Newspoll: 55-45 to Labor

A world of hurt for the Coalition from Newspoll, with voting intention deep into crisis territory and Scott Morrison’s standing continuing to decline.

The Australian reports this fortnight’s Newspoll is even worse for the Coalition than last time, with the Labor lead now at 55-45. Labor now holds a five point lead on the primary vote, being up one to 40% with the Coalition down one to 35%, while the Greens and One Nation are steady on 9% and 6% respectively. Despite/because of last week’s charm offensive in Queensland, Scott Morrison’s personal ratings continue to deteriorate, being down two on approval to 39% and up three on disapproval to 47%. His lead as preferred prime minister has also narrowed, from 43-35 to 42-36. Bill Shorten is down two on approval to 35% and steady on disapproval at 50%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1802.

Also out today are the federal voting intention numbers from the YouGov Galaxy poll of Queensland, for which state voting intention numbers were provided yesterday. This has the two parties level on two-party preferred in the state, which is unchanged on the last such poll at the tail end of the Malcolm Turnbull era. The Coalition is up a point on the primary vote to 38%, with Labor steady on 34%, One Nation down one to 9% and the Greens steady on 9% (also included as a response option is Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, scoring all of 1%). The poll also finds 29% saying they would be more likely to vote Coalition now Scott Morrison is Prime Minister, with 25% opting for less likely and 42% for no difference. The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 839. The Courier-Mail’s report on the poll can be found here, though I wouldn’t bother if I were you.

UPDATE: The Australian also has Newspoll results on becoming a republic, which records a dramatic ten point drop in support since April, from 50% to 40%, with “strongly in favour” down from 25% to 15%. Opposition is up from 41% to 48%, although strong opposition is steady at 22%.

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.

1,343 comments on “Newspoll: 55-45 to Labor”

Comments Page 8 of 27
1 7 8 9 27
  1. All things considered Newspoll 2PP would be something like 65-35 if the Labor leader was respected by the respondents.

    Just imagine how many RWNJ’s would be turfed out.

  2. That story about the WA Libs is one of the craziest and most pathetic things I’ve read in some time. Just… what in the actual fuck? They’re afraid of being satirized by children now?

    It’s the sort of thing you expect from some laughably out-of-their-gourd tinpot dictator, not a major political party in a first-world country. Even Trump would consider this sort of thing beneath him!

  3. zoomster says:
    Monday, November 12, 2018 at 12:10 pm
    Well, my December 6 leadership challenge prediction is looking good.

    🙂

    Bishop has been blackballed. It would have to be Abbott, Dutton or Frydenburg. Frydenberg is not well-enough known. Dutton has all the appeal of a mortician. Abbott is completely crazy. If they reinstate Abbott, the Lib PV will fall into the 20s and never recover.

    I also reckon that if any of this were tried, the cross benchers might have something to say too. We could have a new government by Christmas.

  4. Briefly

    The LNP have been operating as if Minority Government has not happened. Its going to bite big time when the first vote happens. That reality on every screen will change perceptions very very quickly.

  5. briefly

    You’ve forgotten the little Hunt, who will sneak through at the end. He’s been putting his hand up a lot lately, after bombing the airwaves with “new” concessions on health.

  6. guytaur @ #344 Monday, November 12th, 2018 – 11:09 am

    On the Foodbank.

    Progressives should just point out the need for a Foodbank shows that Social Security policy is failing and that we should be having higher rates of pay and less throwing people out with no income.

    Put it in smart words but the basic is Food Banks expose people need to use it.

    I have similar thoughts every time a socially oriented charity knocks on my door or sets up at the shops or runs a telethon. Cancer charities don’t generate the same resentment, though that’s probably just me not thinking it through.

  7. Rex Douglas says:
    Monday, November 12, 2018 at 12:14 pm
    All things considered Newspoll 2PP would be something like 65-35 if the Labor leader was respected by the respondents.

    Just imagine how many RWNJ’s would be turfed out.

    The party brand is invariably stronger than any leader-brand. This is very clear. Leaders come. Leaders go. The parties endure and they are the lose to which voters attach their voting intentions.

    However, the Liberals are doing their best to white-ant their own brand. It may topple to the ground any time. When that happens, voters will coalesce behind the only party able to offer majority government. This would be inexorable.

  8. Rex
    “All things considered Newspoll 2PP would be something like 65-35 if the Labor leader was respected by the respondents.”

    All things considered, I think this is a load of bulldust.

  9. On Foodbank: I think, in general, the average Aussie probably doesn’t give that much of a stuff about whether or not the government supports charities, which is likely what the Coalition were banking on. However, something many people do take a very dim view of is food wastage, and would be opposed to this move on those grounds alone.

  10. Whereas it’s technically true that only one electorate votes for a prime minister, it goes without saying that whomsoever’s in that office influences those in other electorates to vote in a particular way. If a PM is seen as likeable, the 2PP of the party he/she leads will usually receive a boost.

    Morrison’s now widely mocked – eg, the blokey persona, the Blunderbus tour, the silly caps, the religiosity, the tendency to ape Trump, the insincerity – which has not endeared him to the electorate, though he’s still slightly ahead in the somewhat useless PPM metric. And I think that being the subject of ridicule is worse than being disliked. For example, not too many liked the patrician, aloof Fraser, but he managed to win three elections, and generally was not mocked, notwithstanding him losing his pants in a seedy Memphis bordello, which paradoxically afforded him hero status in some quarters.

    Some say that although Dutton’s widely disliked, he at least wouldn’t be the subject of ridicule. They’re probably right, albeit having been caricatured as having a head the shape of a potato, his authoritarian bent, won’t assist his cause if he were to be drafted.

    The only other real contender is Bishop, who would probably lift her party’s fortunes. But her stint as shadow treasurer in 2009 showed she has a woeful grasp of the economy, leading to slips when quizzed about it by the MSM. The cocktail circuit of Foreign Affairs is more to her liking.

    The Tories are in a quandary of their own making. They’ve allowed a rump of reactionaries to rule the roost, and now they’re going to pay a heavy price, with upwards of thirty of them forced to join the unemployment queue, based on current polling. I feel like crying for them but it would spoil my makeup.

  11. LR

    Its like tipping workers. If you need to do it you know the income is too low.

    So not surprised you think along similar lines 🙂

    I think a lot of Australians do.

  12. Not that these are the actual real-world probabilities.

    Ooh, them’s fighting words!

    What’s your address. I have a truckload of Bayes to heap on your doorstep.

  13. Rex Douglas @ #349 Monday, November 12th, 2018 – 12:14 pm

    All things considered Newspoll 2PP would be something like 65-35 if the Labor leader was respected by the respondents.

    Has it never occurred to you just how silly it makes you look to spout such nonsense?

    Stick to the “same-same” trolling. At least there is occasionally some justification for this – e.g. on the TPP.

  14. I think the entire Coalition frontbench would have to get caught producing kiddie porn before Labor could possibly get beyond 60% of TPP, no matter who their leader was. You can’t underestimate just how rusted-on many people are – it doesn’t matter how much their chosen party stuffs things up, they will continue supporting them.

  15. Kohler refers to 4 decades

    Perhaps he can attend a graph showing the movement in our home mortgage debt over 4 decades, the average median wage and the 10 Year Bond Yield (as indicative of interest rate movements).

    I know what such a graph will indicate

    That the problem emerged from 2000

  16. AL

    When the New York Times did its podcast highlighting the story of the Evangelical women voting for the Democrats that had voted GOP all their lives it showed exactly how rusted on works.

    Especially the phone call between daughter who had experienced immigration policy in action and the father who had only seen the media reporting that was still voting Trump.

  17. The RW will not endure Bishop. She symbolises everything about their party that they despise. While she may be popular with rank and file Liberal members and with voters, her senior peers do not rate her and the RW detest her. I think that detestation is mutual.

    She had a long run as Deputy and it ended in repudiation. Could she stage a re-birth? I think there’s no chance, but Robert Ball might know better than other bludger….

  18. Asha Leu @ #373 Monday, November 12th, 2018 – 12:30 pm

    I think the entire Coalition frontbench would have to get caught producing kiddie porn before Labor could possibly get beyond 60% of TPP, no matter who their leader was. You can’t underestimate just how rusted-on many people are – it doesn’t matter how much their chosen party stuffs things up, they will continue supporting them.

    I think you’re underestimating the value of clear sensible messaging by the party spokespeople.

    People respond positively to the right type of messaging.

  19. While an MPs personal popularity does have some influence, particularly in more rural areas, I don’t think it’s a all inaccurate to suggest that the majority of people would consider themselves to be voting for the party leader when they vote for that party’s local candidate.

    Most of my friends and acquaintances don’t even know who their local member is. Hell, I sometimes have to look up who my state member is, at least – though, in my defence, I live on a street that seems to get shifted from electorate to electorate each redistribution.

  20. Asha Leu @ #373 Monday, November 12th, 2018 – 12:30 pm
    I think the entire Coalition frontbench would have to get caught producing kiddie porn before Labor could possibly get beyond 60% of TPP, no matter who their leader was. You can’t underestimate just how rusted-on many people are – it doesn’t matter how much their chosen party stuffs things up, they will continue supporting them.
    _______________________
    It’s true the other way too. Only 52.7 voted against Latham at the 2004 election. This is despite the absolutely ridiculous handshake incident with Howard and the fact he had quite recently broken the arm of a taxi driver in an argument over a cab fare. You could see at the time he became LOTO that Howard had to suppress his utter delight at this fool challenging him.

  21. “”Greens, Liberals, One Nation, Katter, Shooters, Palmer Party, whatever should realize that.”‘
    None of those listed are in the position to form government

    If you want to change the government, don’t beat about the bush Vote ALP!.

  22. guytaur @ #369 Monday, November 12th, 2018 – 11:26 am

    LR

    Its like tipping workers. If you need to do it you know the income is too low.

    So not surprised you think along similar lines 🙂

    I think a lot of Australians do.

    I remember one occasion. Two earnest young men knocked on my door looking for money to aid hungry children whose mothers had been made homeless. I listened to a story about a woman forced from her home to escape her abuser. I was asked to help with her child. I suggested they look up the federal government’s then recent actions in reducing women shelter funding and put their time into changing the government’s policies. I don’t think they believed me.

    The charity ‘industry’ (if that is the right word) seems to rely on bad government policies. I can feel myself getting upset all over again. Grr..

  23. ‘You could see at the time he became LOTO that Howard had to suppress his utter delight at this fool challenging him.’

    And yet Howard backed down in several key policy areas because of the pressure Latham put on him.

    That’s often forgotten about Howard – he always put political advantage over principle.

    The reason Labor adopted a ‘small target’ strategy was that Howard would ‘steal’ Labor policy so that by the time of the election, he had defused the issues.

  24. zoomster
    says:
    Monday, November 12, 2018 at 12:47 pm
    ‘You could see at the time he became LOTO that Howard had to suppress his utter delight at this fool challenging him.’
    And yet Howard backed down in several key policy areas because of the pressure Latham put on him.
    ________________________________
    He backed down on issues that didn’t mean much to him, defusing them. Howard’s acclamation by the Tasmanian timber workers was a masterclass in politics.

  25. LR

    I am someone who has encountered the Greenpeace Koala’s. Too much. However at least they were soliciting donations for an organisation that uses action (agree with the type of action or not) to try and change government policy.

  26. The article about the WA Libs seeking promises from children not to denigrate the Party does not give the context in which the promises are sought, and without that context, both the article and the promises sought are indeed inane.

  27. briefly @ #378 Monday, November 12th, 2018 – 12:34 pm

    The RW will not endure Bishop. She symbolises everything about their party that they despise. While she may be popular with rank and file Liberal members and with voters, her senior peers do not rate her and the RW detest her. I think that detestation is mutual.

    She had a long run as Deputy and it ended in repudiation. Could she stage a re-birth? I think there’s no chance, but Robert Ball might know better than other bludger….

    Disagree. Of all the prospective candidates for PM on the Liberal side, she has done the least to peeve voters since she was FA minister which had no direct impact on voters day to day. So, her ascension would be someone who is a relative clean skin. She’s apparently popular with Libs and a powerful fund raiser. She’s also a woman which would address the Liberal party and their ‘Woman” issue. At 62 she’s on the borderline of whether she continues in politics. But given the photos of her jogging on the beach and being seen in all the right places, then I guess the hunger/ambition is there. She’s also now been in the parliament 20 years. So, she’s well known and credible.

    Sure the right might arc up. But, quite a few of them are facing oblivion if they keep on undermining the leader and the Government.

    I reckon Bishop is a live chance at snatching the leadership and altering the electoral paradigm of an easy Labor victory come the next election.

  28. briefly:

    [‘The RW will not endure Bishop. She symbolises everything about their party that they despise.’]

    If the backbench, even some ministers, thinks she may save some of them, they’d overlook her somewhat moderate reputation, self-preservation being the imperative of all pariamentarians.

  29. If Dutton had been PM, the au pair affair and the s44 issues with his child care centres and the associated conflict of interest story would have got him to this position faster. Dutton has never been a competent minister – he has no moral fibre and poor judgement, and the CPG regularly forgetting that doesn’t change it. One adds, if he does try again for PM those stories can, and should, go around again.

    The obvious problem with Bishop now is that the RW clearly cannot stand her, and so even if she is put in as a reset the first question will be when they stab her in the back again to put in a nutjob more to their liking.

  30. GG…I agree with your assessment of Bishop. But I’ve been told she’s been blackballed. The RW will not abide her. They would prefer to lose and trhen to expunge their enemies rather than to win and hand them control of the party. They’ve just wrested power from a moderate. They’re not about to hand it back to pillion passenger on the moderate bike.

  31. Rex:

    It’s the swing voters who react that to that sort of stuff. They’ve all been in Shorten’s camp for a while now.

    Once you get to the point where there are TPPs of 60-40 or more, it’s because the government (or opposition) is doing so poorly that even the lifelong rusted-ons are starting to shift allegiances.

    To put it into perspective, even the 2011 rout in NSW was only 65-35 to the Liberals, and that was despite a widely loathed state government that was simultaneously incompetent, corrupt, and riven by infighting, an increasingly unpopular federal Labor government, and NSW’s use of OPV, a system that naturally produces more severe TPP results.

    Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure the most extreme TPP federally was be Fraser’s win in 1975. That was – I think – close to 56-44, and Fraser was up against a government plagued by ministerial scandals, high inflation, the oil crisis, a news media steadfastedly against it, and the drama of the dismissal.

    Rudd, the epitome of the popular opposition leader, didn’t even crack 53-47. Hawke and Howard were both fairly close to 54-46, IIRC, and Abbott managed roughly 53.5.

    If this Newspoll was replicated in a federal election, it would be an absolutely historic victory. Likely the best Labor has ever done (expect maybe Curtin, who I think may well have cracked 55 if my memory serves me right), at least, and probably just under Fraser’s first two wins.

    Something like 65-35 to Labor, or even 60-40, is just fanciful, as much as we’d like to dream about it. Unless we go into recession or numerous frontbench are caught in castastrophically damaging scandals (the sort where jail-time is a possibility), I can’t see it happening on a federal level. The states, being less diverse in their demographic makeup, tend to have these sorts of defecits a bit more often.

Comments Page 8 of 27
1 7 8 9 27

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *