Newspoll: 50-50

Newspoll drops a bombshell with a poll showing Labor drawing level with the Coalition on two-party preferred.

The Australian has a surprise in store tomorrow, with the latest Newspoll survey showing the two parties at level pegging on two-party preferred, wiping out a 53-47 lead to the Coalition at the last poll three weeks ago. The Coalition is down three on the primary vote to 43%, Labor is up one to 35%, and the Greens are up one to 12%. This has been reflected in personal ratings, with Malcolm Turnbull down five on approval to 48% and up seven on disapproval to 38%, while Bill Shorten is up three on approval to 28% and down three on disapproval to 57%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister narrows from 59-20 to 55-21. The poll also finds 47% support for Labor’s negative gearing plan, with 31% opposed and 22% undecided. It was conducted Thursday to Sunday by Galaxy Research from a sample of 1807, contacted online and through automated phone polling. UPDATE: Also from Newspoll are results on “words used to describe the leaders” and “best leader to handle issues.

Note that there are a further two new posts beneath this one, one providing a forum for discussion on Senate reform and double dissolution talk separate from the main thread, the other being the return of Seat of the Week.

UPDATE (Roy Morgan): Roy Morgan finds no change on a much improved result for Labor a fortnight ago, with the Coalition again leading 52.5-47.5 on both respondent-allocated and previous-election measures of two-party preferred. The primary votes are Coalition 43.5% (steady), Labor 29.5% (up 0.5%) and Greens 15% (down one). The poll was conducted by face-to-face and SMS over the past two weekends from a sample of 3116.

UPDATE 2 (Essential Research): Essential Research is steady at 52-48 to the Coalition, but Labor’s primary vote has bounced back two points to 35% after dropping the same amount last week – unusually volatile behaviour for this series, which provides a rolling average of two weekly results. The Coalition is up a point to 44%, with the Greens down one to 10%. The most interesting of the supplementary questions divided the sample into two halves and asked a separate question on negative gearing: a straight one on reform “so that, for future purchases, investors can only claim tax deductions for
investments in newly built homes”, and another attributing the policy to Labor. The switch made surprisingly little difference: the former had 38% approval and 28% disapproval, the latter 37% and 32%, with moderate variations between Labor and Coalition voters cancelling out in the totals. Other results find 31% approval and 54% disapproval of cutting Sunday penalty rates in hospitality, entertainment and retail, and grim assessments on the health of the economy and respondents’ financial wellbeing – only company profits perceived as having improved over the past year, and very large majorities rating that the cost of living has worsened. The poll was conducted online, over two weeks from a sample of 2017 in the case of voting intention, and Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1002 for the rest.

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.

2,223 comments on “Newspoll: 50-50”

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  2. Another interesting poll:

    GhostWhoVotes ‏@GhostWhoVotes Feb 16

    #Essential Poll Outsourcing administration of Medicare to private sector: Approve 17 Disapprove 64 #auspol

  4. C@tmomma@8

    Well Scott Morrison’s speech at the NPC and blitz of the media last week went down like a lead balloon, I think it is safe to say.

    I doubt anything that recent has shown up yet.

    Better news to come in future polls as such things do show up.

  6. [The only thing that could save them would be a Labor style budget. There is a mood to cut welfare to the rich before cutting services. Not a good time to be an LNP government :-)]

    I think you’re right – I think they might go a reaganite ‘tax cut and spend’ sort of budget while talking about ‘small government’. I can see a lot of short term income and small business tax cuts, and budget ‘savings’/balance through mooted sales of australia post, commonwealth land, and bits of csiro, abc, sbs, etc., as well as the closure of some tax loopholes (while leaving others open, so they can claim there will be great new revenue, but actually their mates will just use alternative lurks).

  8. One can almost sense, today, that moment when the Tory’s born to rule mentality starts unravelling. That moment when the MSM realise the ALP are offering credible alternatives to well not much really from the internally divided LNP

  10. Just what are the Coalition going to do if they continue falling in the polls and the public turns against Turnbull? They will be utterly stuffed. Going back to Abbott would be madness, but they don’t really have anyone else who could possibly provide another Turnbull-esque bounce. Morrison was probably once the favourite, but anyone in the Liberal ranks who wanted Morrison as leader is having a serious rethink of that view after the last week. Who else is there? Bishop? Hunt? Dutton!? No matter what, it will certainly be entertaining.

    Here’s my prediction: if Labor regains the lead and starts to poll Abbott-era numbers again, the Coalition – whether led by Turnbull or someone else – will pull a McMahon and hold off on calling the election until the latest date possible: January 17, 2016. And if they do, it will be an utter massacre.

  12. Went over to the Oz article through the back door. The comments underneath are a scream. There are posters there who actually thought that Abbott had Bill Shorten’s measure!

  14. imacca @ 48,

    Will be interesting to see how things go with the Libs reportedly going to make a number of announcements this week.

    Will they go ahead with the kite they flew today to take Super off Casuals and other low-paid employees? Nope, nope, nope. Barnaby nixed that quick smart.

    Will they bring out their Super changes? Probably.

    Will they bring out their Negative Gearing policy? I think they might save that for the Budget. Gotta have something left to announce.

    Will they finally announce their response to the Federation White Paper? That would be interesting. Especially considering Scott Morrison’s recent grandiose opinion that the States are virtually sovereign entities now for the purposes of raising tax.

    However, any announcement has to also be within the rubric of being ‘modest’.

    I wait with baited breath. 🙂

  17. That should read “but anyone in the Liberal ranks who wanted Morrison as leader is probably having a serious rethink of that view after the last week” in my @60.

  18. [
    I doubt anything that recent has shown up yet.

    Better news to come in future polls as such things do show up.
    ]

    Yep, it’s going to take a lot of “good government” to turn this trend around.

  19. Asha @ 60

    There is a dearth of leadership talent in the Liberal Party, and not much more in the way of policy talent.

    In case nobody noticed, there has been less recrimination and dummy spitting in the current Labor opposition than I can remember for any party that has lost government. It’s as though they woke up straight away to the fact that they threw away government and that the new Government was so ill-prepared for the job that buckling down and keeping your nerve could bring them back within a term.

  22. [Just what are the Coalition going to do if they continue falling in the polls and the public turns against Turnbull?]

    Boats and terrorism, their stock-standard go-to issues?

  24. Shorten is all over Turnbull like a cheap suit.

    What did Keating say about Turnbull and judgment….?

    A beautiful set of numbers, no doubt. But now the real work begins for Labor – doing enough to be seen as a credible alternative.

    I betcha Arfur Daley Sinodinos and Joolie Bishop are shitting themselves.

    Bwahahaha ha

  25. [70
    TPOF
    I hope people remember that a few days ago I called a Labor victory at the next election!    ]

    And I’m sorely tempted to join you in that prediction.

    Also thanks to you and Steve777 for your thoughts on bracket creep in the previous thread.

  27. Sustainable future @46

    [If shorten wins he will soon become deeply unpopular and his party will knife him]

    Its pretty damn difficult to replace a sitting Prime Minister under Labor’s new leadership rules. IIRC, 75% of caucus need to vote in favour of holding a ballot against a Prime Minister, as opposed to just 60% for an Opposition Leader.

    Unless Shorten proves to be utterly incompetent or turns the vast majority of the Labor caucus against him, I imagine he’ll be leader until he resigns or the public votes him out.

  28. DTT

    I have passed your question on the previous thread, regarding the Steam game, to my younger son. He has some expertise with such things 🙂 Will let you know when he geta back to me.

  29. [I hope people remember that a few days ago I called a Labor victory at the next election!]

    I do, and I hope you remember that my gut agreed. A few more polls like this and my head will too.

  30. “Every member of the Liberal Party shall be declared Party Leader at least once during their period of membership”

    Proposed amendment to Party manifesto.

  31. Looked at the Government Gazzette article via Trog’s link at 43. The comments seem to favour Tony. Mal is not liked by many of the Murdoch faithful. He is fast entering a political no-man’s-land. Moderate voters are giving up on him and his party’s traditional base can’t stand him.

  34. Trog Sorrenson@43

    I am a rusted on Liberal supporter in Reid. Turnbull needs to be taught a lesson even if we have to suffer Shorten for a period. It will be worth it. I will do my best here to see him dislodged.


    A comment on the Goverment Gazette article re Newspoll. Lots more in the same vein.

    Google newspoll-deadlock-as-coalition-and-alp-split-5050-pms-honeymoon-end

    I have been finding lately that the google trick doesn’t work unless I open the article in an ‘Incognito Window’. It was teh case with this.

  35. Judging by the Primary votes…

    Labor TPP Vote = 35 + (12*0.83) + (10*0.467) + 0.14
    = 49.8

    Thus, the TPP is 50.2-49.8 to Coalition when constructed using the Primary Votes.

  36. It’ll be interesting to hear how the odious Fran Kelly handles this one in the morning.

    Or perhaps she’ll pull one of her ever increasingly frequent sickies.

    I wasn’t born when McMahon was PM, but I’d be hard pressed to believe his govt was worse than this one!

    It got so bad that even very conservative people were openly laughing at him.

  39. This suggests that a double dissolution would be something of a gamble for the government. And that’s probably enough to take it off the agenda. Mr Turnbull has turned out to be very cautious. I don’t necessarily see that as a criticism, certainly not when compared with the era of crazy captain’s picks: merely restoring normal Cabinet government would create an apparent shift towards caution. But it is significant as a predictor of future behaviour.

    One of the reasons that Mr Shorten enjoyed success from the outset against Mr Abbott was that buyer’s remorse set in among the voters rather early, so Mr Shorten wasn’t fighting against an electorate supportive of Mr Abbott, but channeling the view of an electorate basically against Mr Abbott. So he didn’t have to worry about sounding carping; which is a concern for most Opposition Leaders straight after a change of government. I think Mr Shorten has been rather clever in waiting to come in with big criticisms of Mr Turnbull until doing so would again be channeling the electorate. But that time may be here now, and I suspect the opposition will go after the government hammer and tongs from now on, quite possibly to good effect.

  40. Heard Dutton on a news report saying that baby Asha will be placed in community detention in Australia and that is what the government was planning all along.

    What a crock of shit. They got their arses kicked and lying about it like that can only make them look even worse.

  41. bemused

    I use Internet Explorer set to delete cookies etc on closing for searching pay sites. Normally use Chrome or Firefox where I maintain history indefinitely.

    Close IE and then reopen when you want to do a fresh search.

    I spose incognito would work – haven’t used it.

  42. [There is a dearth of leadership talent in the Liberal Party, and not much more in the way of policy talent.]
    I would like to personally thank John Howard for leaving that legacy ticking quietly away in the hull of the good ship HMAS Liberal.

    😀

  43. I still can’t quite get over Morrison’s bizarre performance at the Press Club. He looked like that kid at school who forgot to prepare for their oral presentation and just decided to make it up off the top of his head.

    The whole thing reminded me of that episode of The Thick of It where Hugh Abbott is informed ten minutes before a press conference that he’s not allowed to tall about the topic he called the press conference for, and so he and aides are scrambling to come up with something so boring and vacuous and devoid of content that none of the press would bother reporting on it.

    In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that is exactly what happened! Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be quite so effective in real life as on The Thick of It.

  44. This poll categorically shows that however much people like Turnbull, they simply do NOT trust the Liberal Party. And it would seem the longer Turnbull is Prime Minister, the more people feel let down by him.

    Labor is doing a terrific job in reminding the voters that they are the party with policy vision (as always), and that Turnbull is just a thin and disappointing coat of paint on a very ugly and mouldy wall.

    It will be interesting to see the next few polls.

  45. Trog Sorrenson@91

    bemused

    I use Internet Explorer set to delete cookies etc on closing for searching pay sites. Normally use Chrome or Firefox where I maintain history indefinitely.

    Close IE and then reopen when you want to do a fresh search.

    I spose incognito would work – haven’t used it.

    I couldn’t be bothered mucking about with cookies so will stick with incognito as long as it keeps working.

  47. DTT,

    If it was in a Trash and Treasure it probably only costs a few $$ on Steam anyway. You can tell yourself you paid $2 because you wanted a printed manual.

  49. Darn @ 90: There are several things which a future ALP government should do in that area as a matter of priority.

    (1) Clear out the leadership of the Immigration Department and the Border Force, with the view to reversing their militarisation in recent years. They’ve been trying to function as an invisible government for far too long.

    (2) As part of that, get rid of the uniforms and medals.

    (3) Pull the plug on the various TV docu-dramas about customs and quarantine. All they do is encourage the community to live in fear of foreigners. I rather recall that in the Soviet Union there used to be a similar program about the KGB.

  50. I can’t see Turnbull recovering from this, given normal political trading. His current positive netstat simply reflects voters who still haven’t woken up.

    To employ an overused metaphor – he jumped the shark with his shrill attack on Labor’s negative gearing. It was the complete opposite of all the rational debate he had been promoting, and people aren’t stupid.

    It will take a significant political event to get the “COAL lobby” back in the game.

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