Newspoll: 53-47

Sky News reports a 53-47 Newspoll result, with Labor on 47 per cent of the primary vote against 42 per cent for the Coalition. More to follow.

UPDATE: Graphic here. The 10 per cent shift from Labor to “someone else” on the question of best party to handle the environment is interesting – but then so is Peter Garrett’s 45-33 lead over Malcolm Turnbull. Note the spike in support for Garrett among the 35-49 age group that grew up with Midnight Oil on the radio.

UPDATE 2: Possum Comitatus in Crikey:

This week’s Newspoll figures have the problem of slightly undervaluing the preference flows the ALP receives from the minor parties, meaning that it’s more likely than not that the next Newspoll will probably fix that up. These slight rounding problems and sampling volatility of the minor parties all come out in the wash over a few polls. When you combine that with the ALP primary looking rock solid at 47/48, it’s almost expected that in the next poll or two, the two party preferred headline figure will show the ALP increasing its lead – simply as a result of the high ALP primary vote combining with this minor party sampling error and rounding issues. But should that happen, the headlines will undoubtedly scream “Interest Rate Backlash!” as some new 55/45 poll shows the ALP gaining a two point lead from the previous poll, the best poll the government had enjoyed for 12 months, but one which no-one paid attention to because the ponies were on.

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.

1,268 comments on “Newspoll: 53-47”

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  1. I believe you ESJ, I suspect William wouldn’t take kindly to people using multiple names.

    I loved hearing Rudd on ABC news go Howard for his dopey Technical colleges, I suggest this means an announcement on a big increase in TAFE funding (and possibly his technical high schools) will follow.

    Wish he would also say something about universities. As a English Lit man, I would love to think there might still be a humanities department in Australian universities in 5 years time. But I suspect any uni funding will be towards engies and science etc.

  3. I might have to disappoint you lot a bit because I haven’t heard ‘the rumour’ at all. I do know a little about journalism, however, so here’s what I reckon will play out.
    Tips and rumours are extremely difficult things for journalists to deal with, the most recent evidence being the problem that the Gang of Three had after their din-dins with the less popular Costello. The normal run of things is to hold it back and have a chat to anyone else who might know anything (and by jesus they usually do) before investigating further. If you find something you go for it, but normally it is just a lot of hot air and bitchiness.
    Now, this little rumour that appeared on Crikey today is interesting. Usually they run stuff that is either not verifiable or not defamatory and therefore safe to have a tilt at, and it’s all just a bit of fun anyway. (Newspapers are unable to get away with this sort of thing – it’s called ‘column inches that need to be used otherwise’.) I’ve subscribed to Crikey for over 18 months and the only time that a tip or rumour played out was the Scores bizzo, but everyone already knew about that anyway and had dismissed it as a non-event. (Note Glenn Milne’s desperation issues – he should consult a marriage counsellor because his intended is going to be out of a job shortly.)
    I suspect The Terror does have something, but to dash all of your rumour-mongering hopes, I reckon it’s not too hot. If it had been, certain personages within the powers that be (that would be the Govt, not the press) would have used it earlier.
    There might very well be something a little nasty on Friday but no one gives a sh#t anyway. If they haven’t used it by now then it is worthless and everyone has already made up their minds about whom they will vote for, despite what they tell polling companies.

    Two more points: Kina, your rumoured attempts to quash a potential rumour by emailing all of your rumoured friends and relatives about a rumour you heard a rumour about on a rumour-mill that was rumoured to be on a blog seems a bit counter-productive (rumour has it). The ‘media’ is not the GG and your extremism is a bit disconcerting.
    Julie, having edited a letters page in the past, you will not get published if you do not provide your full name and suburb for publication, unless you have a damn good reason to do so. (Letters page editors usually also require a postal address and daytime telephone number for verification. Consult the SMH for their policy and think deeply about their practice of checking the party-political affiliation of letter-writers before firing off your rants.)

    Crikey, which I subscribe to and think is great fun for its humour, is not a news service. I do think, however, that someone in the Liberal Party has tipped off Christian Kerr because that person knows that the rumours will fly on teh intertubes. It will have absolutely no effect on the general polity, however, as no one reads websites for news.

    Disappointed you all, haven’t I?

  4. [I loved hearing Rudd on ABC news go Howard for his dopey Technical colleges, I suggest this means an announcement on a big increase in TAFE funding (and possibly his technical high schools) will follow.]

    Move TAFE fees into the FEE-Help system perhaps. To me it doesn’t make much sense that you can defer fees for a uni degree, but not for a TAFE course.

  5. Will @ 890

    [If any party blocked supply,it could well spell the death knell of that party……..people do remember November 1975!]

    Fortunately that scenario is unlikely to reoccur:

    “The Senate may not amend proposed laws imposing taxation, or proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government. “

  6. Ach, I’m bored. To take your minds off feverish speculation and Crikey-induced bollocks, let me take you all back once more to the heady days of 1972, and the spookily familiar narratives from the good old MSM, from my bumper scrapbooks (true, true, I’m an anorak).

    The Australian, editorial, 27 Oct. “Labor loses momentum”. “Mr Whitlam has played a fairly low-key role up to now”.

    The Age, 31 October. “The Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) yesterday laid down defence, immigration, and law and order in the coming Federal election campaign.”

    The Sun, 2 November “Labor man fights his own party” (that was the Revd. Arthur Burns, pol sci prof at ANU, standing against Kep Enderby in Canberra)

    The Age, 6 November. “Two senior Government ministers said a Labor Government could control neither the unions nor the economy. The Labor leader (Mr Whitlam) attacked the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon), saying he led a Government ‘bereft of leadership, purpose or cohesion’.”

    (This is a favorite of mine) Age, 11 November, 1972. “Labor’s mild mannered Frank Crean claims to be the world’s most experienced shadow treasurer. After all, he’s had the job for 21 years.”

  8. ESF (884) You’re lowering yourself with rubbish like that. Some of us actually think you have a bit of intellect. Don’t prove us wrong.

  12. #
    43
    Adam Says:
    November 5th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

    If this poll is accurate, since 2004 the Coalition primary has fallen from 46.7 to 42 (-4.7) while the Labor primary has risen from 37.6 to 47 (+9.4). The minor vote has dropped from 15.7 to 11 (-4.7). Since I expect the FF vote will rise, that means that the Greens are major losers. That is enough to explain a fall in the Labor share of minor preferences.

    Your joy of joys adam to get more religious nut extremists elected. Pity that the Green vote will rise and FF will stay stagnant. People are waking up to the cult backed FF.

  13. Good thought ShowsOn – and it would be a more interesting story than merely upping the funding (but you would think both would be needed).

    What else has either party got left for policy announcements? The Libs much rumoured (Overington) child-care thing. What about the ALP?

    How will a rate rise affect the pork strategy?

    When are the campaign launches (lol)? ALP is the 14th? Libs 11th??

  14. Here is the balancing rumour from Crikey……

    My understanding is that Pyne has been doing some work checking the numbers for a post election leadership vote, to occur straight after the election. Looks like JWH will not be serving anytime, and hand the reigns straight to Costello.

  16. Someone asked about Matt Price earlier. Im a huge fan and it’s terrible to say but it’s very unlikely to turn out well. If the description of his condition was “brain tumour”, there would be a huge range of possible outcomes from terrible (less than 6 months) to certain cure. But his own description was “brain tumours”. Primary brain tumours are always solitary so he almost certainly has metastases from another site. And the prognosis of that is almost invariably poor. God I hope I’m wrong or that he beats the odds.

  17. Exactly, Diogenes. Bullying a person that everybody likes (Rudd 60% approval, 25% disapproval – that means 40% of Coalition primary voters approve of him!), just produces profound dislike of the bully. This has been proven multiple times this year. The consistency in the polls throughout the year indicates a continuing positive reinforcement of good feelings about Rudd. These will not fall away because a bunch of discredited media hacks disgorge their putrid vomitus.

    cheers,

    Alan H

  19. Anybody seen Bob Baldwins ads in Paterson, why does’nt he tell people he is with the Liberal Party, I have seen his ads and thought he was independent, no mention of the Liberal Party.

    He use the colour red a lot and not the normal blue Liberal colour, it must be bad if he doesn’t want people to think he is a Liberal.

    Have just seen a Labour negative ad against him, pointing out that he is a Liberal and he voted everytime in favour of passing workchoices and other unpopular leglisation.

  20. Voter Boy raises an interesting point when he reffers to the Australian and the Murdoch paper’s political support in the 1972 electon. It is interesting to note that a comparison with this election cannot be made because Rupert Murdoch indeed heavely supported Whitlam and the ALP in the 1972 election only to withdraw that support by 1975 which was the first time he specifically went for the Liberal Party. This coincided with his media’s expansion into the US where he then supported the Republicans and a conservative ideology was probably most preffered to tap any niche conservative media market that ha since developed. I am i no way supportive of Murdoch but he supported John McEwan and seemed to be anti menzies before be McEwan retired. After this, he supported the ALP and Gough Whitlam which was then a counterance to the more Conservative packer press. Even the documentary outfoxed wrongly lists 1972 as the year that Murdoch “Bought his first politician”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuorIjt1HG0
    its at the beggining of this clip

  21. ELECTION-THE WAY I SEE IT

    I notice there is not a lot of analysis on here.
    Here’s mine.
    With the interest rise tomorrow and story in paper on Friday, we’ll know by the percentage moves in the polls next week where this election is going.

    If there’s a move to the coalition – Game On.
    If there’s a move to Labor – They’ll have momentum which could prove decisive.

    ELECTION RESULT PREDICTION:

    Despite the narrowing of the polls, I’m still tipping an easy Labor victory. In fact with no bias whatsoever, I don’t think it will be that close.

  24. Mark Twain – very good summation of how these things work. If there is anything explosive it now has to be out tomorrow. If not, it will be some tedious pettyfogging exclusive about Rudd’s house, his brother, his dead dad, his estranged cousins, his underhand deals with union bosses to give them seats on the ABC board, etc, etc…

    Still, it’s entirely human to worry at this stage.

    Let’s just hope someone doesn’t have a photo of him wearing fishnet stockings. That would surely finish him off.

  25. Ronaldson is reported to have said Howard will be gone within a week now a factional mate is doing the numbers.

    MM okay will someone (media) ask the obvious question

  27. 913 – housing afforability from the coalition and labor – both have said there is more to come.

    Both have also said more to come on carers and on health (I think).

    I can’t see how the education revolution can just consist of a lap top and a general policy re education funding – there’s got to be more in it than that.

    Lastly, I think Labor will use all of the premiers or relevant state ministers to its advantage to announce some massive infrastructure project across the states to illustrate the benefits of federal/state co-operation rather than rivalry.

  28. ESJ @ 884
    Nice try. Unfortunately you have not grasped the form of the Tabitha couplet. It’s meant to be “Labor bad, Liberal good”. By using both lines to build a more complex argument your message has become far too elaborate and subtle for Tabitha’s target readership.

  32. Will @ 928. Tabitha sleeps the sleep of the undead.

    Labor is good-for-nothing scoundrel.

    Liberal is Lazarus with a triple bypass (and highway upgrade) for every marginal electorate.

  33. Diogenes I pray you are worng as well. Matt Price decreased my productivity this year more than any other site on the web.

    In fact his was my first blog, and when he first responded to me I am pretty sure I let out a bit of a whoop that somewhat surprised those working next to me.

    Geez there were some days (the classic day the rumours about Costello’s challenge; the time he joked about withholding newspoll) that I was hitting refresh on his page every other minute.

  34. AM @919, yeah I’m in Paterson and I’ve seen Baldwin’s silly pamphlets. He’s made claims about local funding that he either had no hand in or simply didn’t do. God he’s a lazy pr*ck.

    Haven’t seen any ALP ads here, let alone negative ones. Where did you see it?

  35. 930 – I suggest voting below the line. I vote from top to bottom for the parties I like and from bottom to top for the parties I don’t like. That way I maximise the dilution of my vote for unfavoured parties.

  37. Pretty hard to protect against a rumoured event until the event happens by which time it is too late. But, making people aware that something could be coming dampens its effect. It is a common ploy.

    Actually I never identified the newspaper or journalist – just a possible event.

    It is not extremism at all but in fact would be a very useful tactic, indeed if used only occassionally for big threats – like a possible character assasination or something 2 weeks out from an election. It becomes a very useful strategic tool if set up properly.

    Simplistically you can contact near on 300,000 people across the country through one message to one person telling them to send it on to 6 friends and familily and so on and it can be a relatively fast way to do it. And the message actually gets read as it comes through friends and family.

    I make no appologies for being cautious or pre-empting events. I am determined that the government doesn’t sneak its way back in through deceite or partisan papers or sycophant journalists. AND I don’t accept that itis acceptable in my country that a newspaper or media owner should be flying the flag for any party. Though there is precious little we can do about it at the moment.

    I hold up democracy to be something important and worthy being sensitive about.

  39. #929 – can see no reason why not. The Constitution certainly hasn’t been amended to stop it happening. It would be utterly crazy for anyone to try it against a newly-elected government with the old Senate though – unless there was a very obvious act of gross incompetence by the new government it would be a very good way of ensuring that they were re-elected with a 2PP well north of 60%, and probably a Senate majority of their own into the bargain (especially as it’s a lot easier to get 7 quotas out of 12 than it is to get 4 quotas out of 6).

  42. 903,

    Mark Twain, I did provide my full address, name and email for verification to them when I registered my letter. They did note, though, that if you didn’t want your name or your full name displayed on the letter if published to note that after the letter. Point taken though – and they do have that information internally. They are and were willing though to wipe that partially or completely for public consumption. Cheers 🙂

  43. If Howard was to scrape back in, nobody seriously believes that Costello (Pyne & Co) will wait around for him to hand over “well into the next term” as he continually states.

    18-20 months from now would leave Costello in the difficult position of having to establish himself as leader in only 12 months.

    If the Coalition wins, Howard will be tapped on the shoulder & told that either he retires gracefully (within 6 months) or he will face a losing leaderhsip ballot, hence the suggestions that the numbers are already being counted.

  47. VoterBoy #906 and Histrionic Erection #920 (no offence HE, but the word play just came to me over my third glass of whine – boom tish)

    Our Rupe’s actual versus perceived effect on the media is the stuff of numerous potential books. My old man worked for him all of his life and thought he was a brilliant newspaper proprietor, despite their politics being on opposite sides of the spectrum (the old man was ‘retrenched’ for certain union activities at The Oz in 1979 but went on to a long and inglorious career with Rupe’s mob.)

    What I’m interested in is this: if it was the “Sun Wot Won it” for John Major, and yet the same for Blair in ’97, what the hell is Rupe thinking now? As a matter of fact, does he care? At his age, with his hairdo, with two kiddies under 10 and the Wall Street Journal bolsheviks to worry about, why the hell would he be interested in our neck of the woods in the first place? It’s not as if the Oz makes any money.

  48. Hehehe Howard had the line of the campaign today,

    “I think he should have followed the tried and true path of me-tooism and backed my horse Mahler, at least it would still be in the race,” classic.

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