Newspoll: 51.5-48.5 to Labor

Newspoll ends the campaign with a big sample poll that offers no surprises, with Labor maintaining its modest but decisive edge.

The Australian brings us the final Newspoll of the campaign, and it lands bang on the uniform pollster consensus in recording Labor with a lead of 51.5-48.5. Last week’s Newspoll had it at 51-49, but that result involved rounding to whole numbers. On the primary vote, Labor is steady on 37% and, contrary to Ipsos and Essential Research, the Coalition is down a point to 38%; the Green are steady on 9%; the United Australia Party is steady on 4%; and One Nation is down one to 3%.

The poll has a bumper sample of 3008 – it’s not clear when the field work period began, but “2108 interviews were conducted in the 24 hours up until midday yesterday”. Scott Morrison is up one on approval to 46% and down one on disapproval to 45%; Bill Shorten is up two on approval to 41% and steady on disapproval at 49%; Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister has widened slightly, from 45-38 to 47-38.

That should be the final poll for the campaign, and hence the final addition to BludgerTrack, which has been just about carved in stone for the past week. However, the addition of the Newspoll result does cause Labor to make one gain on the seat projection, that being in Victoria, although it has only made a 0.1% difference on the national two-party preferred.

UPDATE: The Fairfax papers have state breakdowns compiled from the last two Ipsos polls, though only two-party preferred numbers are provided so I can’t make use of them in BludgerTrack. I’m not too troubled by this though, as they rather improbably have Labor more strongly placed in New South Wales, where they lead 53-47, than in Victoria, where their lead is 52-48. Elsewhere, it’s 50-50 in Queensland and with the Coalition leading 51-49 in both Western Australia (more-or-less plausibly) and South Australia (less so).

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.

1,283 comments on “Newspoll: 51.5-48.5 to Labor”

Comments Page 18 of 26
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  1. RE: Shireen Morris

    Just terrible, there are some really sick people out there.

    Might add she does have beautiful eyes 🙂

  5. Jackol
    Labor were smart. They rolled out their major difference policies well ahead of the election and then went small target on subsequent topics.

  9. “They should declare each Bunnings a polling centre. Plenty of people all day and the democracy sausages on sale!”

    Nah, elections every three months, to help fund schools through sausage sales

  10. Just got back from doing my bit for the red team in Reid.

    Wore red … to make sure those hander-outers knew not to bother unless they were also from the red team.

    Was quite quiet despite being midday. Didn’t wait long – no queue – it took me more time to help an old lady up a step than to get to the desk.

    Now we wait. AM praying we take back Reid – Sam Crosby is an excellent candidate.

  12. Just back from the weekly shopping. The young man at the checkout was telling us this was the first election he had been allowed to vote, and he pre-voted because he works all day today, and how excited he’d been. We agreed it was a wonderful thing. 🙂

  13. Well apparently the Nats are in such a state of disarray they they couldn’t even get one single volunteer to work my local booth and hand out HTV cards. Normally there are two or three there but this time I didn’t see any at all. Heaaaaaps of Greens and Labor volunteers though. So many red and green signs all over the place.

  15. An election day update from the elusive environment minister, Melissa Price.

    Picture of her little dog in bed.

    So environmentally aware!!!

  16. It’s a really important point; the betting odds DO NOT predict a winner. They give a % chance. Liverpool were about the same odds as the Libs to beat Barca and progress to the Champions League final. The bookies are saying there is about a 12% chance the Libs will win.

  18. Molan HTV doing business here at Minnamurra in Gilmore. Had the drop Labor’s Tax bus as well…Bith sides with significant resources.

  19. People are entitled to their predictions, no matter how divorced from evidence they are nor how wrong they turn out to be.

    Plus there’s always the chance all the polls could be wrong. You just never know.

  20. Just back from voting in Gilmore (Berry).
    What I thought was interesting was the poster ratios on the conservative side in a Liberal held seat and at a booth that usually favours them. I counted the non Labor/Green posters on the way back to the car:
    Katrina Hodgkinson (Nat): 22
    Warren Mundine (Lib): 2
    ScuMo: 1
    Clive Palmer (UAP): 2
    So for all the effort and visits Morrison has put into supporting his captain’s pick in Gilmore, he seems to be sinking with little trace (in a Liberal held seat!). Although if you support Labor, I would be a little more worried because Hodgkinson is more likely to get preferences and be a threat than Mundine, if she can get ahead of him (but that’s a really big if). I still think she is a very long shot & Mundine none at all.

    I excluded the Labor posters of ScuMo holding up a lump of coal from my count :>)

  21. ‘Nicholas says:
    Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 12:53 pm

    The core weakness of the three leading parties is lack of macroeconomic literacy.’

    ‘We’ll all be rooned’ said Hanrahan,
    Before the night is out…

  22. George Megalogenis
    Shorten has been careful to offset his spending promises with savings. But the transactions required in a downturn are epic in scale, and carry huge political risk. Election promises have to be set aside, or dumped to allow the government to focus its attention on the crisis at hand. The Whitlam and Rudd-Gillard governments failed this test of temperament. They insisted on implementing their respective programs, written before the world changed.

    If Shorten wants to be the next Hawke, he has to educate his party, and the nation on a new economic model. That model will have to be informed by the failures of the previous Labor and Coalition governments.

    George Megalogenis is a journalist, political commentator and author …..not a good one though

  23. Back from voting. Very quiet so assume everyone else was having lunch. One Lib, one Labor, one Australian Conservative and one One Nation handing out. Aus. Con bloke decided I must be a supporter because of my advanced years. Was he mistaken!

    No waiting. AEC supervisor asked if I would like a chair while I voted (I must upgrade my overnight moisturiser). I voted below the line and gave at least a modicum of support to some of the more left leaning parties, but made sure my vote would go straight to where it was most needed.

    This booth is very strong Liberal (usually has about 60 -65% of the vote, both state and federal), but the few people walking in to vote did not seem to be carrying the heavy preponderance of blue HTVs I have seen in the past, although there was a smattering and also a few people carrying all four of the available papers.

    Sausage Sizzle and cake stall still going strong and being manned by an equally ethnically derived group of Caucasian, Asian and subcontinental parents. Pauline would not have approved.

  25. Back from my civil duty and picking up some grog and grub for tonight. Pretty standard affair at the booth. There was a bit of a queue but it moved quickly enough. The AEC volunteer said it was quiet earlier, so I must’ve just caught a rush.

    I’ll spare you the anecdotal “calling the election based on the facial expressions of HTV volunteers” nonsense.

  26. ‘Rational Leftist says:
    Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 2:03 pm

    I’ll spare you the anecdotal “calling the election based on the facial expressions of HTV volunteers” nonsense.’

    That bad, eh?

  27. Shorten has been careful to offset his spending promises with savings.

    That was the wrong call given that there are oodles of spare capacity in the economy. The economy needs MORE net spending by the currency issuer.

    Only if all available resources, including labour, were fully employed would spending increases in one area have to be offset by tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.

  28. I’ll have you know, Zenith, that I was being quite generous in keeping Corangamite, Lingiari and Macquarie in the Labor column!

  29. When I voted absentee, had to wait ages in the queue.
    By the time I voted there was no queue at all.
    Must remember to take a bath next time.

  30. Peter Dutton

    He is asked if he’s in the fight of his political life.

    They said that in 2007, 2010, 2013, and they said it again in 2016. It’s always the case. This is always going to be a very tight seat. And we’ve worked very hard, obviously, in 2007, we won by 217 votes.

    And we have, from GetUp, seen vicious personal attacks and I’ve got to say, I’ve been stopped by countless people, saying they weren’t going to vote for me, but they got a knock on the door from an aggressive GetUp person, and they were quite rattled by it, and told the GetUp person to leave the house, and are now voting for me. I think that people…will have a look at GetUp’s brand, it’s been damaged and people see them as an extreme left wing organisation.

    Can you trust a word this man says when he makes up stuff about refugees?

  31. I voted prepoll. In this Aboriginal community, the AEC was out this week to run a prepoll booth. So no voting here today.

    I am relying on Bludgers for updates please!

  34. Spent the morning handing out Greens HTVs in Isaacs. The booth (at the primary school I went to as a kid) was pretty quiet, as there are a couple of bigger booths nearby. Quite a few people taking only ALP and Greens cards, but a few malignant old geriatrics snarling at the left HTVs and going for the Liberals (voting for their imaginary franking credits). As usual I had a friendly conversation with the ALP reps, and then fell into conversation with the Liberal guy. He’d been trucked in from elsewhere as they had no volunteers. The local Liberal candidate has been disendorsed owing to hate speech (and there was a prominent sign endorsed by Mark Dreyfus reminding voters of that fact) so their HTV only showed the Senate vote. After our conversation went beyond the pleasantries, this Liberal guy confided that he thought Adani was a disastrous idea, that cotton growing in the Darling Basin and the plight of the Murray Darling was appalling and that we needed a leader like Hawke – and he nominated Albo as a contemporary pollie who he really likes! Human beings aren’t cardboard cut outs. When I clocked off I shook his hand and said that while I couldn’t wish his party good luck, I wished him all the best.

  35. ‘Rational Leftist says:
    Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 2:11 pm

    That bad, eh?

    No, I just didn’t pay attention because it’s nonsense.’

    OK, so maybe we’re looking at a repressed memory.

  37. Anyway, I’ve got some tasks to do and then gonna play some Stardew Valley until the polls close. Good luck and may the best people win.

  38. Massive massive contrast between footage of Bill & Scott voting..
    Bill & Chloe.. together smiling the whole bit.
    Scott & Jenny … Jenny ducking avoiding getting in Scotts way being ignored.. then in the end Jenny helps Scott post his vote

    Can anyone explain ?

  39. UAP
    Nothing if not consistent
    SMH…
    A volunteer for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party has been fined after he allegedly exposed himself at a Bankstown polling place in western Sydney on Saturday morning.

    Police confirmed a 62-year-old man was issued with an infringement notice for offensive conduct and moved on from the voting centre at Bankstown Public School shortly after 10am.

  40. And we have, from GetUp, seen vicious personal attacks and I’ve got to say, I’ve been stopped by countless people, saying they weren’t going to vote for me, but they got a knock on the door from an aggressive GetUp person, and they were quite rattled by it, and told the GetUp person to leave the house, and are now voting for me.

    *cough* Bullshit *cough*

  41. The champion of the Coalition campaign is not Morrison. It is Rupert. I don’t imagine any other Coalition leader would have done anything substantually differently.

  42. If my local booth is anything to go by then the impact of prepolls is going to be massive, I went at what is usually the worst time of day (around lunch time) and there were more people handing out HTV cards with a dozen or so voters inside the booth, then after voting I went across the road to see if I could pick up a vibe in this usually 50:50 booth and in ten minutes I saw less than half a dozen people approach the booth. In saying that this booth can be hit and miss when it comes to when people turn up because in the last state election I turned up at a similar time and was met with a long line.

  43. lizzie says:
    Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 10:19 am
    max

    I was so angry I didn’t choose my words very carefully. If I’m in trouble I don’t care!

    Lizzie

    I thought your description of Pretty One was perfect for the situation.

    Shrew – a bad-tempered or aggressively assertive woman.

    Surely political correctness hasn’t gone so far that you can’t say something like that when it is deserved – and it certainly was well deserved in her case.

    We don’t always have to bow to the whims of the thought police.

  44. JM –

    Bullshit

    How could you say that! Countless people have stopped Dutton to tell him these stories. Countless!

    I believe every word. Those GetUp people, scaring people in their own homes. It’s scandalous, I tell you, scandalous, and what’s most scandalous? How every one of those countless people now want to vote for Dutton when they never would have before. Those GetUp home invaders should be stopped – stopped I tell you! – before they convince all of Dickson to vote for Peter Dutton.

  45. OH just back from voting reports overhearing a Labor volunteer saying they don’t stand a chance. Didn’t know mundo was on the Forest Lodge booth 😀

  47. For what it is worth, according to below article betting markets are better indicators than opinion polls

    https://theconversation-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/theconversation.com/amp/vital-signs-for-the-best-election-predictions-look-to-the-betting-markets-not-the-opinion-polls-117076?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fvital-signs-for-the-best-election-predictions-look-to-the-betting-markets-not-the-opinion-polls-117076

  48. Sozzled Sausage Sizzler – 144 North Terrace Booth Visit

    Intent on the performance of my democratic duty, I today attended the polling station 144 North Terrace in the Division of Adelaide, a commercial office block hired for the purpose.

    Being famished from my morning constitutional, I interrogated the doorman as to the whereabouts of the station’s sausage sizzler…

    The fellow looked at me like I was a lunatic: he seemed blithely unaware of the traditions pertaining to voting in the Commonwealth of Australia, and in particular of the central relationship between sausages, sustenance and suffrage.

    Having recently dispensed with the services of my batman, I could not simply direct the disabusing of the scoundrel through the administration of a modicum of corrective violence, and was instead forced to resort to rational discussion. I immediately conceded that the installation of o BBQ within the confines of commercial real estate might prove problematic, and suggested that an appropriate alternative would be an acceptable culinary substitute; peradventure a cheese plate accompanied by a mid-scale red from the Barossa, or alternatively a fruit platter. I did have to draw the line at canapés, however.

    Notwithstanding my dominance of the argument, the man simply refused to budge. I finally suggested the ordering of a stack of pizzas could provide a solution, but regulations were cited and it was all to no avail: I was forced to leave, starving and unaware of whether I’d actually managed to vote, and seek out a commercial provider of lunch.

    I have resolved to do better next time: should my health permit me lifetime to the next election I shall attempt to vote at Royal Adelaide Hospital polling station, and we shall see if they can discharge their obligations towards lunch in a more effective manner.

    P.S. I was recently asked to explain the distinction between “dickheadry” and “wankery”: for the unenlightened, the above is “wankery”, but is not “dickheadry”.

    P.P.S An Australian is one who can discern the distinction between a dickhead and a wanker, and then sit down for a beer with both!

  50. Further to that Lizzie.

    Just think Michaelia Cash. Now there’s a woman I would readily label a shrew any day of the week.

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