Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

A slight gain for the Coalition from the latest Newspoll, as Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings maintain their improving trend.

Newspoll has the Coalition gaining a point on last fortnight to narrow the gap to 51-49, maintaining a pattern over the past six polls of movement back and forth between 51-49 and 52-48. The Coalition is up a point on the primary vote to 39%, only the second time it has reached that level since early November 2016 (the previous such occasion being three polls ago), while Labor and the Greens are both down a point, to 37% and 9% respectively, and One Nation is steady on 6%. However, a straightforward application of 2016 election preferences, rather than the more Coalition-friendly split of One Nation preferences that Newspoll has adopted reflecting recent state election results, would still leave Labor’s lead at 52-48.

Perhaps the best news for the government is a two point increase in Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating to 42%, which is his best result from Newspoll since March 2016, while his disapproval is down two to 48%, its lowest since the poll on the eve of the July 2016 election. Conversely, Bill Shorten is down one on approval 32% and up two on disapproval to 57%, although Turnbull’s lead on preferred prime minister is unchanged at 46-31. The poll was conducted THursday to Sunday from a sample of 1609.

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.

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

Comments Page 7 of 14
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  2. Albo was a rat when he let people crunch the odds against Gillard in his office. What’s worse, he was too cowardly to more than connive at ratting.

  3. Normal service being resumed ❓

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

    Alas, Alack and Alay, my embarrassment is complete.

    In my foolishness, I believed that the great Ozzie nation, complete with a notion of a fair go for all, tended to be (almost) classless.

    Now by dent of chatting with the Colesworth delivery man, the Post Office parcels bloke and the regular Postie I now understand that the joint is still run by the House of Lords (Ozzie Style).

    Fortunately the dudes and dudesses of this most worthy and meritorious band of worthies are a generous and charitable bunch – I understand that one of the Dooks once gave a homeless gent five , count ’em, five dollars.

    And so, he said with the utmost sincerity, gather ye information while ye may and place yourself in the trajectory of one of our hereditary masters that ye may also benefit, perhaps also to the tune (U.S. – toon) of that legendary and possible erroneous five dollars.

    Is spring nearly upon us ❓ 🌷🌸 🌹

  6. Apologies if posted earlier but bring it on! Even if Abbott is full of hot air, it is likely that Dutton will be ‘considering his options’ right now.

    Abbott: available to lead again

    Tony Abbott says he isn’t a fan of ‘assassinating the leader’ of political parties, but is available if his party wants him to lead again. (Oz headline)

  7. Not comparing anyone to a Nazi Rex — am just saying your repetitive statements (without foundation in current reality) are a classic operant conditioning technique. Used by many. Nazis especially.

    Look at what you say, over and over and over … ad infinitum and tell us where any of it is considered opinion.

  8. If your total taxable income (from all sources – not just wages and salaries) is $152,000 per year, your income is higher than that of 95% of Australian tax-filers.

    The federal government keeps presenting public high school principals and police superintendents (whose salaries are about $150,000) as middle income earners. Public high school principals and police superintendents are in the top five percent of the income distribution. Nowhere near the middle.

    This is according to a spreadsheet sent to me by Danielle Wood of the Grattan Institute. The spreadsheet presents the Grattan Institute’s estimates of taxable income for tax-filers by percentile (for financial year 2017-2018). They mostly use the 2 percent ATO sample file, which provides a lot of detail on distributional questions.

    If your total taxable income is $91,000, your income is higher than that of 83% of tax-filers.

    If your total taxable income is $44,000, your income is higher than that of 50% of tax-filers.

    The true middle income in Australia is $44,000 per year.

  9. Barney in Go Dau says Monday, July 2, 2018 at 1:54 pm

    What have we learnt on PB this morning?

    Many here do not read the newspapers because they don’t conform to their specific world view or if they do read one it is wrong if it’s conclusion is different to theirs.

    There are too many people, on all sides of politics, who are only seeking confirmation of their biases.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

    It’s one of the reasons I don’t watch Rachel Maddow (plus her earnestness).

    I have my own biases, but I prefer my news to be non partisan, not an echo chamber of my own beliefs.

  10. zoomster @ #301 Monday, July 2nd, 2018 – 4:20 pm

    Albo was a rat when he let people crunch the odds against Gillard in his office. What’s worse, he was too cowardly to more than connive at ratting.

    Well
    Gillard, Shorten, Swan, Arbib were all rats when they did the numbers against Rudd. Probably throw in Burke, Conroy and even Combet too.

    Gillard was a rat when sh did the numbers against Beazley and again against Crean.

    It is politics Zoomster.

    Every bloody one of them is counting the numbers at some time or other.

    Cut out the holier than thou stuff. They are no saints. They have factions and power play. If they did not they would not be in parliament.

  11. jenauthor @ #308 Monday, July 2nd, 2018 – 4:26 pm

    Not comparing anyone to a Nazi Rex — am just saying your repetitive statements (without foundation in current reality) are a classic operant conditioning technique. Used by many. Nazis especially.

    Look at what you say, over and over and over … ad infinitum and tell us where any of it is considered opinion.

    ..as opposed to the mass ‘considered opinion’ here that Bill Shorten is the best…?

  12. daretotread. @ #311 Monday, July 2nd, 2018 – 4:30 pm

    zoomster @ #301 Monday, July 2nd, 2018 – 4:20 pm

    Albo was a rat when he let people crunch the odds against Gillard in his office. What’s worse, he was too cowardly to more than connive at ratting.

    Well
    Gillard, Shorten, Swan, Arbib were all rats when they did the numbers against Rudd. Probably throw in Burke, Conroy and even Combet too.

    Gillard was a rat when sh did the numbers against Beazley and again against Crean.

    It is politics Zoomster.

    Every bloody one of them is counting the numbers at some time or other.

    Cut out the holier than thou stuff. They are no saints. They have factions and power play. If they did not they would not be in parliament.

    The concern is that Labor (and Liberal) is obsessed with internal divisions and factionalism to the detriment of the citizens.

  14. Nicholas: “The true middle income in Australia is $44,000 per year.”

    That’s perhaps the median taxable income. But people with taxable incomes of that amount or less are often receiving considerable amounts of tax-free income on top of that, eg: quite a few sorts of Centrelink payments are tax free, as are child support and maintenance payments, superannuation income for people aged over 60, etc.

    And, of course, taxable income is gross income minus a whole lot of potential deductions: work-related expenses, negative gearing, etc.

    I don’t think taxable income is a particularly good way of measuring income distribution. I prefer to look at ABS data.

  16. Oh, so you really want me to hoe in to Albo?

    His position of the time made it imperative that he take any leadership concerns straight to the PM. That was his job.

    If he wasn’t prepared to do that, he should have resigned from his position.

    He knew that – that’s why he didn’t actually plot himself, but allowed others to do so, in his office.

    As I said, cowardly. And lacking in principle.

  17. Nicholas,

    That median figure of 44k for all people who file a tax return is probably a bit artificially low, dragged down by students who only work part-time, wives of high income husbands who have some investments in their names for tax purposes, other wives of high income husbands who only work part-time because they only want to work part-time, and so on.

    Even so, there’s no way 152k is anywhere near the middle, no matter how you measure it.

  18. ‘The concern is that Labor (and Liberal) is obsessed with internal divisions and factionalism to the detriment of the citizens.’

    Er, Rex – you spend more time here than any other single individual being obsessed with internal divisions.

  19. I see Nauru has announced that they will not grant visas to representatives from the ABC. This is over the ABC’s coverage of political and legal issues in Nauru rather than anything to do with asylum seekers.

    The government of Nauru appears to be in full retreat from democracy. Australia’s involvement in that country over the last few years has not been a positive for Nauru.

  21. So basically Albo gets bagged here because he was a supporter of Rudd for all those years.
    The Shorten lovers tend to forget that he ratted on Gillard, just like he ratted on Rudd 3 years before.

  23. Ante Meridian

    The national full time median wage is $66,000. So yeah earning at least 230% more than half the full time workers is a long way from the ‘middle’.

  25. Wise words from Malcolm Farr 🙂

    ”And for those devoted to the Delphic qualities of opinion polls: If Malcolm Turnbull can keep his job after losing 35 Newspolls in a row, presumably Bill Shorten can hang on after winning those surveys.”

  26. Rex: ‘.as opposed to the mass ‘considered opinion’ here that Bill Shorten is the best…?’

    Rex, that is the considered opinion right now, given the evidence of 35 leading Newspolls

  27. GG
    Hilarious. Humphries is a long time favourite.

    Has he really left SBS for Ten? Will we still get these vids?

  30. GG, dont make me read all that. A skim tells me yes he is leaving SBS and probs no more satire for now.

  31. The fact that “taxable income” is Morrison’s favoured metric when talking about Labor’s negative gearing policies is pretty strong evidence that it is a dodgy stat.

    Last week Turnbull was talking about school principals and police superintendents as the sort of battlers who need a fairer go from the tax system.

    Greg Jericho pointed out that their salaries were (from memory) around $120k and $180k.

  32. I am scratching my head why opinion polls are reporting a majority of Australians support company tax cuts. I was under the impression that a majority of Australians would support higher company taxes and getting the big companies to actually pay their share of company tax.

  34. Tristo – I have a theory.

    If you look at the questions they run on for a full paragraph.

    People, when answering surveys, usually only look closely at the first line of a question.

    When it says (after a long preamble) it says ‘do you support’ people relate that to what ever name is in the first line.

    A lot of the Newspoll questions had Shorten mentioned in the preamble, but say “do you support …” variously: tax cuts, govt etc.

  36. Tristo

    Latest Newspoll results:

    The latest Newspoll shows voters supported Bill Shorten’s original decision to scrap the legislated tax cuts for companies with turnover between $10m and $50m, a policy the Labor leader abandoned last Friday…

    They were asked: “Do you support or oppose this plan to take tax cuts away from companies turning over $10m-$50m a year?”

    The poll found 52% of voters still supported Shorten’s original plan, with 72% of Labor voters, 64% of Greens voters, and 54% of One Nation wanting to dump tax cuts for businesses with $10m to $50m turnover. Even 35% of Coalition voters liked the idea.

    Only 37% of voters opposed the plan, with 21% of Labor voters, 23% of Greens voters, and 38% of One Nation voters not wanting Shorten to dump the tax cuts. 11% of voters were undecided.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/02/shortens-original-decision-to-scrap-tax-cuts-supported-by-voters-poll-finds

  37. Tom the first and best says Monday, July 2, 2018 at 5:20 pm

    Morrison`s use of taxable income, when negative gearing is a significant means of reducing taxable income, was/is certainly an attempt at making people who have little understanding of the tax system think that people who negatively gear are lower income than they actually are.

    Unfortunately, journalists, and especially the CPG, seem to fall into the category of “people who have little understanding of the tax system”.

  38. Only 68 percent of Australian workers are full-time. It’s important to include the other 32 percent when figuring out what a middle income is.

  41. There is no evidence to suggest corporate tax cuts result in significant wage growth, increased employment or growth in the economy.

    Do you support corporate tax cuts?

    🙂

  42. Simon² Katich® @ #329 Monday, July 2nd, 2018 – 5:10 pm

    GG, dont make me read all that. A skim tells me yes he is leaving SBS and probs no more satire for now.

    He’ll go the way of all those creative innovative types. Host a game show, make zillions and completely shred his credibility.

  43. The value of tax concessions for a high income household dwarfs the value of income support payments for a low income household.

    Look at the case studies on pages 7 and 8 of Per Capita’s March 2018 report entitled “The Cost of Privilege”:

    Household Four – Tim and Michelle
    Tim and Michelle have two children, Tom, aged 9 and Amelia, aged 7.
    They own their own home in an inner suburb of Sydney, and both the
    children are enrolled in a private, Prep to Year 12 college. The family has
    top hospital and extras private health insurance.
    Tim owns his own business, with a business profit of $230,000 per annum.
    Michelle doesn’t work, but is listed as a Director of Tim’s company,
    primarily for tax purposes.
    Both Tim and Michelle contribute the maximum $25,000 pre-tax
    contributions to their superannuation accounts. They have two negatively
    geared investment properties, including a holiday house in Byron Bay
    which is rented privately for short-term holiday leases through a local real
    estate agent, and a three bedroom house in Surry Hills that is leased longterm
    to a tenant.
    The family uses a discretionary trust to distribute income from the business,
    including $54,000 annually to Michelle and the maximum amount allowed
    for the children. Combined with Michelle’s $10,000 Director’s fee, this
    keeps her total income just inside the lowest marginal tax rate after she
    contributes $25,000 of pre-tax income to her superannuation and deducts
    purchases of family items used primarily for entertainment, such as their
    broadband service and mobile phones, through home office expenses.
    Tim and Michelle each drive luxury vehicles purchased through novated
    leases through the family business costing $19,414 each per year.
    The value of the capital gains tax concession on their holiday home gives
    them $4,500 in concessional benefits annually, with another $4,500 from
    the rental property in Surry Hills, and the tax exemption of their family
    home in inner Sydney provides another concession of $23,500 per year.
    Tim and Michelle also receive GST tax exemptions on their private health
    and education costs in the value of $3,250.00 per year.
    Although the business earns $230,000 a year, by using all of these
    methods, Tim reduces his taxable income to just $58,340 and Michelle’s is
    $37,000. Together they pay a total of $21,579 in tax, including $7500 in
    superannuation contribution tax.
    Tim and Michelle therefore have combined family income after tax of
    $208,421 per year, or $4008.10 per week.
    The total amount received from the taxpayer in tax concessions for this
    family is $99,708 per year, or $1,917.46 per week.

    Household Two – Anthony and Maria
    Anthony and Maria have two kids, Alice, aged 10, and Ella, aged 7. They
    rent a two bedroom house in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, and the girls
    attend the local state primary school.
    Anthony has been unable to work since his Multiple Sclerosis progressed
    to the point where it severely limited his movement three years ago. He
    receives the Disability Support Payment.
    Maria works part-time as a retail assistant at a large chain store in the local
    shopping centre, five hours a day during school hours. She is otherwise a
    full-time carer for her husband and children. Anthony’s mum and sister take
    turns coming to the house to care for Anthony while Maria is at work.
    Maria’s take home pay, after tax of $1059.63, is $22,717.37 per year, or
    $436.87 per week. Anthony’s DSP provides an additional $23,254.40 per
    year, or $447.20 per week. The family also receives Family Tax Benefit A
    and Rent Assistance, bringing their total household income to $59,541.69
    per year, or $1145.03 per week.
    Of this, the amount received from the taxpayer in income support is
    $36,824.32, or $708.16 per week.

  44. Since you all are quiet I take it that you all agree with me that our great LNP will win the seats of Longman Braddon and Mayo and also the next election by a landslide

  45. Nicholas @ #342 Monday, July 2nd, 2018 – 5:33 pm

    The value of tax concessions for a high income household dwarfs the value of income support payments for a low income household.

    Look at the case studies on pages 7 and 8 of Per Capita’s March 2018 report entitled “The Cost of Privilege”:

    Household Four – Tim and Michelle
    Tim and Michelle have two children, Tom, aged 9 and Amelia, aged 7.
    They own their own home in an inner suburb of Sydney, and both the
    children are enrolled in a private, Prep to Year 12 college. The family has
    top hospital and extras private health insurance.
    Tim owns his own business, with a business profit of $230,000 per annum.
    Michelle doesn’t work, but is listed as a Director of Tim’s company,
    primarily for tax purposes.
    Both Tim and Michelle contribute the maximum $25,000 pre-tax
    contributions to their superannuation accounts. They have two negatively
    geared investment properties, including a holiday house in Byron Bay
    which is rented privately for short-term holiday leases through a local real
    estate agent, and a three bedroom house in Surry Hills that is leased longterm
    to a tenant.
    The family uses a discretionary trust to distribute income from the business,
    including $54,000 annually to Michelle and the maximum amount allowed
    for the children. Combined with Michelle’s $10,000 Director’s fee, this
    keeps her total income just inside the lowest marginal tax rate after she
    contributes $25,000 of pre-tax income to her superannuation and deducts
    purchases of family items used primarily for entertainment, such as their
    broadband service and mobile phones, through home office expenses.
    Tim and Michelle each drive luxury vehicles purchased through novated
    leases through the family business costing $19,414 each per year.
    The value of the capital gains tax concession on their holiday home gives
    them $4,500 in concessional benefits annually, with another $4,500 from
    the rental property in Surry Hills, and the tax exemption of their family
    home in inner Sydney provides another concession of $23,500 per year.
    Tim and Michelle also receive GST tax exemptions on their private health
    and education costs in the value of $3,250.00 per year.
    Although the business earns $230,000 a year, by using all of these
    methods, Tim reduces his taxable income to just $58,340 and Michelle’s is
    $37,000. Together they pay a total of $21,579 in tax, including $7500 in
    superannuation contribution tax.
    Tim and Michelle therefore have combined family income after tax of
    $208,421 per year, or $4008.10 per week.
    The total amount received from the taxpayer in tax concessions for this
    family is $99,708 per year, or $1,917.46 per week.

    Household Two – Anthony and Maria
    Anthony and Maria have two kids, Alice, aged 10, and Ella, aged 7. They
    rent a two bedroom house in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, and the girls
    attend the local state primary school.
    Anthony has been unable to work since his Multiple Sclerosis progressed
    to the point where it severely limited his movement three years ago. He
    receives the Disability Support Payment.
    Maria works part-time as a retail assistant at a large chain store in the local
    shopping centre, five hours a day during school hours. She is otherwise a
    full-time carer for her husband and children. Anthony’s mum and sister take
    turns coming to the house to care for Anthony while Maria is at work.
    Maria’s take home pay, after tax of $1059.63, is $22,717.37 per year, or
    $436.87 per week. Anthony’s DSP provides an additional $23,254.40 per
    year, or $447.20 per week. The family also receives Family Tax Benefit A
    and Rent Assistance, bringing their total household income to $59,541.69
    per year, or $1145.03 per week.
    Of this, the amount received from the taxpayer in income support is
    $36,824.32, or $708.16 per week.

    Nice to see you’ve finally come around to middle class welfare being the scourge of Australian politics. It was Howard that perfected it and it’s the unwinding of same that is the most urgent need for sensibly managing the Australian economy.

  46. Wayne @ #345 Monday, July 2nd, 2018 – 2:41 pm

    Since you all are quiet I take it that you all agree with me that our great LNP will win the seats of Longman Braddon and Mayo and also the next election by a landslide

    Just like we believe that one day you will write a complete post without an error! 🙂

  48. “If your total taxable income is $91,000, your income is higher than that of 83% of tax-filers.

    If your total taxable income is $44,000, your income is higher than that of 50% of tax-filers.

    The true middle income in Australia is $44,000 per year.”

    Given the above, I do not favour increasing the thresholds for the second and third rate of tax to kick in to beyond $45,000 and $90,000 respectively for the foreseeable future.

    Bracket creep is not an evil – its a sign of success. Congratulations, you get to take home even more income … plus pay a modest amount more in tax for every dollar earned over the particular threshold.

    Of course, we can all argue what the rate of tax should be for each tax bracket, but the answer to that should be with reference to exactly how much of the GPD you think the Government needs to reserve for itself for the programs and services Government ought provide.

    If you believe in an UBI, then the government probably needs to reserve over 50% of GNP for itself. Which probably means tax brackets well in excess of 50%.

    If you don’t believ in a UBI, but do agree on a living income for those on welfare, free (or funded up to 90%) tuition fees for TAFE and University, free public school education, at least 4% of GNP being spend on public infrastructure, 2% for defence and public security, 0.7% for foreign aid, 9% for a fully funded universal health care system (including dental) etc then you are probably looking at a footprint across all 3 levels of government of about 30-31% of GNP in Australia (up from where it currently is by a couple of points).

    The above, is where I’d like to see Australia land. I’d like all those tax concessions, deductions, loopholes, rorts etc curtailed. That would probably render another half trillion on top of the warchest that Labour has so half accumulated in those areas. After funding the programs I’ve outlined and fixing the budget timebombs I reckon the rate of personal income taxes for the 2nd and 3rd tax bracket could be as low as 28% and 33% respectively. Not far off where the goverment wants its flat rate off 32.5% – but without eroding the underlying principles of progressive tax. Also, and critically – paid for by substantial revenue saves (and not just left to the hope of supply side economic theory).

    If you you want goverment on the cheap and nasty like the LNP, then the footprint should shrink down to about 25%. If you are libitarian, maybe as low as 10% of GNP.

  49. A few comment about the discussion today:

    1) I do think Labor has had a very bad week, and the whole team needs to pull together again. They have been doing an excellent job of running a tight ship, and need to stop getting spooked by the media.

    2) Labor gets held to higher standards by both the media and the people. It has been this way as long as I can remember. I once saw a survey by the Essential people (Hugh McKay etc.) suggesting that Australians vote Liberal Federally because they expect to get ripped off, and that they think the Liberals are more honest about screwing people over, or WTTE. It is certainly a mystery to me as to why people vote Liberal, even while saying they personally expect to be worse off. This was the case in the 2013 election.

    3) If Labor changes leaders before the next election, the Liberals will win at a canter. The narrative would be that it will be Rudd/ Gillard leadership all over again. And, I think people do vote on the narrative / vibe.

    4) Labor has very active enemies in the MSM, and no friends anywhere in the media, including small outfits like Crikey and IA. A few million buys editorial lines and direction – chump change for the wealthy people who are very happy with things the way they are, thank you very much.

    5) @Peg. You are correct to point out that there are a large number of Labor learning people on this site. I estimate that Greens voters easily come second – I would put them at 15-20%. And the two groups are not mutually exclusive. I wonder why this is – I do think that statistics and facts are seen as a “left-wing” thing in the current environment. Also, I think discussions on policy are great, and often contribute to them in different fora. However, the politics and optics of issues cannot be ignored. 23 years of Menzies and friends, before Gough finally made it to the lodge, is a cautionary tale.

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