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”

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  1. “Heard Dutton running the line that those young voters who are supporting Labor weren’t old enough to remember the ‘chaos’ of the last Labor govt.”

    Hawke’s death reminds us that half of all voters are too young to remember that it was Labor that were the great economic managers, not Liberal. Hawke and Keating fixed the Liberal recession. Howard got lucky being handed a mining boom. Without the mining boom Abbott, Hockey, Turnbull, ScumMo and Frydenberg have all been hopeless economic managers, just as McMahon, Gorton, Fraser and Howard as Treasurer were before them.

  2. This morning Morrison was urging people to vote for a hung Parliament in order to enable the formation of a Liberal government.
    Is this the most bizarre election morning call in the history of Federal elections?

  3. Win or lose, Labor obviously made a decision not to get bogged down fighting about the Coalition’s lying terms for Labor policies and indeed the outright lies.

    I think that’s a defensible strategy if you ignore it in order to push your own positive message and you’re out there every day reminding people that you’re paying people’s out of pocket costs on cancer but ScoMo is not. You’re taking action on climate and he’s not. You’re outdoing him on tax cuts to low income earners. You’re restoring penalty rates worth more than a tax cut to the workers involved, and so on. But Labor seemed to ignore it in order to relentlessly run the top end of town/cuts and chaos material which didn’t cut through like the Coalition scares.

    Maybe they thought media would push back on the dishonest lines for them but if so that was woefully naive.

    If they win, the ALP have the platform of government to correct the record and win people over a bit more for the next time. The Steve Bracks or Dan Andrews approach.

  4. Pithicus: the thing is that there is a strong co-hort of voters (45 and under) who have never experienced just how damaging a recession actually is. I often worry that this group have bought the Fiberal Myth that the ALP cant manage the economy, rather than the reality. That is that the ALP are much better at steering the economy when things go south than the Fiberals could ever hope to.
    I’ve just turne 50 and have child hood memories when that Economic genious JWH gave us the double digit trifecter, the restructures that Keating put in place that laid the foundations for the next 30 odd years of solid economic growth, and, of course, that it was by applying Keynesian Economics that allowed Swan to help avoid the GFC recession

  5. Simon² Katich®:

    Thank you; the 2005 movie version was rubbish compared to the 1981 TV series.
    (Based on the earlier radio version.)

  6. On this sunny Saturday went for a nice long walk pass three polling booths and am strike by how few people were voting, they either did so earlier or prepolled as the local prepoll centre was busy most days in the lead up. All the main candidates were well represented at the booths, the one exception was where the prepoll had been held had a line there but no HTV people so not sure what was happening there.

  7. Assuming the pre-poll count drags into the night, when is the “official” celebration point?

    Antony Green calls it?
    ScoMo concedes?
    I’ve run out of popcorn etc.

  8. ‘Shellbell says:
    Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 5:11 pm

    Sydney forecast 26 degrees days for end of May’

    HI is outdoors watering the winter crop. Hot as, and no rain.

  9. Absolutely gorgeous full moon is creeping up over a fading pastel blue horizon. The illusion that its has its own soft glowing inner light is extraordinary. The man in the moon isn’t smiling, he’s beaming.

    About to watch Bill Maher in the run up to six o’clock. Rock. Thanks Confessions.

    Very best wishes lizzie. Thinking of you.

    Thanks to all the ground staff, C@t, and PBers all.

    I really am loving this.

  10. I’m so over this MSM message that Shorten is unpopular on the ABC, the gap between him and Morrison is exactly what you’d expect from an incumbent

  11. J
    Between six o’clock and eleven o’clock we will hear all sorts of things with the caveat that the monster pre-poll might upset the apple cart.
    At eleven o’clock there will be the mother of all data dumps.
    By 11.05pm we will all know the extent of Morrison’s, Di Natale’s, Hanson’s, Katter’s and Palmer’s defeat.

  12. Jenauthor

    As you’d expect, the incumbent PM always gets a boost in the PPM metre. Saying that Shorten is unpopular because Morrison leads by ~8 on the PPM is idiotic.

  13. Hi everyone

    I think I’ve missed the chance to enter the contest for guessing the result.

    I’m thinking a 51-49 2pp producing 75 seats for Labor, which would most likely enable them to form a minority government.

    But it’s all on a knife edge: there are a lot of marginal seats which are too close to call. If several more of these break Labor’s way – eg, if Corangamite, Dunkley, Forde, Petrie and Hasluck all go Labor’s way and they also hang onto Lindsay and Herbert and their Tassie seats – then it could quickly turn into an easy win for Shorten.

    It will be a funny count to watch, because nobody knows exactly how much of a lead Labor needs in all these marginals from election day votes in order to stave off the likely strong performance of the Coalition in the pre-poll, absentee and postal votes. If the Libs can hold their own in most of their marginal seats, then we certainly won’t have a result tonight.

  14. C@tmomma, true, but the difference is that we avoided most of the effects of the GFC, unlike the recessions of the 80’s and then the 90’s hit fairly hard in Australia
    Just what would the fibs do if interest rates hit 17%, for example?

  15. For me, there is just as much interest in who gets turfed (the list is upthread) as in the final outcome. There are some characters who do not deserve to be in government. Others who do nothing for the good of the country. Others who think only of themselves (I think Barnaby heads that list).

  16. C@tmomma says:

    YBob,
    Those 45 and under voters would have been through the GFC and that was scary enough.

    Not for them. Nothing happened so they still do not know just what mass unemployment and all that goes with it does to their lives. Scary ‘war stories’ of the bad old days are as nothing to actually experiencing it.

  17. Mundo,

    I’m really worried that when all the TV panels call it a landslide for Labor about 8.30, they will all be lying. I’m just not at all confident you can trust them, or trust the AEC.

    I hope all PBers will write me sympathetic replies and understand my worries. If they don’t I’ll just keep reposting about my nervousness, like an effective troll should.

    I will not be confident about a Labor win till Shorten goes to the GG to call the 2022 election.

    I know that at least you will be sympathetic with my situation.

    Cheers

  18. Just did a stint for GetUp in Dickson. My anecdotal evidence is those under 45yrs are with the progressives and the over 60 with LNP. The 45-60 no idea. Prepoll was well over 30%. But on the punt some Labor people were having a wager on Hunt losing flinders. My hope is a big win.

  19. lizzie @ #1173 Saturday, May 18th, 2019 – 5:19 pm

    For me, there is just as much interest in who gets turfed (the list is upthread) as in the final outcome. There are some characters who do not deserve to be in government. Others who do nothing for the good of the country. Others who think only of themselves (I think Barnaby heads that list).

    We’ll all cheer when Abbott is turfed – only a matter of hours.

  20. Mr Morrison has opined that ‘This is not about my future. It is about your’s.’
    wRONg!
    It is about everyone’s future.
    Good luck with Robocop, Mr Morrison! You have been sacked from every job you ever held.

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