The eagerly awaited pre-spill Newspoll concurs with Galaxy in having Labor’s two-party lead at 57-43, from primary votes of 35% for the Coalition, 41% for Labor and 12% for the Greens. The Coalition result is down three points on the last Newspoll of December 12-14, and one point lower than Galaxy; Labor’s is up two, and two points lower than Galaxy; and the Greens’ is steady, and one point higher than Galaxy. The previous Newspoll result was 54-46 on two-party preferred. Phillip Hudson’s paywalled report on the Newspoll result in The Australian can be read here; the tables are featured on The Australian’s website here.
Tony Abbott’s personal ratings are 24% satisfied and 68% dissatisfied, for a net satisfaction rating of minus 44%. In a history going back to 1985, the only occasions when Newspoll produced a worse result for a Prime Minister were when Julia Gillard recorded minus 45% in the poll of September 2-4, 2011, and in four polls under Paul Keating from August to October in 1993. Alexander Downer had two worse results as Opposition Leader near the end of his tenure in December 1994, and Andrew Peacock matched it in a poll conducted during the 1990 election campaign. Bill Shorten leads Abbott as preferred prime minister by 48-30, up from 44-37 last time, a result surpassed only by a 20% lead for Alexander Downer over Paul Keating during the former’s short-lived honeymoon period in July 1994. Shorten is up five on approval to 42% and down three on disapproval to 40%.
Head-to-head questions on the Liberal leadership find Malcolm Turnbull favoured over Abbott by 64-25 and Julie Bishop favoured 59-27, while Turnbull is favoured over Bishop by 49-38. The poll was conducted from Friday to today from a sample of 1178.
UPDATE: To follow today’s action as it unfolds, you could do quite a lot worse than to tune in to Crikey’s Liberal leadership spill live blog.
39 – 61.
Abbott gone in 3 months.
Six more months of leadershit.
“@BernardKeane: 39 for a spill. Bad result for Abbott.”
61 -39!
So do we expect TA to learn from this or his hubris to go through the roof?
GUTLESS
or my Mum was right.
Perfect.
Yay! Abbott still gets to face the voters.
Bet it was Eleventy Joe.
Parfait. 40% of his own party
confessions @ 349
And yay from me too. Best possible result for Labor. Let the haemorrhaging begin.
Is it just me, or is a legislator who can’t manage to vote formally on this clearly unsuitable to be in Parliament
Abbott wins! Hallelujah.
‘It was an informed informal.’
Like, who cares?
I’d like to thank the Liberal Party Party Room a spectacularly good result, I don’t know why the gods love Shorten but they surely do.
“@swrightwestoz: If most of the Cabinet stuck with Abbott, then based on the 61-39 vote he has lost a majority of his backbench…”
he has got to go – reckon this is best case scenario….tick tick
[
An informal. How do you vote informal in a simple yes/no situation?
]
Someone probably wrote “None of the above”, which would be understandable.
Hopefully the abbott thugs will now move on turnbull and in so cause more damage.
Yep it is a bad result for Abbott and Co
Chris Uhlmann earlier said 20 for the motion is bad, 30 very bad and 40 the PMs poition is untenable.
So 39? This is round 1.
The informal was a vote for Kevin Rudd
That’s 40% of the partyroom want a leadership spill.
That’s an awful lot of barnacles!
Guytaur
Not Rudd….Gillard!!!
Now to see whether we get some ministerial resignations shortly. Fingers crossed.
The ballot didn’t have names on it. All people had to do was write yes or no in respose to the motion. If someone gave an informal vote they’re either incredibly stupid or just taking the piss.
Too close to give Abbott any comfort.
61 members either voted for Abbott or voted for Abbott because they did not want either Abbott or Turnball and are biding their time for the right candidate to emerge. Perhaps Bishop.
Steve777@371
Newspoll keep doing your work.
Best possible result for the ALP. Just a strong enough vote for Mr Abbott to enable him to convince himself that he doesn’t really have to change anything.
Gillard won 71-31 in February 2012, and was gone the following year!
confessions
I realise that, I was just making the point that someone was probably taking the piss.
This means that the result hinged on 11 votes. They change in the near future and the result will favour a spill.
the difference in the reporting is a huge contrast – Cassidy on ABC and Kosch on Sunrise who are saying all Abbott needs to do is be nice now his Policys are crap talk about them
I reckon it was a stunt and it will fail. The Forty Days in the Desert is not going to work. We all know he cannot and will not change and he will get worse.
I have ordered more popcorn.
The turkey’s vote for another thanksgiving in a couple of weeks thanks very much
Apparently, cos I refuse to watch Uhlmann and Cassidy, they, or maybe just Cassidy, are saying there will be a leadership challenge within the next 24 hours.
Tsipras is still fighting World War 11.
[The Greek prime minister also repeated demands that Germany pay reparations for World War Two and repay a loan that the Nazis forced the Bank of Greece to pay when they occupied Greece.
Greece had “a moral obligation to our people, to history, to all European peoples who fought and gave their blood against Nazism,” he said.]
Yeah. That is probably why the SYRIZANs are giving such comfort to Putin.
Good for Labor, bad for Australia.
I can’t tell you how much lack of confidence in the Federal Government is hurting the economy. My firm laid off 4 people on Friday because the work isn’t coming in. Business is frozen, unable to invest or make decisions. As I’m sure you all can attest, consumers aren’t spending, instead choosing to save or pay down debt. I’m not sure we can afford another 6 months of this incompetence. We are very quickly falling behind our economic competitors and we are losing the opportunity to set Australia up for future growth and decent paying jobs. I’m both delighted and despairing. What a clusterfuck!
Labor leadership team stroll across the cameras.
[Yay! Abbott still gets to face the voters.]
He’s enabled to eat s#it for a couple of months.
https://twitter.com/bastardsheep/status/564550252280029184
Maybe someone put an Eftpos receipt in the ballot box by mistake. lol
Shorten and Co – the entire united Labor leadership team – just wandered past the banks of cameras carrying nothing much more than broad grins.
Bye bye, bye bye,
Bye bye Liberal Party,
Goodbye….
If you were considering a challenge, then surely this vote would spur you on. I mean, 39 people just voted to chuck Abbott, without a formal candidate even standing.
[Reminds everyone that Labor changed its rules so this kind of stuff can’t happen anymore.]
and he needs to keep saying it and saying it and saying it until everyone is sick of hearing Bill tell them about how Labor’s rules make this sort of clusterfuck impossible.
I hope Australians are taking notice of the fact that we do not elect the Prime Minister. When are we going to teach Civics in our schools?
PBers sensitivity …. Hmmph
Those commenting on the tall gentleman should read up on Marfan Syndrome ….. a relatively common genetically caused physical disability, with potential for major health sequelae.
Seems incongruous that those who support the NDIS would mock or disrespect someone with a disability.
If Abbort cared about his party he would just resign last week.
The donkey vote – Andrews voting for the Abbott/Gillard team 🙂