Newspoll: 56-44

Newspoll has been sprung on us a day early, showing Labor’s two-party lead widening to 56-44 from 55-45 a fortnight ago. Labor’s primary vote is up from 47 per cent to 48 per cent, and the Coalition’s is down from 41 per cent to 39 per cent. Kevin Rudd has taken a slight hit on his satisfaction rating, down from 65 per cent to 62 per cent.

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.

570 comments on “Newspoll: 56-44”

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  1. i was a bit stunned, i wrote a blog in the DT today and the letter editor emailed me asking for permission to use it in tomorrows letters, pity they dont show their letter page on line so i’ll never know if it was used, oh well my tiny claim to fame lol.

  2. Oakeshott 442,

    I do and I dont,

    Most doctors I know kill to have a good receptionist for their practice – they are worth their weight in gold literally.

    The question really is the extent to which you can legislate fairness or safeguards in the employment area. Even with your “protection” the doctor assuming they had less than 15 employees could simply make the position redundant (something they can do under NSW law).

    To paraphrase K Rudd

    Can we wipe away every injustice? I don’t think so

    Should we have a system an effective system to give people minimum conditions and protections? Of course we should

    I just dont think a 110 year old system is the way to do it!

  3. Yeah, is Abbott campaigning for the ALP these days?

    Calling Rudd a “tourist” merely demonstrates the arrogant and offputting sense of entitlement this government has developed.

    Way to alienate swingers, Tones.

    Keep up the good work.

    Loser!

  4. [ Climate Change has not been definitively proven Paul K ]

    Glen,

    There are many things that haven’t been definitely proven. You had no problem invading Iraq with no proof, but when it comes to stopping pollution you suddenly need absolute proof.

  5. following on to Judy & Julie (307 & 313) on bombing Iran.
    It would be the height of arrogance for an outgoing PM eight weeks from defeat to commit the country to an action that would be internationally criminal – and particularly if it is just a ‘me too’ support for the US and Israel!!

    At the very least the incoming PM should be sounded out on his take on the plan.
    Rudd has said he wants us out of Iraq – does he nevertheless want to still antagonise Iran without recourse to any truly serious diplomatic innitiative? To what good?

  6. Julie @ 418

    {I do not, like some folks on this group, take the discussion off topic. }

    {However, I will answer one email from you to give you the book details.}

    Thanks a bunch, Julie. Don’t have a password and of William can’t pass on my e-mail address it is this. gas38989@bigpond .net.au

    My last word on this here, I find your response more offensive than your original post.

    I thought we were in the same tent and I have NEVER posted something that I thought would offend another poster.

  7. Left E Rudd is a tourist when he asks himself questions like

    Are there problems in Australia’s 750 public hospital? Yes.
    Do we want to end the blame game? Yes.
    Do we want to provide solutions to these problems? Yes.

    Then what is your plan Rudd?????

    Unless Rudd has a plan and his Shadow announces it then you are a tourist visiting hospitals to be photographed with babies and attacking Howard just as your PR manages have told you to do.

  8. Glen, what is Abbot’s plan?

    You’d assume since the government has the resources they’d be the ones more capable of formulating comprehensive policy. It’s embarassing that the government is acting more like an opposition than a government, attacking the other party incessantly rather than putting forward some credible policy which is done a lot easier with policy proposals from departments etc.

    In any case this all has little to do with the polls.

  9. Putting pressure on the States to lift their game, because Rudd sure as hell isnt condemning their failures unless the public knows how badly they are being run then the State Governments will continue to complain about the Federal Government being somehow responsible…

    Actually CTEP the buck stops with the States because the Constitution sets out that they have absolute responsibility in Health….and the problem with the ALP is they have no health policy other than not to criticise the failing Labor States who on earth thinks Roxon is going to fix the system ha ha hah ahahahah as if!

  10. CTEP: But a sign of a good opposition is one that sets the agenda. Like climate change, education, health, broadband and infrastructure. If the government is acting like an opposition, it’s not a good one. The reason Rudd has done so well this year, is that he set the agenda for a lot of issues.

  11. 460
    Chris B Says:
    October 1st, 2007 at 9:11 pm
    386 Scorpio. Julie is right. You must not know many Mormons.

    Yeah, thanks for that MATE. Some really nice people frequent this site.

    So much for discussing polls.

  12. I got my copy of “NetAlert Protecting Australian Families Online”, mail is a bit slow in the country. I’ve waved it at all computer connected to the internet, I think they all looked scared so I must be safe now. Boy am I glad that I have Howard looking after me.

    I wonder if anyone has actually read it?

  13. Julie, Chris B, Scorpio,

    I think most people would find Mormons annoying but they’re hardly evil. I noticed when I lived in the USA that they were often attacked by other Christian religions but a lot of the stuff said about them was exaggerated. I’ve met a few and thought they not particularly bright as they seemed to be trained to accept what ever their Church tells them but otherwise seemed nice enough though a bit annoying at times.

    The funniest thing I remember was that I was working on an Archaeological site in Israel and in our group was a Mormon guy who never took off his shirt no matter how hot it got. It turned out he was wearing some sort of special religious underwear under his clothes which he could not take off. It was stinking hot and we were working very hard and I don’t know how he didn’t faint with that Holy Underwear he was wearing.

  14. the assumption that the ratio between the three seat types measured is consistent across the country.

    Surely this is the assumption that is causing some grief.

    For every Wannon, Kooyong and and Warringah that swings less than 11%, some other safe seat in the country would have to have been swinging more than that at the time the polls were taken, unless you are suggesting that literally thousands of people have been telling lies to pollsters since February.

    I suspect that the safe goernment seats that are swinging by more than 11% are dominated by those that acheived big swings to the coalition at the last election, unlike Warringah and Kooyong (and to a lesser extent Wannon) ie seats like Aston, Bowman, Longman, Paterson, Dobell, Petrie etc.

  15. So Glen, the reason why we have a federal Health Minister is just to nanny the states? Are you seriously arguing that is their only purpose? If so, how much responsibility does the federal Minister have if the states they are nannying are supposedly under-performing? What is the measure of the success of the federal health minister?

    On the mormon issue, whilst it is severely off topic, I have to agree with Scorpio on this one. Blanket assertions about any group of people are just silly. And Scorpio mustn’t know many Mormons? I thought they were a mormon?

  16. Glen I have seen Roxon on Meet The Press and debating Abbott on the 7.30 Report. She is one sharp little tough cookie. I would prefer her as health minister any day. I would like to see McClelland debate Downer. The labor team is looking better and better all the time.

  17. Wasn’t the Liberals told as a strategy, to blame the states for everything to take the heat of them politically, federally, typical of them another smoke screen to cover up their own incomptence and to decieve the electorate.

    They have to find a red herring like the Tampa, Children Overboard, its how they win Government, because they are incompetent at running the country.

    Anyway we know that the Federal Government has robbed the states of funds for years no wonder the roads are a mess hospitals are a mess etc.

    What is the next diversion/distraction bombing Iran?

    Howard needs to go before he helps start WWiii.

  18. Glen @ 257

    “What a piss poor excuse from Judd about facilities he knew Melbourne would have shiat facilities until the Olympic Park development was completed so why the f&*k did he bother us if he was never going to chose us because of facilities its a joke i hope if he goes to the ‘filth’ he breaks down with a hamstring on Queens Birthday!”

    Very disappointing as a liberal there Glen. Juddy’s just being aspirational. He’s a product of the past decade………reap what you may sow

  19. charles @ 464

    Yeah, it alerts families to make sure their children don’t stray onto dangerous sites called ‘blogs’ where adult predators will groom them to become Communists. It also has a list of recommended ‘safe’ sites, like The Australian and Piers’ blog.

    ;-D

  20. Booleanbach @454, since when did Howard bother about what the rest of the country wants when it comes to kowtowing to his great mate Bush? Howard is arrogance itself, Bush snaps his fingers and says jump, Howard asks how high, Bush would probably provide Jeanette with a nice little retirement place to rival Kirribilli, Johnny and George could then sit back on the veranda and chew the fat about the good old days when they ran the world.

  21. Centre your comments would be funny if you werent so serious…Nicola Roxon is as soft as a bag a wet lettuce that’s why she can’t debate Abbott without going so negative so as to defeat her own point…At least Tony Abbot goes out and talks about health talks about Medicare we hear nothing from Roxon because she’s soft and she’s that inexperienced Rudd wants to hide her from the people.

    McClelland doesnt debate Downer Centre because he would lose that’s why he goes off to the Chinese and says the Government will lie to them….

  22. OK, I am somewhat reluctant to wade into the debate between Possum and Adam, but just an observation:

    Adam seems to be focused on PREDICTING the election result. Knowing that polling is an inexact science, he believes that we need to draw on other sources of information in order to predict the result, such as historical knowledge about a particular seat and its sitting member. No problems.

    Possum, on the other hand, is doing something different. He is not trying to predict the final election result. He is merely breaking down the Newspoll data to try to get a PRESENT snapshot of voting intention in particular categories of seats, safe Labor, safe Coalition, and marginal. Possum is providing an exceptional service in my opinion by crunching the data in a way that we can see beyond the simple aggregate level. I have never had the impression that Possum was claiming that polling is an exact science nor trying to predict final election results. Possum knows more than anyone that there are margins of errors, sample size issues, and so on, that qualify any set of results.

    Basically Adam and Possum are talking at cross-purposes. Adam is trying to glean one set of information from polling data while Possum is creating a different set of information. If anything, I think Adam is misinterpreting Possum’s intentions and efforts.

  23. “At least Tony Abbot goes out and talks about health…”

    Tony Abbott spends the vast bulk of his time in public personally attacking Rudd and giving a running commentary on polling and leadership issues. He very rarely mentions health.

  24. Scorpio,

    Info is in your email box. We are in the same labor camp and that doesn’t mean we all have the same opinions. Sorry if you don’t like my response to your statement about my opinion. I will not get into a public slanging match. I will leave that to the Libs in parliament :).

  25. “They have to find a red herring like the Tampa, Children Overboard, its how they win Government, because they are incompetent at running the country.”

    Exactly. If Howard was confident of winning on the basis of his government’s track record, then he wouldn’t need to wait any longer to call an election. He should be able to call it now, highlight his record, and the voters would naturally give him the thumbs up.

  26. Judy @ 446,

    What information did you want? If you wanted what I gave Chris B, email me offlist. William can give you my email address or if you want to post yours, I will take it from there. If you wanted something else, then just tell me in email what it is you wanted?

    Cheers, Julie

  27. Nice to see Andrews on 4 Corners tonight – reminds me why this Govt is the lowest and sickest we have had for a long while.

  28. [Climate Change has not been definitively proven ]

    Scientific theories are never “definatively proven”, they are either supported, or not supported, until a superior theory replaces the original theory.

  29. As a matter of interest

    1.who has heard from costello lately
    2.why are the polls so low (61-39 seems more in turn with the “vibe”)
    3.when is the next poll due

    ps has abbott aged lately or is it just my fading eyesight?

  30. 484
    gusface Says:
    October 1st, 2007 at 9:50 pm
    As a matter of interest

    1.who has heard from costello lately

    I did, heard from him on Saturday morning when he stole Howard’s thunder and announced the election date ;-D

  31. All I have to say about the Haneef affair after watching Four Corners – to Kevin Andrews is:

    Sometimes you just have to know whether to leave well enough alone.

  32. The Possum still rules, everyone says so, except for Adam. I hear the crowd roaring! I wonder what Eddie St. John thinks of Possum?
    Possum’s analysis ( or is it the Crikey reporting of Crosby-Textor June analysis) of the effect of government advertising this time compared with 01 and 04 elections is devastating – the more they advertise, the worse it seems to get for the Coalition, unlike the last two elections – they are fighting the ‘last war’, not this one – and that proves how out of touch Howard is and in part why they are so far behind in the polls.
    The Union anti-Work Choices ads forced them into doing their own ‘mega propaganda’ that’s now exploding in their faces. Their big business organisations just engage known criminals as actors! How appropriate. Just as well there is no such thing as ‘consorting laws’ anymore, or whoever searched the pubs of Melbourne for this ‘rough trade’ would be in trouble.
    Too bad it’s not a crime to consort with developers – maybe the Greens can promise us some ‘law and order’ legislation here! Quite a few prominent Labor identities would easily be found ‘guilty’, especially if tried by jury! No doubt some Libs too! Yes I am dreaming, but it’s so much fun!
    To return to personalities….You’d be getting on a bit, wouldn’t you Eddie, but still firing? Weren’t you in Federal Parliament once? A bit like that former left-wing firebrand, Eddie Ward?
    Mr St. John does do a pretty clever job of advancing the Libs cause here, doesn’t he? He is a very experienced advocate, aren’t you Edward? You pinkoes had better watch out, Eddie and Adam are coming to get you!
    As to the Evil Union influence, unions are really just agents of social control by and large, as the biggest are mostly right wing and therefore sell out their members with impunity, like the SDA and AWU.
    The CFMEU is one exception and look what Johnny has done to them! And Julie Blue Eyes Bishop is just salivating with the thought of destroying the teachers unions right across Oz by denying Federal funding to the States if they don’t force AWA’s onto all teachers in return for pay rises. A real good reason to vote for Kevvie, I think.

    Whether they form co-ops or other ‘welfare’ organisations which will truly represent them, instead of these tame-cat right wing unions, they will be forced to fight for their rights, sooner rather than later if the US leads the world into recession next year.
    All of this APEC ‘bashing practise’ by the police forces is designed to control civil insurrection, when the inevitable economic downturn comes.
    I’d just love to buy that Greensborough Growler a beverage or two. A champion…
    See you later.

  33. Noocat, as you would agree, it’s not about taking sides between Possum and Adam. I believe it is an interesting debate in the study of psephology. Possum may be looking at the data in a more sophisticated way which may or may not comprise a degree of importance. But nonetheless, it involves statistics, statistics which may be predictive to the outcome, in this case, of a party winning particular seats.

  34. Scorpio, Glen

    The content of the last 100 posts has shown again that many here, whilst often having some valuable comments to make on, say, the latest Newspoll, are nevertheless, far more narrow-minded than anyone should be expected to be. Certainly, a (small l) liberal worth his or her salt, should show tolerance to all, regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation and perhaps even football team (no, ok we can scratch that!).

    What continues to astound me is that the tolerance is not there. People on this site, variously purporting to support the ALP or Dems or Greens or at least “swing voting around centre-left”, I would say are often vilifying those whose beliefs don’t fall into line with the cookie-cutter dogma pack they hand out at the initiations.

    So, woe betide any blogger here who has the audacity to believe in a Judeo-Christian God, may have qualms about abortion, may perhaps doubt the reality of human induced global warming (though as Glen correctly corrected himself, may still acknowledge Climate Change). God forbid you should ever question evolution, mate, they will EAT you! 🙂

    Now Scorpio, I certainly don’t hold any element of your faith, nor its associated belief set, but I absolutely respect you, your church and the members of your church (I have attended services at the LTS twice and found the people there very warm, polite and respectful). I am also Centre right politically (but only barely right!!).

    More and more, I am finding “left leaning” people to be extremely intolerant of other beliefs or even entertain discussion sympathetic to those who hold these beliefs.

    This degree of ignorance, the whiff of xenophobia and the vilification of those who don’t toe the “majority line” are howled down with no references or support. This is what, by dictionary definition, would be called “fundamentalism”.

    Yes, I would agree. Fundamentalism can be dangerous, equally so if you are a “left leaning” fundamentalist.

    I’d like to be a little more inclusive than that. Thank you both for your contributions! I enjoyed reading them.

  35. #484:

    lol gusface. I don’t really think it’s just your eyesight that’s failing you!

    #488: BaztheSpaz, you wouldn’t be Possum’s sock-puppet, would you?

  36. ps has abbott aged lately or is it just my fading eyesight?

    Tones is so full of bile at his opponents and those ungrateful wretched voters that he has appreciably aged.

    BTW, on the “big bad unions” controlling a Rudd government, there’s form on Labor keeping them on a tight leash ie Hawke (FORMER ACTU BOSS) and the mid 1980s micro economic reform–dragging unions kicking and screaming to the productivity table. (Which not incidently created the foundations for current prosperity.)

    Why the hell do the Howardistas think Rudd–even more conservative right wing than Hawke and hating some of the unions–will kowtow?

    Ah yes of course, logic doesn’t come into it, silly me.

    It’s fear tactics, pure and simple.

    Rudd needs to find a Hawke style retort that demolished Fraser’s stupidity: “Of course you can’t hide your money under the bed to keep it safe from Labor, that’s where the commies are.”

    (Needs improvements, but here’s a start)

    Of course the union bullies won’t control a Labor government, they all became actors and retired thanks to Workchoices TV ads.

  37. Nath @ 291

    “ShowsOn, the education statistics are distorted. It is business, law, science graduates that keep conservatives in the game here. If it was just arts graduates then it would be overwhelmingly tilted to left politics.”

    As a recent science(physics) graduate, I think you’d be surprised to find that a very high percentage of my peers (myself included) are definitely labour voters (hehe excluding melb uni sci of course 😉 ). Personally I’ve found that our training in analytical thinking helps one see straight through all of howards b/s :-p…

    Cheers!

  38. Generic Oracle

    You have a bizarre definition of tolerance if it includes quiet acceptance of climate change denial.

    Do you think that liberals should accept any belief as being as valid as any other?

    Do you think that a poster who believes that 1 plus 1 is 3 should not be challenged on that?

  39. Hi Centre, yes I do agree. I am trying to take sides. I just got a little frustrated with it going around in circles.

    As for polling data, yes, to some extent we can treat them as predictive, but this is where things really do become very inexact. In reality, a poll only tells us about people’s voting intentions today, not tomorrow. It’s just that we assume that most people are unlikely to change their intention as long as the political landscape doesn’t change in any dramatic way, such as a new leader, or a war, or whatever.

    The closer we get to an election, the more predictive the polls become because the chances of a dramatic change occurring in the political landscape tend to fall.

  40. cheers a-c
    your right its not just my eyesight
    1. i glimly see a society castrated by rampant me-tooism and pursuit of the dollar encouraged by the financial irresponsible Lib Gvt
    2.my guts ache because of the bile fed to all of us by the Lib Gvt
    3. my back aches under the dual burden of less pay and more hours worked all courtesy of worstchoices
    4.my mind reels at the lies and deceptions carried out daily by the Lib gvt
    5. my morals recoil at the lack of decency ,a fair go and egalitarianism exhibited by the Lib Gvt

    i could go on but im sure you agree A-C that my body,like the aussie body politic has been stuffed by the Lib Gvt irresponsibilty and soon,like myself ,the aussie body politic will be recovering under the stewardship of a responsible Lab Gvt

    ps warrringah is going to bloody close ye ha

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