Newspoll: 52-48 to Coalition

Another modest Coalition lead from the second poll in a new-look Newspoll series, which also finds Scott Morrison rated well for strength, vision and experience, but higher than he’d like for arrogance. Also featured: a quick early look at the ANU’s deep and wide post-election survey.

The second Newspoll conducted under the new regime of online polls conducted by YouGov records the Coalition with a 52-48 lead, out from 51-49 a fortnight ago. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 42%, Labor is steady on 33%, the Greens are down one to 11% and One Nation is steady on 5%. Both leaders’ personal ratings are improved after weak results last time, with Scott Morrison up two on approval to 45% and down four on disapproval to 48%, and Anthony Albanese up two to 40% and down four to 41%. Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is out from 46-35 to 48-34.

Respondents were also asked to rate the leaders according to nine attributes, eight positive and one negative. Morrison scored higher than Albanese for the experience (68-64), decisiveness and strength (60-51) and having a vision for Australia (60-54), while Albanese had the edge on caring for people (60-55). There was essentially nothing to separate them on understanding the major issues (57-56 to Albanese), likeability (56-56), being in touch with voters (50-49 to Albanese) and trustworthiness (49-48). However, Morrison’s worst result was his 58-40 lead on the one negative quality that was gauged – arrogance.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1503. The Australian’s paywalled report of the results is here.

In other poll news, a uComms poll (apparently minus the ReachTEL branding now) for the Courier-Mail ($) suggests Queensland’s embattled Deputy Premier, Jackie Trad, is in grave danger of losing her seat of South Brisbane to the Greens. The poll shows the Greens on 29.4%, Labor on 27.5% and the Liberal National Party on 26.6%, with 10.4% undecided. Labor is credited with a 52-48 lead on respondent-allocated preferences, but this may flatter Labor given the LNP’s announcement that they would direct preferences against them. No field work date is provided that I can see, but the sample size was 700. The deficiencies of automated phone polls in inner city seats were noted by Kevin Bonham, among others.

UPDATE: In better poll news still, the results from the post-election Australian Election Study survey are available in all their glory, courtesy of the Australian National University. You can view the ANU’s overview of the findings here, but the real fun of this resource is that it allows you to cross-tabulate responses to 3143-respondent survey across a dizzying range of variables. The survey also includes demographic weightings that presume to correct for the biases introduced by the survey process. The survey also addresses a long-standing criticism by including a component of 968 respondents who also completed the 2016 survey, allowing for study of the changing behaviour of the same set of respondents over time.

Rest assured you will be hearing a great deal more about the survey going forward, but for the time being, here’s one set of numbers I have crunched for starters. This shows the primary vote broken down into three age cohorts, and compares them with the equivalent figures from the 2016 survey. This produces some eye-catching results, particularly in regard to a probably excessive surge in support for the Coalition among the middle-aged cohort – mostly at the expense of “others”. By contrast, the young cohort swung heavily to the left, while the boomers were relatively static.

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.

580 comments on “Newspoll: 52-48 to Coalition”

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  1. I look forward to Albanese’s appearance on Q&A tonight (Queensland time). I think he’s got a better grasp of matters political than does his predecessor. That said, he has a demeanour similar to Simon Crean – and we all know what happened to him.

  2. Davidwh:

    I’m not so certain it would’ve. Mumble often says (I think he wrote a PhD thesis on the subject) that a necessary precursor for referendums to get up is bipartisan support. What Turnbull may have been thinking is that he couldn’t count on his own party to support the referendum.

  3. Fess no doubt and we know that a lost referendum means it will take a long time before it is tried again.

    I don’t think collectively we are there yet.

  4. Turnbull now agrees the federal parliament should have a national integrity commission, says the bills were being drafted as he was being knifed.

    I’m not certain I believe him.

  5. Davidwh:

    True re failed referendums. I do however think that with bipartisan support for constitutional recognition for indigenous Australians it would get up.

  6. RI @ #538 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 10:02 pm

    The claim here by P1 is false. The UN report does not canvas supply restraints in a context of falling prices for coal. It is concerned with the effects of supply restraint in a context of rising prices for oil.

    P1 is making disingenuous claims, as is their usual habit. There is no “output gap” in the coal trade. The market is glutted. Prices are falling below the cost of production, especially for remotely-located, poor-quality materials such as those found in the Galilee.

    The Green Tories will say anything if it affords a chance to sledge Labor. This is their gig.

    Just utter bollocks. As anyone who bothers to read the report will conclude. The report is called “The Production Gap” for a reason.

    Why you bother, when your arguments are so easily refuted by anyone who has a modicum of intelligence, or perhaps can just read, is just beyond me **

    ** Actually, no it isn’t. Your motives, along with the other “Musketeers” are simply too transparent.

  7. A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

    The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.

    The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

  8. “Turnbull now agrees the federal parliament should have a national integrity commission, says the bills were being drafted as he was being knifed.”

    ***

    The Greens introduced legislation into the Senate to setup a Federal ICAC no less than 5 (FIVE) times during the years Turnbull was PM. Turnbull’s Liberal senators voted against it every time. He’s full of it.

    https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/policies/86/detail

  9. Firefox
    says:
    The Greens introduced legislation into the Senate to setup a Federal ICAC no less than 5 (FIVE) times during the years Turnbull was PM. Turnbull’s Liberal senators voted against it every time. He’s full of it.
    ___________________
    Is there anything more nauseating than a politician defending their legacy? Particularly when they don’t have one.

  10. Poor Albanese is not cutting it tonight on Q&A. A subjective view but nevertheless well-founded, I repeat, he reminds me of Crean, lacking a certain très stylé. Us Labor people abhor style(?). That’s why we refuse point blank to attend the opera, the ballet, the symphony orchestra.

  11. Mal says: “I’ve been a serial entrepreneur” – that’s true, but fancy admitting it. He’s still an effing gutless wonker!

  12. The UN report does indeed describe rapidly falling production of coal. There is a completely false forecast for Australia…a forecast for steep increases in coal production. Since demand for thermal coal in the domestic market is declining, and since demand for coking coal is not growing, and since demand for thermal coal in Australia’s largest North Asian markets is falling, the forecast for Australian coal production is just utterly wrong. The coal market generally is declining and this applies to the seaborne trade as well.

    The report also does indeed include “Box 6″…which makes claims about the supply elasticities of oil. P1 has used these claims to make generalisations about coal…generalisations that are just not supported by the logic of the UN example.

    P1 is wrong…as usual…and making disingenuous claims for their own gratification…again as usual…

  13. Mavis

    No guts and bad political judgement.
    A pity Albanse seems to be following him right now.

    Anyway I came back to remind in the US Historic moment now. Articles of Impeachment live. Usual online sources.

    One protestor supporting Trump has already interrupted

  14. North Korea insulted Donald Trump again on Monday, calling him a “heedless and erratic old man” after he tweeted that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wouldn’t want to abandon a special relationship between the two leaders and affect the US presidential election by resuming hostile acts.

    A senior North Korean official, former nuclear negotiator Kim Yong-chol, said in a statement his country would not cave in to US pressure because it has nothing to lose and accused the Trump administration of attempting to buy time ahead of an end-of-year deadline set by Kim for Washington to salvage nuclear talks.

    On Sunday, Trump tweeted: “Kim Jong-un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way … North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/09/north-korea-insults-trump-heedless-erratic-old-man

    ‘Heedless and erratic”….excellent.

  15. FFS

    Voter sentiment is also negative about unions in other respects. Almost half the sample (49%) agree with the observation “overall unions have too much power today”, while 68% agree that union officials should be disqualified for breaching administrative laws such as failing to file annual financial reports – which is part of the Morrison government’s union bill

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/10/morrison-gets-thumbs-up-from-coalition-voters-but-overall-disapproval-rises-essential-poll

  16. RI says:
    Monday, December 9, 2019 at 11:59 pm

    The UN report does indeed describe rapidly falling production of coal. There is a completely false forecast for Australia…a forecast for steep increases in coal production.

    They also claimed a royality subsidy to Adani. There is even today no royalty agreement, and what is being proposed is hardly a holiday. My understanding, if they make the railway line available to all, they can claim the cost towards future royalty payments.

    The failure to sign is a pretty sure indication the railway line is not getting built.

  17. RI @ #570 Monday, December 9th, 2019 – 11:59 pm

    The report also does indeed include “Box 6″…which makes claims about the supply elasticities of oil. P1 has used these claims to make generalisations about coal…generalisations that are just not supported by the logic of the UN example.

    P1 is wrong…as usual…and making disingenuous claims for their own gratification…again as usual…

    It is not me making the generalization, it is the authors of the report. They used oil as an example representing all fossil fuels.

    You either didn’t actually read the report, or you didn’t understand it, or you are deliberately misrepresenting it because this report utterly demolishes your nonsense.

    Perhaps you just hope that no-one will actually read the report? Because if they do, they will see just who is being disingenuous here.

  18. This has nothing at all to with politics. I heard some cockatoos outside my window about half an hour ago and stood up to see what they were doing and saw six of them getting stuck into the remainders in the plastic bowl of the morning duck pellets and seed. Then, and it’s always when you don’t have a camera handy, a seventh one flew down marched over to the group and grabbed the edge of the bowl and started to drag it across the yard. Brightened up my morning no end.

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