Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor

The first Newspoll of the year records an improvement in the Coalition’s position after a particularly bad result in the final poll last year.

The Australian reports the first Newspoll of the year has Labor leading 53-47, compared with 55-45 in the final poll of last year. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up two to 37%, Labor is down three to 38%, the Greens are steady on 9% and One Nation are down one to 6%. Scott Morrison leads 43-36 on preferred prime minister, down from 44-36, and is down two on approval to 40% and up two on disapproval to 47%. Bill Shorten’s net rating is reported at minus 13%, compared with minus 15% in the last poll – we will have to wait for later to see his exact approval and disapproval ratings. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1634.

UPDATE: Shorten is up a point on approval to 37% and down one on disapproval to 50%.

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.

1,983 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor”

Comments Page 29 of 40
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  2. In Flinders, Julia Banks will do pretty well in Portsea and Sorrento, which as I mentioned earlier are a mini ‘Wentworth’ and where MT was popular. It is a very fragmented electorate, with lots of different demographics, so I don’t think it is going to go like Phelps in Wentworth. I’m not sure she can win it, but that might not be her aim, I think her running helps the ALP’s chances.

  3. “Labor: tax those who aren’t your people and funnel it through to those who are.”

    Coalition: “Bear down hard on those who aren’t your people and provide tax relief to those who are.”

    Blindingly obvious. Hurt the poor and help the well-off.

  4. swamprat
    says:
    Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 9:22 am
    The 5 million Norwegians own 1% of all company shares in the world. Their sovereign wealth fund is passing a $US1 trillion.
    __________________________________________
    Well said Swampy. Check out this video on how Norway saved their oil money and Thatcher wasted the UK’s share of the North Sea oil:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_l3eLhYbVo

  5. Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

    The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but….

    To which Ex-NSA John Schindler commented :

    John Schindler‏Verified account @20committee

    Reality: the US IC has never been remotely passive or naive about revolutionary Iran. As usual, Donnie is lying. And terrified about what the IC knows regarding his decades of secret ties to myriad Russians and other foreign dirtbags (#HINT: a lot).

  6. Catprog @ #1398 Thursday, January 31st, 2019 – 9:32 am

    >petrol 70 kgCO2 / GJ, brown coal 100 kgCO2 / GJ

    (Energy efficient. EVs convert about 59%–62% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels.*)
    https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml

    using these figures:
    brown coal works out at 200kg co2/GJ delivered to the wheels (using 50%)
    petrol works out at 350kg CO2/GJ delivered to the wheels (using 20%)

    You have to go much further back than just “from the grid”. For instance, up to 15% of electricity is lost just in transmission from the generating plant. Also, generating a kW hour of electricity by burning thermal coal may actually require the burning of 2 or even 3 times the amount of coal with the equivalent energy value (and hence generate three times the emissions).

    Burning coal to generate electricity to power an electric vehicle is just dumb.

  7. After 3+ very enjoyable years here in Go Dau, I taught my final lesson last night because it’s time to hit the road.

    It’s always sad when you leave a school, especially a smaller one where you are involved closely with every student.

    Last night was with my FCE class which is always fun because they’re at a level where you can have real conversations with them. My guitar is too bulky to travel with, so I finished with lottery, with the guitar being the prize. I hope Obito gets lots of enjoyment out of it.

    Where to next is uncertain apart from, after I pack up my house, I’ll jump on my motor bike and hit the road for a few months here in Vietnam. I’ll be revisiting some favourites and also getting to some new areas I haven’t had the chance to explore yet. Also it will be a chance to say goodbye to friends before I move on to a new Country.

    Change is exciting!!!!!

    Watch the name.
    😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

  8. Banks’s chances in Flinders are zilch. Labor is in with a chance, so won’t run dead. Independents almost never win seats where both majors have a genuine run.

  9. Jim Pembroke is not typical. Maybe Bowen’s policy won’t cost Labor the election but it will make it much closer than most people on this site seem to think.

  10. Ante Meridian @ #1395 Thursday, January 31st, 2019 – 5:27 am

    Wow, those stories in the Oz might be really damaging to Labor if anybody read it.

    Change of subject : Has anybody else noticed how, in the Septic cartoons displayed in the Dawn Patrol, the artists always seem obliged to write the name of the person they’re lampooning somewhere on that person? For example, Schultz appears twice in today’s offerings and in one case his name is written on his leg and in the other it’s on his chest. It’s as if the artists assume nobody will recognise who they’re drawing without a prompt. The exception is Trump, who must be considered too obvious.

    That, for me, takes away half the fun of working out who’s who.

    Surely the context should reveal the identities? 🙂

  14. The wordy war continues. I wonder who invented the phrase “retirees tax”. It has a whiff of Tony Abbott about it.

    @JoshFrydenberg

    Aus retirees are scared about what their retirement will look like under a @billshortenmp Labor Govt with its punishing retirees tax. @Bowenchris’ arrogant response: “vote against us”. Labor isn’t listening. Labor doesn’t care. Retirement savings should be respected, not raided.

    @Bowenchris
    56m56 minutes ago

    What’s arrogant & disrespectful is refusing to be honest with the Australian people & hiding policies until after an election like the Liberals. Labor has too much respect for the Australian people for that. We are laying out our plans & letting the people judge.Give it a go Josh

  17. “Retirement savings should be respected, not raided.” says Josh.
    That’s downright lie. Savings won’t be affected, just the cream on the top.

  21. Barney Go Dau:

    [‘Watch the name.’]

    Barney in Vung Tau?

    I spent a few days there in the early ’70s. I believe it has changed a fair bit, for the better.

  23. @clementine_ford

    What you need to know is that Fairfax’s new managing director is James Chessell, a man who used to work for Joe Hockey. Protecting the Liberal brand appears to be strong at New FFX.

  24. Re GG @9:22 AM.

    As a famous 20th century propagandist said, the Liberals and their supporters accuse their opponents of what they themselves are doing:

    – First clip: divide the community

    – second clip: handouts to their supporters or those who could be bribed into being supporters, funded by attacks on class enemies: welfare recipients, the ABC, the environment / its supporters…

  26. Barney in Go Dau @ #14279 Thursday, January 31st, 2019 – 9:42 am

    After 3+ very enjoyable years here in Go Dau, I taught my final lesson last night because it’s time to hit the road.

    It’s always sad when you leave a school, especially a smaller one where you are involved closely with every student.

    Last night was with my FCE class which is always fun because they at a level where you can have real conversations with them. My guitar is too bulky to travel with, so I finished with lottery, with the guitar being the prize. I hope Obito gets lots of enjoyment out of it.

    Where to next is uncertain apart from, after I pack up my house, I’ll jump on my motor bike and hit the road for a few months here in Vietnam. I’ll be revisiting some favourites and also getting to some new areas I haven’t had the chance to explore yet. Also it will be a chance to say goodbye to friends before I move on to a new Country.

    Change is exciting!!!!!

    Watch the name.
    😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

    You’ll still be the BiG D to me. Safe travels.

  27. Don’t agree Ante M.

    Those who are angry about franking refunds are mostly those who vote Lib anyway. A very small percentage will go from ALP to Lib over it.

    There will be some, like Pembroke above, who are philosophical about a rort that benefited them, coming to an end.

    Don’t forget, many baby-boomers are more worried about children and grandchildren being disadvantaged by Lib party policies (housing/climate change etc.) than they are about a few $1000 being lost from their fat nest eggs. As someone stated above … if you’re receiving thousands in credit refunds, you’re sitting on a lot of shares.

  29. P1

    Yes, I’ve noticed it. A great idea, since many foreigners would not pick up on the characters from the caricature,

    Good odds thought that it is for the locals rather than foreigners.

  31. Markjs

    How big is your system? 5kW or 8kW ? Judging by your battery capacity. My 8kW system plus
    14kW Tesla battery was approx $25,ooo. It is a few years old and prices have dropped.

  32. I very much hope Julia Banks can beat the little Hunt, but we mustn’t forget that she supported Lib policy. She was just annoyed that Turnbull was turfed.

  33. I suspect Bowen has #numbers as far as those who have franking credits and vote Labor … and he knows it won’t do much damage …. also – ALP has been gaining respect for fearlessly being honest, even when the policies won’t please everyone. Media bring this up a LOT.

    Those equivocating will make their choices based on knowledge where ALP is concerned … the Libs have another ‘pamphlet’ ….

  34. lizzie
    says:
    Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 10:01 am
    I very much hope Julia Banks can beat the little Hunt, but we mustn’t forget that she supported Lib policy. She was just annoyed that Turnbull was turfed.
    ________________________
    Lizzie! Working a little blue, I’m shocked!

  35. There was some speculation about what the Coal would do after the hols. Would they return to governing? Answer: No, they will spend all their time and our money funding a massive major anti-Labor campaign with main stream media. With lots of lies and shouting.

  36. President Trump made 8,158 false or misleading claims in his first two years

    Two years after taking the oath of office, President Trump has made 8,158 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.

    That includes an astonishing 6,000-plus such claims in the president’s second year.

    Put another way: The president averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. But he hit nearly 16.5 a day in his second year, almost triple the pace.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/21/president-trump-made-false-or-misleading-claims-his-first-two-years/

  37. “I suspect Bowen has #numbers as far as those who have franking credits and vote Labor … and he knows it won’t do much damage …. also – ALP has been gaining respect for fearlessly being honest, even when the policies won’t please everyone. Media bring this up a LOT.”

    This is an interesting contrast to the Coalition, who hide the unpopular bits of their agenda, to the extent of outright lies like Abbott on the eve of the 2013 election.

    Re the retirees whose franking credits exceed their tax liability:

    – they have a very nice share portfolio
    – they are likely to be receiving a tax free super pension
    – they probably already vote Liberal
    – or like me, the live in an electorate that Labor can never win.

  38. lizzie @ #1432 Thursday, January 31st, 2019 – 6:08 am

    There was some speculation about what the Coal would do after the hols. Would they return to governing? Answer: No, they will spend all their time and our money funding a massive major anti-Labor campaign with main stream media. With lots of lies and shouting.

    “return” implies doing something you’ve done before, so I can’t see how this could have been an option.
    🙂

  40. These photos were taken by the Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick from a light plane over southern Queensland near Goondiwindi, on Wednesday.

    They show rivers such as the Condamine relatively full, and storages on cotton farms holding thousands of megalitres of water.

    Yet three hours away in north-west New South Wales, the Barwon and Darling rivers are a series of muddy pools.

    Fish are dying in their hundreds of thousands at Menindee and people living in towns and on properties along the Barwon-Darling are battling to secure water fit to drink, bath in and feed their stock.

    On Thursday the South Australian royal commission into the Murray Darling Basin plan is expected to deliver a scathing assessment of the plan that was meant to save the river system from ecological disaster.

    The commissioner, Bret Walker SC, is expected to say that the $13bn plan is in breach of the Water Act 2007 because it was a political compromise that took into account factors other than the needs of the environment when setting the targets for recovering water from irrigators.

    He is also expected to provide a savage assessment of how the plan has been administered by state and federal bureaucrats, and to strongly criticise recent amendments that further weakened the environmental targets in the plan.

    The drought has undoubtedly played a part in the unfolding crisis in NSW. But Patrick’s photos show there is still water in the system: water that is allocated to irrigators and which will be used to finish cotton and other irrigated crops.

    “From the air, if anyone is making the claim that there is no water in Queensland, they are misinformed,” said Patrick.

    “When we left Dubbo, there was 1,165ML of flow. Three hours north [where the river joins the Barwon-Darling system], there were no flows between irrigated farms. The NSW situation is that water is being released but only for irrigators.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/31/photos-reveal-queensland-cotton-farms-full-of-water-while-darling-river-runs-dry?CMP=share_btn_tw

  42. Jen (and possibly others),

    My observation about how damaging those Oz headlines would be if anybody read them was meant as a sarcastic commentary on the fact that nobody reads the Oz.

  44. More
    Cotton growers are portrayed as the victims in ABC attack on the national outrage over the destruction of the Darling. ABC is morphing into Sky.

  45. lizzie at 9:40 am:
    “Labor: tax those who aren’t your people and funnel it through to those who are.”
    Coalition: “Bear down hard on those who aren’t your people and provide tax relief to those who are.”

    Yes, Gary Spence has just filed an outline of argument in the High Court where he virtually admits that the LNP is the Property Developers’ Party. See:
    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/former-lnp-president-takes-donations-fight-to-high-court-20190130-p50um6.html or:
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/30/developer-donation-ban-discriminates-against-lnp-court-told
    or, for the full thing:
    http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/cases/02-Brisbane/b35-2018/Spence_Plf.pdf

    His argument is that development approvals are done at LG level, so why ban donations to State campaigns? Which prompts a question doesn’t it: Why, then, do developers give so much money to State campaigns? I hope one of the judges asks that question to Gary’s counsel.

  46. Six people have died from extreme cold temps in America. Minus 48F is -45C. I can’t fathom temperatures that cold!

    Millions of people across the Midwest had to contend Wednesday with a relentless, bone-deep freeze, with extreme temperatures that would have been sobering even without the appendage of a minus sign.

    It was colder than Alaska’s North Slope in many places, including Norris Camp, Minn., where temperatures dropped to minus-48 degrees Wednesday morning, with wind chills of minus-65 — making the town the coldest reporting location in the United States.

    The mercury is forecast to rise slightly before plummeting again early Thursday.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/01/30/deadly-polar-vortex-puts-midwest-deep-freeze/?utm_term=.8ee1dc9306aa

  48. Part of the problem for many retirees that they expect their retirement funds, whether in superannuation or elsewhere, to provide all the income they need.

    Running out of capital and being totally reliant in the age pension is a fear for some.

    The downturn in share markets late last year may have seen many people heavily invested there, the type of people probably complaining loudest about Labor’s imputation credits policy, take a big hit.

    Wait till their bank share dividends take a similar hit.

    Best bit of advice I got from an adviser years ago was that my superannuation is to fund my retirement, not to make my kids rich.

    Hopefully it won’t all be gone before I die and they get something more than my house as inheritance.

    But I am not sweating blood over it. And neither are they.

  49. Meanwhile, according to a link in the Gradian posted earlier, the Government torments the homeless or those in danger of homelessness to recoup a few tens of millions.

    I doubt that actually.

    The government is oppressing poorer welfare recipients pour encourager les autres. It’s the same reason they oppress the boat people on Nauru and Manus: not to keep people away from the benefits of our welfare system and “way of life”, but to deter (probably literally) millions more from trying to acscess them.

    You think twice before you have any dealings with Centrelink. They make the process of doing business with them so opaque and stultified, their communications so obtuse and contradictory, their punishments for “violations” so seemingly whimsical and harsh, and their avenues of appeal so gridlocked that it’s natural to hesitate before you hop onto their Kafkaesque merry-go-round. Every week a potential “client” (multiplied by hundreds of thousands of the similarly reluctant around the country) hesitates saves the Treasury most likely billions of dollars.

    Every time an asylum seeker or queue jumping economic migrant (and yes, there are plenty if those in the mix, too) decides to carry on trying to survive in their own country, they send a message to likewise inclined compatriots that “Australia is too hard”.

    It’s not the money they claw back from a paltry few that matters. It probably cost the government more than they collect. The poor sods who are punished are only punished so that many times more not quite as determined poor sods will go away.

    How else can tax cuts to multinationals and tax refunds to fake “taxpayers” be maintained?

    The targets of Chris Bowen wete classed in The Australian today as “retirees”, as if anyone – and everyone – who’s finally managed to retire – franking credited or not – will be financially gutted. I am hoping that we do not see poor pensioners, with no super, no shares or investments, perhaps living day-to-day in van parks (as many do up this way), take this bait, believing that the franking credit reforms will impoverish them.

    If they do, the jig is up, not because of their numbers so much as that this would prove the public is too stupid to see genuine self-interest where it lies.

    The only satisfaction out of a Coalition re-election in these circumstances would be to hear the ordinary pensioners whingeing about long surgical queues or lack of health facilities simply because the retired bludgers in the houses on the hill couldn’t do without their freebies.

  50. 😇Barney in Go Dau 😇

    The level of ignorance in our country is appalling.

    I mentioned Barney in Go Dau in casual conversation with my BP.

    The man looked askance (not easy to do after 5 P.M.).

    I will be keeping a sharp lookout for your next appearance. By the way – did the AFP give themselves a pass mark ❓

    🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

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