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. @Pegasus

    I agree with your assessment of the Australian Greens, however out there in the general public they are seen as an Environmentalist Party and a sizable proportion of Australia despise environmentalists who they deride as ‘Greenies’.

  2. Pegasus @ #1043 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 6:31 pm

    GG

    No environment, no economy.

    Nice of you to recognise you haven’t got a clue.

    The environment has always been with us. As has the economy.

    Greens didn’t invent it.

    They don’t even support it, in reality.

    Sure they talk a good firgt and can bombard us all with Kumbayah rhetoric (and copy paste).

    But, they’re not serious or influencers on the core part of their reason for existence.

  3. Tristo says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 6:33 pm

    @Mexicanbeemer

    Compared to other Western countries, the extent of anti-environmentalist sentiment is greater here in Australia. Because in some regions of the country, such as the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland, mining and the fossil fuels industry is seen as integral part of a way of their way of life. This is becoming even more so, due to the high unemployment and underemployment in these regions. That is the only way I can explain the sentiment of the locals in Central Queensland, when the Stop Adani convoy came around. They saw the Stop Adani movement as a threat to their way of life.
    ——————————————————

    I agree that the Stop Adani movement was a misadventure for the reasons you touch on.

    Looking at other western countries with single member electorates, I think most western countries have their own version of Queensland or the Hunter, but many countries are more decentralised so you tend to see an electorate based in a major city with the surrounding areas in their own rural electorate but in North Queensland the electorates are that large the main city’s vote is diluted.

    We see this with Mackay in Dawson, the city of Mackey is a solid ALP town yet the federal seat of Dawson is solid LNP. Cities like Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton and Mt Isa are solid ALP towns but the ALP can’t win the wider federal electorates.

  4. Tristo

    Since the Greens party federated in 1992 both major parties and the mainstream media have been on a unity ticket demonising the Greens as “extreme” …..

    Before every election state or federal, the scare campaigns are trotted out re hung parliaments, minority government, Coalition and Labor proclaiming wtte we will not govern with the aid of the Greens, the world will be destroyed if Greens are elected, etc.

    This perception is set in concrete with many voters and is difficult to shift.

    In such a hostile environment, I actually think garnering 10% of primary votes is pretty okay.

    Business as usual, the maintenance of the status quo is the goal of the political duopoly.

    Unfortunately, for the two major parties an increasing number of voters are opting to give their primary votes to minor and micro parties and independents.

    The self-entitlement of the two major parties to governing in their own right is being threatened.

    Long live democracy!

  5. frednk @ #1049 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 6:34 pm


    Pegasus says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 6:28 pm

    Since its inception as a federated party, the Greens party platform has been based on four key principles: ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice and peace and non-violence.

    It has never been just an ‘environmental party’.

    And secret meetings, stunts and swipes at labor are about all they deliver. They have managed to get to a point where they are a road block on many issues. Climate change is real, climate change need action, not another stunt.

    Terminating the carbon tax was a classic Rudd stunt…

    Those clean energy package laws were pretty good I thought…

  6. Pegasus @ #1056 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 6:45 pm

    Tristo

    Since the Greens party federated in 1992 both major parties and the mainstream media have been on a unity ticket demonising the Greens as “extreme” …..

    Before every election state or federal, the scare campaigns are trotted out re hung parliaments, minority government, Coalition and Labor proclaiming wtte we will not govern with the aid of the Greens, the world will be destroyed if Greens are elected, etc.

    This perception is set in concrete with many voters and is difficult to shift.

    In such a hostile environment, I actually think garnering 10% of primary votes is pretty okay.

    Business as usual, the maintenance of the status quo is the goal of the political duopoly.

    Unfortunately, for the two major parties an increasing number of voters are opting to give their primary votes to minor and micro parties and independents.

    Long live democracy!

    Sorry, Sunshine, lolly pops and rainbows doesn’t make the grade as a political philosophy and a plan.

  7. Jeff Sparrow
    @Jeff_Sparrow

    Weird how the punters who want longer sentences for ordinary people accused of crimes suddenly have no faith in the judicial system.

    Andrew Elder
    @awelder

    They are also supporters of the death penalty. The oscillation between judges are politically correct dills/should have power over life and death is one of my favourite aspects of shriekback radio

  8. The Greens allow themselves to be seen as extreme by their refusal to take policy positions that could be seen as pro-money or pro-conservative or not purely progressive.

  9. Mexicanbeemer @ #1060 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 6:51 pm

    The Greens allow themselves to be seen as extreme by their refusal to take policy positions that could be seen as pro-money or pro-conservative or not purely progressive.

    Working families and their issues never get a gig with the greens.

    They are fantasists and dreamers with only a tangential connection to the mainstream.

  10. Since the Greens party federated in 1992 both major parties and the mainstream media have been on a unity ticket demonising the Greens as “extreme” …..

    This is freaking hilarious coming from a hyper partisan spokesperson of the party that seeks, at all times, to demonise the Labor Party as being as extreme a party as the Liberal Party or the Nationals. I’ve even heard Labor characterised as as bad as One Nation. But that was just guytaur. 🙂

  11. I decided to pop my head back in here today after quite an abscence, as I was interested in reading the opinions of a number of regular contributors with brilliant legal minds, ( you know who you are) and with respect to the Pell appeal.

    But then I find this stuff is still happening:

    …”In Lib-kin Garden”…
    …”Lib-Libs and the Lib-ling “…
    …”the Lib-Lib+Lib-ling”…

    I might have another look in a month or two.
    Hopefully then the person responsible for this raving gobbledygook will have either calmed down, or bought a boat and gone fishing for the duration.

    Have fun.

  12. sprocket_ @ #6216 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 6:32 pm

    Pegasus says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 6:28 pm
    Since its inception as a federated party, the Greens party platform has been based on four key principles: ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice and peace and non-violence.
    —————————————————————————————-

    That’s 5 principles

    Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weapons are…

  13. Oops! People are not doing what Morrison and Frydenberg told them to do. Gerry Harvey will not be pleased.

    There are signs the employment market may be responding to lower interest rates with the first lift in internet job advertisements in seven months but the promised boost from the Morrison government’s income tax cuts has yet to materialise across the nation’s shopping malls.

    https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/little-to-celebrate-more-jobs-advertised-but-no-sign-of-tax-refunds-being-spent-20190821-p52jch.html

  14. The Greens are seen as extreme because they don’t believe that the ultimate purpose in life is to maximise your post-tax income and wealth accumulation.

  15. rhwombat @ #1064 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:03 pm

    sprocket_ @ #6216 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 6:32 pm

    Pegasus says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 6:28 pm
    Since its inception as a federated party, the Greens party platform has been based on four key principles: ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice and peace and non-violence.
    —————————————————————————————-

    That’s 5 principles

    Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weapons are…

    Bloody economics again.

  16. Greensborough Growler @ #6240 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:07 pm

    rhwombat @ #1064 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:03 pm

    sprocket_ @ #6216 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 6:32 pm

    Pegasus says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 6:28 pm
    Since its inception as a federated party, the Greens party platform has been based on four key principles: ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice and peace and non-violence.
    —————————————————————————————-

    That’s 5 principles

    Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weapons are…

    Bloody economics again.

    There’s trooble at’mill…

  17. Steve777 says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 7:03 pm

    The Greens are seen as extreme because they don’t believe that the ultimate purpose in life is to maximise your post-tax income and wealth accumulation.
    ————————
    Kind of but not really.

    I will give you an example, the best Green result in Melbourne besides the seat of Melbourne was in Kooyong because the candidate was unusually for a Green candidate had been financially and professionally successful.

    Its all good and well to put forward social issues but the mistake the Greens often make is putting forward candidates that are limited, we saw this in Higgins with Jason Ball. No doubt a nice bloke but was essentially a one issue candidate whereas had the Greens had someone like Yates or someone of the quality of the ALP candidate in Fiona McLeod then the Greens might find they could do better.

  18. Heard on the radio today that levels of private health insurance are dropping and that the government is concerned about this.

    Didn’t hear anyone suggest that maybe families feeling strapped for cash had anything to do with the drop.

    Unsurprisingly, the report stated that the greatest drop off rate occurs after a claim – when the claimant realises that they’re out of pocket by a lot more than they expected.

  19. Mexican

    Didn’t they do the same thing a few years ago, and run a hip trendy intellectual in a similar seat?

    Gasps of awe from the media but little resonance with the actual voters.

  20. Pell: child rapist.

    Anthony Fisher, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney: apologist and supporter of Pell, child rapist.

    John Howard, former PM: thinks Pell is a good man, notwithstanding he is a child rapist.

  21. zoomster @ #1071 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:15 pm

    Heard on the radio today that levels of private health insurance are dropping and that the government is concerned about this.

    Didn’t hear anyone suggest that maybe families feeling strapped for cash had anything to do with the drop.

    Unsurprisingly, the report stated that the greatest drop off rate occurs after a claim – when the claimant realises that they’re out of pocket by a lot more than they expected.

    Tax returns!

  22. zoomster @ #1072 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:16 pm

    Mexican

    Didn’t they do the same thing a few years ago, and run a hip trendy intellectual in a similar seat?

    Gasps of awe from the media but little resonance with the actual voters.

    And then there was Julian Burnside. Very much a glamour candidate at the last election. With some serious flaws when it came to embodying The Greens’ purported ethos.

  23. During the Global Financial Crisis, around half of the cash handouts were spent upfront, but the preliminary signs from the recent round of tax cuts point to a substantially lower share being spent so far.”

    So the ‘Cash Splash’ actually worked, whereas the permanent tax cuts don’t? In news that surprises no one.

  24. Just on George Pell, the RWNJ machine is ramping up the outrage-O-meter that he wasn’t acquitted and carried through the streets of Melbourne, robes, crook and silly hat in place.

    Meanwhile, Derry Hinch is dusting off the Pell file he has kept for 25 years, and the 2 unreleased volumes of the Child Abuse RC allegedly dealing with Pell and his covering up of the allegedly like minded mates is due to be released 90,days after all appeals are exhausted.

    Pell’s current 2022 parole date may be illusory.

  25. The logical thing to do with tax cuts for most people, I would have thought, would be to pay off the mortgage as if the rate were 3% higher, because one day it will be and you can reduce the principle owed in the meantime. Or, with the economy looking shaky, put it aside for a rainy day.

  26. sprocket_ @ #6249 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:38 pm

    Just on George Pell, the RWNJ machine is ramping up the outrage-O-meter that he wasn’t acquitted and carried through the streets of Melbourne, robes, crook and silly hat in place.

    Meanwhile, Derry Hinch is dusting off the Pell file he has kept for 25 years, and the 2 unreleased volumes of the Child Abuse RC allegedly dealing with Pell and his covering up of the allegedly like minded mates is due to be released 90,days after all appeals are exhausted.

    Pell’s current 2022 parole date may be illusory.

    Makes the Parrot’s sockfest look positively quotidian…It’s going to be interesting to see how far the RWNJs can keep peddling the Clown Car over the abyss.

  27. Having now read the Pell appeal judgment in full, I think he has a good chance of having his portended application for special leave approved. It seems to me that both sides went out of their way to support their respective biases. Perhaps the law should adopt the Popperian paradigm? – ie,

    “Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.”

  28. Steve777: Exactly as I did with wage rises and tax cuts and therefore paid off my mortgage and now can use the money I saved to go on holidays and live without anxiety.

    Meanwhile those spent it on new TVs etc. are still complaining about their mortgages and other debts.


  29. Rex Douglas says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 6:47 pm
    …..

    Terminating the carbon tax was a classic Rudd stunt…

    Those clean energy package laws were pretty good I thought…

    Just another swipe at Labor; all the greens have ever delivered. Oh the stunts of cause. A complete and utter waste of space blocking action on many issues.

  30. Steve777 @ #1078 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:38 pm

    The logical thing to do with tax cuts for most people, I would have thought, would be to pay off the mortgage as if the rate were 3% higher, because one day it will be and you can reduce the principle owed in the meantime. Or, with the conomy looking shaky, put it aside for a rainy day.

    Pumping extra/windfall money in to your 30 year home loan is the best thing any mortgagee can do. It’s better that tattllotto but a little slow.

    Nearly all loans have redraw these days at minimal cost. So when the kids arrive and you need a loan for the transport, then you have something to fall back on.

    Putting money in to your loan like this reduces the term of your loan siginificantly.

    Another good trick is to make your repayments fortnightly rather than monthly. Doing this without additional payments in to your loan can take 4 years off your loan.

  31. The Nut-job Right is tribal. The Justice system, which they think is meant to serve them, got one of their own, hence the outrage.

  32. z

    “Didn’t they do the same thing a few years ago, and run a hip trendy intellectual in a similar seat?”

    Are you talking about Labor running Sophie Ismail in Melbourne in 2016? Or is that different?

  33. GG @7:49 PM. Too few people know that they can, if they come into a bit of extra money, make the “miracle” of compound interest work in their favour by paying mortgages quicker.

  34. Tristo says:
    Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 5:55 pm

    I am not disrespecting any Greens supporters or members here, however the Greens are very much a Middle Class party and also Environmentalist. Given a large section of the Australian populace hate Environmentalism with a passion. Just look at the reaction of the people in Central Queensland to the stop Adani convoy. In contrast, the Green parties in Europe do not have to face large sections of their country’s electorates that hate environmentalism.

    When asked, Australian voters very consistently rate the protection of the environment as a priority. It’s right up there in the consciousness of most voters. However, it has proven to be very difficult to translate this sentiment into vote-shifting. The issue that moves votes more than anything else is jobs. Jobs, incomes, the cost-of-living. These pinch voters where it hurts most and will move their voting intention.

    The Greens are frauds. They pose as an environmentally-concerned party. But they’re not. They exploit anxiety around the environment to advantage themselves. Given the chance to support action that will favour the environment and jobs at the same time, they will balk. They profiteer from fear and they manufacture fear. They are a political exploitation machine.

    They have made it far more difficult to defend the environment that it needed to be. The result is that the Lib-Libs win…and nothing can or will be done to advance the values the Lib-kin purport to subscribe to. They are well aware of this, of course. The worst thing that could happen to the Greens would be the resolution of the environmental emergency. They will prevent that from happening.

  35. Typical Labor misrepresentation and hysterical hyperbole…

    Greens move to increase vegan options in Canberra hospitals ‘would kill me’, backbencher Bec Cody says

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-21/canberra-backbencher-veganism-motion-bec-cody/11435976

    A Labor backbencher has said a Greens proposal requiring Canberra’s schools and hospitals to provide more vegan options “would kill me”, during debate in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

    Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur’s motion, which called on the Government to support a shift to more plant-based food options, was overwhelmingly voted against in the Assembly this afternoon.
    ::::
    Ms Le Couteur said her proposal had been wilfully misinterpreted by Labor.

    “Of course I was not intending to kill [Ms Cody] with this motion,” she said.

    “There was nothing that I wrote which would suggest that anybody anywhere was going to be forced to eat a plant-based meal or that would be the only alternative available to them.

    “My motion is talking about options.”
    :::
    The Greens MLA pointed to a recent report by the International Panel on Climate Change which emphasised the importance of shifting towards plant-based diets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

  36. Dr Kevin Bonham – Expected Scott Bacon Recount

    http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2019/08/expected-scott-bacon-recount.html

    Tasmanian politics is abuzz with news that popular Clark Labor MP Scott Bacon has said he will resign from parliament for family reasons very soon, triggering a recount for his seat from the 2018 state election. This article explains how the expected countback (confusingly officially called a “recount”) works, pending confirmation that former MP Madeleine Ogilvie will contest it. It is already known that former radio host Tim Cox will contest the recount. A Cox win is no problem for Labor, but an Ogilvie win could be a big headache for the Opposition.

  37. An exhausting day here today, where several posters made and repeated the case for hatred.

    They gave themselves the right to hate, and revelled in it. They explained that their hatred was conditional: paedophilia, contact and congress with right-wing Prime Ministers, Tim Minchin wrote a song about it (which makes it OK) and one said you needed a friend who’d been abused. This vicarious victimhood gave you a right to hate.

    But the hatred was strictly personal, controlled, restricted in a perverse kind of way. No-one else’s opinions – say about Jews, blacks, Muslims in Christchurch, Mexicans in El Paso, gays, queers, lesbians or boat people- were listed as qualifying as approved for hatred, so I guess anyone else who hates is WAY out of the permitted hatred envelope, and shame on them.

    It’s refreshing (in one way at least) to see Hatred go mainstream here on Poll Bludger. Better out in the open than hidden, waffled and qualified away.

    It’s OK to hate, guys. To paraphrase posts from today: hatred is permissable, indeed laudable, in certain circumstances. Bring back death by torture. Let’s write songs to celebrate it. Forgiveness is for wimps. We should all have the right to be bigots. Hey, it’s only human nature.

    William, by not proscribing the justifications for all of the above has made it them officially approved pathways of political and social discourse. I’m sure he doesn’t want to lose punters, but he must wonder why this blog is rarely taken seriously, if ever.

    I can tell him why: it’s as bigoted and unreasoned in its way as the behaviour it vilifies. It’s an angry mob, using precisely the same sophistry to justify its prejudices and hatreds as those it condemns.

  38. C@tmomma @ #1095 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 7:05 pm

    Dan Gulberry @ #1094 Wednesday, August 21st, 2019 – 8:57 pm

    Did someone fart in here?

    Maybe Labor supporters are just getting tired of being routinely abused by Greens partisans?

    Green partisan? SRSLY? What you’re really sick and tired of is being abused by life long Labor voters (like me) who are having trouble determining what Labor actually stands for, and are disturbed by the push on here (by some, not all mind you, but some on here) to push Labor further and further to the right.

    Perhaps people are moving on because of the utter bullshit being pushed by the Labor hitmen (and women) on here like the utterly bonehead comment by one such dickhead that the Greens are responsible for Australia’s involvement in the Iraq debacle because they were (and still are) opposed to it. Apparently the shit for brains that posted that comment believes that the Greens opposing a Liberal policy enables the Libs.

    Anyway, in the past I’ve always given you the benefit of the doubt, but after that bout of stupidity from you, you can join briefly, boerwar, earlwood, frednk, zoidlord and bucephalus on the list of people making this blog unreadable, and therefore no longer worth reading.

  39. Dan
    For today’s challenge, find the post here where a Green partisan “opposed a Liberal policy”, it was the same tiresome stuff, stunts and digs at Labor. Over and over and over. So you find pointing this out boring. As the Greens have contributed nothing to Australian political life for 20 years my problem is not a blog, it what the Greens have done to Australian politics.

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