Newspoll: 50-50

The first Newspoll since the election records a solid hit for Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings, but a milder one on voting intention.

The first Newspoll of the new term, courtesy of The Australian, records the Coalition on 41%, compared with 42.1% at the election; Labor on 36%, up from 34.7%; the Greens on 9%, down from 10.2%; and others on 14%. This pans out to a tie on two-party preferred, compared with an election result of 50.4-496 in favour of the Coalition. Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is down six points on the pre-election result to 34% and his disapproval is up three to 50%, while Bill Shorten is respectively steady on 36% and down one to 50%. Turnbull holds a 43-32 lead as preferred prime minister, compared with 48-31 last time. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1696.

Also note the latest posts below this one: a belated entry on a ReachTEL poll of New South Wales state voting intention conducted from the Fairfax papers last Thursday; my latest American presidential election poll tracker reading; and ongoing updates from the Northern Territory election count.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The latest reading of Essential Research’s fortnightly rolling average finds both parties down a point on the primary vote, the Coalition to 39% and Labor to 37%, with the Greens and Nick Xenophon unchanged on 10% and 4%, and Labor’s two-party lead unchanged at 51-49. Also featured:

• Two fascinating questions on the standard of life in Australia find 45% believing it to be higher now than 50 years ago, but 34% believing the opposite. Forty-seven per cent expect life for the next generation to be worse, against only 24% for better.

• Support for same-sex marriage is recorded at 57%, with opposition at 28%. The poll also finds 81% of yes voters say they would definitely or probably vote, compared with 70% of no voters. Fifty-nine per cent support a national vote and 25% a decision by parliament. Forty-seven per cent said they would expect a referendum to pass, 24% that they expected it to fail, and 30% felt unsure.

• Forty-six per cent agree that “significant obstacles still make it harder for women to get ahead than men”, while 40% believe such obstacles “largely gone”. The split is 31-53 among men and 60-27 among women.

• Twenty-one per cent think the government too tough on asylum seekers, down four since November, while 29% deem it soft and 31% about right, both unchanged. Forty-six per cent believe conditions for asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island to be poor, compared with 28% for good.

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.

3,723 comments on “Newspoll: 50-50”

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  2. I am sure you will all be relieved learn that the Public Service has determined that it is cutbacks that to blame for the failed census. That and the fact that for some entirely unaccountable reason, the public just don’t seem to trust its public institutions any more …

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/censusfail-is-the-australian-public-service-competent-20160829-gr3nrb.html

    The Public Service is full of competent and committed people, particularly the ABS, which is still extremely well-regarded under its superbly competent leader David Kalisch, and this whole census catastrophe is just a minor glitch that will soon be forgotten as the Public Service acquires the skills required to successfully outsource all its functions to private enterprise.

    You will also be pleased to hear that there are apparently no security concerns, no privacy issues, no technical incompetence, no attempt to deceive the public, no overreach, no function creep, no empire building, no ministerial interference, no planning problems, no public relations failures, no credibility issues, no lack of ministerial oversight (it is entirely unreasonable to expect this from a minister who had only been in the job for 3 weeks!). In fact, everything seems to have gone just swimmingly other than the fact that the politicians and the public just can’t seem to align their expectations.

    Nice to know. Also, if anyone is interested, I have some photos of pixies I took at the bottom of my garden this morning that I am willing to sell at a reasonable price.

  4. Brandis was on AM Radio deflecting commments banning foreign donations and also deflecting donations from chinese to Julia Bishop while attacking full on Labor.

    Desperate much?

  5. Brandis having a second go on RNBreakfast at bringing down Dastyari. Nothing new in his rant today…

    For all the world he sounded like a pompous, loud-mouthed Opposition spokesman, languishing 10 points behind in the polls, vainly trying to drum up some scandal in the government ranks to improve his prospects.

    This act, impersonating an Opposition, cannot be doing the government any good.

    Brandis went so far as to trot out the old trick he used on Julia Gillard: we “don’t know” whether Dastyari has committed a crime yet. “We” will be investigating this.

    Now I’ve just heard he lost his case. It’s on to the High Court we go.

  7. Lizzie
    Great work. My (not really mine) surgeon is of oriental descent. A real, you beaut bonza bloke. I like to tell doctors that I only listen to good news. Having worked in a hospital for many years I know one has to be in top form to get a giggle. I usually go over better with the assistants.
    I am guessing (hoping) that you are as well as can be expected.
    PB generally very helpful, as you are aware. If the leave a comment box is not present you need to sign as advised a above which will, as stated on various posts, enable complete updates. 🙂

  10. TPOF

    Lizzie is spot on. The questioning by journos took the tone of how much taxpayer money did Dreyfus waste purusing Brandis. This media is so f@@ked

  11. Turnbull’s post-election polls: lose, lose, lose, draw, lose, lose. Two consecutive losses means we only have 28 losing polls to go before he must resign. At two polls a fortnight Turnbull has until April to save his miserable hide. Alternatively we could take the only Newspoll (draw) as an outlier.
    In that case Turnbull has February.

  12. Ah, the Census,

    That reminds me, the Census person knocked on the door the other day, and asked if we had, please?, filled out the Census.

    I said, we’d nearly completed it.

    If you remember, if you indeed care, I did post that someone (turned out to be a she) had left new forms on my patio (for want of a better word – more of a rooved porch area) table.

    She said: Oh, okay, I’ll be back Tuesday (which is today, and I haven’t completed it yet, anyway); just leave it on the outdoor table.

    I said: I don’t think so.

    She said: Why? I won’t have to bother you then.

    I said: I’m not going to leave our personal information on an outdoor table on the off chance you find it first.

    She looked rather bewildered.

  17. Player One
    #3602 Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 11:28 am
    Excellent information.
    I spent many years not understanding that pixilated meant mentally unbalance. I thought it simply meant pissed.
    However, your outline will be the basis of renewal of the Public Service. I am not sure about a statue as the ATO is currently providing funds for the giant statue of Paul Hogan.
    In any case I enjoyed your post. Thank you. 🙂 😆

  21. D&M
    The evolutionary psychologists explanation for that well documented phenomenon is that primitive men hunted and needed better spatial skills and rudimentary maps to travel further from the camp, whereas the females had better language skills as they spent more time communicating verbally. That’s the theory anyway.

  22. lessons from the first week of parliament – Kristina Keneally

    For the life of me, I can’t understand how the Turnbull government, with just a one-seat majority, seemed to have no process in place to ensure that it could always win a vote on the floor of the parliament. And boo-hoo to those Coalition MPs who are calling Labor’s parliamentary tactics, like moving a motion just before parliament finishes, a “stunt”. If parliament is sitting, it is sitting. Stay there and do your damn jobs.

    By the way, don’t you love the irony that the people who want to cut penalty rates, which primarily benefit low-income workers, also think it’s just fine to nick off out of their $200,000-a-year jobs early on a Thursday afternoon?

    Why did the senator get a Chinese-linked company to pay his bills? I’d rather try to explain something simpler, like how there are three persons in one in the Holy Trinity, or how it is that Saint Mother Teresa cured a woman of her cancer.

    Really, I would rather that Senator Dastyari explain this, in more detail, than he has to date. And really, really, I would prefer that Australian parliamentarians decided to ban foreign political donations altogether.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/06/donations-dastyari-and-why-all-mps-need-a-pair-lessons-from-the-first-week-of-parliament

  26. BevanShields: .@jamesmassola reporting Sam Dastyari will break his silence this afternoon. Not resigning. More soon on @smh and @theage #auspol

  28. From Massola

    . @samdastyari to stand up today and do an “ask me anything” pressa. Not resigning. @billshortenmp 100% locked behind him. more @smh @theage

  33. Still waiting to see some credible (non-translated) record of the remarks that started the whole Dastyari snafu. It’s starting to look like no such record exists?

  37. BK

    I don’t think Mr Shorten really got off the front foot. The only reason that appeared so is that Mr Shorten did not spell out explicitly like he had to do today as he must have thought the press would not go as far as they did in their reporting on one Senator keeping in the rules of the donation system.

    Instead he would have expected the general theme of donations to be reported. It was by a few. However the gallery had to have its nose shoved in the obvious

  40. With the court case on the Brandis diary. The continuing secrecy regarding detention seekers and a personal attack on a to quote “junior Senator from NSW” from the LNP we can bring back the Mean and Tricky slogan

  43. G
    I like it. You have just landed the first bit of genuinely creative language here for quite a while: the Government’s policy on detention seekers.
    Brilliant!

  44. Shorten would be very foolish to punt Sammy D for a minor indiscretion. There is absolutely no reason to give the libs a scalp. They don’t deserve one. Let them keep attacking. It doesn’t do them any good. It just makes them look hopeless and distracted.

  46. Lovely spring day in Newcastle.
    Sun shining, not much breeze. Freezias springing up in the lawn so that I don’t have to mow. Gravatars being revisited to improve approval rating. What more could one want?
    Bill Shorten, the best Prime Minister of Australia for some some time speaking gently to slow learners in the journalist and reporting business. He deserves a bonus for this arduous duty. 😎

  48. PhoenixRED
    “Why did the senator get a Chinese-linked company to pay his bills? I’d rather try to explain something simpler, like how there are three persons in one in the Holy Trinity, or how it is that Saint Mother Teresa cured a woman of her cancer.

    Really, I would rather that Senator Dastyari explain this, in more detail, than he has to date. And really, really, I would prefer that Australian parliamentarians decided to ban foreign political donations altogether.”
    My thoughts as well!

  50. jaeger @ #3641 Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    It seems as though he is prepared to sacrifice a Pawn, ie Sam Dastyari, but cover it, in order to take the King or Queen, ie get Foreign Donation rules in place.

    Or a Bishop?
    http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/bishop-snared-in-china-payment-furore/news-story/2f2a08b46498f77a2cb3ae6665d8c166

    If you followed Shorten’s presser to the end, you might note that Shorten raised the Bishop donation in passing. Or perhaps a shot over the bows.

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