Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

Newspoll tells a familiar tale, with the two-party vote unchanged over four successive polls, Malcolm Turnbull’s personal decline levelling off, and Bill Shorten continuing to rise.

The latest Newspoll for The Australian is the fourth successive result from the pollster showing Labor leading 51-49 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Coalition 41% (steady), Labor 36% (down one) and Greens 11% (steady). Leadership ratings echo other pollsters in finding Malcolm Turnbull levelling off after a steep decline in the early months of the year, with approval steady at 38% and disapproval up one to 50%, and Bill Shorten continuing to improve, with approval up four to 37% and disapproval down three to 49%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 49-27 to 46-31. Expectations of a Coalition in have diminished considerably since the question was last asked in March, with 44% now favouring a Coalition win (down 11%) and 33% favouring Labor (up eight). The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1709.

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.

1,704 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. The union marginal seats campaign will be a factor from now on & Brian Owler’s AMA campaign will start to get wider circulation amongst the swinging voters..

    ..forget the rusted on’s ..this election is about to shift the swingers to the left!!..

  2. A the last election Christian Porter won the seat 58-42. I’ve got no illusions about Labor’s ability to win this seat, however I’d like to make a dent in the margin so that it is potentially in play in 2019 or 2022.

  4. @MRowlandMP says Labor will look at tax breaks for MPs who own property in Canberra

    They’ll have to balance out the other perks first.

  5. victoria:

    Mumble revised his view of a Rudd victory once the campaign had been going for a week or two, and it became clear how hopeless Rudd was.

  6. Peter BRENT – Mumbles predictions results will be the opposite

    2011 – Labor to win NSW State Election

    2013- Labor to win federal election

    2014 , Liberal party to win the S.A election

    2014, Liberal/national party coalition to win Vic election

    2015, LNP to win QLD state election

    2016 Libs/nats to win the federal election – meaning Labor will win it

  7. Mumbles can’t find any verifiable data to back up his assertion of an easy LNP win because there is no data to back such an assertion.

    No doubt his feelpinions are primarily based on Turnbull’s alleged popularity and the “fact” (that he continues to peddle despite recent evidence to the contrary) that voters don’t dismiss first term govovernments and the sheer task of Labor winning 21 seats.

    Mark the Ballot has a new analysis out which shows clearly the TPP is trending considerably to Labor since Turnbull’s rise. The Lib numbers look like one of those early rocket trajectories for rockets that lacked the oomph to to escape the earth’s atmosphere.

    If you were one of those Stock Market Chartists you’d be saying the LNP are trying to defend at a the current level, but the risk is all down. You wouldn’t be buying shares in the LNP at these prices. It’s like a currency war where the central Bank defends the currency by purchasing . Inevitably, the market wins.

    The good thing for Labor is that the next level of resistance is not until sround 52%. TPP. This means that if Labor can breach the current resistance then there will be considerable gains in a hurry. This, of course, would make the election a landslide to Labor!
    The latest poll trends are showing more and more acceptance of Shorten as our PM. While his ratings were always too low, the trend is Labor and Shorten’s friend atm.
    http://marktheballot.blogspot.com.au/

  9. CK – He predicted Labor would win in 2013 (when even the biggest die-hard could see Rudd was heading down the tubes). Then he did a huge mea culpa a few days later. He’s got this theory that govts have the benefit of incumbency and have to throw it away or lose it.

  12. K-17 @ 109,

    He’s got this theory that govts have the benefit of incumbency and have to throw it away or lose it.

    Which is exactly what they seem to be doing.

  13. Grimace, I’d give the electorate office a call … they might have been inundated and haven’t gotten to you yet.

  15. Remember when the big billboards came out for the Coalition in the Queensland and Victorian State Elections? Just reminded the electorate who had more money than sense.

  16. ‘I think what he means is that, in all the Federal elections in living memory where the government has changed hands, there has been a strong sense during the election campaign that the electorate is in the mood for a change.’

    And the only way you can judge whether this is so is by talking to ordinary people. Whether the media is talking about a mood for change or not is irrelevant.

  17. annajhenderson: .@billshortenmp asked to say something nice about the Liberals. A. They’re strong on national security. And Turnbull? A. He’s very smart

  18. I make a point of speaking to politically unengaged people. Feedback always comprises of following points

    – Libs want Australia to have a US health style system
    – Turnbull doesnt understand how hard it is for young people to buy first home
    – job security

  19. Mumble’s big problem is that he, like many commentators, still believe the pre-technology norms apply.

    People get their information from more sources. It used to just be the 6pm news and the newspapers. Now they actually lag behind the news from soc media/general internet.

    There is a proportion of the population still in the ‘old mold’ but there is a big cohort that is in the new.

  20. When asked about cancer drugs being listed on the PBS all Turnbull could cite as an example was Herceptin. He made it sound like his Govt had listed it.

    Shame it was listed in 2006 by the Howard Govt. Nothing to do with his cuts to prescription subsidies.

  22. strong unionsstrongcountry @ #89 Monday, May 23, 2016 at 8:53 am

    All not so cosy and rosy in the Liberals
    The Medicare freeze that could see you paying $20 to see a doctor is not supported by Health Minister Sussan Ley.
    The Minister says she wants it lifted as son as possible but her cabinet colleagues won’t let her.
    The remarks indicate federal cabinet may be split on the issue which Labor is trying to make the central issue in the election campaign.

    Same tactic as Labor is using with the leaks about members arguing internally for a more compassionate asylum seeker policy. Dogwhistling to the compassionate. Wonder if it is as successful as dogwhistling to the RWNJs?

    Suppose we can say that the Libs are flattering Labor by imitating their tactic.

  23. Further to last – the advance of tech ‘living’ means the electorate itself is more volatile (dare I say agile?) and doesn’t fear change the way we used to. The speed of change in all areas of life has accelerated, and this feeds into elections as well.

    I believe this is why we keep seeing ‘shock’ results. People jump on trends far more rapidly. It makes the crowd follow whatever is popular if they are left to their own devices (the speed of crowdfunding is an example).

    Mumble and many of the pundits simply do not respect this agility/volatility

  25. Victoria

    Back to the US.

    I am with Rummel. On the balance of probability, Trump will win. His margin below Hillary is slowly moving narrower and indeed is sometime above her.

    Trump motivates voters who will turn out in numbers for him. Hillary does not motivate as many voters. Unless the polling consistently shows Hillary 3% ahead in the 10 states that matter, Trump will win.

  26. Labor may need an extra seat. McGowan is looking shaky in Indi.

    The change is the Nationals running a candidate. This gives those from the right who don’t want to vote for Mirabella another option than McGowan.

    The Nats candidate isn’t getting much scrutiny – which he should, because he’s got nothing much going for him – but McGowan’s refusal to do negative campaigning and the media focus on Mirabella/McGowan means he could very well sneak up through the middle on the back of disaffected Liberal voters.

    McGowan won because she garnered the left vote – yet she has turned her back on some key left issues, such as refugees (she now supports Nauru and Manus), because she was seen as a National in all but name and because she got PUP’s preferences.

    I would expect that she will lose former PUP and at least some of her National vote to the Nationals, which may well see Indi with three candidates polling in the 20s (Mirabella, Corboy and McGowan). As Mirabella and Corboy will swap preferences, it’s increasingly looking as if the real focus should be on Corboy, not Mirabella.

  27. Victoria

    I think your comment is very, very interersting. It confirms my gut reation,. but unlike you I have no evidence as such.

    Labor has tapped cleverly into three hot button issues. There is i think now NOTHING the Libs can do to couteract the impression that they hate medicare (they do), have no plan for jobs and care nothing about housing affordability.

  28. lizzie @ #21 Monday, May 23, 2016 at 6:53 am

    BK
    It took about an hour, but I was already prepared, with a Word doc set up to paste into.
    I’m a slow, inaccurate typist, but a quick reader, so I just cut and paste from the articles.

    Good on you lizzie. I don’t know how either of you do it and I struggle to read the articles you list, often having to just relying on your brief intro.

  29. Is this one of the ‘metrics’ Mumbles is ignoring?
    GhostWhoVotes
    @GhostWhoVotes
    “#Newspoll Which party will win the election: L/NP 44 (-11) ALP 33 (+8) #ausvotes”11:44pm · 22 May 2016..

    ..looks to me like a huge shift in the way the electorate is thinking ..but what would I know? 😉

  30. markjs @ #101 Monday, May 23, 2016 at 9:01 am

    The union marginal seats campaign will be a factor from now on & Brian Owler’s AMA campaign will start to get wider circulation amongst the swinging voters..
    ..forget the rusted on’s ..this election is about to shift the swingers to the left!!..

    If you look at attitudinal surveys (Essential is great for this) they don’t need to be shifted in their views to the left. They just need to be persuaded that they need to vote Labor for their views to be put into action – this is precisely what Shorten’s campaign seems to be based on when you stand back and take a (relatively unbiased) look at it.

  33. zoomster:

    FWIW this was discussed on Insiders yesterday and a couple of the panelists thought the Nat rated a strong chance to be elected.

  34. I am thinking that the whole Ley saying that there are a few people in cabinet that still support a medicare freeze is an attempt to imply that if you vote for malcom, he will have a mandate to change this and that Ley and Malcom really have the people in their heearts. Like Natasha says – truuussssst me. As if.

    Tom.

  36. Trump won’t win if enough African Americans, Hispanics and white women turn out in enough of the swing states to vote for Clinton. Some of the polls showing Trump tied with Hillary are from dodgy Republican outfits, like Rasmussen.

  39. dtt
    Keeping Trump out will motivate a lot of people to vote for Hillary.

    We even have commentators usually regarded as hard right saying they’ll vote Democrat rather than let Trump win.

  41. And they were singing,
    Bye bye Malcolm Pie in the sky
    Drove my ute to the levee but the levee was dry,
    and Tony Abbott was left feeling high a dry,
    Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
    this’ll be the day that I die

  42. annajhenderson: .@billshortenmp asked to say something nice about… …Turnbull? A. He’s very smart.

    ——————–

    Sounds like a backhander to me.

  43. Chris Kenny @ 106
    This Peter Brent seems to have had a fine election forecasting record since 2011. I can’t imagine why Murdoch let him go. Ha!

  44. Calling the result of the election in week 3 of an 8 week campaign is foolhardy.
    People are still tuned out, or disengaged, because social media and blogs like this one are humming along doesn’t mean the average punter is paying attention.
    The balance of probabilities still favours the Libs retaining government, due to the big deficit in lower house seats Labor has to make up, BUT so far Labor’s campaign seems a whole lot better co-ordinated than in 2013 and Shorten is obviously enjoying himself.

  45. fess

    It’s frustrating, because he’s a crap candidate, but we’re finding it hard to break through the media mindset of Cathy/Sophie and lack the finances to mount a campaign against him ourselves. If McGowan had the sense to put realpolitik against noble sentiments, she’d demolish him.

  47. Hillary’s biggest danger is if Sanders runs as a 3rd party independent, like Ralph Nadar did in 2000(with disasterous consequences for Al Gore).
    Yes, she’s a very wooden candidate, not a patch on her husband in his prime, but she’s not Trump – the best thing going for her.

  49. grimace – suggest you have a yarn to briefly when he is next here – he seems well plugged into campaigning for Labor in the West.

    He should be able to get things sorted for you.

  50. Labor has shadow ministers out and about playing blinders and showing confidence in and mastery of their policies.
    As for the government what do they have? Morrison in witness protection coming out with occasional inanities, Cormann with “Jobs and Growth” mantra and nothing else, Mesma out of view, Brandis in his cave, Sussan Ley intimating cabinet disagreements. And the list goes on.

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