Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor

Nearly two-thirds of respondents want Barnaby Joyce out as Nationals leader, as the Coalition and Malcolm Turnbull lose their gains from the year’s first poll a fortnight ago.

Newspoll has Labor’s lead back at 53-47, after its first new poll for the year a fortnight ago had it down to 52-48. The Coalition is down two on the primary vote to 36%, with Labor steady on 37%, the Greens steady on 10%, and One Nation bouncing back three points after a recent slump to 8%. Malcolm Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 45-31 to 40-33. All we have in terms of leadership approval at this stage are that Malcolm Turnbull’s net rating has weakened from minus 13% to minus 18%. Also featured is a finding that 65% of respondents believe Barnaby Joyce should resign as leader of the Nationals, which breaks down into a lot of detail I’m finding hard to parse from Simon Benson’s report in The Australian. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1632.

UPDATE: Malcolm Turnbull is down three on approval to 34% and up four on disapproval 54%; Bill Shorten is steady on 34% approval and up two on disapproval to 54%. Only 23% agreed that Barnaby Joyce should remain Nationals leader, with 29% favouring him resigning from the front bench, 15% bowing out at the next election, and 21% quitting parliament immediately. The poll also finds 64% support for a ban on sexual relations between politicians and their employees, with 25% opposed.

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.

2,598 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor”

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  2. Thank you for all your “distressed” info. 🙂

    For gamblers with high stakes?
    Perhaps Lucy is the one with the safe investments. 😆

  3. If Labor’s primary can’t get a bounce after that catastrophic week for the Govt then they’ve peaked.

    When the Nats are done organising their new leadership team the you’d think the polls will again tighten.

  4. joshgnosis: There is, eventually, going to be an entire division of the AFP devoted to investigating the social media accounts of politicians.

  5. “PM: “I don’t want to comment.”

    And if it was a confused youth in a Muslim family in Bankstown posting a picture of himself taking aim at Unbelievers, you wouldn’t be able to shut him up. And the family’s home would be raided by the AFP.

  7. zoomster @ #95 Monday, February 19th, 2018 – 8:49 am

    So Turnbull takes office affairs so seriously that he thinks they need to be banned, but can’t be bothered asking someone he has a ‘close working relationship’ with about rumours of infidelity?

    At the very least, you’d expect a “Are things going OK at home?”

    Oh, it was just a rumour and there are soooo many rumours about these things going around parliament one does not lower oneself to verifying them.

    Anyway, if he asked it would wreck the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ plausible deniability defense he is running with now.

    So, basically, keep the office affair on the down low, as a rumour, don’t get the other party preggers, and then you can carry on as before because Turnbull won’t be delving into such ‘rumours’.

  8. Rob Oakeshott‏ @RobOakeshott1 · 2m2 minutes ago

    Drafting a definition of sex is going to keep some people busy in the parliamentary legal team this week. How many regulations, amendments, and by-laws? And can’t wait for the regulatory impact statement and committee submissions…

  9. Morning all

    Been enjoying the contributions of DB Cooper and Cameron on the Trump Imbroglio! Cheers

    Meanwhile as mentioned above, if it is accurate that Lucy Turnbull contacted Natalie Joyce, i wonder if she politely told her not to speak to the media about the marriage breakdown. I don’t put anything past these people.

  10. And note that whenever Turnbull extols his ‘magnificent’ level of creation of jobs, he never mentions wages.

    Which puts up in lights that the Coalition are unconcerned about wages stagnating.

  11. Noely‏ @YaThinkN · 9m9 minutes ago

    Oh Good Dog! I can’t believe the Coalitions media strategy this morning can be basically reduced to:

    “OMG! BILL SHORTEN WANTS TO BE PRIME MINISTER AND BONK HIS STAFF”

    Guys, you have a squillion spin doctors, maybe do yourselves a favour & sack some.

  13. I am of the view that Turnbull knew quite a great deal of the Barnaby saga. He was absolutely focussed on him contesting the by election and winning. It was all about keeping the one seat majority.

    I maintain that if BJoyce’s partner never got pregnant, this whole thing would have been kept under control.

    There are so many aspects to BJoyce that are dubious, in particular the decisions made in his portfolio. Add the travel expenses, jobs for the partner. the free accommodation, etc it really is a shit show.

    He could have given the appearance of doing the right thing by resigning from the get go. But of course, he is an entitled self absorbed buffoon.

  16. My thoughts exactly on Lucy/Natalie call Victoria.

    I’m betting Lucy applied ‘logic’ leverage … explaining how the fallout would cause further damage to her daughters and she “wouldn’t want that, would she?”

    And, as usual, Natalie would put her own hurt on the bottom shelf “for the good of everyone else” (and by implication, the good of Malcolm).

    That’s how these things often go.

  18. Fess

    Trump’s tweets tell you everything you need to know about where this is headed. He is having a meltdown, and will end up needing medical attention. Whether he is doing this by design or genuinely lost his shit, that part I don’t know.
    Mueller has everything he needs. He has employed an excellent strategy.

  19. Did anyone (not even Hunt) ever believe in Direct Action? Complete farce.

    Nearly 60 Australian industrial sites have been given the green light to increase greenhouse gas pollution, potentially cancelling out hundreds of millions of dollars of public spending on emissions cuts under the Coalition’s Direct Action climate policy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/19/emissions-increases-approved-by-regulator-may-wipe-out-260m-of-direct-action-cuts?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

  20. Cat

    Labor expects staffers to know that having an office affair can get out and that can have negative political consequences. So its just assumed the same rules that apply for the public service apply to that.

    This is of course all Mr Shorten has to say. What applies to public servants applies to our staffers.
    One line destruction of the stupidity of that claim by Turnbull for the rusted on LNP supporters to grasp

  21. booleanbach @ #64 Monday, February 19th, 2018 – 9:10 am

    It looks like Mueller missed a few names:
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-muellers-indictments-an-interview-with-a-mole-who-was-inside-russias-pro-trump-troll-factory?ref=home

    It’s one thing to name names. It’s quite another to lay charges. Even though the indictees are outside the jurisdiction, there still needs to be a sound legal case to indict them. Mueller is doing excellent work.

  22. Vic:

    From all accounts Barnaby’s affair was common knowledge in Canberra. Of course Turnbull knew about it and was trying to keep it on the down low through the by-election .

  24. C@t

    If it is the intent to damage Turnbull once and for all, this whole saga with Joyce is the perfect situation to do so. The next shoe to drop, can very well do him in and by extension the govt. but for those who want to exact their revenge, it will be worth it

  27. Steve777

    Malcolm’s Government might be a ‘distressed investment’ for anyone wanting to be generous to, say, the Deputy PM or other Ministers or the ruling parties.

    Excellent example – “your large donation is worth jack if we’re not in government.”

  28. Rick Gates will testify against former boss Paul Manafort and enter guilty plea

    WASINGTON — A former top aide to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days and has made it clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul Manafort, the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign.

    The change of heart by Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, Rick Gates, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to those against Manafort, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case.

    “Rick Gates is going to change his plea to guilty,” said a person with direct knowledge of the development, adding that the revised plea will be presented in federal court in Washington “within the next few days.”

    That individual and others who discussed the matter spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a judge’s gag order restricting comments about the case to the news media or public.

    Gates’ defense lawyer, Thomas C. Green, did not respond to messages left by phone and email. Peter Carr, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller, declined to comment.

    Mueller is heading the prosecutions of Gates and Manafort as part of the wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump or his aides committed crimes before, during or since the campaign.

    The imminent change of Gates’ plea follows negotiations over the last several weeks between Green and two of Mueller’s prosecutors � senior assistant special counsels Andrew Weissmann and Greg D. Andres.

    According to a person familiar with those talks, Gates, a longtime political consultant, can expect “a substantial reduction in his sentence” if he fully cooperates with the investigation. He said Gates is likely to serve about 18 months in prison.

    The delicate terms reached by the opposing lawyers, he said, will not be specified in writing: Gates “understands that the government may move to reduce his sentence if he substantially cooperates but it won’t be spelled out.”

    One of the final discussion points has centered on exactly how much cash or other valuables �� derived from Gates’ allegedly illegal activity �� that the government will require him to forfeit as part of the guilty plea.

    Gates, who is married with four children, does not appear to be well positioned financially to sustain a high-powered legal defense.

    “He can’t afford to pay it,” said a lawyer who is involved with the investigation. “If you go to trial on this, that’s $1 million to $1.5 million. Maybe more, if you need experts” to appear as witnesses.

    The Oct. 27 indictment showed that prosecutors had amassed substantial documentation to support their charges that Manafort and Gates who were colleagues in political consulting for about a decade had engaged in a complex series of allegedly illegal transactions rooted in Ukraine. The indictment alleged that both men, who for years were unregistered agents of the Ukraine government, hid millions of dollars of Ukraine-based payments from U.S. authorities.

    According to the indictment, Gates and Manafort “laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts” and evaded related U.S. taxes.

    If Manafort maintains his not-guilty plea and fights the charges at a trial, the testimony from Gates could provide prosecutors with first-person descriptions of much of the allegedly illegal conduct.

    Gates’ testimony, said a person familiar with the pending guilty plea, would place a “cherry on top” of the government’s already formidable case against Manafort.

    The same individual said he did not believe Gates has information to offer Mueller’s team that would “turn the screws on Trump.” The president has repeatedly called the special counsel’s investigation a “witch hunt.”

    Gates joined Trump’s presidential campaign in June 2016, when the candidate hired Manafort as its chairman. At the Republican National Convention the next month, Gates directly handled the campaign’s operations as Manafort’s top aide.

    Perhaps the most controversial step taken by Trump’s campaign at the convention concerned how the U.S. should deal with the tense relations between Russia and Ukraine, which repudiated Moscow in a 2014 revolt.

    When a delegate proposed that the Republican platform call for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine’s military in its struggle against Russian-backed armed forces, the Trump campaign defeated the effort. Instead of U.S. weapons, the convention platform committee accepted the campaign’s substitute language, which offered Ukraine “appropriate assistance.”

    In mid-August 2016, Trump fired Manafort after reports of possibly improper payments he had received from a pro-Russia political party aligned with his longtime client, Viktor Yanukovych, who was Ukraine’s prime minister from 2010 to 2014.

    Gates, however, remained with the Trump campaign through the election as a liaison to the Republican National Committee. He also assisted Trump’s inaugural committee.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/rick-gates-will-testify-former-boss-paul-manafort-enter-guilty-plea-report/

  29. Fess

    Trump knows that him and his family are stuffed. He may be asked to depart quietly. An offer he may eventually take up. His best option is checking himself into a mental facility. He will get a pass if he does so.
    Just my opinion, but that is the vibe I have been getting for a few weeks now,

  30. As the rest of America mourns the victims of the Parkland, Florida, massacre, President Trump took to Twitter.

    Not for him the rituals of grief. He is too consumed by rage and resentment. He interrupted his holidaying schedule at Mar-a-Lago only briefly, for a visit to a hospital where some of the shooting victims were treated. He posed afterward for a grinning thumbs-up photo op. Pain at another’s heartbreak—that emotion is for losers, apparently.

    Having failed at one presidential duty, to speak for the nation at times of national tragedy, Trump resumed shirking an even more supreme task: defending the nation against foreign attack.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/america-is-under-attack-and-the-president-doesnt-care/553667/

  35. This is Melbourne 774 (Faine). Do we have a rebel in our ABC?

    ABC Melbourne‏ @abcmelbourne · 23m23 minutes ago

    Economist Saul Eslake on @albericie’s tax-cut analysis:
    “I didn’t detect any factual errors and the quotes she attributed to me were accurate and in context.”

  36. Good to see Labor putting the by election aside for important matters

    gedkearney: George Christensen’s appalling post is nothing but a threat to political opponents. Violence has absolutely no place in our political discourse and there is nothing funny about it. #auspol

  37. “If the sample is 1640 and result is 52-48 then there is a 95% chance that the result is between 49.5-50.5 and 54.5-45.5. If the result is 53-47 there is a 95% chance that the result is between 50.5-49.5 and 55.5-44.5. I know which I would rather have.”

    “My understanding, from using psychometric statistics involving confidence intervals in a professional context, is that the 95% confidence intervals do not represent the range of values the true result is 95% likely to fall within; but rather, represent a range of values that is 95% likely to contain the true result. There is a subtle, but distinct, difference.”

    The subtle difference in the above two statements may not be clear. The first is outright wrong (the intervals don’t make sense) while the second needs some clarification.

    When you undertake a confidence interval approach the confidence is not in any one interval or one range but in hypothetical repetitions of the process over many samples. You cannot say there is a 95% probability that the true value is between the CI range you construct for a given sample. The probability the true value is in the particular interval is either 0 or 1 depending on whether it is within that interval or not.

    What you can say is if you were to undertake 100 samples then 95% of the confidence intervals constructed around those samples (assuming 95% CI) will contain the true value. Thus it is likely (95 times out of 100) based on the CI process that your interval will be one of those intervals which will contain the true value.

    Cheers

  38. C@

    Maybe Bill Shorten and Labor believe you shouldn’t get into peoples’ bedrooms and tell them how to act?

    Or Shorten/Labor waiting for Turnbull to get his ‘standards’ down on paper so they can see what’s proposed before just saying ‘We Agree”.

    Silly to do otherwise.

  39. srpeatling: Tony Abbott popping up on Sydney radio station 2GB to comment it’s been “a pretty messy beginning to the year”. “It’s not easy to lead the country at this time….I know how hard it is.”

    srpeatling: Mr Abbott: “Governments should not be ruled by the polls.”

  40. I see the Guardian has stopped comments on anything that might embarrass its beloved Malcolm. Too many readers had not been buying the ‘its only about sex and Barnaby’ narrative. Any comments that mention Malcolm’s involvement were shut down. I imagine Katharine Murphy is behind this.

  41. I agree with Rob Oakeshott about a sex ban in practice. I said all along it would be difficult to police and besides, banning the sex isn’t dealing with Barnabys misconduct issues namely the dubious expenses and travel claims.

  42. Confessions says: Monday, February 19, 2018 at 9:20 am

    So Gates and Manafort are stuffed.

    Don Jnr must surely be next up.

    *******************************************************************

    Malcolm Nance‏Verified account @MalcolmNance

    With Gates turned state evidence Manafort will plead soon. He will give up Trump, Kushner & Trump jr for a deal. Mueller’s Money laundering end game could come as fast in 60-90 days. Does not mean impeachment but will open up Trump’s tax returns.

    Andrew C Laufer, Esq‏ @lauferlaw

    Mueller is a master of his craft. Peeling that onion. #TeamTreason has no chance.

  43. srpeatling: Mr Abbott says “giving public advice to people is not the best way forward”.
    Mr Abbott says it’s important for “ministers to act honourably” which “normally doesn’t include having relations with your staff”.

  47. CTar:

    It wasn’t a tweet but a screenshot of an email sent to her. And it was vile and disgusting as well as openly threatening violence against her.

  48. ct

    This is the content
    sarahinthesen8: Received this email tonight from George Christensen suporter. Classy. pic.twitter.com/jPXJEYuta9

  49. Sohar @ #140 Monday, February 19th, 2018 – 9:33 am

    I see the Guardian has stopped comments on anything that might embarrass its beloved Malcolm. Too many readers had not been buying the ‘its only about sex and Barnaby’ narrative. Any comments that mention Malcolm’s involvement were shut down. I imagine Katharine Murphy is behind this.

    The Guardian seems to have banned comments altogether.
    Perhaps you can comment when you sign in?

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