Fairfax-Ipsos: 56-44 to Coalition

Two new polls show little sign of slackening in the momentum to Malcolm Turnbull, with the Coalition now enjoying landslide-winning leads.

The latest monthly Fairfax/Ipsos poll is a chilling result for Labor, recording a 56-44 lead for the Coalition from primary votes of Coalition 48% (up three), Labor 29% (down one) and Greens 13% (down one). I presume the two-party figure to be based on previous election preferences, though Fairfax can be a bit inconsistent on this score. The leads for the Coalition in last month’s poll were 54-46 on respondent-allocated and 53-47 on previous election (UPDATE: The Sydney Morning Herald reports the respondent-allocated result in the latest poll was 57-43). On personal ratings, Turnbull is up a point to a stratospheric 69%, with approval down one to 16%, while Bill Shorten is down three to 29% and up one to 57%. Turnbull’s lead on preferred prime minister is out from 67-21 to 69-18. The Fairfax-Ipsos poll is conducted Thursday to Saturday by landline and mobile phone from a sample of around 1400. Hat tip to GhostWhoVotes.

The Ipsos result finally brings another pollster into line with Roy Morgan, whose fortnightly result today maintained recent form in recording a big lead to the Coalition. Primary votes were Coalition 46% (down one), Labor 28% (down half) and Greens 14.5% (steady). Two-party preferred results were 56-44 on respondent-allocated preferences (down from 56.5-43.5), and 55-45 on previous election preferences (steady). This poll series combines face-to-face and SMS polling conducted over two weekends, in this case from a sample of 3167.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research is still at 52-48 to the Coalition, from primary votes of Coalition 45% (steady), Labor 36% (up one) and Greens 10% (steady). Also featured is a semi-regular question on “party attributes”, the main change on a year ago being that the Liberal Party is more likely to be seen as divided (up ten to 56%), but with a better team of leaders (up ten to 48%). Respondents were asked to nominate the three most important election issues from a list, the biggest movement since the previous such question in April 2014 being a rise in “security and the war on terrorism” from 5% to 17%. A question on the government’s toughness on asylum seekers produces broadly similar results to April, with too tough up three to 25%, too soft up two to 29%, and just right down three to 31%. Fifty-four per cent support offshore detention of asylum seekers, with 31% opposed.

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.

1,335 comments on “Fairfax-Ipsos: 56-44 to Coalition”

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  7. Strange indeed. The actual change in shite policy has been 1/6 of SFA and yet the electorate fall in utter lurve with Truffles .

  10. The relief at ending the Rudd/ Gillard/ Rudd/ Abbott show continueth.

    Unfortunately for Bill he’s associated with it all.

    Talcum has actually done sweet F-all – except not be Tony. The joy of the public at this is clearly untrammelled.

  12. Maybe its the lack of policy development from the Shorten Opposition? Clearly they thought they could surf in on Abbott’s unpopularity and are very angry they’ve been exposed as do-nothing.

    What have they been doing for 2 years? Surely it hasn’t all been coffee cup stunts in Parliament?

  15. Wowsers! Can’t see Turnbull losing from here.

    Not sure there is much Labor can do other than what they are doing, namely develop policies and continue with internal renewal.

  16. Due to the relatively high rate of foriegn ownership of real estate Australia would accrue an extraordinary benefit if it were to impose a tax on unimproved land values (ULVT). The foriegn owners of Australia’s land can’t avoid ULVT, whereas the foriegn owners of businesses operating in Australia can avoid pretty much any corporations income tax.

    The net effect has been estimated by the Treasury, and it turns out that not only is the ULVT the most efficient tax there is (i.e. the lowest dead-weight loss, lower even than a pure VAT, as is well known) in fact in Australia the marginal excess burden of ULVT is negative: for every $1 of ULVT raised an additional $0.10 (ten cents) is injected into the Australian economy. This rather surprising result occurs because foreign land owners must buy Australian dollars to pay their tax liability, and these Australian dollars land in the Australian domestic economy.

  22. Jeebus. While I maintain that a leadership change at this point in time would be massively premature, if things are still looking this bleak, say, several months into 2016, I don’t think anyone could blame Labor for changing leaders.

    Honestly, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Shorten resigned of his own volition in such circumstances, regardless of the mood in the party room.

    Its too early to panic just yet. Turnbull still hasn’t, well, done much of anything. But I’m afraid I’m becoming rather less optimistic.

    [Strange indeed. The actual change in shite policy has been 1/6 of SFA and yet the electorate fall in utter lurve with Truffles .]

    It’s depressing, isn’t it? Basically nothing has changed apart from the rhetoric (and Turnbull not being a complete moron), and yet the government has gone from facing an embarrassing first-term rout to a potentially enormous landslide victory.

  23. victoria

    [
    The right wing really dont like Truffles]
    Even during Truffles Mk1 they had a real set against him. It seems at times they ‘hate’ him more than Rudd or now Shorten . It made/makes me scratch my head because the passion of their feeling is way out of proportion to the actual differences.

  24. The Abbott PM debacle may have temporarily hidden how much residual angst remained over the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd debacles.

    As shown by the polling and improvement in both business and consumer sentiment folks are comfortable we have an intelligent and mature adult steering the ship.

  27. Continuing strong numbers for Turnbull though I suspect 53-47 is probably the more realistic figure once the GST is factored in. He will surely win the next election barring some miraculous event from left field. In hindsight, its easy to see that Turnbull is more acceptable to most folk Having followed that nutcase Abbott than back in 2008/9.

    There is no sense changing Shorten however as the result would be the same & there’s no point burning a potential aspirant at this stage. Nor do I sense any stomach for change in the ALP, they’re smart enough to know it would have no positive impact.

  30. Charlie Edwards

    Agreed. As mentioned, barring the right wing nut jobs blowing up the party, Truffles likely to lead the party to another term of govt

  31. The Liberals are already campaigning with a lot of resources in Chisholm in the hope of unseating Anna Burke, my local MP.

    Burke had letter boxed my neck of the woods about a ‘mobile office’ where she would be in attendance for the couple of hours in my local shopping strip this Saturday just gone.

    Went down to speak to her about a few things and found her almost on her lonesome, accompanied by just one young lad. As always, we had a great chat and agreed about all the issues we discussed, including Labor’s recent political strategy.

    It will be interesting to see how much support she gets from Labor HQ.

    In contrast, on the other side of the street at the traffic lights, the Liberals had a large and visible group consisting of Julia Banks, its Fed candidate, Neil Angus state Forest Hill MLA and seven ‘workers, 6 of whom were young, decked out in the party’s trademark blue t-shirts.

    When I approached them, Banks beamed widely, shook my hands and tried to ‘win me over’.

    As soon as I said I supported Burke because of her stance on asylum seekers, Banks smile disappeared immediately to be replaced by a full on glower and she turned away from me.

    How rude. Some wannabe politicians are so superficial and transparent.

  32. davidwh

    Does that really make sense, residual anger from Rudd/Gillard/Rudd not being replaced wth
    anger over Abbott/Turnbull.

    I think the reality is extreme relief at seeing the back of Abbott is the more likely reason.
    When any half sensible & intelligent politician replaces the biggest idiot we ever had as PM its bound to happen.Just shows how hated Tony was.

    At some stage policy will become important again ( despite MSM trying to ignore it ), when that happens the margin will shrink, not enough though.

  33. If there is one thing that may be this government’s downfall, its hubris. These poll results will almost certainly reinforce their belief that there is no need to change any of their policies and that all they needed was a better salesman.

    Unfortunately, its starting to look as though they may be right…

    @confessions 26

    [It’s why I’m happy for Andrews, Abbott and their ilk to hang around in the partyroom.]

    Yes, I dearly hope they continue to fight the good fight for Labor and Shorten.

  34. I am not ready to give Truffles the keys to the kingdom on a velvet cushion just yet. A week is a long time in politics and there are many weeks to the next election.

  35. “Mr Andrews is the third conservative MP in two days, following Tasmanian MP Andrew Nikolic and former prime minister Tony Abbott, to question Mr Turnbull’s decision to remove Mr Dutton from the National Security Council, a key defence and foreign affairs decision making body.”

    Everyone except the handfull of RWNJs can see that they are now understandably irrelevant, they are truly flailing about in what can only be described as death throes. Oh the schadenfraude. They are fast becoming mere footnotes in Australia’s political history, reminders of what can happen even in Australia if voters don’t take their votes more seriously.

  36. We should expect a long honeymoon, so much relief that that other person is gone, and some of his extreme weirdness is being undone by his successor.

    But the honeymoon certainly wont last a year.

    It will take a while for the electorate gets sick of his smugness and 1000 word slogans, its so welcome as a contrast that its barely noticed right now. But once he is painted as a “smartass” he will come back to earth.

  37. I think we are too far down the track into Turnbull’s PM-ship to attribute this increasing affection for Turnbull in the electorate to a relief rally over Abbott’s removal.

    Yes that was a big factor in the early days and weeks after Abbott’s exited the scene.

    But not now, not two months on, and with the figures for Turnbull and the Coalition increasing rather than levelling off or falling.

    As Michael Gordon says in this piece, the PPM gulf is basically unprecedented.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/fairfax-ipsos-poll-malcolm-turnbull-is-digging-in-for-a-long-innings-20151116-gl07b6.html

    The Shorten defenders are going to have to have a moment’s quiet reflection at some point and ask themselves if this is really sustainable – because it’s not.

  39. poroti:

    I’m not sure I want Abbott back as PM – he was just too destructive for the country.

    But I’ll happily take some whiteanting and destabilising behind the scenes!

  40. http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-muslim-party-aims-to-contest-federal-and-state-elections-20151116-gl0app.html
    [Australia’s first Islamic faith political party intends to field Senate candidates in all states and territories at next year’s federal election and also contest upper house seats at state level.

    The party, to be announced Tuesday, will be known as the Australian Muslim Party, Fairfax Media can reveal.]

  41. Pegasus@31

    The Liberals are already campaigning with a lot of resources in Chisholm in the hope of unseating Anna Burke, my local MP.

    Burke had letter boxed my neck of the woods about a ‘mobile office’ where she would be in attendance for the couple of hours in my local shopping strip this Saturday just gone.

    Went down to speak to her about a few things and found her almost on her lonesome, accompanied by just one young lad. As always, we had a great chat and agreed about all the issues we discussed, including Labor’s recent political strategy.

    It will be interesting to see how much support she gets from Labor HQ.

    In contrast, on the other side of the street at the traffic lights, the Liberals had a large and visible group consisting of Julia Banks, its Fed candidate, Neil Angus state Forest Hill MLA and seven ‘workers, 6 of whom were young, decked out in the party’s trademark blue t-shirts.

    When I approached them, Banks beamed widely, shook my hands and tried to ‘win me over’.

    As soon as I said I supported Burke because of her stance on asylum seekers, Banks smile disappeared immediately to be replaced by a full on glower and she turned away from me.

    How rude. Some wannabe politicians are so superficial and transparent.

    It is up to Anna to do what my local candidate has done and gather the local resources to provide support on such occasions.

    ‘Labor HQ’ as you describe it has little in the way of resources at this stage and will build up the team of volunteers as the campaign approaches. ‘Labour HQ’ has never, to my knowledge, provided resources to support local campaigning of that sort.

  42. I joined the ALP when Abbott became PM. I also had to endure Newman.

    Now both are gone, I feel decidedly more relaxed and comfortable.

    I will keep chipping away in my local branch, but I certainly don’t feel as anxious or cranky as I did this time last year.

  47. http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-muslim-party-aims-to-contest-federal-and-state-elections-20151116-gl0app.html

    [Australia’s first Islamic faith political party intends to field Senate candidates in all states and territories at next year’s federal election and also contest upper house seats at state level.
    The party, to be announced Tuesday, will be known as the Australian Muslim Party, Fairfax Media can reveal.

    Founder Diaa Mohamed defended the timing of the announcement days after the Paris terrorist atrocities, insisting there had never been a more critical time for the Muslim community to have a political voice in Australia.]

  49. ALIAS – Your either a concern troll or a panicker. I don’t know which one is worse. Both are distasteful in a grown man.

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