Newspoll: 56-44

Courtesy of Peter Brent at Mumble comes the first heavy duty opinion poll of the Tony Abbott era. The two-party vote shows little change, with Labor’s lead down from 57-43 to 56-44. However, it seems rounding might have smoothed the result out a little: the Coalition is up three points on the primary vote to 38 per cent (the Liberals on 34 per cent have swallowed a point from the Nationals) while Labor is steady on 43 per cent. No approval ratings on Abbott were sought, but his 60-23 deficit on preferred prime minister compares with 65-14 against for Turnbull last week and 63-22 a fortnight previous. The poll offers further evidence that the popular notion that Abbott has a particular problem with women voters is a load of hooey.

UPDATE: Essential Research: 58-42, unchanged on last week. 21 per cent of respondents say the Abbott ascendancy makes them more likely to vote Liberal; 33 per cent say less. Lots of questions on leadership perceptions, almost all of it more favourable to Rudd than Abbott.

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.

3,136 comments on “Newspoll: 56-44”

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  1. Chris Curtis #100

    2) Don’t expect the attempt to paint Tony Abbott as a religious nutter to be any more successful than the attempt to paint John Howard as the worst person on Earth was or the attempt to paint unions as thuggish child-eaters was.

    1. Abbott’s “religious nutter” depiction is a self-portrait, perfected during the RU468 (“morning after” pill), stem-cell research parliamentary debates, abuse of Bernie Banton and Nicola Roxon, among countless other similar efforts.

    In a democracy, enfranchised adults have the right to choose their own religious/ philosophical positions. Trying to legislate to inflict one’s personal positions on an entire nation is dictatorial; hence the all-party parliamentary “women’s revolt” which defeated both bills. Many who voted them down expressed reservations about RU468/ stem-cell research (qv Hansard); but objected most strongly to Abbott’s trying to force every Australian to live by his religious views.

    2. In 1996, Internet was in its infancy and few accessed it. Australian communication media – print and AV – were controlled by media “barons” who could, and did, control what news was presented, with what slant. Apart from old volumes & microfiches in public/uni libraries, few had back copies of key events and analyses. Now, thanks to Internet, Intertubes, blogs, message boards etc; their easily accessed archives, and search engines like Google, this is no longer the case.

    That Howard’s “Honest John” was bestowed because its was then a common name for a spiv/ con-artist/ serial liar, and his stint as treasurer was disastrous, with record-high interest rates and budget deficit (A$9 billion in March 1983 dollars) Keating/Beazley’s never topped, did not surface until Internet and up-loading of RBA, Hansard & other official documents, as well as media back-files were up-loaded … in time to be used to great effect on Election07 blogs and message boards.

    There will be no “public amnesia” with Abbott as there was with Howard. This one blog on this single topic is a very good example of how mainstream media has lost its control over news and interpretation. Expect Abbott’s parliamentary & media rants, abuse, faux pas etc – stored in countless online archives, on blogs, social-network sites etc – to be uploaded constantly. Note that, last week, every TV channel replayed his insult to Bernie Banton, his swearing at Nicola Rixon (many Liberals believe these two cost them the election even before the Lindsay leaflet affair) and commented on his rigid, RW Catholic beliefs.

    3. Re-read “Liberals’ demographic train wreck”. The only pro-Coalition demographic is GenBlue (55+ year olds), which is also the strongest church-going demographic. As Baby Boomers (not a pro-Liberal demographic) replace GenBlue’s dying Liberals, even GenBlue will cease to be. Incoming voters (GenY) are strongly in favour of “Saving the planet” and “doing their own thing” – more so than GenX and Boomers, whose catch-cry they were & still are.

    (Note: Essential Research was one of those who have, since Election07, polled religious attitudes – you can access it in back-files. It reported c45% identifying themselves as atheist/ agnostic, and c22% as regular church-goers – and not all of them would agree with Abbott’s hard right RC stance.)

  3. Humble Pie,

    Way to excited last week re higgins, totally overshot. Umm
    What does it and the poll show. Maybe that the long term trend is impotant, short term excitment in the politically obsessed realms of the blogertariate does not translate to blue rinse Toorak pensioners voting green.
    Secondly, that the writers for the Australian are completely barking.

  4. I we are to believe the opinion writers in the Australian it is absolutely amazing that the ‘Howard Battlers’ in Higgins and Bradfield did not rush over to the Greens.

  5. I don’t think that Turnbull can come back and lead the party with the CC deniers in the ranks. Someone has to leave and go a third way. Either turnbull and the moderates, or Abbott and the RWNJ’s

  6. I have a feeling that Labor will resist trying to play the man, partly because Abbott is very well-known already. What they will do is play the policies: they have no policies on anything important….only a longing for the past and a self-wedging rejection of the Government’s policies…..

  7. If I could draw cartoons I would draw a cartoon of little Kevin in his jim-jams opening his presents under the Xmas tree on Xmas morning, and in one box would be “Tony Abott as Oppo Leader” and in the next box would be “Barnaby Joyce as Shadow Finance Minister” and in the third box would be “Malcoolm Turnbull as Liberal Party blogger.” And then Kevin would look up to the star at the top of the tree and say “Thankyou baby Jesus for these truly wonderful presents.”

  9. [I we are to believe the opinion writers in the Australian it is absolutely amazing that the ‘Howard Battlers’ in Higgins and Bradfield did not rush over to the Greens.]

    As many have stated previously, there are no Howard Battlers in Bradfield. They are rusted on.

  10. [Someone has to leave and go a third way.]
    That would be Hockey.

    All it would take is a few bad polls for Abbott, especially with questions on climate change and the CPRS, and the whole leadership will be up for grabs again.

  11. Barnaby Joyce to be Shadow Finance bod. What a joke!! After watching his rant on Insiders yesterday and his performances last week in the Senate I betcha Lindsay Tanner will be beside himself at the thought of debating the “accountant”. He’ll make mincemeat of Joyce.

    I can’t wait to see it.

    BTW – Canberra journo on ABC2 this am was jumping with joy at the excitement now ahead for the journos with Abbott as leader. The way Trioli and she played up Abbott’s ‘surge’ in the polls was as bad as Shamaham.

  13. I was speaking to a retired ALP senator the other day and she was saying that the ALP don’t need to do anything, the Libs are doing are doing it for them. She said that Abbott was the worst possible choice for the libs.

    Tom.

  14. Barnaby Joyce to be Shadow Finance bod. What a joke!!

    That’s about the funniest appointment I can remember. Even if he’s technically qualified – being an accountant – I can’t take him seriously in that role. And surely Insiders could have come up with a better interviewee to finish the year with.

  15. [The problem for Labor is not finding material to use against him, it’s choosing what to use.]

    I believe modern political negative advertising harms the sender, not the receiver.

  16. [I was speaking to a retired ALP senator the other day and she was saying that the ALP don’t need to do anything, the Libs are doing are doing it for them. She said that Abbott was the worst possible choice for the libs.]

    Yeah, some in the media are trying their best to polish a turd, but there’s only so much polishing you can do

  17. The comments on Turnbull’s blog are sort of like ‘car-crash viewing’ reading. They’re so compellingly awful. Turnbull looks like joining the ranks of Hewson and Fraser as despised former Liberal leaders. What is in it for ‘moderates’ to even be part of the Liberal Party when they are treated so poorly?

  18. What happens when Turnbull comes out with a policy to tackle cc? Will Barnaby have to go to the backbench again, to uphold his principles?

  19. [I believe modern political negative advertising harms the sender, not the receiver.]

    Didn’t seem to do Howard much harm with the Latham L-plate campaign in 2004. In fact he increased his majority and won control of the Senate.

  21. From the past:

    [I went to the animal fair
    All the birds and the beasts were there
    The big baboon by the light of the moon
    Was combing his auburn hair.
    You should have seen the monk
    He sat on the elephant’s trunk
    The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees
    And what became of the monk,
    The monk, the monk, the monk,
    The monk, the monk, the monk? ]

  23. [Didn’t seem to do Howard much harm with the Latham L-plate campaign in 2004. In fact he increased his majority and won control of the Senate.]

    Bob doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good rant. It’s why most of us skip over his posts.

  25. Malcolm Turnbull has summed it up nicely for if we are serious about doing something then we need to be prepared to have a cost.

    Abbott is clearly all over the shop on this issue and this is his greatest problem, sure it is one thing to point out that the Government’s bills are not prefect but to have changed position at least four times in less than six months can only be called dithering.

  28. Negative campaigning teds to work best when there is an element of thuth in the story for example Latham’s L plates worked for Lathem was as we now fully know not mature enough for leadership of this country

  31. jaundiced view #114

    As discussed last night, Turnbull is not going away, and will destabilise until he gets a chance for a spill. Saying the new leader’s position on CC is “bullshit” would appear to be today’s strategic hit in that campaign. Good stuff.

    Which a smart pollie won’t do this side of Election10/11’s wipeout. By now, he has the numbers, though that might change in 10/11. After the Abbott experiment, Liberals might see sense and rebuild the Liberals – Joe or Malcolm would make a good fist of the Calwell/ Beazley role – though I doubt it.

    When a party’s parliamentary powerbrokers head to the extreme, whether it be right or left, their moderate internal opposition has a tough time differentiating itself from a Centralist government. One of Menzies’ most effective political ploys was to position his party where Curtin’s (and to a lesser extent Chifley’s without the miners’ strike) had been. Fraser’s position on social issues was similar, to the extent his government passed anti-discrimination legislation developed during Whitlam’s term.

    A Turnbull or Hockey Opposition would, I think, find it hard differentiate itself enough from the ALP to attract enough swinging voters.

  32. [And surely Insiders could have come up with a better interviewee to finish the year with.]
    I couldn’t understand anything he was saying.

  33. My tip: Turnbull will be Oppo Leader come election day.

    Surely Turnbull’s bombing raid will not endear him to those in the party room who are not enamoured of his style of leadership. But I guess Hockey’s chances must be improving 🙂

  34. Where the Liberals once campaigned on the slogan “We’re Not Waiting For The World” it now appears they have no qualms to do so. I find it amusing the climate change sceptics have called climate change action an attack on national sovereignty whilst also calling for our national parliament to be constrained by waiting for other parliaments to pass laws.

  35. [I couldn’t understand anything he was saying.]

    ShowsOn – it was a bit pathetic. The current line of the Oppn “a great big tax” sounds so childish.

    I couldn’t understand why Cassidy didn’t challenge Joyce on that line. It obviously isn’t a tax on the majority of us so why doesn’t the MSM pull them up on that. Any ideas?

  38. [I couldn’t understand why Cassidy didn’t challenge Joyce on that line.]

    Why would he? Cassidy has been repeating this line himself for the past 2 weeks non-stop.

  39. Well I reckon that the ABC should not allow either side to get away with blatant rubbish like that. Surely their job is to ask for factual explanations so the public is informed.

    Too idealistic I know.

    I sent a scathing comment to Oakes but didn’t check to see whether anyone else had. He probably got so many it became embarrassing. I hope.

  40. [I couldn’t understand why Cassidy didn’t challenge Joyce on that line.]

    [Why would he? Cassidy has been repeating this line himself for the past 2 weeks non-stop.]

    It’s not called The Onesiders for nothing!

  42. Why would Cassidy challenge anything an opposition spokesperson might say – he is after all working at the ABC, and no-one there with the exception of KOB on a good day seems willing or able to seriously challenge any of the crap that they regularly come up with.

    The wholesale swallowing of the ‘Abbott bounce’ line is a case in point. It’s now reached the status of an established fact at your ABC.

  44. So many on this forum say that the ABC is full of pro-Liberal bias, but if you go over to Andrew Bolt’s blog they say that it is full of pro-Labor pro-AGW bias!

    Then if you go to the ABC site, Antony Green has to put up with comments like this:
    [(Antony Green was) A little too excited at the prospect of a Green upset at the outset, but you DO work for the ABC I suppose and that needs to be taken into account. Otherwise, excellent coverage.]
    http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2009/12/bradfield-and-higgins-any-comments-on-tonights-abcelections-coverage.html#comments

  45. [The wholesale swallowing of the ‘Abbott bounce’ line is a case in point. It’s now reached the status of an established fact at your ABC.]

    But Janet and friends were only put on the ABC board to sing karaoke before the start of meetings

  46. It is very very unlikely that there will be a Liberal leadership change before the election, for several reasons.

    First, Joe Hockey has canceled himself out by proposing a free vote on the CPRS/ETS bills. To have a chance last week, he had to choose a position, argue for it, stick with it and offer to lead. He wimped out and will now be seen as nice bloke who cannot make a tough call. He is cactus as a potential leader.

    Second, in choosing to oppose the Government’s CC bills, the Liberals may have chosen a policy dead-end, but they have also demonstrably chosen internal unity. They have decided it is better to go down fighting Labor than fighting each other. There will be no wish to revisit CC policy until the election has been held.

    Third, Turnbull is even less likely to have electoral success than Abbott, so he will not have the numbers to challenge Abbott. His PPM ranking dropped to 14% – about the worst ever. Turnbull is a formidable, courageous – even charismatic – character but he is not a politician.

    The Liberals will fight with what they’ve got. It will get nasty. The lies and distortions, the manipulation and demagoguery, have already commenced.

  47. [Record Green primary vote in a Liberal-held seat]

    Big deal. In the absence of a Labor candidate, any non-Liberal would have polled that well in those by-elections. If there’d been no Green, the DLP or the Sex Party or the anarchist would have inherited that vote. What does this prove? Nothing. Uncontested by-elections never prove anything.

  48. [The wholesale swallowing of the ‘Abbott bounce’ line is a case in point.]
    Well, Tony Wright didn’t swallow it. He pointed out on ABC Adelaide this morning that the polls have ON AVERAGE been stuck at 56/44 for a bit over 2 years, and this poll is no different.

    He also said it was ONE poll, so it is hard to draw any conclusions. He also said that it wasn’t surprising that Abbott’s preferred PM rating was higher than Turnbull’s simply because of the novelty value of having someone new.

  50. Kev and the Premiers should be having a presser after their meeting at about 1.30 apparently.
    We’ll get to check out Captain Kenneally 😉

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