Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor

What will presumably be the last Newspoll of the year adds to impression given by other pollsters of slight movement to the Coalition as the year draws to an end.

More evidence that the Coalition is ending the year in a very slightly better position than it’s been in over the past few months, this time courtesy of Newspoll in The Australian, which records Labor’s lead narrowing to 52-48 from 53-47 a fortnight ago. The Coalition now leads 39% to 36% on the primary vote, after a 38% draw in the last poll, with the Greens steady at 10%. Malcolm Turnbull is down two points on approval to 32% and up one on disapproval to 55%, while Bill Shorten is respectively down two to 34% and steady at 51%. Turnbull holds a 41-32 lead as preferred prime minister, compared with 43-33 in the last poll. The accompanying report has further results on the salience of jobs, asylum seekers and same-sex marriage as political issues. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1629.

UPDATE (Essential Research): After a week at 51-49, Essential Research moves back a point in favour of Labor, who now lead 52-48. The most interesting aspect of the primary vote is that One Nation have gained a point to reach a new high of 8%, with the Coalition down one to 38%, and Labor, the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team steady at 36%, 9% and 3%. The most interesting of the supplementary questions records approval ratings for senior government ministers, which finds Julie Bishop to be by far the government’s most popular figure, with 52% approval and 23% disapproval. Christopher Pyne, Barnaby Joyce, Greg Hunt, Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison more or less break even, but George Brandis has a net rating of minus 8%, and Hunt records a particularly high “don’t know” rating.

A “party trust to handle issues” question records a slight deterioration across the board for the Coalition since August, the biggest mover being “controlling interest rates”, on which their lead has narrowed from 12% to 7%. On a series of “party best at looking after the economy” questions, the Coalition has an 11% lead over Labor on “handling the economy overall”, but a less helpful 33% lead on “representing the interests of the large corporate and financial interests”, with nothing separating the parties on “handling the economy in a way that best helps the middle class” and “handling the economy in a way that helps you and people like you the most”. Also canvassed: voluntary euthanasia, Gonski funding, climate change, and where we go when we die.

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.

2,249 comments on “Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor”

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  3. DTT

    If you are talking US families without a minimum wage protection you are correct.

    However do not underestimate the allure of drugs. For addicts they will always come before food so crime committed to procure drugs is in fact crime committed to put food on the table

    For others the illegal business model makes the same capitalist ladder that enables you to buy a Ferrari as it does to be the CEO of a multinational corporation.

    Make no mistake the war on drugs is designed to entrench inequality in society. For Nixon that included voter suppression

  5. I read the Annabel Crabb article. Nice that for once she didn’t feel the need to have a slap at Labor as well. The CPG absolutely feel that it cannot criticise the government, no matter how egregious its conduct, without a gratuitous slap at Bill Shorten as well – it’s the politically (literally) correct thing to do these days.

    The one thing she got wrong, though, was criticising the Corgi for say that it was one of the dumbest things he’d heard. Corgi was absolutely right. For him, it is purely politics – and conceding the possibility of the Coalition pricing any aspect of carbon emission was absolutely dumb.

    Because people like the Corgi and Beetroot and Abbott and Turnbull do not give a shit about our country, let alone the rest of the world. All they care about is winning – for their side of politics or, in the case of Turncoat who has no external values whatsoever, for himself.

  6. Zoomster

    Not at all. I was talking about someone with say 5/6 hrs work per day as a cleaner, barista or security guard. 25-30 hrs per week will nett them something around $600 per week. Sure they may get income supplements etc, but they sure as hell will NOT get social housing. they will NOT be on welfare although they may get a tax rebate.

    The killer is of course rent – I looked up the cost of a family renting a caravan at Bacchus Marsh – cost about $300/week plus electricity. They will need a car because mostly on shift work and PT is not reliable from caravan parks. They will also need mobile phones – this is mandatory for those in the commercial cleaning industry as they need to ring in shifts etc – often on arrival or for time sheets and of course if they are running late or sick. employers do NOT provide phones and there will not be any public phones to be found in working order.

    So we a re looking at $300 for caravan rent (family of 4), $50 at least for transport and say $50 for electricity and phone. That leaves say $200 for all other expenses plus whatever income supplements they may get. No if you do not smoke or drink, you can of course live OK on $200 but if you put $50 away for contingencies – car servicing urgent travel, medicines etc, and say $25/wk for clothes shoes etc, you have just $125 left for eating. This will not go very far in a family of four and probably will not run to meat other than chicken or mince.

    of course if you smoke and drink there will be very little over for food.

  7. Surely the basis of this argument is that total deprivation is reached when a family is unable to buy a Christmas roast. That’s Barnaby old-fashioned thinking.

  8. Hey all. Got a bit of news on the Industrial Relations front that doesn’t seem to have been reported as yet.
    A University in W.A. that is currently (supposedly 🙂 ) in negotiations for a new enterprise agreement has spat the dummy on Friday. They have issued a notice to staff Friday arvo that they are going to the FWC to apply to have the current (2014) agreement terminated. Yup, terminated. Revert to the 2010 award and NES

    That’s after about 7 months of “negotiation” where the employer has been intransigent from the start, has been egregiously bad at crafting clauses (a lot of their drafts are just bad english, confusing and often internally self contradictory…very weird.

    Their last “position” was a take it or leave it offer. 3% pay rise over a 4 year period..(yup, less than 1% per year ) and absolute acceptance of all their bargaining positions on each clause….some of those positions aren’t even draft clauses yet.

    They say they will make an “undertaking” that peoples take home pay will stay the same. But……conditions revert to the 2010 award (pay under that is about 40% less that the current agreement) and NES.

    Even if their undertaking on pay is believable, seems what they are after is the redundancy provisions. Currently the agreement has 3 weeks /year of service plus 26 weeks. the 2010 award has nothing on redundancy so reverts to NES which has a max of 12 weeks after 10 years service. Unis in general are looking at redundancies of late and i think this is their plan. Do a round of layoffs much more cheaply by doing the IR nuclear war thing.

    Interestingly, looks like its all being driven by the employer association out of Canberra. Anyone else remember the 2005=06 HEWRRS stuff that was the prototype of WorkChoices??

    Anyhow, will be on and off computer todayy as being domestic, but thought people may find if of interest.

  9. Lizzie
    Perhaps I should rephrase that as celebration treats – be it stuffed mushrooms and a birthday cake or an Xmas ham.

    Now I have a constrained income and I sure as hell notice the price of meat these days. I was talking to a friend recently – came down in the world a bit and lives on the pension. Can only afford mince. Does smoke which bites into the pension.

    Other traps are using visa cards for emergencies and then having huge fees to pay.

  11. Bemused

    What world do you live in?

    Answer – one helluva lot of people are addicted to smoking and I suspect that many (possibly all) will choose a fag over a sausage if that is their only choice.

  13. My wife liked a particular unspecified movie with Kirk where he used a sword point to lift a young ladies skirt. That would be for health purposes, you would understand.

    So many wonderful Kirk Douglas movies:

    * The Bad And The Beautiful,
    * Lust For Life,
    * Seven Days In May,
    * Ace In The Hole,
    * Detective Story,
    * 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,
    * Paths Of Glory,
    * Lonely Are The Brave,
    * The Heroes Of Telemark,
    * Spartacus     (of course)…

    and plenty of others, I’m sure I haven’t seen or was too young to appreciate.

    Of all of them, my favourites as “complete” films – “complete”meaning everything: Douglas himself, co-stars, production values, the story, the “vibe”,memorability, moral impact – are either The Bad And The Beautiful or Seven Days In May. Maybe I’ve seen Spartacus too many times, or maybe it’s just the miscasting of Tony Curtis as Antoninus. Nothing against Curtis at all, but castinghim as a sensitive Roman troubador and bath slave? C’mon Kirk! What were you thinking?

    But really, they’re all right up there, crowded around the winner’s podium. a wonderful body of work from Mr Danielovitch, er, Douglas.

  14. My wife liked a particular unspecified movie with Kirk where he used a sword point to lift a young ladies skirt. That would be for health purposes, you would understand.

    So many wonderful Kirk Douglas movies:

    * The Bad And The Beautiful,
    * Lust For Life,
    * Seven Days In May,
    * Ace In The Hole,
    * Detective Story,
    * 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,
    * Paths Of Glory,
    * Lonely Are The Brave,
    * The Heroes Of Telemark,
    * Spartacus     (of course)…

    and plenty of others, I’m sure I haven’t seen or was too young to appreciate.

    Of all of them, my favourites as “complete” films – “complete”meaning everything: Douglas himself, co-stars, production values, the story, the “vibe”,memorability, moral impact – are either The Bad And The Beautiful or Seven Days In May. Maybe I’ve seen Spartacus too many times, or maybe it’s just the miscasting of Tony Curtis as Antoninus. Nothing against Curtis at all, but castinghim as a sensitive Roman troubador and bath slave? C’mon Kirk! What were you thinking?

    But really, they’re all right up there, crowded around the winner’s podium. a wonderful body of work from Mr Danielovitch, er, Douglas.

  16. dtt

    ‘The killer is of course rent – I looked up the cost of a family renting a caravan at Bacchus Marsh – cost about $300/week plus electricity..’

    Well, that’s silly of them. You can rent a house within 10k of Melbourne for that price.

    What’s more, if they’re willing to live in Bacchus Marsh, there’s a range of family homes for rent in the town itself for less than $300.

    For example, this three bedroom townhouse for $235 —

    http://www.rent.com.au/property-house-bacchus+marsh-3340-2095035?search_token=7ec7b9e2e68a46ea37fe7caf

  17. From Lenore Taylor’s article https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/10/turnbull-was-right-in-2009-ruling-out-emissions-trading-is-bullshit

    “First, let’s get this straight. You cannot cut emissions without a cost. To replace dirty coal-fired power stations with cleaner gas-fired ones or renewables like wind, let alone nuclear power or even coal-fired power with carbon capture and storage, is all going to cost money … So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, ‘bullshit’. Moreover, he knows it,” Turnbull the backbencher-with-convictions wrote.

    It may be my memory and the passage of time, but I do not recall any ALP politician putting it as succinctly as that.

    Gillard was in the position of arguing for a ‘tax’ vs some non-existent ‘cost-free’ alternative.

    The reality that I never really saw hammered was that it was ‘price on carbon paid by polluters’ vs ‘tax payers slugged to pay polluters’.

  18. zoomster @ #2016 Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 12:37 pm

    dtt
    ‘The killer is of course rent – I looked up the cost of a family renting a caravan at Bacchus Marsh – cost about $300/week plus electricity..’
    Well, that’s silly of them. You can rent a house within 10k of Melbourne for that price.
    What’s more, if they’re willing to live in Bacchus Marsh, there’s a range of family homes for rent in the town itself for less than $300.
    For example, this three bedroom townhouse for $235 —
    http://www.rent.com.au/property-house-bacchus+marsh-3340-2095035?search_token=7ec7b9e2e68a46ea37fe7caf

    You are ruining DTTs game of hypotheticals with facts. Please stop.

  20. DTT

    If you are talking cuts to pension. Those on pension suffer no penalties from recent cuts put through by LNP.

    The only thing that has changed is rents. Those people on the pension renting privately will have to move. I think thats wrong but they do not need to choose between renting and having Christmas dinner.

    If they are using Visa to pay off debts that indicates a need gfor financial education or imposing protected income like some do under state schemes.

    I am all for blowing the whistle on inequality but we have to be realistic.

    That all said as ACOSS has pointed out continually welfare payouts are too punitive and need to take into account rents. The rate should as it used to be set at Sydney rents. It gives government more incentive to address high rents

  25. lizzie @ #2007 Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 12:16 pm

    Surely the basis of this argument is that total deprivation is reached when a family is unable to buy a Christmas roast. That’s Barnaby old-fashioned thinking.

    As with Trump voters in the USA, it is not total deprivation, it is the fear of total deprivation. It is the fear of being with the total losers who don’t even have a Christmas roast and who would rather spend it on alcohol, drugs and crap tattoos.

    The fear of having old and comfortable ways of doing things forcibly removed is a powerful motivator in the push back from the right in all countries. It is the equivalent of pretending that something hugely threatening, potentially uncontrollable and proven by evidence to the elites, like real climate change, is not real by focussing on minutiae and irrelevancies.

    The fear of not being able to afford the lamb roast is a powerfully emotive prospect – made even more powerful by the fact that it is absolute rubbish and demonstrably so. The more evidence that the ‘elites’ pile on, the more those who don’t get it or want to get it, believe the evidence is manufactured and believe manufactured evidence that shows the reality is manufactured.

  26. “The demographers, FWIW, are saying that global population will start flat-lining some time in the next 35 years” Given that the USA will soon have a President Trump, there’s a reasonable chance that the world’s population will decline in the next 35 weeks.

  27. Russia interfering in the election does indeed appear to be a slow burn

    …

    2

    2

    Kurt Eichenwald
    10m10 minutes ago
    Kurt Eichenwald ‏@kurteichenwald
    This Russia issue is not going away. This will be the focus of investigations – press, governments, congress — for months to come.

  28. It may be my memory and the passage of time, but I do not recall any ALP politician putting it as succinctly as that.

    That may be because they didn’t put it that way, your memory is faulty or, most likely (according to my memory), any rational explanation was drowned out by the daily hysteria drummed up by Abbott and co and filling all the news – on the ABC every bit as much as on the commercial clickbait-style ‘news’ programs.

  33. tpof @ #2028 Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    It may be my memory and the passage of time, but I do not recall any ALP politician putting it as succinctly as that.

    That may be because they didn’t put it that way, your memory is faulty or, most likely (according to my memory), any rational explanation was drowned out by the daily hysteria drummed up by Abbott and co and filling all the news – on the ABC every bit as much as on the commercial clickbait-style ‘news’ programs.

    All true no doubt.
    But as I recall, the point was never forcefully mad that it was not ‘price on carbon’ vs ‘cost-free’ alternatives that worked. Any alternative was going to be funded by the tax payer.

  34. The demographers, FWIW, are saying that global population will start flat-lining some time in the next 35 years.

    I can think of so many reasons why this could be true.

  37. S
    I had restrained myself but the thought had crossed my mind.
    No doubt there are a few assumptions in the population modelling which are now going to be given a bit of a workout.

  38. lizzie
    The main reason in the discussion I heard was women climbing out of poverty and/or gaining control over contraception.
    It would surprise many, for example, to know that Bangla Desh is close to population stasis now.

  40. My OH and son are heading off for about 5 weeks in UK and Portugal. Any tips from the travellers here on the best way to transfer money there. The Cash Passports all seem to have lousy exchange rates and I expect using a credit card won’t give a good rate either.
    Get a Citibank Fee-Free Account. Brilliant for travellers. Once I worked out which bank didn’t have an ATM fee I got cash anywhere I want in Sri Lanka with no fees and good conversion rate.

    http://www.citibank.com.au/aus/banking/everyday_banking/citibank_plus.htm

    Also just use your Visa or Mastercard for credit purchases. Pretty hard to do better than their conversion and no worries about carrying cash.

  41. But as I recall, the point was never forcefully mad that it was not ‘price on carbon’ vs ‘cost-free’ alternatives that worked. Any alternative was going to be funded by the tax payer.

    My recollection was that the point was made – that Direct Action would be using taxpayers money to pay polluters. It was never able to cut through. None of the CPG picked up and ran with it as an obvious flaw in the Coalition’s plan. They were all totally obsessed with Gillard and Rudd and Tony’s made for TV theatre. Despite being every bit as avid a news hound as I am now, the number of times I kept hearing – especially on the ABC – of some government initiative or action in terms of Abbott’s response, rather than the action itself, astonished me.

    In my whole adult life I had never seen an opposition so easily able to get reporting and a government finding it so difficult – and this was because the opposition had less policies than any opposition – from either side of politics – leading up to an election in my lifetime.

  42. Bw

    I heard was women climbing out of poverty and/or gaining control over contraception.

    Certainly ‘Amen’ to the ‘and/or’ bit.

  45. This:
    Why is it that when a comedian such as Sacha Baron Cohen wants to make a movie about dictatorship, The Dictator, he opts to feature a dictator looking like an Arab potentate? Have there not been enough dictators in Europe: Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Nicolae Ceausescu, Slobodan Milosevic?
    and this:
    It is perhaps too early to offer any definite answer to any one of these questions. But the fact remains that the alarming congregation of racist, white supremacist, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, militaristic billionaire forces inside the White House are bound to craft a whole new vintage of a nasty prescription the US usually orders for other political cultures, and yet it has now returned like a bulldog to bite itself.
    from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/12/prospect-banana-republic-161207123725710.html.
    Donald Trump will keep us entertained for at least four more years; but at what cost?

  47. Lenore Taylor:

    So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, ‘bullshit’.

    This is true but misleading because the total cost of not reducing carbon pollution is much larger than the cost of reducing it through a prudent combination of mandates and pricing mechanisms. Apart from the much greater total cost of not reducing carbon pollution there is the question of how the costs of action/inaction are distributed. At present the costs of inaction are shared inequitably and stupidly. We can reduce carbon pollution in ways that spread costs equitably and sensibly.

  48. Rex

    there is a legitimate progressive ALP leader in Victoria just getting things done for Victorians.

    Victorians Melbournians only, it seems.

  49. nicholas @ #2047 Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    Lenore Taylor:

    So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, ‘bullshit’.

    This is true but misleading because the total cost of not reducing carbon pollution is much larger than the cost of reducing it through a prudent combination of mandates and pricing mechanisms. Apart from the much greater total cost of not reducing carbon pollution there is the question of how the costs of action/inaction are distributed. At present the costs of inaction are shared inequitably and stupidly. We can reduce carbon pollution in ways that spread costs equitably and sensibly.

    The states will produce a Emissions Intensity Scheme to further erode the federal parliaments credibility.

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