Newspoll: 51-49 to Coalition

The second federal poll since the election finds the Coalition back where it started after an apparent post-election bounce in the previous poll three weeks ago.

Newspoll’s first result in three weeks, and second since the election, turns up a surprise in recording a shrinking in the Coalition’s lead from 53-47 to 51-49 – which, if meaningful, would mean an end to the honeymoon period and a return to where things stood at election time. On the primary vote, the Coalition is on 42%, down two points on the last poll and up 0.6% on the election result; Labor is on 34%, up one point and 0.7%; the Greens are on 11%, steady and up 0.6%; and One Nation are on 4%, up one point and 0.9%.

Leadership ratings are likewise consistent with the fading of a post-election sugar hit, with Scott Morrison down three on approval to 48% and up six on disapproval to 42%. Anthony Albanese’s ratings also seem to be trending from mediocre to respectable, with his approval up two to 41% and disapproval down to 34%, leaving him shading Morrison by a point on net approval. However, this hasn’t translated to preferred prime minister for some reason, on which Morrison holds a healthy lead of 48-30, out from 48-31 last time.

The poll was conducted by online and automated phone surveying from a sample of 1623, from Thursday to Sunday. Full report from The Australian here. As before, we remain in the dark as to how the pollster’s methods have been adjusted since the election failure, if at all. However, the size of the movements, and the lack of anything obvious to explain them, suggests the poll has not been subjected to the smoothing method that Newspoll must have been using before the election to give it its uncanny and, as it turned out, misleading consistency.

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.

1,157 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Coalition”

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  1. The four legal principles a Court of Appeal considers in an appeal against conviction:

    [‘First, and most important, there is a very high threshold for a court to overturn a jury’s guilty verdict for being unreasonable (see, for example, M or Baden-Clay). This is because, in Australian law, the jury is the constitutional tribunal of fact responsible for deciding guilt or innocence. A verdict will only be overturned in exceptional circumstances showing a clear miscarriage of justice.

    Second, the test is whether, on the evidence, it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty.

    To win the appeal, the appellant must show the guilty verdict was not open to the jury. It is not sufficient for the court to find a jury might have had reasonable doubt. The evidence must mean no reasonable jury could have returned a guilty verdict; it must have “obliged” them to reach a not guilty verdict.’]

    Third, the appeal court does not retry the case — again, because the jury is the tribunal of fact. The court must independently assess the evidence, but to determine whether the guilty verdict was open to the jury; not simply whether the court itself has a doubt.

    Fourth, if a complainant is credible and reliable and the account is detailed, consistent and plausible, it is difficult for an appeal to succeed. On plausibility, courts have accepted that sexual offending can be brazen, influenced by the abuser’s arrogance, power and belief the child will not make a complaint.’]

    Based on these principles I think the majority got it right.

  2. Mavis

    You could almost say and the High Court will So Hold. Almost. 🙂

    @dril tweets

    there`s no job harder than that of the Media Personality. there are so many massive pedophiles who you have to not accidentally say are good

    @kentparkstreet tweets

    One of the reasons Murdoch media went in boots and all on Pell is that the royal commission has been holding back information to avoid influencing the case. In 28 days that information can be released. It must be bad news for many, not just Pell.

  3. Mavis Davis @ #951 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 1:56 pm

    First, and most important, there is a very high threshold for a court to overturn a jury’s guilty verdict for being unreasonable (see, for example, M or Baden-Clay). A verdict will only be overturned in exceptional circumstances showing a clear miscarriage of justice.

    Second, the test is whether, on the evidence, it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty.

    To win the appeal, the appellant must show the guilty verdict was not open to the jury. It is not sufficient for the court to find a jury might have had reasonable doubt.

    My reading of these first two principles suggests that the dissenting judge has erred gravely in his dissent.

    Third, the appeal court does not retry the case — again, because the jury is the tribunal of fact.

    I feel like a lot of time would have been saved had someone advised the defense counsel of this prior to the appeal. They could have skipped the entire tedious process where they tried to relitigate the (allegedly) exculpatory evidence one piece at a time.

    Based on these principles I think the majority got it right.

    Putting it mildly, imo.

  4. In this morning’s Crikey Worm:

    A Labor Environment ¬Action Network (LEAN) submission to the party’s post-election review claims that a failure to clearly explain its climate change plan ($) cost Labor the election.

    The confidential submission, drafted by co-conveners David Tierney and Felicity Wade and obtained by The Australian, says the party failed to explain who would pay for its climate change policies, how much they would cost, or the economic dividend they would deliver. LEAN is calling for the party to reconsider its climate change policies and how they are communicated, noting “addressing climate change has to be about the economic possibilities and prosperity, not the moral argument”.

  5. Thanks Mavis for outlining that, I felt it was a 50:50 as to which way the appeals court would go but I felt some of the defense issues such as Pell not appearing in person but by link or not being allowed to show a demo of the said crime sense were not convincing arguments against the jury verdict as such technology is recent and juries well and truly predate it. I think the decision not to place Pell on the stand is a major blunder.

  8. Everything has a price.
    If I was a Greenlander how much would I accept to take US citizenship and get out of that freezing shithole and relocate to Florida.
    Probably $US3M would do it.
    As there are about 40,000 Greenlanders, Trump can have it at a bargain price of $120B

  9. [‘You could almost say and the High Court will So Hold. Almost. ‘]

    guytaur, I have to agree with you, juries usually getting it right, appellate courts loathe to overturn their verdict(s).

  10. Alan Jones

    https://theconversation.com/it-will-be-money-not-morality-that-finally-turns-the-tide-on-alan-jones-122051

    Alan Jones’s political power is to a large extent based on a self-fulfilling prophecy: politicians believe he can shift votes, so they pay homage to him, which adds to the impression that he can shift votes.

    This perception of power, in turn, gives him actual power.

    Yet the author and social researcher Rebecca Huntley is reported as saying:

    Fifteen years of research and I haven’t found Alan Jones to be that much more influential with voters than ABC Radio or The SMH. He is only powerful because politicians think he is.

    So if evidence that he actually shifts votes is hard to find, how did this phenomenon develop?

    Developments in media-political relations over the 34 years that Jones has been broadcasting give some pointers.

    He was a pioneer in what has become known as the outrage industry. He rants and raves in extraordinarily fluent broadsides, captivating in their aural power and – to a listener of a certain type – intoxicatingly persuasive.

    This listener is typically in the autumn of life and living in the western suburbs of Sydney, where a tough life has bred cynicism about politicians, bureaucrats and big companies.

  12. Oakeshott Country @ #6005 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 2:14 pm

    Everything has a price.
    If I was a Greenlander how much would I accept to take US citizenship and get out of that freezing shithole and relocate to Florida.
    Probably $US3M would do it.
    As there are about 40,000 Greenlanders, Trump can have it at a bargain price of $120B

    Whaall, thar’s ya praablem – Bone-spur Boy don’t got that sort of money for today’s distraction. Wonder what he’ll try next.

  14. Ok
    I made it up – I would actually pay to get out of Greenland
    Currently the Danes are paying $US10,000 per person p.a. To keep people there.
    I have some wonderment at Trump returning to the 19th century US themes of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine (as Greenland is considered part of the Americas)
    It would be like Morrison reintroducing the dictation test for a White Australia

  16. Mexicanbeemer:

    [‘…I felt it was a 50:50 as to which way the appeals court would go…’]

    I expected grounds 2 & 3 would be thrown out. It was ground 1 that may’ve saved the prisoner, though it’s a very high bar to surmount. If a majority of the court, following the early June hearing, were going to find in Pell’s favour, he would’ve been released. That he wasn’t was telling, though I didn’t anticipate it would be a 2 to 1 decision.

  20. a r:

    [‘My reading of these first two principles suggests that the dissenting judge has erred gravely in his dissent.’]

    I read the first some 100 paras of his dissenting judgment, finding it difficult to follow so gave up. We’ll know if he did err if the prisoner’s application for special leave to appeal gets up – most don’t.

    [‘I feel like a lot of time would have been saved had someone advised the defense counsel of this prior to the appeal.’]

    Walker’s a very experience SC. He would’ve known the legal principles like the back of his hand. That he convinced one judge of his argument evidences his advocacy skills.

    ‘Based on these principles I think the majority got it right.’

    [‘Putting it mildly, imo.’]

    I’m pretty sure that will be the case, though preempting HC decisions is only for the bold.

  21. I know that there are very good legal reasons for defendents to not take the stand and the judge would have told the jury that they should not infer anything from this BUT if I was a juror and a man of the cloth refused to take an oath to defend himself, I would be highly suspicious

  22. Earlier someone posted a link about Adolph Kipfler deporting a person to PNG. Come on down a shemozzle.
    .
    .
    “He … will return to Australia until ICA establishes his citizenship status.”

    But Immigration officials today admitted they had not verified that Kuster was a PNG citizen.

    Comment has been sought from the Home Affairs Department and the office of Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-21/png-denies-entry-to-man-australia-is-trying-to-deport/11434494

  23. Oakeshott Country:

    Pell would’ve have made a terrible witness in his own cause, presenting as arrogant. The prosecution would have made mincemeat of him. Reliance on a judicial direction to the jury was the only way to go.

  24. Oakeshott Country @ #971 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 3:01 pm

    I know that there are very good legal reasons for defendents to not take the stand and the judge would have told the jury that they should not infer anything from this BUT if I was a juror and a man of the cloth refused to take an oath to defend himself, I would be highly suspicious

    This is a very perceptive observation.

  25. I’d like to know if there is a dissenting voice in Labor.

    Bernard Keane @BernardKeane
    4h
    By god if it’s one thing Australian governments love, it’s a military adventure in the Middle East in the service of our imperial masters. Here we go again. We’ve learnt nothing.

  26. lizzie @ #975 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 3:25 pm

    I’d like to know if there is a dissenting voice in Labor.

    Bernard Keane @BernardKeane
    4h
    By god if it’s one thing Australian governments love, it’s a military adventure in the Middle East in the service of our imperial masters. Here we go again. We’ve learnt nothing.

    You could always ask them. 🙂

  28. And before the usual suspects start bleating, Lib-Lab same-same, about going to war in the Middle East, you might want to read this opinion piece by a former Labor Prime Minister:

    John Howard’s decision to commit thousands of Australian troops to the invasion of Iraq 15 years ago ranks as one of the two great failures of Australian foreign policy since the Second World War.

    The other is Menzies’ decision to send forces to Vietnam. Both cases represented an abysmal failure of Australian political leadership, driven by an unnecessary capitulation to strategically foolhardy decisions by the US administrations of the time.

    Both decisions were taken without independent Australian analysis of the legitimacy of American war aims, the credibility of American military strategy to both win the war and secure the peace, as well as the long-term consequences for Australian national interests.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-monstrous-strategic-mistake-20180320-p4z59i.html

  29. Mavis Davis

    “I expected grounds 2 & 3 would be thrown out. It was ground 1 that may’ve saved the prisoner, though it’s a very high bar to surmount.”

    Can the HC reconsider matters of fact or is it only matters of law? If it is only points of law, from what I have read of the trial judges very careful management of the trial and direction of the jury, then Pell does not seem to have much left. The legal arguments in the appeal were dismissed 3-0. Or am I missing something? (I am not a lawyer.)

    In fact, considering the sensitivity of the case, the trial judge seems to have done a very good job.

  31. Socrates:

    [‘Can the HC reconsider matters of fact or is it only matters of law?’]

    It has a wide discretion to consider any matter it thinks appropriate.

  32. Socrates @ #979 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 3:37 pm

    If it is only points of law, from what I have read of the trial judges very careful management of the trial and direction of the jury, then Pell does not seem to have much left. The legal arguments in the appeal were dismissed 3-0.

    Yes, I thought the dissent was concluded along the lines of:

    there is, to my mind, a ‘significant possibility’ that the applicant in this case may not have committed these offences

    So one judge felt that there was some amount of doubt as to Pell’s guilt. But going by the principles posted earlier his job wasn’t to look for “some doubt” or “reasonable doubt” or “significant possibilities”, but something more akin to “absolute certainty” that a reasonable jury could not have returned a guilty verdict.

    “Significant possibility” stops well short of that, it seems. So he should have just voted with everyone else to dismiss the appeal.

  33. poroti says: Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 3:39 pm

    Labor will be all aboard the Iran train, terrified they be accused of being ‘unpatriotic’ by not buying a ticket aboard.

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

    What’s the saying ??? – those who don’t learn the lessons/mistakes from history are doomed to repeat them ….

    Another Middle East quagmire awaits ????? …..

  36. Mavis

    Sure, the HC has a wide discretion to consider what it deems relevant.

    However it must be said that the criminal cases in which the HC grants special leave to appeal are rare, except when a matter of law is involved, which usually relates to the way the judge ran the trial, what directions he gave or did not give, what evidence he ruled in or out.

    In Pell’s case, the presence of the jury at arraignment, and the inadmissability decision about the video were the only issues that were matters of law appealed in today’s case.

    The HC has given 20 judgements so far this year and a quick perusal suggests that none of the 20 cases were in the criminal jurisdiction.

    I am thinking that any HC appeal by Pell will see more parishoners’ cash going down the gurgler.

  37. guytaur @ #956 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 2:11 pm

    @rahmstorf tweets

    Climate skeptics and deniers have often accused scientists of exaggerating the threat of climate change, but the evidence shows that not only have they not exaggerated, they have underestimated. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/

    Exactly as I have been pointing out for years now. Things are happening far faster than most people seem to be aware. Those few climate scientists who dare report the actual rate of change are labelled “extremists”, or are singled out for voiciferous criticism. No wonder they tend to water down their findings, or refrain from making their most dire predictions public at all.

    Nor does the IPCC help here – in their bid to present a “consensus” view, they actually end up presenting an unrealistically optimistic view.

    Yet every time there is an actual update to climate predictions, incorporating the latest real-world data, it always seems to show that we are tracking on the extreme upper end (i.e. the worst-case) of all the previous predictions 🙁

  39. poroti says: Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 4:12 pm

    phoenixRED

    Perhaps after Afghanistan and Iraq they feel that ‘Third time lucky” will work.

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

    Yeah and with Iran …… its continues to be all about OIL …..

    ( as Jon Stewart put it – If America leads a blessed life, then why did God put all of OUR oil under people who hate us?” )

  40. If we head off to the middle east it will not be labor to blame; they don’t make the decisions. It will be the Liberals and their side kick, the Greens to blame.

    This is what the Greens fought for; if you voted for them be happy.

  41. does not (as you stated) “confirm” that Pell is going to the HC

    Thought the same.

    It just quoted the statement from earlier, which makes it sound likely (but not definite) that Pell will appeal further.

  43. Commenter on PK ABC this afternoon says it’s admirable that the commitment to the Hormuz situation is minor, but it is wrong that the greatest monetary commitment over the past decades has been to the Middle East and not our own region.

  44. Does anyone else find this the height of irony?

    I see a black humour pun. Probably says more about me than whoever wrote it at the age.

  50. Pell’s legal team is duty bound to state that an application for special leave will be considered. The statement says nothing as to whether there will be an application for special leave.

    Other than that the CA unanimously dismissed the technical grounds of appeal (jury arraignment and video evidence), and that they seemed long shots at best, I will not refer to those grounds below save to say that Pell would have more chance getting special leave on those grounds if a halfway decent argument could be mounted.

    IMO the application for special leave on ground 1 unreasonable jury is hopeless (90% certainty). That is because the HC is not there to give those who fail in the Court of Appeal a second go.

    The HC is there to correct error on the part of the Court of Appeal. The fact that the CA was a majority decision 2 to 1 does NOT mean either Ferguson/Maxwell or Weinberg must have been wrong. How so? Because the question whether the jury must have had reasonable doubt is a factual question about which reasonable minds might disagree, and have in this case.

    If the HC grant special leave this would require 5 judges of the HC to decide for themselves whether the CA should have found that the jury must have had reasonable doubt. There is no suggestion that the CA applied the wrong test or that the majority and minority disagreed on some applicable legal principle or approach. IMO the only rationale for the HC to grant special leave would be to provide access to justice to Pell that would be, and is, denied to less celebrated litigants every week.

    So I expect Pell’s legal team to read very carefully the judgments and satisfy themselves that Ferguson/Maxwell did not make some egregious factual error that might give special leave some prospects. (I discount the likelihood of such factual error simply because both judges well know the spotlight which their decisions will be subjected to. And getting the basal facts right is not a complex task).

    If Pell’s legal team cannot find some good ground he will know that seeking leave to appeal to the HC is a reasonably forlorn exercise. I think it no better than a 50/50 chance that he will apply for special leave. In many respects it is more face-saving for him to lose 2/1 in the CA than to lose 3 zip on the special leave application (as I would expect).

    OTOH, if Pell gets special leave to appeal then all bets are off. Success on the appeal would be 50/50 or even higher. But 50% of 10% is a 1 in 20 chance.

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