achieve that objective.

  6. [With the popular Xenophon campaigning against the government in the SA marginals on the issue it could prove to be a very costly mistake – especially is someone like Pyne ends up going down the gurgler.]

    I’m really really struggling to imagine any scenario where Pyne goes down the gurgler that could be fairly described as a mistake.

  7. victoria

    You miss the point. Abetz felt comfortable saying his views too.

    You support racism do you? Not condemn it? Others do it so its ok?

    Therefore its ok for Labor to support it?

    That is how your argument is sounding at the moment

  8. I just sent this email to Senator Sean Edwards (SA) about Abbott’s sweeping statement about submarine employment in SA.
    [Given the position you took with respect to consideration of the replacement for the Collins Class fleet I seek your assistance in answering a serious question I have.
    This morning Kieran Gilbert of Sky News tweeted –
    PM “whatever happens I can give an absolute guarantee there’ll be more submarine jobs in South Australia”
    My question is what precisely is meant by “more submarine jobs in South Australia”? Some alternative constructions are –
    • more construction/assembly jobs than if they weren’t built here
    • more jobs overall at ASC North compared to the current work force employed in full cycle docking maintenance
    • no construction/assembly jobs but more than currently employed here on sustainment
    You see, the PM’s statement has no meaning unless a meaningful base of comparison is defined. I, and you as a Senator for South Australia, should not be satisfied with such an empty statement that the PM just made.
    I look forward to a considered reply.
    Yours Faithfully,]

  9. Briefly @ 1318

    [Refugees – man, woman and child – are held in conspicuously depraved conditions]

    If they were that conspicuous, this government, along with the governments of Nauru and PNG, would not be trying so hard to suppress information getting out and, when it does get out, denigrating and abusing the messengers so as to discredit it.

  10. guytaur

    You do realise I am the product of Italian migrants and understand full well what racism is and how it affects you.

    Just have a read of TPOF post above. Your idea that Australians love the thought of asylum seekers being smuggled to Australia via open borders, is bordering on delusional.

  13. [Wilson has the laconic title of Human Rights Commissioner. He is actually the Human Rights De-Commissioner.]

    He has certainly helped to decommission the Disability commissioner by freeing up the salary of that position to pay himself.

  14. victortia

    No my argument is that Australians are not racist by nature but fearful of the other like anyone else in the world.

    Unlike other parts of the world we have had a period from the 70’s on with true leaders foster harmony not creating division and fear for political purposes

  15. Guytaur,

    I am asking you to answer a simple question.

    You are the one putting all this back on labor.

    If you are not prepared to answer the question that is fine but do not exclude the actions of the greens on the issue of whistleblower provision. They say one thing and do another. They are simply anothe politicalical party. Look at what they do not what they say. So, once again I,ask,

    Did the greens get it wrong or are they complicit in hiding the truth by supporting the findings of the Multiprty Senate committee ?

  16. @ABCNews24: .@timsout: We’ll be working with @twitter to empower people to counter hate speech and prevent it from gaining a new digital foothold #npc

  18. Doyley

    Last time I looked the Greens were not in Labor Caucus.

    This is about Labor not the Greens Mr deflection

  19. I missed something – did Dawn Fraser tell Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott to go back to where their parents came from? Did I hear that right?

  20. Victoria

    Australia is the most multicultural nation in the world with the fewest incidents of race based division in the world I know of.

    This is due to leadership.

    You keep arguing Dawn Fraser is the example. By that logic Senator Abetz is the example on marriage equality

  24. Doyley

    Yes you move on and ignore doctors teachers nurses and other workers in danger of going to jail for speaking out

  30. Dear Ol Dawn Fraser.

    She was such a good clean living role model in her sporting days !

    Anyway, I have this great discomfort with turning young sports people into role models for anyone.

    Why are 22 year old kids expected to be role models for anyone

    Sadly the MSM puts them up on high and then are quick to pull them down.

    Times to go.

    Have a great afternoon all.

  36. Guytaur

    If the Greens think that Labor will feel the need to adopt their asylum seeker policy anytime soon, they are bloody dreaming

  38. If you want to see a more considered and humanitarian approach to asylum seekers the first priority is to deny the Libs a wedge on the issue. So long as the temptation is there for the right to use it successfully to gain and/or maintain power then everything else is pointless bullshit.

    Labor tried a different approach and it ended up a complete disaster. Don’t fool yourself that this wasn’t a significant factor in the fate of the last government. They won’t be gambling on the issue again.

    To try and set a new policy without first taking away the Libs wedge is to build a building on unstable foundations. It simply doesn’t matter how lovely it looks and how everyone agrees it’s ‘right’ if the damn thing is going to constantly undermined until it collapses.

    Labor have no choice other than put a bipartisan approach that accepts as it’s basic ingredients:
    1. No unauthorised arrivals to ever be settled in Australia
    2. Offshore processing of any unauthorised arrivals
    3. Maximum effort to prevent any arrivals by boat including turn backs.

    Once both major parties are in furious agreement on this and so long as the boats do indeed remain stopped from landing then there will be room on all sides to look at doing things in a more humanitarian matter as possible. But that won’t be until at least a term of Labor proving in government that they can keep the boats stopped. Then without their favour wedge a new Liberal leader looking for an angle might even be unscrupulous enough to side with the Greens and attack Labor for maintaining people in inhuman conditions.

    With a bit of luck and no new arrivals though Labor should be able get things like Malaysia up and get the detainees settled properly and mothball the camps. Then they can focus on upping refugee intakes and foreign aid etc. They will never again allow themselves to be in a situation where boats are coming and they cop it from both left and right.

  39. victoria

    The Greens The Greens The Greens boo!

    Victoria where you can vote in branches against turn backs and secrecy as part of that including possible paying of people smugglers.

    Do the Labor thing. Do not go boo Greens and vote for Abbott policies that are inhumane as briefly well lists

  40. [You keep arguing Dawn Fraser is the example. By that logic Senator Abetz is the example on marriage equality]

    Dawn Fraser, Eric Abetz and Zaky Mallah all express ideas that significant numbers of Australians hold. I consider each of them to be very wrong, but we ignore them – or attack them personally – at our peril. None of them are true extremists (in the sense of having a dozen like-minded interlocutors all occupying the same place on another planet) even if their views are not necessarily those of the majority of Australians.

  44. ratsak @ 1388

    [Labor tried a different approach and it ended up a complete disaster. Don’t fool yourself that this wasn’t a significant factor in the fate of the last government. They won’t be gambling on the issue again.]

    It was far and away the number one policy factor crushing the last Labor Government. The atmospherics around trust and leadershit did more damage in my opinion. But this issue, far more than the carbon price or mining tax repeal or even the budget, is the policy that drew votes to the Coalition in the very places where those votes would make the biggest difference in determining government.

  45. jules

    And for what reason? Perhaps being an arrogant brat. Sheesh. I guess McEnroe got told the same thing back in the day by his fellow Americans

  47. ratsak

    The problem for Labor is how to keep its soul. What the party stands for as unions fought for.

    Going me too to not have a wedge has to have its limits.

    e.g. if Abbott came up with arbitrary arrest of citizens for dissent I think Labor would find that too far wedge or no wedge.

    I still think that. I still think Labor at the National conference will not vote for secrecy to conceal abuse error etc in detention centres. A different thing from supporting offshore detention

  49. guytaur at 1391

    [I think you get my drift in my comments on Fraser. No excuse to make policy.]

    I just caught up with what Fraser said. I had assumed it was the usual yada yada about illegals. She is seriously out of her tree. I apologise for including her. Interestingly, that does smack of the treatment of Rohingyas in Burma and what this government would like to do with the single citizenship of the people they don’t like.

  50. guytaur

    [ The problem for Labor is how to keep its soul. What the party stands for as unions fought for. ]

    You are so focused on scoring points against Labor that you are completely ignoring the fact that it is the Coalition who is doing the damage – both to asylum seekers and to Australia’s reputation.

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