Newspoll: 50-50; Morgan: 53-47 to Coalition

Little change on a fortnight ago for both Newspoll, which repeats its tied result, and Roy Morgan, which finds Labor holding on to recent gains but advancing no further.

UPDATE: Contrary to what it says below, James J in comments relates that there is a Newspoll out, and that it’s unchanged on a fortnight ago: a tie on two-party preferred, with primary votes of Coalition 43%, Labor 35% and Greens 12%. Also unchanged is Malcolm Turnbull’s 55-21 lead as preferred prime minister, but he’s down four on approval to 44% and up three on disapproval to 41%, while Bill Shorten is up two to 30% and down two to 55%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1815. Full tables from The Australian.

There will apparently be no Newspoll this week, so Roy Morgan gets the guernsey instead. Their latest face-to-face plus SMS poll, conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 3011, has the Coalition lead at 53-47 on both the previous election and respondent-allocated measures of two-party preferred. This is half a point better for the Coalition than the previous two results, but still two points lower than in any of their earlier polls on Malcolm Turnbull’s watch. The primary vote figures are in interesting study in the effects of survey design, with the “others” vote spiking three points to 13%, its highest level this term. This is very likely influenced by the fact that the Nick Xenophon Team is now being included as an option in the questionnaire nationally, and not just in South Australia as before. The Coalition is down half a point to 43%, Labor is steady on 29.5%, and the Greens are down two to 13%.

UPDATE 2 (Essential Research): Essential Research is unchanged at 50-50, with primary votes of 43% for the Coalition (steady), 37% for Labor (down one) and 10% for the Greens (steady). Also featured are the monthly leadership ratings, which have Malcolm Turnbull down six on approval to 45% and up eight no disapproval to 35%, Bill Shorten steady on 27% and down one on disapproval to 47%, and Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister narrowing from 52-15 to 48-19. Further questions find 41% approval for negative gearing, and 37% disapproval; 35% approving of Labor’s policy to limit it to newly built homes, and 39% disapproving; and 32% saying they would prefer house prices go up, with 34% wanting them to come down.

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.

1,721 comments on “Newspoll: 50-50; Morgan: 53-47 to Coalition”

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  3. [ The worse they perform, the better they poll. ]

    Not quite. The LNP primary vote went down. Seems to be just a quirk of the introduction of NXT into the 2PP modelling that they ended up ahead on 2PP.

  4. Caught me Will! Should have seen it coming, with the chatter about Morgan. For those who didn’t read to the end of the last thread, here’s a repeat:

    Re Tony Rabbott and Warringah – a friend has reminded me that at any time a person (he thinks a voter in Warringah but I don’t see any “standing” requirement) can sue for $200 under the Common Informers (Parliamentary Disquals) Act 1975. See http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cida1975507/s3.html Go for it, someone! But as said friend says, you’d have to be ready to withdraw and pay a few solicitor bills if/when Abbott provides proof of renunciation or letter from the Brits.

  5. From previous thread:

    Millenial @ 2644,
    Could you please put Fiona Scott in Lindsay!?! One Lucy Wicks is more than enough! 😀

  6. Steve777 from previous thread
    Real modelling is not data analysis. Properly done, modelling recreates the actual processes going on in the real world in sufficient detail that the modelled outcomes sre very close to actual outcomes of the system being modelled. Physics rarely comes into it, unless you are modelling physical systems, like car suspensions, hydro power generation or electric power distribution networks, all of which I have done.

    Commonly, useful models are based on flows, stocks and proportions which vary through time, and which are able to be related by known, or easily defined formulae. Feedback loops and leads and lags are often involved, and getting these right is very important. Flows and stocks can reflect quantities of physical things, like numbers of people, or kg of protein, or loaves of bread, or cubic metres of concrete. (All per unit of time, for flows). They can also be money. Proportions are things like prices, interest rates, pay rates, overtime loading percent, protein concentration in kg per 1000 litres of milk, loaves per dough, flour recovery per tonne of grist, cement kg per cubic metre of 20 MPA concrete, and so on, and on and on.

    Useful models are often very large, but they follow basic, strictly logical rules. Building them is a combination of art, intelligence, mathematics and lots of patience. Experience is particularly useful. The discipline is called Operations Research.

  7. Cue the ABC getting their hearts all a flutter (especially Fran Kelly), when they normally don’t give Morgan the time of day.

  10. 2679
    psyclaw
    Posted Monday, March 7, 2016 at 5:27 pm | PERMALINK
    Meher

    You say that Labor’s policy to reduce negative gearing concerns you because it is an “experiment”.

    So have we reached the stage that before we even start to reduce the generous gift that negative gearing is to investors, we must prove to some high degree (almost beyond reasonable doubt) that there will not be some imaginary fatal effect on the market.

    Maybe this is a case where the lesser of two evils should be chosen, and common sense should be the guide.

    So what if house prices drop 5 or 10% across the board. This will all smooth out for homeowners, and they’ll take it in their stride.

    Only the speculators, those seeking quick capital gains, the “day traders” of the housing market will have to adjust their sums.

    Have you never sat in a pub, or with a group of friends, and heard their discussions about how great negative gearing is, because they now “own” 2 or 3 or 25 houses which the renter and the government are paying off for them.

    This is the starting point in deciding if negative gearing should be modified. Should first home buyers who have to pay off their mortgage with after-tax dollars have to compete with those who have a government assisted greater capacity to pay off a higher mortgages.

    One thing is for sure in the minds of all of us who don’t know so much about modelling, (except that garbage in gives garbage out) . That is the current system is unfair to young couples buying a first home. If others suffer a bit because of changes, and these youngsters nenefit, then good-oh.

    2680
    psyclaw
    Posted Monday, March 7, 2016 at 5:29 pm | PERMALINK
    Last line is “benefit”

  11. “The worse they perform, the better they poll”

    Tony and Malcolm should tie the knot in Australia’s first SSM – the voters will love it!

  14. William

    [ There will apparently be no Newspoll this week … ]

    I thought we had reports last week that Newspoll was in the field. Would they normally do that and then not issue the poll results?

  15. Thanks for the explanation re modelling Yabba. I didn’t think plugging numbers into a (physics) formula was modelling.

    I find deniers like to confuse modelling with straight physical laws. In the case of global warming it is straight forward.

    1. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
    2. More carbon dioxide means more heat is retained.
    3. The concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing and the Earth is measurably warming.

    Can’t get simpler than that.

  16. [Of course Shorten Must Go®]

    The simple fact is that if Shorten was not leader, Labor would be so far ahead that the Coalition party room would dump Turnbull and install the Labor leader (whoever that is other than Bill Shorten) as the new PM.

  18. Newspoll’s results mustn’t have fitted the desired meme. The call I got was a bog standard voting intention, leaders satisfaction and preferred PM effort.

  19. PeeBee

    [ I find deniers like to confuse modelling with straight physical laws. In the case of global warming it is straight forward.

    1. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
    2. More carbon dioxide means more heat is retained.
    3. The concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing and the Earth is measurably warming.

    Can’t get simpler than that. ]

    I agree. The physical laws tell us we are going to see several degrees warming overall, but the modelling is needed to tell us exactly what that means. It is not simply that everyone’s temperature is going to up by that amount – some places may even see cooling due to changes in wind and ocean currents.

  20. TPOF@16

    [
    The simple fact is that if Shorten was not leader, Labor would be so far ahead that the Coalition party room would dump Turnbull and install the Labor leader (whoever that is other than Bill Shorten) as the new PM. ]

    And you know that… how?

  22. I think that 1pp of the Greens primary was lost to Xenophon directly and the other 1pp was lost to the ALP (who then had voters leak to Xenophon, not changing their PV)

  23. we could have taxed the internet, says Peter Costello

    Probably a suggestion from Rupert. Then his papers could compete against the (then) coming online storm because they would be “internet tax free”.

  24. [Properly done, modelling recreates the actual processes going on in the real world in sufficient detail that the modelled outcomes sre very close to actual outcomes of the system being modelled. Physics rarely comes into it, unless you are modelling physical systems, like car suspensions, hydro power generation or electric power distribution networks, all of which I have done.]

    Hi Yabba,

    I get what you are saying (I’m an OR-type-of economist) but…

    What are your flows if not fundamentally physical ones? Nested physical models often appear as markets for factors. Input costs represent scarcity, and fixed prices are merely an indication that the buyer has no market power (is a price taker). At the individual firm/representative agent level, this is usually a great approximation of reality.

    But macroeconomics, and climate science, try to model everything in a state of flux at once. Furthermore, neither can test their models on a real system, relying instead on observational data. Therein lies the great difficulty in both.

  27. This coming election, for me, has the feeling of that of 1977.

    Labor under Gough Whitlam was creamed in 1975. We had high hopes of a big comeback in 1977. Mungo MacCallum was writing about all the Liberal oncers who were about to lose their seats.

    In the end there were no oncers (or there might have been one). Gough was still the leader and was still unacceptable to the great unwashed. Oh, the unfairness of it all!

    Labor’s primary vote in NSW was 42.4% for 17 seats (to 25);
    in Queensland 37.7% for 3 seats (to 16);
    in SA, 42.6% for 6 seats (to 5);
    in Tasmania, 42.1% for 0 seats (to 5);
    in Victoria, 37.2% for 10 seats (to 23);
    in WA, 32.6% for 1 seat (to 9);
    in the ACT, 50.2% for 1 seat (to 1).

    Heart-breaking.

    Labor’s primary vote is now worse, by and large, but we have Greens rather than Democrats as a third force. We have a new leader – but so does the government.

    Are there still bad memories from the Labor years? We’ll know very soon.

  28. Well perhaps, (re Shorten).
    In the current circumstances, if Shorten comes across as Mr Beige that is a positive.
    To that end the Mardi Gras pics on the weekend were perfect.

  29. Sorry, misremmbered TPOF’s post – Coalition choosing some Labor leader (NOT Shorten) as their PM was the clue. Apart from TPOF’s inveterate habit of sending Rex up.

  30. TT, 27

    [In the end there were no oncers (or there might have been one).]

    They managed to gain Capricornia off a sitting MP (they also managed to gain Griffith, but the sitting member was retiring so it doesn’t count).

  31. [Ahhhh Lib U – it’s a lonely life being a Georgeist, eh?]

    I also enjoy screaming underwater and pissing into the wind.

  33. ajm

    [ Newspoll’s results mustn’t have fitted the desired meme. The call I got was a bog standard voting intention, leaders satisfaction and preferred PM effort. ]

    I wonder if Newspoll just throws those results in the bin, or whether they combine them with the next poll?

  34. [27
    Toorak Toff

    This coming election, for me, has the feeling of that of 1977.]

    You might profit by going to talk to voters and asking them how they’re feeling about the LNP. You could ask them what they think about Tony Abbott and the cuts, the deceits and the derangement. Then you could ask them how they feel about the respective policies on health, education, tax, infrastructure, the environment, aged care, disability care and childcare, to name just the most obvious.

    Then ask them what they think about Turnbott…and learn how underwhelmed they generally are.

  36. On The Drum, Tikki Fullerton said that wtte, if Savva had been an ABC journo, she would have made sure she consulted “both sides” of every question.

  37. Tikki Fullerton said that wtte, if Savva had been an ABC journo, she would have made sure she consulted “both sides” of every question.

    Clearly that means Savva should have got some quotes from Labor figures – I mean the ABC were so keen to hear what Christopher Pyne and co thought about ALP leadership issues…

  38. Jack A Randa@25

    Errrr, Don, switch on irony detector… Libs choosing Shorten as their leader is a bit of a clue

    There are so many crazy things said here that it is often impossible to work out if they are for real or not.

    If someone I trust had written that, Zoom for example, I would have known it was irony, but I have no opinion on TPOF.

    But I am rapidly coming to one, given the idiotic response it made.

  40. LU,

    I have built quite a few econometric models, and I agree that getting a coherent set of formulae together is a difficult task. I think that the very idea of ‘macroeconomic modelling’ is really a nonsense.

    In order to arrive at any such thing, one would need to actually do a very large amount of microeconomic modelling, by which I mean actual modelling of the spending and consumption patterns of rationally chosen subsets of the population, and their interaction with all of the other subsets, broken up by income spending group and geographically.

    The so-called econometric models that I have examined closely are remarkably devoid of proper modelling of multipliers, feedback loops, and decent treatment of the proportion of disposable income spent on Australian sourced goods and services vs imported.

    For what it is worth, I believe that the price of real estate is primarily determined by the amount that ‘the banks’ are prepared to lend to a household, or investor, based on their income, or the expected rental return respectively. The lower the interest rate, the more lenders are prepared to lend, and hence the higher the price that can and will be paid for a scarce good, whether it be an apartment in Green Square, or a house in Roseville. When interest rates go up, the prices will come down. If they go up enough, there will be distressed sales, and prices will come down even more, as supply exceeds demand.

  41. Hope I’m wrong, briefly, but most voters don’t give a stuff about policies. They still name the Coalition as best for the economy and bestfor the environment.

  43. [41
    Toorak Toff

    Hope I’m wrong, briefly, but most voters don’t give a stuff about policies. They still name the Coalition as best for the economy and bestfor the environment.]

    Rest assured, you’re wrong.

  44. Good one!

    [Je Suis Geek
    Je Suis Geek – ‏@geeksrulz

    House of Crapulets aka as Credders vs the House of Malcontent aka Savva. #RoadToRuin
    10:07 PM – 6 Mar 2016
    1 RETWEET3 LIKES]

  46. TT

    [best for the economy and best for the environment.]

    I understand that voters have been persuaded to buy the economy myth, but how in the wide world can they possibly believe that the Coalition is “best for the environment”?

  47. Lizzie

    Ip – up

    Meant to add that basically Reith, Savva and others are telling Abbott to go away quietly and allow Truffles to proceed unimpeded. I say to Abbott go right ahead and blow up the joint. We can then be rid of him and Turnbull at the same time. 😀

  49. Toorak Toff @ 41

    [Hope I’m wrong, briefly, but most voters don’t give a stuff about policies. They still name the Coalition as best for the economy and best for the environment.]

    Agree!

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