Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor

Back to normal from Newspoll after a blowout in Labor’s favour a fortnight ago.

Newspoll has Labor’s lead back at 53-47 after a 54-46 blowout a fortnight ago, with primary votes at 37% for the Coalition (up two), 38% for Labor (steady), 9% for the Greens (steady) and 8% for One Nation (down one). Both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten are on 34% approval and 54% disapproval, which means one-point drops in both for Turnbull, and no change for Shorten. Oddly, Malcolm Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister has blow out to 46-29, from 43-33. Paywalled report from The Australian here.

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.

631 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. Why?

    Why is every area in a city know called a precinct?

    Why is every remotely famous person referred to as an icon?

    Why is anyone who goes through a bit of strife and comes through it on a path to redemption?

  2. Boerwar

    TPOF
    All very logical. But all wars are started for all sorts of very logical reasons. Some don’t get it that the end rarely justifies the means. Most war starters go the extra yard. They don’t get it that the end rarely has much real world relationship with the logic of the beginning.
    ________________________________________

    I agree. But usually wars don’t break out unless there is somebody really keen on one, even if they miscalculate. Take my example of Hitler. You can also look at the outbreak of the First World War where there were certain parties, especially on the German side, who saw an immediate outbreak of war as essential.

    In this case, nobody, not even the crazy North Koreans, want a war. They are obsessed about protecting the regime and an outbreak of a hot war will absolutely guarantee the end of the regime, even at humungous cost to everyone else. The only risk (but a very real one) is that someone outside NK miscalculates what action will lead the NK leadership to conclude that the regime is directly under attack (a la Iraq).

  3. antonbruckner11

    Mathias has got half a brain, so he knew that opening the citizenship can of worms where you are the government on a slender majority (and therefore have the most to lose) was totally nuts. But Malcolm doesn’t see it like that. He’s just a thug trying to make it through the day without being stabbed to death.
    __________________________________-

    Cormann would also be aware of what we here are all aware of, because it is on the public record – that Labor’s comprehensive processes make it least likely that there would be any, let alone a slew, of Labor MPs and Senators caught up in s.44. Not even MAD, because the impact of an audit or a free-for-all will fall most heavily on the most incompetent parties. And we all know who they are.

  4. Rundle on Crikey reckons that there may be dual citizenship issues with Danby, Dreyfus and Frydenberg because all three have automatic Right of Return under Israeli law.

  5. Would it be cynical to suggest that now it’s pretty clear that both sides aren’t “as bad as each other” on the citizenship issue, it’s time for the MSM to declare that the entire issue is all just an unimportant distraction?

  6. TPOF @ #460 Monday, September 4th, 2017 – 5:17 pm

    antonbruckner11

    Mathias has got half a brain, so he knew that opening the citizenship can of worms where you are the government on a slender majority (and therefore have the most to lose) was totally nuts. But Malcolm doesn’t see it like that. He’s just a thug trying to make it through the day without being stabbed to death.
    __________________________________-

    Cormann would also be aware of what we here are all aware of, because it is on the public record – that Labor’s comprehensive processes make it least likely that there would be any, let alone a slew, of Labor MPs and Senators caught up in s.44. Not even MAD, because the impact of an audit or a free-for-all will fall most heavily on the most incompetent parties. And we all know who they are.

    So if that’s the case why don’t they vote for an audit and let the High Court see them into Govt ?

  7. So what happens if the high court strikes down the postal vote and rightfully rules dual citizens ineligible to sit in parliament. Does the LNP wage war on the high court?

  8. Rex

    So if that’s the case why don’t they vote for an audit and let the High Court see them into Govt ?

    _________________________________________

    Because even though you have a mind that can think only in terms of debased politics, there is a question of principle.

  9. Boerwar

    Rundle on Crikey reckons that there may be dual citizenship issues with Danby, Dreyfus and Frydenberg because all three have automatic Right of Return under Israeli law.

    _________________________________________________

    I’ve never had any time for Rundle and that proposition proves it. The automatic Right of Return does not extend citizenship rights to every Jew in the world. It only enables Jews to go to Israel and acquire citizenship there.

  10. BC
    They routinely attack any person or institution or tradition that gets in their way.

    So they answer is most likely a ‘yes’.

  11. TPOF asks about the purpose of the Home Office Form NQ:

    If you are a foreign or Commonwealth citizen resident in the United Kingdom, and require
    confirmation for the authorities of your home country that you have not become a British citizen,
    you should apply using this form. Send all parts of this form together with the payment slip from
    the fees leaflet.

  12. TPOF @ #467 Monday, September 4th, 2017 – 5:26 pm

    Rex

    So if that’s the case why don’t they vote for an audit and let the High Court see them into Govt ?

    _________________________________________

    Because even though you have a mind that can think only in terms of debased politics, there is a question of principle.

    the principle of eligibility… ?

  13. TPOF

    I hereby seek special dispensation from William’s Law of Extended Quotations as follows. I assume that Crikey subscribers have already exercised their benefits and that I do not harm Rundle’s professional status by quoting him holus bolus as follows. The discussion is clearly not as black and white as you seem to think.

    “Section 44 … covers both people with a present entitlement, who are currently citizens, but also people who could be entitled to citizenship if they applied,” she said.

    “The others (MPs) are being referred and … this has to be referred to the High Court.”

    It seems highly possible that this expanded conception would apply to the “right to return” as well. Section 44 is, as we have come to realise, pretty wide-ranging:

    44. Any person who –

    (i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power … shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

    The key question here is the phrase referring to “rights and privileges of a subject or citizen …”, which suggests that you don’t actually have to be a citizen, you just simply enjoy some of the privileges that would accrue to them.

    Now, the “law of return” as promulgated in Israel in 1950, two years after the country’s founding, is pretty unequivocal:

    Right of aliyah** 1. Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh.**
    Oleh’s visa 2. (a) Aliyah shall be by oleh’s visa.
    (b) An oleh’s visa shall be granted to every Jew who has expressed his desire to settle in Israel,
    An oleh is defined thus:
    **Aliyah means immigration of Jews, and oleh (plural: olim) means a Jew immigrating to Israel.

    The law was widened a couple of times, from the traditional definition of someone Jewish — born of a Jewish mother — to include converts, those with at least one Jewish grandparent, and male or female and spouses. Once in Israel on an oleh visa, a full citizenship process is undertaken. People can be knocked back — even if they’re deemed to be Jewish — but they effectively have to be deemed an enemy of the state.

    [Poll Bludger: section 44 is a sticky wicket in need of reform]

    Now, in its extended form, this is the sort of automatic right that the High Court judgment Sykes v Cleary identified as a problem with 44 — that some forms of citizenship were inalienable, no matter how much you tried to renounce them. Sykes v Cleary concluded that all you had to do was take “reasonable steps” to renounce them; whether the nation in question accepted the renunciation was irrelevant.

    Many Western Jews have renounced their “right of return” to a country they consider occupied territory, with a group of UK Jews doing so in, where else, The Guardian. In Australia, Eva Cox and Antony Loewenstein have both publicly renounced their right. So the obvious thing for eligible Australian MPs to do would be to make a similar renunciation, right?

    Well, that’s where it gets complicated, because unlike practically any other second citizenship right, renouncing the “right of return” is a political act that runs directly counter to the interests of the politicians concerned. The renunciation carries no absolute force; you could always have a change of heart and turn up in Tel Aviv, no matter what you’d said. But for the three most prominent eligible MPs — Josh Frydenberg, Mark Dreyfus and Michael Danby — such a public renunciation would be a political disaster.

    All three hold south-eastern Melbourne seats, with a larger than average Jewish population, and Danby’s seat of Melbourne Ports covers St Kilda and Caulfield, pretty much the centre of Australian Jewish life (and it must be said, of Jewish anti-Zionism).

    Frydenberg’s office told Crikey that the right of return did not count as the rights of citizenship under section 44, and Danby’s office said the same, adding: “Michael is not and has never been an Israeli citizen … Michael has never applied for the visa.” Dreyfus’ office did not respond before deadline.

    Other MPs may be eligible, but I don’t propose to run down a list of MPs, picking out people one-quarter Jewish or thus by marriage.

    What’s really sticky about all this is that relations between Australia and Israel are one of the places where the question of dual loyalties anticipated by section 44 exactly comes into play. Though governments of both parties have affirmed pretty unstinting support of Israel as part of the Western alliance, Israel’s sometimes adventurist strategies are not always to our advantage.’

  14. Only 11 to go.

    In some ways it seems to have taken Turnbull a long way to get to only 11 to go.

    In other ways, it seems like an eternity.

  15. z
    Was his postulated peccant behaviour a matter of straight-out theft or merely double dipping like those notorious women victims of vicious Coalition viturperation?

  16. @rex

    I think it’s been because the ALP want to win by 20 seats at an election not a few seats on a technicality. Also prolonging the scandal is good for them.

  17. c
    I can’t imagine them doing the Gadarene Swine thing and rushing over a cliff by giving Turnbull the Royal Order of the Liberal Chop. But these chaps are so comprehensively incompetent that nothing would suprise.

  18. Fentonthedragon: @dakindon @denniallen @greensinspa @BevanShields You actually need “Form RN” to renounce your “Citizenship by descent” & noting Form NQ is dated 15/08/17 … off to the High Court for Anne.

  19. BW. I need to go out, but a brief reply.

    The law that Rundle quotes makes it clear that aliyah can only achieved by applying for it. It does not matter that there is not much involved in doing so or that it provides an easy and accelerated path to citizenship. Those people who have renounced the right have done so to make a political point, not out of any personal necessity. At best, it’s corollary is someone who is not a citizen of another country but who can acquire status and benefits on application.

  20. So if the Govt were to lose the confidence of the House and Bill Shorten became Prime Minister and immediately called a general election, how many seats would the ALP win ?

  21. Just got polled by Ask Australia Marketing Research about Marriage Equality. Questions: 1) Do you support the right of people of the same sex to marry, 2) Do you work full-time, part-time work or are you retired, 3) Which industry: Mining, farming and agriculture, a third choice (manufacturing I think), and “other”, which I chose, 4) My age cohort, and 5, my gender. Only male or female as choices, no “prefer not to say”

    If I had to guess, I would say it is some group trying to find a conservative demographic to target the “no” case to.
    The employment field choice was just bizarre.

    Has anyone come across this survey?

  22. ABCthedrum: “Ronald Reagan said ‘we cannot win a #nuclearwar & it must never be fought’. That is the guiding principle of the US, I hope” Kirby #TheDrum pic.twitter.com/Mt2LkC22q0

  23. StephenMcDonell: #ChinaForeignMinistry spokesperson has just twice dodged questions whether #NorthKorea had informed Beijing beforehand of recent nuke test

  24. g

    There has generally been some sort of major tension between State and Defense in the US.

    Trump has destroyed this by gutting State. IMO, it is only a matter of time before Tillerson quits in total disgust.

    One of the implications is that the dangerous Alt Right in Defense now has the hands on the reins.

    The other is that there is simply no institutional counterweight to Trump jumping off the rails and going 100% rogue in foreign affairs.

  25. In 1970, as a teenager with my family returning from my first overseas trip (to New Zealand)…. on the 707 coming back.. when filling out the small piece paper for the immigration department under nationality i wrote “British subject” because that’s what we learned.

    All my grandparents and all but one great grandparent (born in Ireland) were born in Australia. But that never gave me UK citizenship now.

    The man at the immigration desk said we say “Australian” for nationality now. 🙂

  26. PvO did an estimate of February, March next year for magic number 30.

    As I posted earlier by then I expect the Snowy Mountains chopper worn out, and off on long term maintenance.

  27. It’s not over yet for Abbott:
    @samanthamaiden
    ·
    5h
    In fact for many months when I asked for it @TonyAbbottMHR after leadership spill office said couldn’t find but did have it. I have emails

  28. With this latest movement in Newspoll towards the government, should we expect a corresponding figure in the widely respected Fifty Acres-Yougov?

    Say 53-47 to the Government?

  29. guytaur
    Mari

    Good to see you hope things are well with you

    Yes thank you, home from overseas safely, getting over a 24 hour wog at the moment, hell of a way to lose weight!

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