Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

A fortnight on from the Malcolm Turnbull’s unfortunate Newspoll milestone, Newspoll itself suggests the embarrassment has done him little harm.

The latest Newspoll has Labor’s lead down from 53-47 to 51-49, which is the Coalition’s best result since the start of what is now Malcolm Turnbull’s run of 31 successive Newspoll defeats. This doesn’t reflect much activity on the primary vote, on which the Coalition and Labor are both steady at 38% and 37%, with the Greens down one to 9% and One Nation steady on 7%.

There is also encouragement for Malcolm Turnbull on leadership ratings, with his approval up four to 36% and disapproval down four to 53%, although Bill Shorten also improves by two on approval to 34% and three on disapproval to 53%. Turnbull maintains only a very modest lead as preferred prime minister, of 38-35, out from 38-36 last time. The poll also finds strong support for a reduction in immigration levels, with 56% rating the present level too high, 28% about right, and only 10% too low.

A point that should be noted about the Coalition’s apparent improvement in Newspoll is that at least part of it would seem to be down to an adjustment in their preference allocations, from a model based purely on results from the 2016 election to one which gives the Coalition a stronger flow of One Nation preferences, presumably based on the experience of the Queensland and Western Australian state elections. The chart below compares the published two-party results from Newspoll with how the raw primary numbers convert using a) a 50-50 split in One Nation preferences, as they were in 2016; and b) a 60-40 split in the Coalition’s favour, which seems more likely based on state election experience.

It will be noted that Newspoll (the grey line) closely tracked the 50-50 model (the blue line) until December last year, when it snapped to the 60-40 model (the orange line). Also noteworthy is the overshoot of the grey line for the very latest result, which reflects the fact that the Coalition may have been a little lucky with rounding this week. As Kevin Bonham notes, a calculation from the published, rounded primary vote totals using the 50-50 preferences model yields a 52.4-47.6 lead for Labor – a result that would have generated considerably less buzz than this, the “best Coalition result in 18 months”.

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.

547 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor”

Comments Page 7 of 11
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  1. The results declared from the 2018 poll give the Liberals nine upper house MPs to eight for Labor, with two held by SA-BEST, two by the Greens and one by Advance SA.

    So, Labor + The Greens + SA Best + Advance SA (who dat?) can block unpalatable Liberal legislation in the Upper House. However, the Liberals + SA Best can get to 11. Does that mean the legislation will pass? Or do they need Advance SA? Or the 2 Greens votes?

  2. Millennial @ #296 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 1:55 pm

    So the ‘perfect predictor’ of these companies not paying any taxes will only last as far as said companies can continue to write-off their taxable losses to avoid paying taxes.

    So what you are saying is that the opinion of the ABC “fact checker” trumps the opinion of Senator Watt, even though the actual facts they provided support Senator Watt?

    As I have said, it should have been trivially easy to actually prove, but the ABC just couldn’t be bothered. They got their headline, which seems to be all they were interested in.

  3. 22 in the upper house – need 12 to pass legislation.

    9 Libs need 3 others to vote with them to pass.

    ALP 8
    SA-BEST 2
    Greens 2
    Advance SA 1

  4. @sustainable future

    I am not counting on the Turnbull government managing not to screw up for more than two weeks anytime before the election. Also there is the fallout which is going to occur from the Banking Royal Commission which I predict ain’t going to be good.

  5. It seems that Trump’s bragging, exaggerated tweets are typical of the lies he has been telling all his life.

    I was a determined 25-year-old reporter, and I thought that, by reeling Trump back from some of his more outrageous claims, I’d done a public service and exposed the truth. But his confident deceptions were so big that they had an unexpected effect: Instead of believing that they were outright fabrications, my Forbes colleagues and I saw them simply as vain embellishments on the truth. We were so wrong.

    This was a model Trump would use for the rest of his career, telling a lie so cosmic that people believed that some kernel of it had to be real. The tactic landed him a place on the Forbes list he hadn’t earned – and led to future accolades, press coverage and deals. It eventually paved a path toward the presidency.

    …Eventually, nearly every one of Trump’s pronouncements about his wealth unravelled.

    https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/trump-lied-to-me-about-his-wealth-to-get-onto-the-forbes-400-20180421-p4zava.html

  6. Holden Hillbilly,
    Well that is fine for the SA Lib gov’t then. The Libs can always get at least one Green to roll over for a tummy-rub and SA Best will probably vote with the Lib Govt. The other one is a given.

  7. sustainable future @ #295 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 1:53 pm

    So the polls tighten, causing concern to the sworn leader of the opposition who is hell-bent on destroying Turnbull. What will be his next step? I’m talking about Tony, not Bill.

    I think this poll shows that voters don’t much like shorten and will come back to turnbull if he and his clowns don’t fuck up for longer than 2 weeks. This is the first time in a while that they have gone without serious fuck-ups for two weeks. With the cheering the MSM will give them for their budget, I reckon we could see it back to 50:50. a labor newspoll lead of 51:49 generally means the libs would win the election. shorten needs to lift his game and not hope it falls into his lap.

    It’s looking as though the ALP prioritises Bill Shortens position as leader ahead of winning the next election.

  8. Question to everybody where, if the election result ends up with a two party preferred vote of 52 to Labor and 48 to the Coalition (roughly a 2.5% swing to Labor compared to 2016), what is the most seats either Labor or the Coalition can win?

    My estimate would be Labor winning 77 to 81 seats and the Coalition winning between 64 to 69 seats.

  9. SA deliberately and quite clearly elected an LNP government, they quite clearly deserve an LNP Govt, they should waste huge amounts of money on an interconnector while ensuring there isn’t enough real retail competition. They should build a big new expensive coal fired power station. They wanted schools and tafes shut down and hospitals underfunded and profits syphoned off to liberal party donors.

    This is what they voted for, this is what they deserve.

  10. Rex Douglas @ #306 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 2:21 pm

    sustainable future @ #295 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 1:53 pm

    So the polls tighten, causing concern to the sworn leader of the opposition who is hell-bent on destroying Turnbull. What will be his next step? I’m talking about Tony, not Bill.

    I think this poll shows that voters don’t much like shorten and will come back to turnbull if he and his clowns don’t fuck up for longer than 2 weeks. This is the first time in a while that they have gone without serious fuck-ups for two weeks. With the cheering the MSM will give them for their budget, I reckon we could see it back to 50:50. a labor newspoll lead of 51:49 generally means the libs would win the election. shorten needs to lift his game and not hope it falls into his lap.

    It’s looking as though the ALP prioritises Bill Shortens position as leader ahead of winning the next election.

    When they recognise your great charisma and sheer strategic genius I am sure you will get a call.
    Until then, don’t hold your breath.

  11. Jay @ #307 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 2:22 pm

    Question to everybody where, if the election result ends up with a two party preferred vote of 52 to Labor and 48 to the Coalition (roughly a 2.5% swing to Labor compared to 2016), what is the most seats either Labor or the Coalition can win?

    Impossible to calculate as the swing will be uneven and we cannot predict that seat by seat.

  12. @bemused

    Good point, although I have made a rough estimate and the result seats wise, the contest could be quite close.

  13. Noely‏ @YaThinkN · 4m4 minutes ago

    Noely Retweeted Rosie Williams

    Bloody Hell, could Serco even survive in this country as a stand-alone business if Government did not gift – sorry, outsource – so much business to them?

    Business, I would add that should be done by Govt. employees & would make those areas actually accountable to taxpayers


  14. C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 9:45 pm
    I don’t get it.


    C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 9:46 pm
    The Coalition government seem barely competent for a couple of weeks and people applaud them for it!

    C@tmomma
    the people seem to applaud (I stress the word seem) LNP because
    1. People have set a higher threshold for ALP to get into government & run it because
    a) most of the ALP parliamentarians belong to Unions (for eg. is it 18 of 27 senators from unions) when they represent on 15 % of work force.
    b) Union reprsentt 50 % delegates in ALP annual conference
    c) People tendency is to believe that ALP will not be good in government. Hence, they readily believed LNP & MSM about Gillard. And Gillard critics inside her government did not help. For example, Although Gillard Government was best government administratively after Hawke government, Gillard did not get credit for it.
    2. IMO, it should be 55-45 in ALP favour but my opinion does not make any difference. “As Kevin Bonham notes, a calculation from the published, rounded primary vote totals using the 50-50 preferences model yields a 52.4-47.6 lead for Labor – a result that would have generated considerably less buzz than this, the “best Coalition result in 18 months”. ” from primary numbers

    Primary L/NP 38 (0) ALP 37 (0) GRN 9 (-1) ON 7 (0) OTH 9 (+1) LNP get a lift in 2PP i.e. 49 (+1)
    Did Newspoll manipulated this poll?
    3. People do not trust Shorten
    4. SA & Tasmania are 2 of the most favourable states federally for ALP but in recent state elections they still got 32-33 % primary vote (before somebody starts arguing state polling is different to Federal polling, keep reading). It is big ask to get a rise in primary vote from 33-32 % to around 40% to get a good 2PP. that is my point.
    5. Also, ALP won in QLP because of things, the OPP leader is lousy & MT government at that time was very unpopular. ALP won the government by about 500-700 votes
    6. As somebody posted ALP is releasing some policies which appear to affect Babyboomers negative gearing & cancel dividend refund)
    7. People have 2 of the issues solved by LNP although it is ALP who campaigned for them along with Greens
    a) SSM
    b) Banking RC

  15. Rex Douglas says:
    Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:56 pm
    don @ #274 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 12:53 pm

    Rex Douglas says:
    Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:49 pm
    ABC news reporting a live export ship travelling from SA to WA and then on to the ME is already seeing deaths of sheep and squalid conditions.

    Only the Greens Party have a policy to end this obscenity.

    So have I.

    And like the Greens policy, it has zero chance of being legislated, unless Labor or the LNP take up the cause.

    There are those who vote for a political party and there are those who vote for a policy they feel strongly about… which are you ?

    That’s my business, but I certainly don’t vote for a party which denigrates Labor at every opportunity.

    The Greens lost me with their corflute at the Batman election. They showed their true colours, and they can go jump as far as I am concerned. And there are many more like me, I feel sure.

  16. Puffytmd says:
    Monday, April 23, 2018 at 2:14 pm

    DTT
    …”We can discuss vegetables any time we like.
    Speaking of which, has anyone seen The Beetrooter?”…


    He was last seen, staggering out of a pub in Armidale with an overtly elongated tuber.

  17. What type of society are we in if the likes of these spivs and charlatans still win the next election after the total shambles they have been for the last 6 years?

  18. Grattan article in ABC
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-23/kelly-odwyer-royal-commission-compensation-for-victims/9687110
    “Asked about her 2016 claim that “for the Labor Party to propose a royal commission into banks is reckless and ill-conceived”, she could only fall back to the weak defence that “you can obsess and Labor can obsess about these issues. I’m actually obsessed about fixing the problems”.

    In other words, the Government can be political when convenient but if brought to book, that’s just others “obsessing”.

    Labor’s idea of a royal commission had been “a stunt”, she said, but then “there is no question we got it right in establishing the royal commission”. The difference is that the Government did it soberly and deliberately, according to Ms O’Dwyer.

    Can ALP spin so effectively?
    “When politicians are unwilling to take responsibility, that just adds to the distrust and anger voters feel towards them. It’s a sign they are treating the people with disrespect, so is it any wonder they don’t get respect in return?

    This bald-faced refusal to acknowledge their own inconvenient history in part comes from the politicians’ belief that if you just burnish the “spin”, you can get away with saying anything.

    People do not appear to believe that they are disrespected by LNP (But when it comes to ALP that is a different manner, isn’t). The proof 51-49 newspoll in favour of ALP.

  19. Player One

    So what you are saying is that the opinion of the ABC “fact checker” trumps the opinion of Senator Watt, even though the actual facts they provided support Senator Watt?

    No.

    What I’m saying is due to economic/business factors specific to the recent past, companies like Qantas and MYOB were able to write off some of their losses so they weren’t required to pay taxes. However, if (emphasis on the if) they become profitable enough that their taxable income exceeds the losses they can write-off, they will start paying company tax again.

    But, because of the multitude of economic/business forces at play here, we can’t be 100% sure whether a certain company will be paying tax in a decade from now – and using only 1 year of data like Senator Watts only increases the chance of having a misleading impression.

    It’s a bit like if it was raining today and based on that information alone trying to guess how many days it’ll rain in July. Sure, we can look at forecasting from last year, study temperature and precipitation levels of the local climate, and extrapolate trends as we get closer to July, but we can only give a ballpark estimate until July’s over and we’ve collected the data.


  20. Absence of Empathy says:
    Monday, April 23, 2018 at 2:49 pm
    Puffytmd says:
    Monday, April 23, 2018 at 2:14 pm

    DTT
    …”We can discuss vegetables any time we like.
    Speaking of which, has anyone seen The Beetrooter?”…


    He was last seen, staggering out of a pub in Armidale with an overtly elongated tuber.

    I saw him today on ABC news breakfast asking spouses/ partners to be eligible for recruitment by parliamentarians

  21. Jay take another look at the “white South African farmers” meme. To be frank I think it had very little to do with importing Coalition voters and everything to do with manipulating deeply held fear and loathing of blacks in white rural voters.
    In this last “Weekend Australian” the lead article, written by Michael Owen, called “Libs push for national rollout of data trump card” outlined how the data-mining and opinion-shapers company (fabrications machine?) i360 used in the South Australian election, the first time outside of the US.
    The article itself is a beautifully crafted propaganda piece casting an extremely positive light on the use of these “stasi-for-hire” outfits using ex spies and other professions in psychometrics, data-harvesting and storing it all in cloud companies like those in Israel.
    Makes one wonder if this is another Rupert money-spinning operation and if young Michael Owen is not his front-of-house salesman? Just sayin’.
    Anyway, prepare for your brain to be boiled and fried by these people in the lead up to the next election. Information is power and they know what colours you like, what music you like, what you buy at the shops, what your daily habits are. They know you better than you know yourself.
    They turn gun-nuts into environmentalists, mining into poverty relief, sexism into the defence of wholesome male health and virility. They’re really clever.

  22. Millennial @ #319 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 12:54 pm

    Player One

    So what you are saying is that the opinion of the ABC “fact checker” trumps the opinion of Senator Watt, even though the actual facts they provided support Senator Watt?

    No.

    What I’m saying is due to economic/business factors specific to the recent past, companies like Quantas and MYOB were able to write off some of their losses so they weren’t required to pay taxes. However, if (emphasis on the if) they become profitable enough that their taxable income exceeds the losses they can write-off, they will start paying company tax again.

    But, because of the multitude of economic/business forces at play here, we can’t be 100% sure whether a certain company will be paying tax in a decade from now – and using only 1 year of data like Senator Watts only increases the chance of having a misleading impression.

    It’s a bit like if it was raining today and based on that information alone trying to guess how many days it’ll rain in July. Sure, we can look at forecasting from last year, study temperature and precipitation levels of the local climate, and extrapolate trends as we get closer to July, but we can only give a ballpark estimate until July’s over and we’ve collected the data.

    I think the reality here is that they are both right, though the context is important.

    In context available with a Tweet and Twitter more generally, Senator Watts is quite correct and the ABC are playing with semantics.

    If we were talking about long form journalism, Senator Watts would have been sloppy with the facts and context, and ABC Factcheck would be right.


  23. mundo says:
    Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 10:14 pm
    And I repeat.
    So it begins.
    As I predicted on the night of the New England by-election, ( and copped a bollocking for) the polls will be 50/50 by the budget.
    No rhyme no reason.
    It’s just the way Strayans view the Liberal party.
    all the misconceptions and dumb-arsery of the average dumb-arse mitigate against a clear run for the ALP.
    But go ahead.
    Do your worst, call me names.

    Mundo
    After ‘Bennelong’ & ‘Northcote By-elections (1 federal & 1 state) & Tassie state election, I warned on PB that LNP is coming back. But then we had Joyce Adultery debacle & it gave me some hope that people will not fall for LNP spin. Alas, my first instincts appear to be right.
    Since 1996 federal election (i.e. 22 years), ALP only had 1 majority government. No wonder LNP think they are born to rule. In fact Pyne compared LNP as a winning machine like HawthorneALFL team.

  24. A moment in time back in 2015…

    The Senate has voted down a motion for the Abbott government to hold a royal commission into misconduct in the financial services industry.

    The Greens were supported in their motion by Nationals senator John Williams, who crossed the floor. Senator Williams has been calling for a royal commission into white collar crime for six years.

    Labor senators, including Sam Dastyari, who has been a strong supporter for a royal commission into misconduct in the financial services sector, did not cross the floor.

    Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson put forward the motion following explosive allegations that senior staff at major financial services company IOOF had engaged in insider trading, front-running, misrepresentation of fund performance figures and cheating on training and compliance exams.

    The industry has been rocked in the past couple of years by scandals inside Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division, National Australia Bank, Macquarie Private Wealth and now IOOF, which manages more than $150 billion of customer money and has 650,000 clients.

    The motion was defeated 39-14 after Labor sided with the government….

    https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/senate-votes-down-call-for-royal-commission-into-financial-sector-misconduct-20150624-ghwos1.html

  25. From now until the next election, Labor’s default response to any hostile question from the media should be “So tell me, why aren’t you asking the Government about X?”, where ‘X’ is any of the Government’s numerous failures, scandals, snafus, and cover-ups.

    Their response will of course be “I’m not here asking the Government about X, I’m asking you about Y”, but it’s still the only way for Labor to actually get some publicity on the LNP’s many, many failures.


  26. lizzie says:
    Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:04 pm
    Even small indicators can have profound impacts on otherwise long term trends. The latest Newspoll may turn out to be such a moment in time.

    To be sure, the odds are that it won’t. More likely this government’s goose is cooked and the size of the defeat is the only contested point worth debating between now and the next election. But if Labor loses momentum it won’t take long for Bill Shorten to come under substantial pressure.

    The media will certainly become excited, contributing to a potential shift in momentum.

    I can almost see PvO licking his lips at the potential excitement for the MSM.

    “If Newspoll shift becomes trend, watch Labor turn on Bill Shorten”
    Lizzie
    why shouldn’t Labor tun on Shorten?
    In the 31 newspolls ,which LNP lost, not once he lead as preferred PM. Why because most people do not trust him. I know elections are not won on Preferred PM parameter & Abbott won 2013 election even though he was not preferred PM.
    I can provide the reasons why most people do not trust Shorten. May be I will do later

  27. grimace

    I think the reality here is that they are both right, though the context is important.

    In context available with a Tweet and Twitter more generally, Senator Watts is quite correct and the ABC is playing with semantics.

    If we were talking about long-form journalism, Senator Watts would have been sloppy with the facts and context, and ABC Factcheck would be right.

    I agree with that, although I will add that Senator Watt did go on Sky News the same day and echoed the same points as his tweet. (Then again, an appearance on Sky News could be said to have the same available context as a tweet. :p)

  28. WWP
    Except that I live there, I totally agree with you about South Australia. No-one had better complain to me. I should get a “Don’t Blame Me, I voted ALP’ sticker for my car.

  29. Millennial @ #327 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 1:16 pm

    grimace

    I think the reality here is that they are both right, though the context is important.

    In context available with a Tweet and Twitter more generally, Senator Watts is quite correct and the ABC is playing with semantics.

    If we were talking about long-form journalism, Senator Watts would have been sloppy with the facts and context, and ABC Factcheck would be right.

    I agree with that, although I will add that Senator Watt did go on Sky News the same day and echoed the same points as his tweet. (Then again, an appearance on Sky News could be said to have the same available context as a tweet. :p)

    As a CPA, I agree in general with the greater point that Senator Watts was making about payment of taxation and I think that ABC Factcheck got it wrong.

  30. Personality politics is ridiculous.Plenty of good/trustworthy looking people are arseholes.Its what a party stands and what it will do policywise that matters.

  31. Ven

    ‘why shouldn’t Labor tun on Shorten?’

    It is clear from the result of the leadership ballot that most Labor MPs (even those from the Left) preferred Shorten to Albo.

    They are the people who actually work with the man and are best able to judge his performance.

    Labor insiders were over the moon about the last election result – it was way beyond their expectations. Under Shorten’s leadership, Labor achieved the impossible (easy to forget that now).

    After the RGR years, Labor MPs will be after someone who can unite the party and make it competitive.

    As most of them will be feeling fairly comfortable about being re elected, they’re not going to swap leaders if they think they can win with the one they’ve got.

  32. grimace

    As a CPA, I agree in general with the greater point that Senator Watts was making about payment of taxation and I think that ABC Factcheck got it wrong.

    I’ll have to trust your word on that, good sir. 😉

  33. “Speaking of which, has anyone seen The Beetrooter?”

    According to that David Rowe cartoon earlier, he was spotted on the balcony in Pampered-plona breastfeeding the little one.

  34. zoomster @ #333 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 3:30 pm

    Ven

    ‘why shouldn’t Labor tun on Shorten?’

    It is clear from the result of the leadership ballot that most Labor MPs (even those from the Left) preferred Shorten to Albo.

    They are the people who actually work with the man and are best able to judge his performance.

    Labor insiders were over the moon about the last election result – it was way beyond their expectations. Under Shorten’s leadership, Labor achieved the impossible (easy to forget that now).

    After the RGR years, Labor MPs will be after someone who can unite the party and make it competitive.

    As most of them will be feeling fairly comfortable about being re elected, they’re not going to swap leaders if they think they can win with the one they’ve got.

    Bill Shorten won the leadership thanks to backroom union factional dealing and in doing so thumbed their noses at the rank and file membership who voted otherwise.
    Labor – for the factional few, not the rank and file many.

  35. If Shorten loses election he will prob hand over to Albo.To have a leadership spill before the next election,Labor will look as dysfunctional as the RGR Years.I think it would be total stupidity.

  36. The formation of a potential voting bloc that could wield the balance of power in the state’s new-look Upper House looks a lost cause, with former Nick Xenophon sidekick John Darley today trading insults with SA Best, labelling it full of “dickheads” and declaring the party should split.Given the Liberals lose one vote from the floor of the house to the president’s chair, either major party would need three crossbench votes to carry the day in a finely balanced Legislative Council – with the most likely scenario on paper being a centre coalition between Darley and SA Best.

    But any prospect of a unity ticket seems light years away today, with Darley heaping scorn on his former party, which he quit last year before forming his own outfit, Advance SA.

    “No, and I don’t intend to either,” he said when asked by InDaily whether he intended to make entreaties to his former colleagues.

    “They’re dickheads.”
    https://indaily.com.au/news/politics/2018/04/23/theyre-dickheads-darley/

  37. steve davis @ #337 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 3:38 pm

    If Shorten loses election he will prob hand over to Albo.To have a leadership spill before the next election,Labor will look as dysfunctional as the RGR Years.I think it would be total stupidity.

    The voters would welcome a change given consistent polling shows he is not popular.

  38. sustainable future
    a labor newspoll lead of 51:49 generally means the libs would win the election.

    And this assertion is based on… what exactly?

    shorten needs to lift his game and not hope it falls into his lap.

    If you seriously think this, you haven’t been paying attention to politics for the last five years.

    The bedwetting displayed by some here is getting ridiculous.

    Hold your nerves people!

  39. Rex Douglas

    steve davis @ #337 Monday, April 23rd, 2018 – 3:38 pm

    If Shorten loses election he will prob hand over to Albo.To have a leadership spill before the next election,Labor will look as dysfunctional as the RGR Years.I think it would be total stupidity.

    The voters would welcome a change given consistent polling shows he is not popular.

    What if the voters like you less than they do Shorten?

  40. Jeez there’s a lot of posters on this blog willing Labor to lose the next federal election! Just so they can gloat about it.

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