Newspoll: 50-50

Even stevens from Newspoll, which has a further poll finding Barnaby Joyce hanging on for dear life in New England.

With a fortnight to go, Newspoll finds two-party preferred steady at 50-50, from primary votes of Coalition 41% (up one), Labor 36% (up one) and Greens 10% (steady). We are also informed that the Nick Xenophon Team is at 29% in South Australia. On personal ratings, Malcolm Turnbull is down one on approval to 36% and steady on disapproval at 51%, while Bill Shorten is up two to 35% and down one to 51%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 45-30 to 46-31. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1805.

The Australian also has a Newspoll result showing Barnaby Joyce with a lead of just 51-49 in New England, from primary votes of 48%, 36% for independent Tony Windsor, 7% for Labor and 3% for the Greens. This was part of the same marginal seat polling that was mostly released on Saturday, being conducted Monday to Wednesday from a sample of 523.

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.

1,417 comments on “Newspoll: 50-50”

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  2. Even though I disagreed with nearly all he said, I thought Turnbull did well on Q&A. the questions were pretty soft, and Jones was not as aggressive as he was with shorten. Turnbull looked like a goose when he accused Jones of being a labor stooge. Turnbull also looked stupid saying ‘I inherited that policy’ a few times and basically admitting he had to toe the RWNJ line, without any suggestion that if he won the election he could be his own man. he wouldn’t have lost too many votes from his performance – he looked smart, competent and human without any fuck ups. pity. he wasn’t pushed to answer some of the curlier questions.

  3. Always said Malcolm would turn out a dud.

    Always said Shorten and Labor would out campaign him easily.

    Always said that Labor would get up at the pointy end.

    I’m 2 from 3 and still confident the stewards will call correct weight and give me the trifecta on July 2.

  5. My impressions from afar is that the media is beginning to show the LNP, or rather Team Turnbull, as panicking.

    It appears that Shorten is being able to get his message across.

    Even the BBC seems to be showing Labor in a better light.

  8. I attended a community “meet the candidate” Q&A session tonight in Cowan. There were about 50 people present, all invited by the Australian Christian Lobby. The candidates included the Lib member, Labor’s candidate Anne Aly, and reps from Mature Australia and the Australian Christian Party.

    It was a fascinating event. Absolutely fascinating. There were questions on Medicare/health, the treatment of asylum seekers, foreign aid, marriage equality, Safe Schools Program, abortion, conscience voting/party discipline, negative gearing, allocation of prefs…among others.

    The Lib was nervous, uncomfortable, stumbled a fair bit and ran over time in his answers. Anne Aly was just sensationally good. She gave one of the best self-intro messages I’ve heard and was, in all, incredibly fluent, warm, lively, articulate and coherent in her answers. The Christian was better than the Lib, I thought, though far less experienced. He articulated a kind of radical compassion blended with very conservative values while staying relaxed. The guy from Mature Australia broke down at one point and should not be a candidate. He’s sincere, no doubt, but completely lost.

    I talked to some of the audience afterwards. They were conservatively-sensitised voters, focused on ME and SSP. But they were also very alert to Labor themes around social justice, the economy, jobs, health and political engagement. They were very taken with Anne Aly and a couple of them made their way to see her in person.

    Anne is a completely natural politician. If contests were decided by one-on-one comparisons between candidates’ personal communication skills, she would win very easily.

    Great night campaigning for Labor in Cowan!

  10. William Bowe
    Monday, June 20, 2016 at 11:49 pm

    The Age has a Greens-commissioned Lonergan poll showing them leading 41% to 28% in Batman, and 55-45 on two-party preferred-

    Yes that one’s in the too close to call basket despite itself.

  12. Isaac Logan #1351 Monday, June 20, 2016 at 11:42 pm
    LOL that poll is bulldust.
    Google
    election-2016-voters-deliver-budget-poll-warning/news-

  13. TPOF,

    As I said here before the election began. If reason and common sense prevailed, Labor would win in a landslide. BUT, Labor’s true enemy is dysfunctional and partisan media. Up until now few people have even gotten to hear of Labor’s policies. Now the ads kick in. Lets see if the polls move this time next week.

  14. Recency reset has just taken my aggregate down to 50.4.

    Coalition seem really jittery the last couple of days though, both with their dumb ad and their panicky response re Medicare.

  17. davidwh @ #1349 Monday, June 20, 2016 at 11:40 pm

    Personally I thought Turnbull was adequate without nailing the opportunity. Can’t see too many votes shifting because of his performance.
    But I’m probably biased.

    Clearly I’m biased to the left, but if I try to put my conservative hat on, I think Turnbull didn’t do enough to push out Liberal values and sell his policies. Towards the second half of the show, he began to start defending the past. I think maybe it’s just the flu speaking, but there was a lot of filler and not enough substance to sell it to the swing voters.

    I can’t say if it’s enough to lose the election or not, but if this is the benchmark for the rest of the campaign, polling can’t improve at this stage.

  18. A LIBERAL PARTY CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT PARADING AS JOURNALSIM AND ‘RESEARH’ in the HERALD SUN Tommorrow

    “ VOTERS have delivered a stark warning to politicians not to seek to buy their way to an election win.A Herald Sun election issues survey, which garnered more than 3000 responses, showed readers rated getting the Budget back to surplus and slashing debt as their top priority. An analysis of survey answers by Galaxy Research showed 80 per cent believed deficit reduction should be prioritised over spending more to boost services. This was made up of 89 per cent of Coalition voters and 45 per cent of Labor voters. And 92 per cent of all respondents opposed an increase in childcare rebates”

    My favourites was “Should business get a tax cut ? “. Shock me – 71 % yes and the Union bashing favourite “ Should the building and construction watchdog be reinstated?”. Yes of course it should say 89 %.
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/federal-election/federal-election-2016-voters-deliver-budget-poll-warning/news-story/0d1e31173d0d3834468cccce76f36444?from=herald%20sun_rss

    What a load of Bollocks !1

  19. Even stupid Shanahan now puts Turnbull in the least favoured leader in 40 years category next to Shorten.So much for him and the rest of the MSM’s Malcolm the Messiah shite they used to write about.

  22. warrenpeace @ #1362 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 12:01 am

    Isaac Logan #1351 Monday, June 20, 2016 at 11:42 pm
    LOL that poll is bulldust.
    Google
    election-2016-voters-deliver-budget-poll-warning/news-

    My unqualified analysis of this poll tells me that the Herald Sun has been successful in convincing its loyal readers it’s perspective of the world, and this polls reaffirms exactly that. The shareholders will be mightily pleased.

  23. Cud

    Labor policies were never going to win it for Labor. Putting policies out there was important so that it had a mandate for them if it won the election – and with a Senate that needed to be negotiated with that would be a bonus. The fact that they got kudos for putting out policies when the Libs didn’t was a bonus.

    What will win it for Labor will be the contrast in competence and trustworthiness. People might be very wary about Labor and Shorten, but the Medicare claims are wedging the Liberals in all sorts of ways that are showing their weaknesses as a government.

    As for Turnbull on QandA, I thought he was terrible but I could not see any disastrous gaffe that would undermine his campaign. People who watched him would not have been impressed – but there would not have been enough to make a difference.

  25. My prediction on the next batch of polls – one will say +1 to Labor, one will say +1 to the LNP, and the rest will be nil change.

  26. cud chewer @ #1363 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 12:04 am

    TPOF,
    As I said here before the election began. If reason and common sense prevailed, Labor would win in a landslide. BUT, Labor’s true enemy is dysfunctional and partisan media. Up until now few people have even gotten to hear of Labor’s policies. Now the ads kick in. Lets see if the polls move this time next week.

    I think it’s all good that this is starting this late (relatively to the length of this extended campaign). Many, myself included, have already switched off early on to most messages, and only start paying attention towards the end.

  28. Surely this 50/50 can’t hold as the flames get turned up. One side has a lot of policy momentum and energy. The other side is ultra defensive. Tonight may prove to have been a turning point. Still tight but advantage to Labor in the energy and strength remaining in the arm wrestle. Another one per cent will do it. Watershed moment of the campaign.

  29. Part of the new never ever ad is on Iview Lateline program, about 3 minutes 30 seconds into first part of the program.

  31. I sense desperation in the Liberal ranks.
    The desperation rugby followers feel when your team was 24 points in front, due mostly to dodgy refereeing, and the opposition score and convert four quick tries to your unconverted one in reply, and your five eight is red carded with twenty minutes still to go.
    Your guys might just hang in their, but in your guts you know your gone ….

  38. tpof @ #1373 Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 12:24 am

    Cud
    Labor policies were never going to win it for Labor. Putting policies out there was important so that it had a mandate for them if it won the election – and with a Senate that needed to be negotiated with that would be a bonus. The fact that they got kudos for putting out policies when the Libs didn’t was a bonus.
    What will win it for Labor will be the contrast in competence and trustworthiness. People might be very wary about Labor and Shorten, but the Medicare claims are wedging the Liberals in all sorts of ways that are showing their weaknesses as a government.
    As for Turnbull on QandA, I thought he was terrible but I could not see any disastrous gaffe that would undermine his campaign. People who watched him would not have been impressed – but there would not have been enough to make a difference.

    What will win the election for Labor is the rejectionist vote. 1/3 of the electorate is thoroughly disenchanted. They are not disengaged. They vary from moderately underwhelmed and withdrawn to cross to silently furious. Voters believe they were promised “more” and feel have been rewarded with “a whole lot less”. Positive expectancy has been demolished and been replaced with a negative expectancy. This is very bad news for the Government. The Liberals will wear the brunt of voter rejection.

    Voters “believed” the Liberals in 2013 (especially here in WA) and they have been rewarded with more instability, more ineffectual government and heaps of bitterly-recalled broken promises. So while voters are not hot for Labor, they will express their disapproval of the Liberals by doing two things….voting “other” first where they have sound candidates and then Labor second.

    Medicare is an important issue in its own right and voters will express their desire to protect it. But more than this, Medicare is a kind of talisman. Voters may say they’re voting on Medicare, but they will be more generally using it as a peg in which to hang their frustration at the lies, the broken trust and the serial mischief and arrogance of the Liberals.

    At this event in Cowan tonight, every candidate declared their support for Medicare. (Anne Aly gave a brilliant exposition on its merits). The Lib looked very pained at the very mention of the subject, his face showing that he knew he was in trouble. The Mature Australia candidate reminded everyone that Medibank had been introduced by Labor, scrapped by the Liberals and then privatised; and then drew the obvious inference that they could be expected to do the same to Medicare. I doubt there was a single person in the room that did not want to retain and strengthen Medicare.

    Incidentally, the best moment for me tonight came after I’d been talking to one 40-ish yo male voter. We were chatting after the Q&A. He told me he was a Lib and always had been; that he’d never voted Labor and never would. I said that was fine and I understood, that I could see how he was placed; and then I asked him what he thought about Anne. He said he was impressed, that she was a great speaker, and, if she wasn’t in Labor he’d happily vote for her. So we chatted a bit more about the topics that had come up and then he confided that he didn’t want to vote at all; that he was very unhappy with the Liberals. I said the important thing for me was that he knew that Labor were interested in him even though he was Liberal voter; that we wanted to listen to him and understand where he was coming from; that Labor was present tonight to meet people who may not be thinking of voting for us.

    Not long after our conversation, I noticed he’d gone to introduce himself to Anne. He must have spent 20 minutes with her in the company of a group of other long-time Lib voters. Just brilliant. I think he will vote for Anne on 2 July.

  39. Corey Lewandowski dropped as Trump’s campaign manager – live

    I know Trump is bad but I don’t think they needed to note Lewandowski was still alive.

  42. Well, for what it’s worth Norwester, from a metropolitan Perth perspective, I think the mood of the voters is becoming entrenched for change, and it is being reflected in serious talkback radio and in “water cooler” and private gathering discussions.

    The media is becoming shriller and more and more ridiculous and obvious in its support for the coalition, but no one is listening to them for guidance or judgment.

    Last time I sensed such a mood was in 2007, although it was not reflected in WA voting patterns as it was in the East.

    Labor is still in with a good chance.

    Hope that helps lift your spirits!

  43. The other thing that I should say about the meeting in Cowan – something that reflects very well on those present – was a question along the lines of “How can we advance discussion on sensitive issues, like ME, AS and other topics without the rancour we usually see?” The candidates gave generally very good answers and the mood in the room really lightened, I thought.

    What we observed was a conservative audience of self-declaring and pious Christians come along in reasonable numbers on a cold and wet night to hear a Muslim Labor candidate…and then be intrigued by her and respond to her self-evident warmth and intelligence. I think this reflected very well indeed on those who organised it and on those who attended.

  44. Briefly,
    If a bloke like that can be open to influence at this stage then it looks like there is all to play for and this is far from over.

  47. It is like the talking points of the 2013 election have faded away altogether. The national argument has moved on and the Lib talking points are largely stuck in the past.

  48. Among those I chatted with were two women….20s and 30s, mums, kids at school, conservatively dressed and groomed, talkative, sensitised around issues of sexuality and child protection…..favourably surprised by Anne, in complete agreement with Labor on social justice, jobs, full of compassion for asylum-seekers and refugees….I asked them who they thought would win the election. They each said they thought it would be very close; that they couldn’t pick it. They asked whether, in the event of a hung Parliament, Labor would seek to align with the Gs. I said “No. I certainly hope not.” They looked somewhat surprised so I explained my views. They were pleased. Very pleased. The message is that Labor can strengthen its credit with voters – it can attract new voters across the divide – by resisting the Gs.

  50. they looked somewhat surprised so I explained my views. They were pleased. Very pleased. The message is that Labor can strengthen its credit with voters – it can attract new voters across the divide – by resisting the Gs.

    All two of them.

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