ACNielsen: 56-44

The latest ACNielsen survey of 1400 voters has Labor’s lead at 56-44, following an aberrant 58-42 result the previous month. Labor leads on the primary vote 46 per cent to 38 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is down a point to 31 per cent and his disapproval is steady at 60 per cent, which Tony Wright of The Age notes has him the same territory as Brendan Nelson and Simon Crean in the terminal phase of their leaderships. Peter Costello remains favoured as Liberal leader by 35 per cent, against 19 per cent for Joe Hockey, 17 per cent for Turnbull, 10 per cent for Tony Abbott and 3 per cent for Andrew Robb. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is up a point to 68 per cent, against a disapproval rating of 24 per cent, and his lead as preferred prime minister is up from 66-25 to 67-24. Fifty-nine per cent want the government’s emissions trading scheme bill passed as soon as possible, and 58 per cent approve of Rudd’s handling of the relationship with China.

Essential Research should be through any moment now (4.30pm EST), but I won’t be able to help you with that until this evening: Possum‘s often quite quick on that front though (and The Finnigans has a small amount of detail in comments). UPDATE: Here it is. Labor’s lead is down from 60-40 to 58-42. Also featured: the performance of Australian law enforcement in preventing terrorism (most excellent), whether such efforts have been unduly concentrated on the Muslim community (no), who should lead the Liberal Party (Joe Hockey), a really interesting one comparing Kevin Rudd’s performance across various issues with John Howard’s (slight lead to the latter on economy and defence/security, thumping ones to the former on everything else), and whether Malcolm Turnbull is fair dinkum on climate change (no).

Other matters:

• Mumble man Peter Brent has a paper in the latest Australian Journal of Political Science criticising the anachronism of the Divisional Returning Officer, part of what government consultants described as far back as 1974 as the Electoral Commission’s “flat” organisational structure: one national office at the top, six state ones in the middle, and no fewer than 150 divisional ones at the bottom. Occupants of the latter posts have too much to do during election periods, too little to do outside of them, and few paths to promotion, with resulting problems for staffing and morale. “Regionalisation” into offices covering four or five divisions has been advocated by the Electoral Commission itself, but has been resisted in part because MPs enjoy the convenience of a local electorate office, and also because they form troublingly close relationships with their local DROs.

• Two doses of cold water for Alannah MacTiernan’s tilt in Canning. The ABC’s Rebecca Carmody strikes back over past acts of condescension in the Sunday Times, noting she has a big obstacle to overcome in winning over the electorate’s semi-rural areas beyond her Armadale base. Tony Barrass of The Australian concurs, describing her as “a polarising figure, perhaps the most admired-disliked state political figure in the past decade”, and chiding the local media for “talking as though she’s home and hosed”.

• Glenn Milne beats the drum for a Kerryn Phelps candidacy against Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth. For what it’s worth though, Labor’s local federal electoral council is making noises about the need for a local rank-and-file vote.

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.

1,849 comments on “ACNielsen: 56-44”

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  2. Pardon my ignorance on the ETS but I don’t think that I’m any different to probably 95% of the punters out there in that respect, will householders be recompensed for any increase in living costs as a result of the introduction of an ETS. The reason I ask this is that I’ve seen two polls conducted by NINEMSM (online I know) both asking similar questions. One asking are you prepared to more for electricity and the other (today) are you prepared to pay more for food. In both cases the results are overwhelmingly NO.

  4. [will householders be recompensed for any increase in living costs as a result of the introduction of an ETS.]

    No, because the ETS got voted down last week.

  5. ruawake
    [Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 at 7:21 pm | Permalink

    Molotov.

    I don’t mean to be trite. But at 21 most people are ideologues, 30 years later after kids, work, mortgages, going to more funerals than weddings etc. tends to make people more “conservative”.]

    Read this many times but I don’t think it is right, after you have lived a life you realize that very little of it really matters, wife, kids that’s about it. Money what a waste of time, can’t take it with you. You also realize that keeping things as they are really isn’t a worth while aim, if conservatives had won their battles we would still be living in caves.

    No I think if you spend your life learning you move to the left and I admire people who get there sooner.

  7. Something marginally amusing – I was just looking at the google searches that were done today coming into my site and one of them was “tony abbott ears”.

    It makes you wonder sometimes! 😀

    I hope they eventually found what they were looking for.

  8. enjaybee

    There is compensation for the increased cost of electricity for low income families. I’m not sure of the details.

  9. [I was just looking at the google searches that were done today coming into my site and one of them was “tony abbott ears”.]

    You forgot the preceding string “what’s between…….”

    Google only returned one result:
    “air”

  10. fredn, perhaps different age cohorts have different learning experiences, and therefore, different trajectories in terms of their political orientation?
    The defining experience for me and many of my generation was the Vietnam War, however, if you get the chance to see”The Age of Stupid” in relation to climate change do so, and this will define the seminal experiences of generations probably of the THM age cohort. Oh, not the film, the actual ghastliness that will happen because of climate change. February 7 2009 was a precursor.

  11. When talking about people moving left or right ward we should remember that the issues that shape one’s politics also change overtime.

    When i started boting i was right-wing and some 20 years later i don’t believe on the things that made me right wing have changed but something has changed.

    During the past two decades the ALP have drifted right on issues of economic management and while their social policies are still progressive by nature they are less about class or post code and more about addressing general difference

    The Liberal Party has moved towards a more hard-line right wing policy approach this has ment that the Liberal Party that once had leaders like Dick Hamer and Andrew Peacock has now become basically a party of Howard/Abbott types.

    So here i am bascially unchanged but as policy debate has changed i have gone from agreeingh witht he Liberals to agreeing with the ALP, i suspect this is common for many people who started voting in the early to mid 1990s.

    The question is can the Liberals recapture that generation before it is lost to the ALP, i guess we can say the ball is in the ALP court and really that is why the Liberals are struggling for they have moved away from why they were about to win elections in the mid-1990s.

  12. enjaybee, I think an ETS that has been negotiated with the LNP will be a completely different beast to what was put up and rejected last week.

  13. [The reason I ask this is that I’ve seen two polls conducted by NINEMSM (online I know) both asking similar questions]

    I think you just answered your own question. It was A FREAKING ONLINE POLL!!!!!!

  16. mexicanbeemer, have a look at Possum’s analysis from way back (Poss might kindly provide the link) about the divided voting bases for the Coalition. The LNP as an organisation has changed, but not in relation to the people who once supported it. Perhaps Tony Abbott’s ears might have more luck.

  18. Pegasus, this way madness lies re: idealogue definition. Just conclude I’m an old F**t with an ancient and decrepit understanding of Wikipedia.

  20. Harry! Possy has done several wonderful graphs on voting overtime and i would be interested if the fluffy one would have seen a change in the voting behavor of those who started voting in the 1993/1996 election period.

    I recall on election night in 1996 then Sentator Ray commenting that the first time voters have thumped the ALP and i would be interested to see if they have has i expect they have slowly overtime drifted towards the ALP or maybe the Greens.

  21. It’s also important to note that definitions of what is “right” and “left”, and of the issues which define leftness and rightness, change radically over time. Did Curtin or Chifley, or Lenin or Trotsky for that matter, support abortion rights or same-sex marriage? Did Marx advocate renewable energy? Did the French Revolution endorse racial equality? (ask the Haitians for the answer). Was white Australia a right-wing policy? If so, why did the whole labour movement, including the Communist Party, support it until the 1940s? Are high tariffs right-wing or left-wing? And so on.

  22. Psephos is correct for the issues have changed overtime and the issues have moved around the polictical spectium.

    White Australia was a corner stone of the Watson Government, an ALP Government.

  24. The reason why I ask about compensation is that despite the polls and most commentators as well as all (well nearly all) PBrs pronouncing an ALP victory at the next election, I am not so sure. When push comes to shove I believe a fair proportion of punters vote by how their hip pocket is affected and despite polls indicating that most are in favour of something being done to combat global warming, it would seem that they are not prepared to pay for it. I can see the opposition pushing this for all its worth at the next election whenever it is held and being a real Achilles heel for the government.

  25. Social and economic libertarians are particularly hard to categorise. Given that their ideals are pretty “pure”, they should be out on an extreme but they don’t belong out there.

  26. Mex and Psephos, yes exactly. BTW, Psephos, are you going to provide THM with some counselling on how to avoid turning into someone like …..you?
    Sniggle.

  28. enjaybee

    The putative ETS starts in mid-2011, well after the next election. Even then, very little happens for a year or two and it will be a gradual increase in electricity price.

    Just like slowly heating the water to boil the frog in the pot instead of dropping him in when it’s already boiling.

  31. [What’s this about Cossie challenging Truffles for the Leadership of the Liberal Party on Channel 10??]

    What,What,What

  33. Diogenes

    I don’t share your optimism (and I hope I’m wrong on this). There will only be a small time between the next election, assuming it will be held somewhere around November 2010 and mid 2011 and even though as you say there will be a gradual increase in electricity price. What about food and fuel prices? I am convinced that this will become a very important election issue and put to good use by the opposition.

  34. Does anyone know whether 12 % is a record low for preferred opposition leader for a current leader? Woeful, and Pyne on Insiders continues to tell us what a great job he is doing.

    The Libs should change immediately to the preferred team: Dont Know as Leader and Somebody Else as Deputy

  38. [ Harry “Snapper” Organs
    Posted Monday, August 17, 2009 at 8:56 pm | Permalink

    fredn, perhaps different age cohorts have different learning experiences, and therefore, different trajectories in terms of their political orientation?
    The defining experience for me and many of my generation was the Vietnam War]

    Me also, but I suspect differently, when the 100 thousand plus marched in Melbourne, I didn’t, my view then was, your part of the society, you do as it asks. I was lucky, Whitlam came in and put and end to conscription the year my marble was to go into the barrel. History has proved the 100 thousand right. A lot of people died a lot of people in my age group had their life destroyed for nothing.

    Realizing this sort of pushes you away from conservative values.

  39. I for one don’t care what the preferred opposition poll says for the only numbers that matter are the parties pimary vote and the estimated two party preferred.

    This may sound dismissive but if those polls mean anything then in 1992 when Joan Kirner had higher approval ratings than Jeff Kennett you still knew that the ALP were doomed.

  40. Oz and Gus

    The blurb for the Late Ten News said there were mounting reports that Costello was about to challenge Truffles for the leadership.

  42. When I googled “What’s between Tony Abbot’s ears” one of the results was:

    [ACNielsen: 56-44 – The Poll Bludger
    You forgot the preceding string “what’s between…….” … Perhaps Tony Abbott’s ears might have more luck. 167. The Finnigans. Posted Monday, August 17, .]

    Is this recursive or what?

  43. [The blurb for the Late Ten News said there were mounting reports that Costello was about to challenge Truffles for the leadership.]

    Pls pls jebus let it be so
    🙂

  50. The Oz is on about it too. Must be the latest brainstorm out of Lib Headquarters to try and get the polling figures moving in their direction. It should work as well as every other thing they have tried. Especially with media help.

    [The Australian’s Online Poll

    Are higher food prices an acceptable side-effect of an emissions trading scheme? ]

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