James J in comments relates that the latest Newspoll result has Labor’s two-party lead at 53-47, up from 52-48 a fortnight ago, from primary votes of 40% for the Coalition (steady), 39% for Labor (up two) and 12% for the Greens (down one). However, Bill Shorten’s personal ratings have slumped again, with approval down one to 27% and disapproval up five to 59%, while Tony Abbott’s are unchanged at 33% and 60%. Abbott has also opened up a 39-36 lead as preferred prime minister, after a tied 39-39 result last time.
This is the second Newspoll for The Australian by Galaxy Research, using a combination of automated phone and online polling. It was conducted from Friday to Sunday, with a sample of 1638. Full tables from The Australian here.
UPDATE (Essential Research): Absolutely no change on voting intention in Essential Research this week, which has Labor leading 52-48 from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition, 38% for Labor and 11% for the Greens. The poll also finds 48% expect the current parliament will run its full term, compared with 25% who expect an early election. Further questions find a strong view in favour of renewable energy over coal, and a belief that the government is excessively favouring the latter. Fifty per cent of respondents were of the view that the government should prioritise renewables over coal versus on 6% for the other way around, with 28% opting that both should be treated equally. When asked an equivalent question about the actual position of the government, the respective results were 12%, 49% and 13%. Respondents also came down heavily in favour of gun control, with only 6% deeming current laws too strong and 45% rating them not strong enough, with 40% opting for “about right”.
Rex
I suggest you read this:
http://andrewcatsaras.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/how-well-does-bill-shorten-measure-up.html
Trog
I have a personal prejudice against GST on fresh food because that comprises most of my shopping. However, it has been argued by some that “poor people don’t eat fresh food” so that GST is OK because it would only affect the better off.
It seems a long time ago now, but on July 16 one of the more conservative bloggers here wrote in the blog previous to this one: “Who would have thought one little poll would be so crucial next week?”
Well, so ‘crucial’ has this most recent poll been that it did not rate a single mention on ABC news over night and nothing this morning so far.
On Fairfax, predictably, the report went…Bill Shorten bad, bad, bad. Then, Tony Abbott now leading Shorten in PPM race. Then, a description of the poll being ‘flat’ for the government. Finally, there has been an improvement in the vote for Labor to 53-47 ‘within the margin of error’.
One ponders the screaming headlines if it had been the other way around.
The fact that this poll is now moving Labor back into landslide territory, that Abbott is still down on the deck with his party, that the TURC has been undercut in its politics by Chopper and the media caravan has now moved on to the GST, says it all about the MSM.
I listened to Nick Greiner talk up the 15% proposed level of GST in terms of “statesmanship” praising Baird and slamming Labor.
This particular leopard has not changed his partisan spots one little bit.
It seems Rex D wants Shorten to metamorphose into Baird? With all the attendant religious fervour?
[Don’t tax more, spend less
Don’t tax more, spend less
JUDITH SLOAN
Cut the cloth according to its measure and encourage as much self-reliance as possible.]
I don’t intend to try and jump the paywall but wonder if Chopper Bishop gets a mention in the article.
lizzie
“poor people don’t eat fresh food” is in the same category as “poor people don’t drive cars”
Oh, I forgot to mention, the West is back into Boom mode this morning.
Front page, huge, tells us of the golden era just 5 minutes away with all those live cattle going to China.
This is the same paper which lectures, from time to time, about WA having to think beyond the Boom-Bust mode.
I guess the owner must have had a word in the editor to talk up the story. That is a perk of ownership I suppose that one can do this.
shea mcduff #150
When respondents prefer someone like Tony Abbott as PM , Bill Shorten must simply acknowledge that he must do things differently.
meher
You undermine your own commentary, Righty.
[eemed ok to me (but not to most of you lefties, I acknowledge0
A full quarter of voters prefer neither, and PPM scores heavily favour incumbents. That they are close is not a good result for Abbott
Rex
[ Bill Shorten must RADICALLY change his style of leadership into something the people can believe in. ]
Bill asked me to let you know that he’s deeply touched by your concern.
trand – If rex wasn’t belly aching about his current topic it would just be about something else.
He has openly said he is anti Labor, will be voting for an independent and everything he posts here is framed around that.
Tony “Arkwright” Abbott’s Grocery Code of Conduct.
Rule no. 4.
Don’t lend Nurse Gladys Emmanuel your credit card.
She only runs up massive bills hiring helicopters, private jets and limos to gallivant.
She’s showing no concern for the country, nor Arkwright’s bank balance.
From now on, she’s on probation – she’s only allowed to use Granville’s delivery bike.
Acerbic
Tony “Arkwright” Abbott’s Grocery Code of Conduct.
Rule no 5.
When putting up the prices on fresh food, make sure to blame your mate Mike.
RD..
I acknowledge and welcome your change of heart re Bill Shorten..
Last week you were beggiing him to fall on his sword for the good of the nation ..or something..
Today you merely want him to change his leadership style..
Progress indeed.. 😀
What will the great big new tax %GST 15% do for LNP numbers ??
[ Bronwyn Bishop has never welcomed the kind of scrutiny she applies to others
The first and last time I had a conversation with Bronwyn Bishop she screamed at me.
It was late summer 1994 and we were standing on Collaroy beach in Sydney’s north.
I was angling for Bronwyn Bishop.
“Bronwyn, have you decided yet whether you’re going to cooperate on {my biography} project?” I asked her after the press conference ended.
“I’ve told you ‘no’,” she said, as we both walked towards the sea.
“You actually haven’t told me … ” I began.
“I have told you ‘no’ a number of times,” she snapped again.
“No, you haven’t ever personally told … ”
“Well, stand still.” {So I stood still.} “Look at me.” {So I looked at her.} “NO,” she yelled, and with her smile now a ruin on her face, she stormed down the beach in her stilettos.
Even then, Bronwyn Bishop didn’t appreciate the kind of scrutiny she liked to apply to others.
Two weeks after our coastal clash Bishop suffered a 4.36% swing {on primary votes} against her in the safe Liberal seat, thanks mainly to the exhaustive – and highly colourful – campaign run by the Independent candidate and local writer, Bob Ellis.
As Peter Reith said at the time: “Bronwyn’s been running on her popularity … and on Saturday she broke one of her legs, if not both.”
….In September 1991 she savaged a parliamentary library project officer on her upcoming trip to China which was being paid for by both the library and the Chinese government.
One senior Liberal party staffer told me that “it was one of the most obscene displays {they had} ever seen”.
That same week Bishop was forced to release details of her own travel costs, which – for a backbencher – were simply staggering: $93,456 spent on airfares and car hire from July 1992 to June 1993.
And that was before allegations from ex-staffer Ellis Glover were made to this writer that shortly after entering the Senate in 1987 she had hired a helicopter – at tax payer’s expense – to get from a fete to a dog show, so as not to be late for the opening.
Sound familiar?]
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/21/bronwyn-bishop-has-never-welcomed-the-kind-of-scrutiny-she-applies-to-others
SNIP
lizzie – Woof 🙂
Lizzie
Hilarious 🙂
But the thought police may get you. NOT very PC
On the Bob Ellis site someone called her the member for Mackellakopter, which I rather liked
DTT
Actually, in dog shows there is an award for Open Bitch. I’m a bit slow thinking this morning or I would have tried for something wittier.
markjs #164
Of course Bill Shorten should step down… but he has no intention of doing so and the caucus is paralysed thanks to Rudd.
So, he must radically change his style if this Govt is to be defeated comprehensively, as they should be.
Lots of detail in this exposure in the Guardian – several articles..
[The company that provides healthcare for Australia’s asylum seekers in detention failed to meet medical targets, included incorrect data in reports, and admitted it was “inevitable” fraud would be committed as it tried to meet government standards, leaked documents reveal.
International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), which has received contracts from the Australian government worth more than $1.6bn, has taken an extraordinary approach, bending – and at times even breaking – official targets in its care of asylum seekers, internal briefings obtained by Guardian Australia show.
The firm, a subsidiary of the global healthcare giant International SOS, has been delivering healthcare to asylum seekers across successive Labor and Coalition governments since 2009 in one of the most politically divisive policy areas in Australia.
The firm runs medical care at the offshore detention centres in Christmas Island, Manus Island and Nauru, and at centres across the mainland in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Curtin.]
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/21/inevitable-over-asylum-seeker-health-targets-leaked-documents-show
Rex D
You’re on a hiding to nothing if you want Shorten to change his ‘style’. That’s partly what brought Gillard down. Her natural style was squashed so she came over to some as untrustworthy. Better to have the ‘real’ Shorten than an artificial construct.
Rex
Regardless of the ALP Caucus rules which I think are a good thing, Labor would need to be bonkers to shove Shorten aside right now.
They MUST not show any of the disunity that characterised 2010-13.
My own advice is that they stick with Shorten UNLESS any of the following occurs:
1. Polling falls below 50% for at least 2 months
2. Criminal charges are laid for some thing out of TURC (MOST UNLIKELY)
In all other cases stick fast to Shorten
Warren Entsch is still fighting for equality.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/21/warren-entsch-makes-emotional-plea-to-liberal-colleagues-over-gay-marriage
Labor doesn’t need to win comprehensively. They just need to win.
If Labor wins, the Liberals will either self destruct – and they need to do this, to rebuild – or be out of power for a long time.
lizzie
Open Bitch at the dog show..
I feel somewhat hard done by after getting tagged as misogynist for my Bush Ballad yesterday!!
DTT
[Regardless of the ALP Caucus rules which I think are a good thing, Labor would need to be bonkers to shove Shorten aside right now.]
The very best thing about the Rudd leadership rules is not that they gave the leader much more security from plotters but that they made any leadershit crap dreamed up by the press almost pointless. The fact that the media still try with that crap shows how utterly addicted they are to the cheap headlines and bootstrap stories despite the sheer impossibility.
Trog
That was just truth. Open Dog and Open Bitch compete for Best in Show.
lizzie
I know 😉
RD @ 172
Still progress. Reality has broken momentarily through the massed clouds of obsession, even if the clouds quickly start to close over again.
I don’t know how people can conjure up ALP leadershit with a straight face when the polls are 53-47 in their favour.
Apart from anything else, how would a new leader frame the need for a change? “We lost our way because Australians want us to have a binding vote on SSM rather than a conscience vote”…
Before the usual scrutiny and nit-picking even begun the MSM would be going off about what a rabble the ALP is for changing leaders when they are well ahead in the polls.
You can bet the Rupert Press would Suddenly view Bill as a great leader cut down by the ALP machine. A moderate, a negotiator etc etc…
Oh well, I suppose I fell for it by writing this comment…
The ALP must stick with Shorten if they hope to win the next election. If they change to Albo all his skeletons will come out…he’s a bully boy and I wouldn’t the only person in the country with tales of how he abuses people on the street…
In addition, the fact that the rags are reporting Shorten’s low ratings could be a bonus. Most people will read the headlines…go ‘ What??’ and turn even more defiantly towards the ALP…..
Just my humble opinion…
So our federal Liberal government claims they won’t increase the GST and then a state Liberal government puts it back on the table, and nobody thinks to ask if they gamed this between them.
I mean, it’s not like our federal Liberal government has been telegraphing their intention this whole time …
dave@166: poor bloke, imagine actually wanting to spend all the time required to write a biography of a lightweight like Bronwyn B! And without the slightest bit of help from the subject.
And I reckon I’ve wasted a lot of my life!
DN,
The media my not be asking if they gamed it, but they are presenting it as Baird showing leadership, which inherently reflects badly on Abbott.
Question
And yet somehow I doubt you will find Abbott disappointed.
DN
[So our federal Liberal government claims they won’t increase the GST and then a state Liberal government puts it back on the table, and nobody thinks to ask if they gamed this between them.]
It’s a ventriloquist act, with Baird as the dummy.
Abbott never intended to show leadership, he has always intended someone else show leadership (read: take responsibility) on changing the GST. He will be happy they are not reporting this as a question of cowardly political games (e.g. blackmailing the states, trojan horses, sneaking things through the backdoor, etc) but merely as a question of leadership.
Today’s Mumble: Liberals always knew BBishop was a lightweight. Says Bob Ellis saved Australia from a BBishop PMship. 😮
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/mumble-liberals-always-knew-bronwyn-bishop-was-a-lightweight/story-e6frg6zo-1227450506998
[Still, Bronny’s star continued to rise, and in early 1994, with Hewson tottering, she topped a Newspoll of who should lead the Liberals with 39 per cent; Howard only managed 13.
The problem was she was in the Senate, so when the sitting member for Mackellar Jim Carlton retired she snaffled preselection for the ultra-safe Liberal seat.
Labor didn’t run at the 26 March 1994 by-election, but Ellis did, and he received a higher two-candidate preferred vote (though not primary vote) than the ALP candidate had at the previous year’s general election. Bishop also suffered a 4 per cent primary vote swing.
This result stopped her leadership juggernaut. It shouldn’t have, it was just a by-election, with no ALP candidate, and there is no rule that successful politicians should do well in their seats (Howard had come within 3 per cent of mortality in previously safe Bennelong the year before).
The Mackellar result indicated that some per cent of Liberal voters in the seat, and elsewhere, didn’t much care for Bronny. But again, this is no reason to believe she wouldn’t succeed in the wider community.
But a larger percentage of the Liberal partyroom felt the same way, because they knew she was a lightweight. Her performance as Speaker suggests she lacks the emotional maturity and self-awareness to transcend her partisan leanings.]
Bambi is a wolf in deer’s clothing. Comes across as a leader, but ultimately just pushing the same old conservative economics.
Re: polling in the UK vs Australia being discussed here last night.
I think polling in Australia tends to be a bit more accurate because of both compulsory voting and preferences.
In the UK, if someone is firm about voting for a particular party, but later become disillusioned, they’ll just avoid voting altogether.
In Australia, if someone becomes disillusioned with the current round of voting, they might just vote for a third party and preference whoever they had in mind earlier.
Sometimes I wonder if Alan Jones just cite numbers to give the impression that he’s making sense. If he doesn’t get those numbers mixed up in the first place.
CTar1@158: Look, I appreciate that this blog is largely the home of armchair socialists who favour the open chequebook style of government.
I therefore think that, before I express views in tune with my prevailing preference for smaller government with a tight fiscal policy, it is polite for me to point out that I am not expecting most of my readers to agree with me. It’s akin to the manners one should display when visiting a foreign country, eg: not wearing tank tops in most non-Western countries (or, indeed, in Australia if I had my way: especially in the bus or plane seat next to mine on a hot day).
I understand that most posters on here share certain cultural precepts which are different to mine, and I’m trying to be sensitive. I certainly don’t want to be accused of being a troll, or worse still, a “concern troll” (whatever that might mean: I feel most concerned about the prospect of being called one).
RaaRaa
You wonder that, do you? 😛
184
What stories? The lefties adore Albo and I haven’t heard much different from people who have met him.
DN,
I think on the issue of a “mature debate about tax” Abbott looks bad no matter what angle you take.