Newspoll: 50-50

Newspoll finds Scott Morrison’s commanding personal ratings improving still further, without doing anything to improve a seemingly precarious position on voting intention.

As brought to you by The Australian, Newspoll maintains its sedentary ways in its latest poll, which repeats the previous result three weeks ago in recording a dead head on two-party preferred. Labor is up a point on the primary vote to 37%, while the Coalition on 42%, the Greens on 10% and One Nation on 3% are all unchanged. Despite a seemingly difficult week for Scott Morrison, he gains one on approval to 64% and drops one on disapproval to 32% and widens his lead as preferred prime minister from 57-29 to 61-26, as Anthony Albanese drops three on approval to 38% and rises two on disapproval to 45%. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1504.

There was also a poll on Friday from Roy Morgan, which sometimes publishes its regular federal voting intention polling and sometimes doesn’t. In this case Labor was credited with a bare lead of 50.5-49.5, from primary votes of Coalition 40%, Labor 34.5%, the Greens 13% and One Nation 3.5%. The poll was conducted over the previous two weekends online and by phone from a sample of 2824.

Between Newspoll, Roy Morgan and Essential Research, there are now three pollsters who rate the situation as steady of with Labor fractionally ahead. This is reflected in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, now updated with the above results on both the voting intention and leadership rating trends, which has Labor edging ahead to a 50.2-49.8 lead.

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.

3,113 comments on “Newspoll: 50-50”

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  1. meher baba:

    Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 4:26 pm

    [‘Thank goodness the LAPD wasn’t defunded, as many of Lady Gaga’s celebrity friends have called for.’]

    I’m not sure they meant that in the real sense. More like this:

    “Defunding the police” simply means reducing police department budgets and redistributing those funds towards essential social services that are often underfunded, such as housing, education, employment, mental health…’]

    Many of those caught up in the criminal justice system are ill-housed, poorly educated, unemployed, and suffer mental health disorders due in part to drug & alcohol addiction. If some of the monies allocated to police departments were reallocated to social services, the crime rate would most likely decrease and the lot of police would improve
    commensurately.

  2. Meanwhile back at #ScottyFromCoverUps office they are ritually preparing to slaughter a cat. This cat will be launched high into the air and land Monday morning on your table. Your spouse will then say ‘hey, look at that it’s a dead cat on the table’All will be forgotten.— Gregory James (@Gregory83800672) February 27, 2021

  3. RonniSalt
    @RonniSalt
    ·
    9m
    To give you an idea of how desperate the Morrison govt war-room is at the moment.

    A photo of Good-Hubby-Morrison in his River’s shorts flailing about on a suburban beach is the very best distraction thought up.

    This latest issue needs more gunpowder than that.

    Napalm levels.

  4. “ I’ll be taking the weekend to read through the recommendations of the Aged Care Royal Commission.”

    But then I spoke to Jen, and she had a better recommendation

  5. Replying to
    @RonniSalt
    For those playing along at home; after a very stressful week he wore a pair of white flippers and frolicked in the water.

    *struggles to maintain a straight face while typing*

    No mention of the stressful weeks and years the rape victims have endured, but hey – what a guy.

  6. Writing in a new book, Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, warns that the impending fertility crisis poses a global threat comparable to that of the climate crisis.

    “The current state of reproductive affairs can’t continue much longer without threatening human survival,” she writes in Count Down.

    It comes after a study she co-authored in 2017 found that sperm counts in the west had plummeted by 59% between 1973 and 2011, making headlines globally.

    Now, Swan says, following current projections, the median sperm count is set to reach zero in 2045. “That’s a little concerning, to say the least,” she told Axios.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/26/falling-sperm-counts-human-survival

  7. P1: “Not trying to downplay the significance of a sexual assault accusation, but the reality is that in politics the dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on. I certainly hope some COALition heads do roll, but I’d be surprised if Morrison will still look like a bunny in the headlights in two months time.”

    +1

    Keith Wright being charged with serious offences in relation to teenage girls not long before the 1993 Federal election didn’t affect the result.

    Milton Orkopolous being charged with 30 sex offences, including sex with underage boys, in November 2006 didn’t stop Morris Iemma winning the March 2007 NSW election, and the fact that Nathan Rees had been Orkopolous’s Chief of Staff didn’t stop Rees from entering Parliament at that election and soon after himself being elevated to the position of Premier.

    I think the voters appreciate that all sorts of people in all walks of life are capable of violent/criminal sexual conduct and that they can also be very good at hiding it from their family, friends and work colleagues.

    A lot of posters on PB appear to be excited about the prospect that this will all blow up into a major political brouhaha that will ultimately bring down the Morrison Government. Be careful what you wish for. The issue is certainly gaining a lot of momentum, but one strong possibility is that more complainants are now going feel empowered to come forward. And they might not just be complaining about Liberal politicians. Louise Milligan has already alluded to aggrieved women on the Labor side of politics.

    I don’t think anyone can confidently predict just how this stuff will end up playing out. But, in the end, I think most voters will totally ignore it.

  8. Mavis @ #2882 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 4:10 pm

    It may, as you say, pass but Morrison’s got plenty of other issues on his plate, not the least when Jobkeeper ceases at the end of March, where many will go on Jobseeker. They are going to get a rude shock when forced to live below the poverty line, a good swag of them supporting the Tories or Country Party.

    Here is a quote that was apparently originally written by Tony Blair about the UK Labour party, but which seems very appropriate for Australian Labor:

    “The Maxim ‘Oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them’ is wrong”

    “Actully the reverse can be true. Oppositions can lose elections. They lose if they think the government is doing badly enough to win. For progressives it usually isn’t. The people need from us a positive programme and a core strategic direction. Even if the government programme is in difficulty, they expect an alternative programme. Put it like this: without a decent programme, the opposition takes a huge risk. Also scandal on its own doesn’t evict a government, unless it is vast.

    Whenever I find opposition parties talking of how such and such a scandal will bring down the government, I’m nearly always looking at a party about to lose. Scandal can hurt; can help define a government; can most of all distract and discombobulate a government. But before the public change, especially if the alternative is a progressive party, they want to know what they’re getting. and they will resist obstinately that any idea that the scandal of the government earns the opposition the right to govern in its stead. Sometimes it’s true, governments run into such difficulty that merely by playing safe you can win. But in the case of progressives, even playing safe requires a certain level of positioning and determination.”

    In politics, playing safe can be a risky tactic.

  9. Why would you tell the police you no longer wanted to continue with the investigation one day, and then kill yourself the next, and what if any could be the relationship between the two. Asking for a suspicious friend with an imaginative mind, who keeps on wondering if she might have been threatened.

  10. SMH just in: the COVID love-in between NSW and Feds headed for the rocks?

    Hazzard says Feds “ should be given time to improve its vaccine program in aged care, but would not rule out intervening in the scheme or in the mass vaccination of the population through general practitioners.”

  11. MIL in aged care (Sydney) which just sent a mail out to say they have no information on vaccination programme, except they expect to get only three days notice (the fridge life?) and need to get consents sorted out well in advance.

  12. Spoke to my daughter about the rape allegations ( the PM hinted we have to do that). She said she has friends on both sides of the coin, one who put herself out to get a rapist convicted, he got three months. Was it worth it? The other accused an ex because she was upset at getting dumped.

    Her view, while males boast to other mates about their “conquests” and don’t get told it is not OK, it will continue. The courts can’t solve the problem.

  13. Mavis: “I’m not sure they meant that in the real sense. More like this:
    “Defunding the police” simply means reducing police department budgets and redistributing those funds towards essential social services that are often underfunded, such as housing, education, employment, mental health…’]”

    Some mean what you say, and some propose getting rid of the police altogether.

    For instance, Colin Kaepernick, the guy who introduced “taking a knee”, argues that “Despite the steady cascade of anti-Black violence across this country, I am hopeful we can build a future that imagines justice differently. A future without the terror of policing and prisons.” Kaepernick, who grew up in a middle class White family rather than an inner city area, and who now, being very wealthy, no doubt has his own private security, cannot see any possible reason for police or prisons to continue to exist.

    This naive nonsense has had quite a strong effect on the policy of large city administrations in some of the blue states, including LA. Police departments have had their budgets cut, but, even though some cities (including Milwaukee) have announced the abolition of their police departments and their replacement by some new sort of organisation, there has been no actual follow-through as yet.

    As I’ve posted before, the only inevitability of removing all policing from inner city areas – which are predominantly occupied by African-Americans and Hispanics – is that those areas will become even more controlled and dominated by the criminal alpha males in those communities than is currently the case. That many well-educated and successful people in the US are unable to perceive this inevitability is an illustration of just how incredibly compartmentalised US society has become, so that educated people in the leafy suburbs have absolutely no appreciation of life in the inner cities.

    The exception to this rule is New York, where the cultural boundaries between the richer and poorer areas are a little more porous.

  14. Swimming cap Been There.
    I’d wear one. Not sure if the narcissist in chief would though.
    My cancer wasn’t a melanoma. It was a spindle cell but the specialist said they can be very nasty.
    I took that to mean deadly.

  15. Shellbellsays:
    Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 5:16 pm
    A rashie when you can’t see your feet ain’t flattering.

    You’ve seen the photo?

  16. meher baba

    I tend to agree that there won’t be as much fallout from any of the sexual stuff as we might have hoped, just because Morrison has most of the media and time on his side.

  17. Itzadream

    I am tangentially engaged with victims of abuse. My amateur and abstract view is that victims have some days of great resolve but more days of helpless surrender.

    Those defending civil claims of abuse bide their time for the helpless days.

  18. Player One says:
    Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 12:01 pm
    N @ #2728 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 11:46 am

    Sustainable Australia represent totally reactionary and poly-phobic opinion. It’s no surprise they are consonant with The Player, for whom every post is a pretext for anti-Labor tropes.

    In WA, it must be very difficult to know what is “anti-Labor”.

    The phobic are always easily discernible….even from a great distance.

  19. When Morrison went to Hawaii , first polling show no damage , the weeks after that when Morrison & libs/nats plummet quicker than you could say Abbott.

    It will be yet to seen if the trend follows, first poll after the alleged rape made public no damage , the next polling if they follow the hawaii trip ,Morrison will be sweating like he was in Hawaii

  20. The Daily mail article on Morrison has a video and several photos of him.

    Would make good “before” photos for Weight Watchers adverts.

    And the photos were taken yesterday while the rape story was big news.

  21. ItzaDream @ #2918 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 5:05 pm

    Why would you tell the police you no longer wanted to continue with the investigation one day, and then kill yourself the next, and what if any could be the relationship between the two. Asking for a suspicious friend with an imaginative mind, who keeps on wondering if she might have been threatened.

    That certainly can’t be ruled out given the horrific nature of the alleged offence and the crazed mind behind it.

  22. N @ #2926 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 5:23 pm

    Player One says:
    Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 12:01 pm
    N @ #2728 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 11:46 am

    Sustainable Australia represent totally reactionary and poly-phobic opinion. It’s no surprise they are consonant with The Player, for whom every post is a pretext for anti-Labor tropes.

    In WA, it must be very difficult to know what is “anti-Labor”.

    The phobic are always easily discernible….even from a great distance.

    As are Gibbons.

  23. I love the way the media just happen to have camera crews handy while Morrison takes a dip with his mob at a local beach. I can’t imagine it would be a staged photo op to distract from and play down the implosion of his government.

  24. In news that will traumatise Taylormade, Roy Morgan reports that 60% of Victorians support Dan Andrews SOE and are happy to extend it till December 2021.

  25. Player One says:
    Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 5:36 pm
    N @ #2926 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 5:23 pm

    Player One says:
    Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 12:01 pm
    N @ #2728 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 11:46 am

    Sustainable Australia represent totally reactionary and poly-phobic opinion. It’s no surprise they are consonant with The Player, for whom every post is a pretext for anti-Labor tropes.

    In WA, it must be very difficult to know what is “anti-Labor”.

    The phobic are always easily discernible….even from a great distance.

    As are Gibbons.

    The routine characterisation of Labor-leaning bludgers as sub-human is just plain phobic in itself. The language used by The Player is systematically derogatory. It is political hate-speak. They are a disgrace.

  26. Although Bronte is a beautiful beach, and would be (and was) my own choice among the Eastern Suburbs attractions, why wasn’t ScoMo at Cronulla, Wanda or Shelly? I thought he was “Sharkies” through and through? (Yes, I know he used to live in Bronte).

    Secondly, at Bronte it is notoriously hard to get a parking spot. Most walk down locally or use public transport. Did ScoMo use a fleet of VIP cars? Did he park in a No Stopping or Bus zone? Or did his minders drive around the block until he called them in? How much did this photo op cost the taxpayer?

    Thirdly where are the by now obligatory photos of him shaking hands, elbow-bumping and greeting locals? Didn’t anyone want to say “Hello” to the Father Of The Nation?

  27. Months to prepare and Ghunt, Scotty and crew ………………………..

    Hazzard weighs intervention in ‘disappointing’ federal vaccine rollout

    NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Saturday that the federal government should be given time to improve its vaccine program in aged care, but would not rule out intervening in the scheme or in the mass vaccination of the population through general practitioners.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hazzard-weighs-intervention-in-disappointing-federal-vaccine-rollout-20210226-p5765z.html

  28. poroti @ #2942 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 6:01 pm

    Months to prepare and Ghunt, Scotty and crew ………………………..

    Hazzard weighs intervention in ‘disappointing’ federal vaccine rollout

    NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Saturday that the federal government should be given time to improve its vaccine program in aged care, but would not rule out intervening in the scheme or in the mass vaccination of the population through general practitioners.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hazzard-weighs-intervention-in-disappointing-federal-vaccine-rollout-20210226-p5765z.html

    The Liberal Feds couldn’t organise a shit fight in a country dunny!

  29. poroti @ #2942 Saturday, February 27th, 2021 – 6:01 pm
    Months to prepare and Ghunt, Scotty and crew ………………………..

    Organising the vaccine roll out would take valuable time away from important work like making chook pens, showing off your body in the surf, having innumerable press conferences to say the same thing over and over…

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