Mike Rann’s South Australian government has joined in on the end-of-year Newspoll fun, bouncing back in the latest quarterly survey to the 54-46 lead it enjoyed in April-June before slumping to 50-50 in July-September. However, it owes the recovery to preferences from the Greens, who have soared five points to 13 per cent directly at the expense of the Liberals, who have slumped to 35 per cent (UPDATE: Hair-splitters in comments resent the implication that Liberal votes have gone to the Greens. This is obviously not so). Labor’s primary vote is up one to 39 per cent. Rann’s approval rating is up three points to 44 per cent, while his disapproval is down six to 39 per cent. Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith’s ratings are 43 per cent (steady) and 26 per cent (down five), but he is down four points as preferred premier to 26 per cent, with Rann up two to 50 per cent.
UPDATE: The following charts track Labor’s two-party vote and the various leaders’ approval ratings since the federal election. Western Australia has been excluded partly due to incomplete data, but mostly because of the complication of the change of government.
As I’ve noted previously, federal Labor’s vote has very closely tracked Kevin Rudd’s approval rating except since Malcolm Turnbull became Liberal leader, since which time it has increased less sharply (the most recent poll notwithstanding). This can be chalked up as a win of sorts for Turnbull. The other thing the data strongly suggests is that the end-of-year boom in the federal government’s popularity has pulled up the various state governments, whose improved performances bear no relation to their leaders’ approval ratings. I would infer from this that the governments in question shouldn’t get too comfortable.
i hope this isnt too far off topic –but am i the only one gobsmacked by Brandis’s effontry here?
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24837268-5005962,00.html
THE former Howard government does not owe one-time terror suspect Dr Mohamed Haneef an apology, despite an inquiry finding he was wrongfully arrested and detained, the opposition says.
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Instead, Mr Rudd should say sorry to Mr Andrews for criticising his handling of the case.
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Opposition attorney-general spokesman George Brandis said the report proved the former government had done nothing wrong and “comprehensively exonerated” Mr Andrews.
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And, he added, any move to extend an apology to Dr Haneef was a matter for the current government.
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Wow. Just wow. I didn’t realise before today that a fence could have more than two sides to it!
But yes, rather off-topic.
Regarding the whole green vote thingy…
There was a 5 point drop in the Libs primary vote and a corresponding 5 point rise in the Greens, which means there was about a 4 point shift from Liberal to Labor and then again from Labor to Green with maybe a point going straight from blue to green if these numbers followed the actual voting shift pattern that we have historically seen around the country over the last 6 years or so.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2008/12/20/sa-state-newspoll-%e2%80%93-weird-numbers/