Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

Newspoll tells a familiar tale, with the two-party vote unchanged over four successive polls, Malcolm Turnbull’s personal decline levelling off, and Bill Shorten continuing to rise.

The latest Newspoll for The Australian is the fourth successive result from the pollster showing Labor leading 51-49 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Coalition 41% (steady), Labor 36% (down one) and Greens 11% (steady). Leadership ratings echo other pollsters in finding Malcolm Turnbull levelling off after a steep decline in the early months of the year, with approval steady at 38% and disapproval up one to 50%, and Bill Shorten continuing to improve, with approval up four to 37% and disapproval down three to 49%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 49-27 to 46-31. Expectations of a Coalition in have diminished considerably since the question was last asked in March, with 44% now favouring a Coalition win (down 11%) and 33% favouring Labor (up eight). The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1709.

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.

1,704 comments on “Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. Thank you BK and Lizzie for the morning media round up.

    The DT will have to do much better with its anti Labor front page headlines – obviously they are not having the desired effect to date.

  3. ru

    Thanks. Will be interesting to see if fourcorners will report on the disclosures the Libs finally made to the AEC re the donations, so that they would have access to AEC funding

  4. Some good news for Labor, not so much for Australia.
    Abbott relying on divine intervention
    THE Lord works in mysterious ways and Tony Abbott has hinted it could include a return to the Liberal leadership.
    Greeting wellwishers at his campaign launch, the former PM was urged to keep the faith. “God willing, you will be Prime Minister again,’’ a Liberal supporter said.
    Mr Abbott smiled and replied: “Let’s see what The Lord has in store for me.’’

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/federal-election/federal-election-2016-tony-abbott-happy-to-see-what-the-lord-has-in-store-for-me/news-story/5998762ea8ffb231a9f637128f038cbb

  10. sbcbooks: The campaign so far:
    Voter: This Turnbull Norwegian Blue parrot is dead!
    DelCon: No he’s not! He’s just pacing himself! #DelCon #auspol

  15. Sorry the reason for the pacing joke

    iMusing: “Arthur Sinodinos is travelling with the Prime Minister as an adviser” and says “we are pacing the Prime Minister he is pacing himself” lol

  16. Ley promising to “look at co-payments after the election”.

    There’s two ways of interpreting that:
    1) If the Filth win the election the co-payments are going to rise dramatically.
    2) If the Filth lose the election, they’ll look at co-payments as the reason why they’ll be in opposition for decades.

  18. Sue_Dunlevy: Cabinet split on Medicare?? Ley tells ABC says she wants to lift Medicare freeze but cabinet won’t let her.

  20. When has Peter Brent ever had an opinion that wasn’t a suck up to the Coalition?

    “Feelpinions” are his stock in trade.
    I think that each political contest needs to be analysed on its own merits, with current data about voters’ intentions and priorities given far more weight than what happened in past elections. There are no mechanistic laws governing voting intentions and election outcomes; if each federal election is a data point there are only tens of data points; most of the past elections occurred in cultural, economic, and social contexts markedly different from our own.

  23. Guytaur: “mumbletwits: My #feelpinion is that the Coalition will easily win this election. But I can’t back it up with metrics.”
    I think what he means is that, in all the Federal elections in living memory where the government has changed hands, there has been a strong sense during the election campaign that the electorate is in the mood for a change.
    There is very little sense of this at the moment. Instead, there is a sense of a strong lack of confidence in the government, but no enthusiasm whatsoever for Labor. (Even on this forum, posters seem to get more excited about the Government’s failings rather than what Shorten is going to do).
    Normally, you would expect the Government to start to recover a bit as the polling day draws near and the delcons swallow their bile and line up behind MT (as they will inevitably do) and more and more uncommitted voters decide that they really aren’t quite ready for a change just yet.
    Alternatively, the Government might just keep on stumbling and bumbling and dropping votes and then we are in 1940 and 2010 territory and could end up with a hung parliament.
    Thinking as a swinging voter (but perhaps a bit more interested in politics than most of them are) I would have seen the Liberals as winning in 2013 under Abbott when they were profoundly unready to govern, but nevertheless defeated a Labor Party which fully deserved to lose having allowed itself to be torn to pieces from within (a process in which the current leader and the current shadow treasurer both certainly got their hands dirty).
    Under Abbott, the Liberals demonstrated that they were just as unready to govern as they had seemed in 2013. So the inevitable happened and Turnbull took over. But he’s turned out to be a bit of a dud.
    So my imagined swinging voter turns his/her attention back to Shorten and Labor. They certainly seem to have cleaned up their act. But, good grief, they were a mess last time. Could they really have fixed themselves up so quickly, or have they just papered over the cracks to get themselves back into office and, once there, they are going to fall apart again. Gee, there seems to be some internal disquiet about boats policy: is that just the tip of the iceberg.
    And then…? It’s a bit hard to predict where my imagined swinging voter will end up. If they’re an aspirational, and see themselves as a future investor, then I suspect Labor’s neg gearing policy will eventually scare them off (that’s why it’s such a lousy idea). If they really care about broadband, and Labor’s NBN policy (which we haven’t seen yet) looks good enough, then they might go for Labor.
    The class war issues like company tax and bulk billing aren’t going to help Labor too much, as most people who really care about these things are going to vote Labor anyway.
    That’s why I keep coming back to negative gearing: it’s the serpent in Labor’s policy garden IMO.
    But, in the end, I still expect the Libs to win a majority of 6 or so if they don’t completely stuff things up over the rest of the campaign.

  24. MB

    We just had a week of demonising AS and making out Labor was divided on the boats issue.

    No poll boost. I think we can put that myth to bed now.

  26. “The class war issues like company tax and bulk billing aren’t going to help Labor too much, as most people who really care about these things are going to vote Labor anyway.”

    Incorrect, the people most effected by these issues vote Liberal in significant numbers.

    There are significant sections of Australia that vote Liberal against their own economic interests – Western Sydney, Queensland and regional areas. The Liberals win support amongst these seats through fear; of refugees, muslims, communists, unionists etc.

    The fear needs to be strong enough to outweigh the fact that these people will be better off under Labor. The more the Liberal’s policy advantages the 1%, the more their rhetoric has to inspire fear in the aforementioned demons, which we are seeing them attempt now.

  28. My ‘feelpinion’ (aka ‘flight feathers’) is that currently the ALP is a few seats short of a win.
    If their poll data improve toward the pointy end of the contest then they are in with a chance, either 1 or 2 seat majority or more likely in the better position to form a minority Govt.
    Only time and the real poll will tell, as they say.

  29. political_alert: Shadow Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese will hold a press conference on infrastructure funding at 8:30am, Sunshine Coast #ausvotes

  31. The article linked by Guytaur https://t.co/X6YhCMCLH5 penned by the execrable Rowan Dean railing against progressives, and the stupid comments on the Australian’s article re the NBN satellite limitations, underline the fact that conservatives are, by definition, incapable of significant agility and innovation, and are grossly unsuited to survival, let alone progress, in our rapidly changing technological and physical environment.

  33. political_alert: Shadow Treasurer @Bowenchris is in Sydney and will hold a doorstop at 9:30am, Fairfield West #ausvotes

  34. I think what he means is that, in all the Federal elections in living memory where the government has changed hands, there has been a strong sense during the election campaign that the electorate is in the mood for a change.

    Really? I think that is not true in 1975 and in 2013. What they wanted in those elections was to get rid of a party that appeared chaotic, incompetent and more interested in internal squabbling (and worse) than in governing the country. In both cases the voters did not look hard at the alternative.

    We are now in a situation where we have an utterly useless government and Prime Minister. It has definitely been incompetent and rampant with internal disunity. The fact that it is not more on the nose is that the media this time has not gone apeshit over every super dumb thing the government has done. But the punters are starting to notice how undeserving of re-election this mob is.

    While there are no baseball bats at the ready (they were put back in storage after Abbott got knifed) I think the public are prepared to turf the Coalition if the alternative party offers stable government and good management. Despite the beating up of pretty minor things, I think that is the case and when non-committed people come to make their decisions in the last couple of weeks before the election, the comparisons will be fairly stark. I agree that there is no great enthusiasm for Bill Shorten and Labor and they would not have a lot of political capital in the bank if they win government. But in terms of competence and coherence they do stand head and shoulders above the alternative. And the alternative will keep stuffing up – because they are clueless and incapable of operating under pressure.

    I keep to the view developed over many years of election watching that most non-committed voters have difficulty deciding who to believe or which sides policies are better. But they can all tell a good government from a bad one. And that is what this election will be decided on.

  36. Guytaur #71 Monday, May 23, 2016 at 8:27 am
    That article by Rowan Dean has to be the most Idiotic piece of crap I have ever read unless it’s a script for a satirical comedy. Though going by comments I have read on other Right wing blogs the RWNJs don’t know who to vote for.

  38. This is story on front page of Herald Sun

    Herald Sun
    Herald Sun – Verified account ‏@theheraldsun

    Revealed: Malcolm Turnbull unwittingly lunched with self-professed mafia front man http://trib.al/lpjcGSp #auspol
    Herald Sun
    Herald Sun
    Embedded image
    Turnbull lunched with slain lawyer

    MALCOLM Turnbull unwittingly had lunch with self-professed mafia front man Joseph Acquaro, who years later was shot dead outside his Brunswick East ice-cream parlour.
    View on web
    4:24 AM – 22 May 2016
    21 RETWEETS10 LIKES

  39. All not so cosy and rosy in the Liberals
    The Medicare freeze that could see you paying $20 to see a doctor is not supported by Health Minister Sussan Ley.
    The Minister says she wants it lifted as son as possible but her cabinet colleagues won’t let her.
    The remarks indicate federal cabinet may be split on the issue which Labor is trying to make the central issue in the election campaign.

  40. If Mumble predicted a Rudd win in 2013 then he was having a lend of people. Which perfectly exemplifies the essential deviousness of his point of view. I’ll stick with BillBo and KevBo 🙂

  41. Various methods of averaging the current Australia-wide TPP give the ALP 51.1%, with a 95% margin of error between the pollsters of plus/minus 0.4%. In a Parliament with 4 Independents this would give the ALP a seat total of 76 plus/minus 2 seats. Each pollster has its own margin of error due to sampling, of course. This would not change the mean projections, but it would mean the 95% ranges would be much larger.
    The same data, fitted to regression models over time, are currently pointing at an ALP TPP on election day of 51.8%. This would give the ALP 78 seats but with a further increase in the margin of error.
    All we can say at the moment is that it looks as though the ALP could form Government if an election were held on the current polling figures – and this could be a little more likely if the present very slow creep in the figures continues until Jul 2.
    But you wouldn’t want to bet on it – although some people clearly are. The current polling figures give the ALP a 47% chance of winning. The betting markets give the ALP only a 27% chance of winning. There is a similar feeling in the markets for a hung parliament – 30% chance. These numbers have been stable for a week, despite a plethora of polls to which they usually respond.

  43. nicholas @ #70 Monday, May 23, 2016 at 8:27 am

    When has Peter Brent ever had an opinion that wasn’t a suck up to the Coalition?

    “Feelpinions” are his stock in trade.
    I think that each political contest needs to be analysed on its own merits, with current data about voters’ intentions and priorities given far more weight than what happened in past elections. There are no mechanistic laws governing voting intentions and election outcomes; if each federal election is a data point there are only tens of data points; most of the past elections occurred in cultural, economic, and social contexts markedly different from our own.

    Dammit Nicholas. First I agree with Cormann and now I agree totally with you. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

  45. MALCOLM Turnbull unwittingly had lunch with self-professed mafia front man Joseph Acquaro, who years later was shot dead outside his Brunswick East ice-cream parlour.

    It was only 8 years ago, I wonder how much he will be expected to recall by the media.
    Gillard was expected to recall events 20 years ago….or is there a general acceptance in the media that Liberals have short memories?

  46. c@t

    If I recall correctly, Mumble has maintained this view even whilst Abbott was PM.
    Totally based on first term govts not being booted out

  47. Wonderful result from Newspoll.

    With Labor at the moment they seem to be running a mostly excellent grass roots campaign. One issue that I have, and I wonder how widespread it is, Labor called for volunteers in an email last week, and I entered my details, but haven’t been contacted yet. I’m in WA and my electorate is Pearce, I’d love to help getting rid of Christian Porter, any advice from a more learned Bludger here. Happy for William to pass on my contact details as he see’s fit.

  48. Meher Baba..

    “The class war issues like company tax and bulk billing aren’t going to help Labor too much, as most people who really care about these things are going to vote Labor anyway.”

    So, you don’t think swinging voters will care that the Coalition are giving huge company tax cuts ..whilst starving health & education of funding..?

  49. Good move Labor

    jmodoh: Labor’s @MRowlandMP says Labor will look at tax breaks for MPs who own property in Canberra if they win govt #ausvotes #amagenda

  50. Guytaur

    Yes, it was a rhetorical exclamation as much as a question. Perhaps Sussan Ley is trying to wide the gap between herself and Malcolm. (And I hate the jargon “in the medical space”. She’s spending too much time with bureaucracy, not real people.)

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