Ipsos: 52-48 to Labor

A new poll from Ipsos just about does for Malcolm Turnbull what he can apparently only dream of from Newspoll.

Two days out from the one we’ve all been waiting for, Fairfax has cutely interjected with an Ipsos poll – conducted on this most special of occasions from Tuesday to Thursday for publication on Friday night, and not from Thursday to Saturday for publication on Sunday night as standard. The sample is 1166, somewhat lower than the usual 1400 from Ipsos.

The headline two-party result of 52-48 to Labor, as determined using 2016 election preference flows, is only slightly above the Coalition’s usual form – but Malcolm Turnbull is given a very useful straw to grasp with a tied result using respondent-allocated preferences. This is something the Coalition hasn’t achieved on either kind of two-party measure in any poll since September 2016, except for the quirky and apparently short-lived YouGov series for Fifty Acres. The previous Ipsos poll in early December had Labor leading 53-47 on previous election preferences and 52-48 on respondent allocation. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up two to 36%, Labor is up a point to 34%, and the Greens are down a point to 12% (high results for the Greens being a consistent features of Ipsos polls).

The good news for Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t end there: the poll finds only 28% in favour of the Liberals removing him as leader, compared with 62% who think he should remain, and his approval rating bounces five points to 47%, with disapproval down six to 43%. This is the first time since April last year that Turnbull has recorded net favourable personal ratings – the previous instance being another Ipsos poll, which is no coincidence, since the series consistently records high approval and low undecided ratings for both leaders. Bill Shorten is steady on 38% approval and up one on disapproval to 53%. The poll also finds 49% support for company tax cuts, with the number opposed not provided. This is dramatically more favourable than ReachTEL’s finding of 29% in favour and 56% opposed, although recent Essential Research polls have had slight net favourable results.

We have also had Roy Morgan publish results of its face-to-face polling for the second fortnight a row, which the pollster has hitherto been reserving for its massively expensive subscriber service since the 2016 election campaign. I’m not sure if this portends a regular return to publication, or if it will be appearing on an ad hoc basis, as the release a fortnight ago seemed to suggest. Whatever it is, the result is likewise on the high side for the Coalition, with Labor holding a steady 51-49 lead on two-party preferred. This is in contrast to the form of the Morgan face-to-face series of old, which was notorious for its skew to Labor.

However, as with Ipsos, it’s respondent allocation that’s making the difference – if previous election preferences were applied, Labor’s lead would be up from 51-49 to 53-47. The primary votes are Coalition 38.5%, down from 40% a fortnight ago; Labor 37.5%, up from 35%; Greens 11%, down from 12%; and One Nation on an unusually weak 3%, down from 3.5%. The Morgan release has two-party breakdowns by state and income category. The poll was conducted over the past two weekends from a combined sample of 1477.

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.

909 comments on “Ipsos: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. From BK’s round-up, PvO sees the Greens and coalition as same-same.

    Two peas in a pod: the Greens and the reactionary conservatives in the Liberal Party. Both called for more government intervention this week.

    Greens leader Richard Di Natale did so in a National Press Club address on Wednesday. He wants a universal basic income (Thomas Pik­etty style) and a people’s bank to be run by the Reserve Bank.

    …

    When you factor in the number of Nationals affiliated with the forum, the ideological link to the Greens becomes less surprising. Nationals often have pushed for government intervention, much to the irritation of true Liberals. Once upon a time true conservatives were as irritated by such positioning as liberals are.

  2. Washington: The United States has punished dozens of Russian oligarchs and government officials with fresh sanctions that have taken direct aim at President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, as President Donald Trump’s administration tried to show he’s not afraid to take tough action against Moscow.

    Seven Russian tycoons, including aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, were targeted, along with 17 officials and a dozen Russian companies, the Treasury Department said. Senior Trump administration officials cast it as part of a concerted, ongoing effort to push back on Putin, emphasising that since Trump took office last year, the US has punished 189 Russian-related people and entities with sanctions.

    Rather than punishing Russia for one specific action, the new sanctions hit back at the Kremlin for its “ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern” of bad behaviour, said the officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

    The officials ticked through a list of complaints about Russian actions overseas, including its annexation of Crimea, backing of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, and cyber-hacking.

    Above all else, Russia’s attempts to subvert Western democracy prompted the US sanctions, officials said…….

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/us-takes-aim-at-putin-s-elite-allies-in-russia-with-new-sanctions-20180407-p4z89p.html

  4. Dave:

    I wonder if these sanctions will last longer than the blink of an eye. When the US expelled the diplomats after the UK chemical attack most of them were back within a few days.

  5. Hartcher manages to write a thousand words on the cancer that leadership spills have supposedly become, and how the public hates them, without once mentioning that a leadership spill was EXACTLY how Turnbull gained the Prime Ministership.

    Oh, it was terrible for Gillard to displace Rudd. Rudd’s path of vengeance (lovingly journalled throughout the process by Hartcher himself) ripped Labor apart. Abbott’s present malignant and indulgent campaign of retribution and wrecking is sickening the voters and destroying the polity.

    Yet Turnbull’s own termite effort, his plotting and scheming, his double dealing and backstabbing escape a single mention. There’s a large gap in Hartcher’s timeline, around September 2015.

    Instead we are told to thank our lucky stars Malcolm’s our leader because, uhm, SSM got up and, uhm, smaller businesses received a 5-point taxcut. Such policy productivity! Our nation has been delivered from the abyss! We cannot afford to let the great helmsman who brought us these priceless pearls go the way of all political flesh!

    Geez Pete, you need to achieve a bit more than that to justify being nominated as Too Precious To Fail.

    Amazing, isn’t it? Let’s play musical chairs. And, when the music stops, if Peter’s man isn’t the one sitting down, then crank up the gramaphone and repeat the melody until he is.

    Then, when his pampered, patrician arse is firmly on the seat, put out a rallying cry for this leadership insanity to stop.

    The results of the Ipsos poll mostly tell us two things:

    (a) That if the choice is between Turnbull or Abbott (or Dutton, or any of the other second string Monash Monkey Podders) then sheer common sense and self-preservation kicks in and says Turnbull is the logical choice (but of course Turnbull’s not the only choice, as the pollster concedes: there’s a whole other half of politics to pick a PM from, besides the Torys);

    (b) The Australian voter is no slouch in the leadership revolving door. They’re almost as bad as Hartcher and his mates when it comes to the Reality Television that politics has become lately. They regularly endorse, at subsequent elections, the very usurpers they first condemn, and look for Messiahs as keenly as any CPG hack hopelessly addicted to The Drip & Glitter.

    The hacks tell us that them being on The Drip is essential. Ok, so they get suckered occasionally with an outright, confidential lie. But they justify their Cone Of Confidentiality by shrugging their shoulders and telling us that you have to take the rough with the smooth.

    What’s the public’s excuse? It seems the new concept of their right to decide who gets to be PM can be put to one side if a bloke they like is wielding the knife or is about to be skewered. Then they’re all against leadershit.

    But I digress.

    Hartcher has once again turned his personal conservative predilections into a form of quasi Holy Writ:

    Thou shalt not commit leadershit!

    ( Unless Pete has a man-crush on the insurgent, and then he’ll tell us why enough is enough).

    I ask again (as I have asked many times in the past): do they actually pay Hartcher for churning out this rubbish?

  6. Steve777 @ #50 Saturday, April 7th, 2018 – 9:10 am

    Who are the future PMs who were widely identified as such before they became PM? Hawke and Keating come to mind. Lots of future Liberal PMs were identified in the Hawke-Keating years who never made it, while Howard was written off until the last year of what must be Labor’s golden age. Likewise, Abbott was written off. Costello was all but anointed but walked away.

    So is Dutton one of the future PMs? I fear he might be, especially if he isn’t ‘burnt’ now. At 47 he’s young enough to outlast a few terms in Opposition if he is prepared to stay on. In 2027 he’ll be the same age as John Howard when he became PM. On the other hand, maybe he would prefer to go back and concentrate on making money rather than spend time in Opposition.

    He’s an ideologue. He wants PM. He believes in himself and I fear he sees ‘it’ as a calling.

  7. Fess – well the red carpet is apparently still out at the WH for Putin.

    But these new measures would have come from the State Dept and it would have been hard but not impossible for trump to stop them.

  8. Thanks Dr Bonham. That is is what I thought re Ipsos compared Essential and NewsPoll.

    Good post BB, Hatcher and the rest of the press gallery also miss the point, apart from exceptions like Hawke and Rudd, people don’t really care who is PM, they just want things done, a balance between the economy, fairness and the environment. They don’t care at all about the first, tenth or thirtieth NewsPoll.
    If anything they would think it impressive, more than Winx.

  9. Dutton is, apparently, a “man of conviction”. This doesn’t mean he’s consistent, principled, honest, or fair. It just means that he’s convinced by himself.

  10. Trump spares Ivanka’s clothing line from his trade war with China

    Senior White House advisor Ivanka Trump is directly benefiting from her father’s decision to slap China with tariffs, in that she will be exempt.

    As ThinkProgress discovered buried in a Washington Post report, all clothing manufacturing companies will be exempt of the tariffs, including Ivanka’s fashion brand.

    Trump, who is working for free at the White House, is still scoring $1.5 million from the Trump Organization, and her brand also makes about $1.5 million annually.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/trump-spares-ivankas-clothing-line-trade-war-china/

  11. Bushfire

    I, too, was amazed that Hartcher saw the SSM plebiscite as a triumph for Turnbull (one of the very few). Wasn’t it promoted by Dutton as a solution? Mal just trotted along behind.

  12. On PhDs – A good friend of mine was a PhD. He said that anyone of reasonable intelligence could get one, all they needed was a steady source of income and persistence.

  15. Any other Monash graduate offended by the Monkey Pod appropriating the name to foist their backward looking century old technology views on the populace

    Monash University was set up as a technical university and begrudgingly added Arts to train teachers and Law slipped in as a vocational option.

  16. Great Essendon indigenous footballer Michael Long once chided an interviewer who was doing a profile on him. Long apparently demanded to be addressed by his Aboriginal name. The interviewer apologised profusely, castigating himself for such a thoughtless and culturally insensitive over sight and promised to re-edit the whole interview to accede to Long’s demand.

    He then asked Long what was his Aboriginal name.

    Of course Long responded, “Michael Long”.

  17. Greensborough Growler @ #66 Saturday, April 7th, 2018 – 7:03 am

    Great Essendon indigenous footballer Michael Long once chided an interviewer who was doing a profile on him. Long apparently demanded to be addressed by his Aboriginal name. The interviewer apologised profusely, castigating himself for such a thoughtless and culturally insensitive over sight and promised to re-edit the whole interview to accede to Long’s demand.

    He then asked Long what was his Aboriginal name.

    Of course Long responded, “Michael Long”.

    Why “Of course”?

  18. Good Morning

    Terry O’Gorman was the nemesis of a once heavy-handed and corrupt Queensland police force, a key figure in the Fitzgerald inquiry that brought reforms to the police about the time Dutton earned his first stripe.

    He says Dutton’s dislike of the civil liberties council, which O’Gorman has headed on and off since the 1980s, was typical of many police in that post-Fitzgerald era. And he has seen little evidence that Dutton’s views have matured.

    “His illiberal views have continued to the present day. His almost despicable dislike for the concept of civil liberties.”

    “His world view is as a copper. He’s the unofficial national police minister.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/07/peter-dutton-liberal-party-home-affairs-minister?CMP=share_btn_tw

  19. I must confess I am getting a little twitchy about this Newspoll and next week’s Essential. I think I’d settle for 52-48 at this stage; and that was before this bloody Ipsos result came out.

    If Shorten’s announcement regarding tax imputation credits has had any negative effect in voter land, these are the polls that will reflect it. Anything above 52-48 will be a real bonus.

  20. Lenore Taylor
    ‏Verified account @lenoretaylor
    2h2 hours ago

    Peter Dutton: ‘Of course I want to be prime minster…one day” #auspol

  21. Darn @ #69 Saturday, April 7th, 2018 – 7:12 am

    I must confess I am getting a little twitchy about this Newspoll and next week’s Essential. I think I’d settle for 52-48 at this stage; and that was before this bloody Ipsos result came out.

    If Shorten’s announcement regarding tax imputation credits has had any negative effect in voter land, these are the polls that will reflect it. Anything above 52-48 will be a real bonus.

    Relax!! 🙂

  24. Darn
    Hanrahan!

    Don

    “A good friend of mine was a PhD. He said that anyone of reasonable intelligence could get one, all they needed was a steady source of income and persistence.”

    Don’t tell me. Your friend’s PhD thesis was was titled The Art and Origins of Gross Oversimplification and Inaccurate Generalisations.

  25. Darn:

    It’s just one poll. The only reason so much attention is being placed on it is because it’s Turnbull’s famous Newspoll #30.

    🙂

  29. Some voters would want Turnbull to stay PM for the sole reason of wanting to vote him out at the next election.Fairfax didnt ask that question.

  31. MSNBCVerified account@MSNBC
    17m17 minutes ago
    “I think that all of us should count on there’s an element of what each of us do that will be automated over time. And part of that, by the way, we should all say thank God because we’re all working too much.”

    – Apple CEO @Tim_Cook

    https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/982410554621952000

    I’m not sure those losing their jobs to automation are going to feel so thankful.

  33. I think it’s two weeks in a row that Katharine Murphy has written an article critical of the Tories without a “but Labor …” in it.

    As usual some pretty good stuff in the comments section – better than the article.

  35. It will be an immense turnaround for Newspoll to change too much now.

    This after the sentiment is very clear.

    77 Essential losses. 60 Newspoll losses.

    Given those latest polls use a different methodology to the Essential and Newspoll I don’t expect that figure to be in those polls precisely because they don’t do respondent allocated preferences.

  36. All this Trumble fluffing is mellowing my harsh.

    I console myself with the thought that it is all about protecting the precious petals of Fairfax from the impending fuehrerhood of Adolph Kipfler. I still think Trumble will stumble to defeat early next year, will immediately resign to spend some more time with his money and will be replaced by Uber Tuber, with the Bejeweled Anorexic as his nanny/handbag. This is presuming that Kipfler doesn’t get fried in Dickson – which is a delightful possibility.

  37. Byron TauVerified account@ByronTau
    36m36 minutes ago
    More from the AP: The EPA demoted or reassigned officials who questioned some of Pruitt’s proposed expenditures — including a $100,000-a-month private jet membership, a bulletproof vehicle and $70,000 in bulletproof furniture.

    Bulletproof furniture?

  38. Confessions

    People in Tech are sounding the alarm bells. This is why there are trials of UBI.

    You will be thankful for the leisure time if you are not defined by your occupation and have income to do things.

    The automation is coming. There are going to be a lot of occupations disappear. There are not going to be the same numbers of jobs to replace them.

    We have to debate the future of work precisely because this change is coming. We just get to choose if we live in the Uber world of the serf’s working for the 1% or we can live in the world where we seriously look at where to get income from as there will not be enough people in what we regard as employment today.

    This is not a panic all the jobs are going to be lost. This is a reality check of how our society is going to change. It is happening a lot faster than politicians or their staff realise.

    Just look at how fast battery technology is moving. A technology notoriously slow to move in efficiency.

    With AI coming at us fast with fast exponential hockey stick improvement in the technology its time to plan for that future. Its as important as doing a census for working out hospital school numbers etc.

  40. If DailyTerror is against the idea of Coal powered stations then who will save the fossil idiots?

    The Daily Telegraph
    ‏Verified account @dailytelegraph
    41m41 minutes ago

    Why a new coal-fired power station doesn’t stack up writes @David_Speers

  41. Confessions @ #87 Saturday, April 7th, 2018 – 10:35 am

    Byron TauVerified account@ByronTau
    36m36 minutes ago
    More from the AP: The EPA demoted or reassigned officials who questioned some of Pruitt’s proposed expenditures — including a $100,000-a-month private jet membership, a bulletproof vehicle and $70,000 in bulletproof furniture.

    Bulletproof furniture?

    That’s an instant demotion for you!

  42. a r:

    I’ve never heard of bulletproof furniture, and can’t conceive of a situation where it might be required anywhere other than a battlefield!

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