Newspoll quarterly aggregates: July to December (open thread)

Relatively modest leads for the Coalition among Queenslanders, Christians and those 65-and-over, with Labor dominant everywhere else.

As it usually does on Boxing Day, The Australian has published quarterly aggregates of Newspoll with state and demographic breakdowns, on this occasion casting an unusually wide net from its polling all the way back to July to early this month, reflecting the relative infrequency of its results over this time. The result is a combined survey of 5771 respondents that finds Labor leading 55-45 in New South Wales (a swing of about 3.5% to Labor compared with the election), 57-43 in Victoria (about 2%), 55-45 in Western Australia (no change) and 57-43 in South Australia (a 4.0% swing), while trailing 51-49 in Queensland a 3% swing).

Gender breakdowns show only a slight gap, with Labor leading 54-46 among men and 56-44 among women, with the Greens as usual stronger among women among men. Age cohort results trend from 65-35 to Labor for 18-to-34 to 54-46 to the Coalition among 65-plus, with the Greens respectively on 24% and 3%. Little variation is recorded according to education or income, but Labor are strongest among part-time workers and weakest among the retired, stronger among non-English speakers but well ahead either way, and 62-38 ahead among those identifying as of no religion but 53-47 behind among Christians. You can find all the relevant data, at least for voting intention, in the poll data feature on BludgerTrack.

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.

2,276 comments on “Newspoll quarterly aggregates: July to December (open thread)”

Comments Page 28 of 46
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  1. Re Lars @8:37.
    ”When did anything less than full employment become acceptable?”

    Around 1976. In Australia in the post war years, “Full employment” had meant an unemployment rate of under 2%. From the 1980s it meant about 5%. While the new paradigm was being bedded down by the Fraser Government, Gough was blamed.

  3. To bastardise Dotard’s maxim somewhat..

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is so confident in his support base that he said he could stand on Sydney’s Pitt Street “and shoot somebody” and still not lose voters.

  4. Steve777 @ #1338 Friday, December 30th, 2022 – 8:58 am

    How many people are genuinely malingerers? There are some but not that many I would have thought. I think that greed is a bigger problem in our society than sloth. Who wants to sit around all day doing nothing with barely enough money for the basics, if even that? Sharing a house with five others on the dole might be fun for a little while when young – I wouldn’t know, never tried it – but there’s not much of a future in it. Young people want to do stuff and have stuff – an interesting job, travel, adventure, a home, a partner, a family, maybe social position. On the subject of partners, unemployment and poverty are serious anaphrodesiacs, especially for men.

    Not only that but my son’s friends changed their peer group tune once they started getting jobs, girlfriends and on the housing ladder, to putting down those who weren’t headed in that direction and shunning them. Thus forcing those who wanted to continue living the dole life, out of their social circle towards more marginalised people like them. That hurts.

  5. Paul The Avenger @ #1292 Friday, December 30th, 2022 – 12:39 am

    If AI wanted to impress me, it would be able to meaningfully answer an important question like “Solve global warming in the most effective fashion”. I did indeed ask ChatGPT this question and unsurprisingly its answer just stated the obvious.

    That might be because the answer is obvious. We just don’t like it.

  6. Lars, the biggest damage to family life has come from right wing economics destroying the days of job security and good wages in favour of large numbers of people in insecure work without guaranteed hours often needing multiple jobs and shifts which disrupt how much time they can give their kids.

    Add insecure housing to that too.

    Fuckers like John Howard preaching “family values” while undermining the whole basis for secure family life are the worst.

    Fuckers who think the answer is forcing women and kids to stay in bad relationships with abusers are even worse than the worst.

    Which one are you, Lars?

  7. nathsays:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:04 am
    “What about the mental harm of becoming a dairy farmer?”

    Stop ‘uddering’ complete nonsense to milk some attention.

  8. Arky says:

    Fuckers who think the answer is forcing women and kids to stay in bad relationships with abusers are even worse than the worst.
    __________________
    Labor should reverse the cuts to the Single Parents Pension that Howard and Gillard signed off on then.

  9. goll says:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:24 am

    nathsays:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:04 am
    “What about the mental harm of becoming a dairy farmer?”

    Stop ‘uddering’ complete nonsense to milk some attention.
    _________________
    Please don’t mock the suffering of dairy farmers. Numerous reports have recorded significant mental health problems as being prevalent among dairy farmers. Cud them some slack.

  11. Boerwar @ #1343 Friday, December 30th, 2022 – 9:02 am

    So, we all, except for cat, agree that cannabis does cause significant psychotic episodes and does cause schizophrenia. Not just in everyone.
    Those seeking to legalize cannabis use would, I assume, have as part of the Plan, a way of helping young people diagnose whether or not they have a predisposition to psychotic episodes and to schizophrenia.
    After all, the touted need for ‘harm minimization’ indicates that the would be legalisers tacitly acknowledge that harm will happen.
    And, yes, same same for other recreation drugs of choice, including the biggie – alcohol.

    Jesus freaking kerrist, Boerwar! When are you going to admit to your lies!?!

    No, CANNABIS DOES NOT CAUSE SCHIZOPHRENIA! In those who are already genetically predisposed to schizophrenia, with the identified genetic loci, as identified by researchers, cannabis consumption can exacerbate various psychoses. Also, as the research has validated, this doesn’t even apply to every single person with schizophrenia. It occurs to varying degrees, or doesn’t occur at all.

    So, at the end of the day a simple genetic test, of those people who have a family history of schizophrenia, can be done, just like we are doing with breast cancer now, to identify those who are in this small group that are very likely to be adversely affected and their doctors can manage them accordingly. The rest of us should be left alone to freely make our own life choices, safe in the knowledge that we aren’t in that group.

  12. Part of Comment from kos samaras re vic election on twitter.
    —
    Lastly back to a seat like Broadmeadows. The Informal vote, combined with those who did not turn up is larger than the Liberal Party primary. This is repeated across the west and north west. The Liberal Party is not Labor’s biggest threat here. It’s poor civic education.

    —

    Whilst this could be part of reason re informal vote or not bothering to vote.
    Im inclined to go with my own observations i posited at the time of election.
    These voters didnt want to support labor due to covid. And the didnt think the libs deserved their vote either.

    The north and west of Melbourne is less educated and countless voters in this area bought into the cooker bullshit re vaccinations and covid itself.

    Kos never really goes there in any of his assessments.

  13. Snappy Tom @ 9.13am
    “What chance the majority of (definitely low-information, low-engagement) voters?’

    The liberal party have depended on these voters for yonks.
    The liberal party is now at a loss as to “what to do next” as displayed during the last number of elections and have positioned themselves to be unprepared for the upcoming NSW election.

    You could ask the question of the liberals !
    What chance the majority of (definitely low information, low engagement) liberal candidates ?

  14. For the record, I don’t consume more than a couple of glasses of cider per year and I don’t consume cannabis. I just would really like to see it made available to those who would prefer it to alcohol, should it become decriminalised or legalised, and also to benefit people like this man:

    Hospital staff in Kansas called the police on a man dying of cancer who was using cannabis products to cope with his symptoms, in an incident that has since sparked outrage and renewed calls to rethink the state’s strict cannabis laws.

    The encounter took place in mid-December, when police in the city of Hays say two officers showed up at the cancer patient’s hospital room to issue him a citation for a drug violation. Police also took away a vaping device and cannabis product that hospital staff had already confiscated.

    While the police department later dropped the citation, which would have required the cancer patient to appear in court, reports of the incident fueled debate over the continued criminalization of cannabis in Kansas, one of the three US states that has not legalized the product in any context.

    While he was glad the charge against his father was dropped, Lee Bretz, the patient’s son, said the incident was “humiliating” for his father and left him “pretty upset”.

    His father, who has terminal, inoperable cancer, was issued a “must appear” citation for drug possession, Bretz said. “He can’t make it to court. He’s bedridden. He can’t move his legs.”

    …

    Lee Bretz, the patient’s son, said he hoped Kansas would legalize medical marijuana soon. “Nobody wants to see their loved ones hurting, and you’d do anything to see them not hurt,” he said.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/28/police-cannabis-citation-dying-cancer-patient-kansas

  16. One for the partisans here ….

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/28/australian-government-must-take-its-foot-off-the-gas-to-ensure-real-emission-reductions

    Australians are feeling the heat of climate change, and in May they voted accordingly, delivering a win to Anthony Albanese’s Labor party, which saw voters switching away from the Coalition, but to the independents and the Greens, rather than Labor. The ABC’s Vote Compass showed the biggest issue for voters, more than the economy or the pandemic, was climate change, surprising many. This has since been confirmed by other research …

    … but is still flat-out denied by some here on PB.

    In June the new government submitted a more ambitious 43% reduction by 2030 climate target to the UN, but it’s still not 1.5C compatible. While the new target is a significant improvement, it’s still more consistent with at least 2C of warming. Yet the environment minister, Chris Bowen, made a plea at COP27: “If we’re not trying to keep to 1.5C then what are we here for?” A great question, and one the government must ponder deeply. Because he can’t very well argue for others to commit to 1.5C if we’re not doing it ourselves.

    Australia needs to be ready to step up at the UN secretary general’s climate ambition summit next September, with a 1.5C-aligned 2030 target, which should be well north of a 60% reduction below 2005 levels.

    The net zero promise remains, but there are still few new plans to get there.

    For the fossil fuel industry, it’s still business as usual under the new government, which in August opened up 46,000 sq km to new oil and gas exploration. Approval after approval is going through for a maze of new gas projects, from the Scarborough and Browse projects off Western Australia to proposals to subsidise the Beetaloo basin in the Northern Territory.

    The “target” may be an improvement – albeit even Labor themselves acknowledge it is only an improvement of about 3% percent – but the “action”? Not so much.

    When it comes to fossil fuels, talk is pretty much all either of the major parties will ever do.

  17. nathsays:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:27 am
    goll says:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:24 am

    nathsays:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:04 am
    “What about the mental harm of becoming a dairy farmer?”

    Stop ‘uddering’ complete nonsense to milk some attention.
    _________________
    Please don’t mock the suffering of dairy farmers. Numerous reports have recorded significant mental health problems as being prevalent among dairy farmers. Cud them some slack.

    Unfortunately it is you, the attention seeker, attempting to bridge a tenuous link between marijuana smokers and dairy farmers in a childish attempt to justify your clumsy attempt at mockery of a poster.
    Perhaps you are suffering from fallout from some activity and should recognise the irony!

  20. Trump is liar in chief, but this guy is giving him a run for his money.

    —
    BREAKING: George Santos is now under FEDERAL criminal investigation by prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York for his finances. @CNN reporting. We know from earlier reporting he funded his campaign with $700K from his own corporation – which is illegal.

  21. Regarding people who are labelled “dole bludgers”, there would be several types:

    – people with little in the way of savings and assets who are literally “between jobs”, having been one pay cheque away from penury when working.
    – a handful of genuine malingerers, happy to live on minimal income, possibly subsidised by family or others willing and able to provide such subsidy.
    – people who are functionally near-unemployable, for reason of chronic illness or disability, either physical or mental.

    The first group is who unemployment benefits were designed for. We should just get on with it.

    Most of the type of jobs that people in the third group might have done in the past have either been automated, exported to low wage countries or are no longer done. Forcing them into busy-work activities isn’t going to help anyone except the rent-seekers who run these programs. Other arrangements (disability pension, for example) are needed.

    Of course the policies and practices of the late and unlamented Abbott / Turnbull / Morrison Governments seem to assume that everyone is in the second group.

    There are some genuine “bludgers”:

    – A handful of completely fraudulent claims (claimant being a non-existent or stolen identity).
    – Claiming the dole while working, either legally, probably being paid under the table, or illegally

    These are a different problem again, requiring some sophisticated investigation and detection. Attacking all of the unemployed won’t help.

  23. Victoria @ #1370 Friday, December 30th, 2022 – 9:46 am

    Trump is liar in chief, but this guy is giving him a run for his money.

    —
    BREAKING: George Santos is now under FEDERAL criminal investigation by prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York for his finances. @CNN reporting. We know from earlier reporting he funded his campaign with $700K from his own corporation – which is illegal.

    Yep, he was involved with a company in Florida running a Ponzi scheme, under investigation. 😆

  27. c@t we will just have to agree to differ.
    I believe that cannabis use causes psychotic episodes and causes schizophrenia.
    You don’t.

  32. Personally I think drugs should require a licence that needs a six-monthly medical and psychological assessment to keep the license. Or even more, depending on the class of drugs and license. That the user pays for.

    Can’t do that? Ah well. That type of drug isn’t for you. Getting drug users to fund mental health would be a good outcome for even the non drug users.

  34. Pi

    Have them on prescription. You need to see your doctor to have the prescription renewed.

    The drugs are sold through pharmacies, guaranteeing purity.

    Government gets a cut.

  36. zoomster: “your doctor”

    Referrals to specialist doctors that aren’t covered by the public. A way to fund an entire regime of mental health support, and provide support for the entire system, including those who are adversely affected.

    The manufacture of the drugs is a fraction of their cost. If people who want drugs know that the money they spend on drugs provided support for mental health and the consequent reduction of homelessness, and pay the same price they’re paying now, they would gladly do it. It would have a strong social license.

  38. Interestingly, Ukraine has intelligence that suggests there is a faction within Iran which is opposed to helping Putin:

    “Andrii Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence, has said that Russia and Iran have preliminary agreements on the supply of missiles, but Iran is refraining because of the potential consequences.

    “The supply of Iranian-made drones continues. As for ballistic missiles, this is such a desired weapon for Putin, but so far he cannot get it.

    Serious work is in progress on this, although we know that there are preliminary agreements; but now we just have to wait and see.

    As far as we know, not everyone in Iran is willing to help Putin, understanding how it can threaten the Iranian regime.””

    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/12/29/7382896/
    ========================

    Whatever the exact place of this internal faction within (or outside) the regime in Tehran, this is a perspective I think we can all agree ought to be strongly encouraged by the West.

  39. Snappy Tom says:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:13 am
    Steve777 says:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:01 am

    ”Until that day in 2003 when, day after day, the front page of The Australian trumpeted the ‘slam-dunk case’ (sic) for invading Iraq.”

    For me I think it was 2007 or 2008 after yet another turgid 16,000 word op ed by a climate denier.
    ____________

    Discovering Pollbludger has greatly helped my awareness of media bias – including the diversity of perspectives of posters here.

    This leads me to a disturbing thought: I’m not a low-information voter and my understanding of the media game was, until recent years, poor. What chance the majority of (definitely low-information, low-engagement) voters?
    ———————————————————————————————

    I’m surrounded on three sides by Sky News watchers and Murdoch devotees. Although educational status is mixed, they all work and are aged over 50. Any comments by myself referring to the absolute rubbish they consume is taken as though I’m from another planet. The success of the government thus far is constantly derided.

  40. The number of new reported Covid cases in NSW has fallen by about 30% this week, having seemed to have peaked in mid December. The number of hospitalisations jumped by 94 (~6%), while deaths jumped to 45 after hovering in the mid to high 30s for some weeks.

    https://covidlive.com.au/nsw

  41. I had to look up Thucydides, but it got me thinking about Russia, not the USA.
    https://johnmenadue.com/australia-flies-into-the-thucydides-trap-holiday/
    By Guest author Daryl Guppy

    It was not until 1648, with the treaty of Westphalia, that the West began to move towards the use of diplomacy to resolve conflict.

    Does this imply that Russia doesn’t do diplomacy?

    (I’m a bit confused by the rest of the article, to be honest. I can’t see the point of it, other than a rambling set of sometimes contradictory opinions on the idea that “The West” is the problem.)

  42. Opinion poll in Ukraine, gauging support for various future security arrangements:

    Best form of future security guarantee:
    NATO membership: 48.9%
    Armed neutrality: 16.7%
    Strategic defence agreement without USA: 10%
    Strategic defence agreement with USA: 6.7%
    Neutral strategic defence agreements: 8.5%

    Likelihood of NATO accession:
    While war ongoing: 18.8%
    Immediately after war ends: 24.9%
    After war ends and reforms implemented: 25.3%
    Unlikely in any event: 16.2%

    https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2022/12/29/7153319/

  43. zoomster @ #416 Friday, December 30th, 2022 – 9:07 am

    The long term unemployed tend to be relatively old members of the workforce.*

    Many of them would prefer to have a reasonable income and not have to look for work (which they know, from years of searching, isn’t out there).

    I wouldn’t call them ‘malingerers’.

    Older people (myself included) often have health issues which make working difficult, but aren’t so extreme that one can apply for sickness or disability benefits.

    *Interestingly, I looked up stats on long term unemployment recently- they suggest that people who had been unemployed for three years or more three years ago are basically still unemployed.

    Thank you Zoomster. This is exactly my friends situation. Hard physical work over the years, damaged body. Retrained but no work around. Now doing volunteer work to to satisfy the job agency and waiting to turn 67 for an aged pension.

  44. Andrew Tate’s response to Greta Thunberg has led to his arrest on human trafficking charges.

    Apparently the Romanian police didn’t know where he was, but in his video-ed response to Thunberg there are a couple of pizza boxes – from Romania.

    Sooo much winning.

  46. Snappy Tom @ #1349 Friday, December 30th, 2022 – 8:13 am

    Steve777 says:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 9:01 am

    ”Until that day in 2003 when, day after day, the front page of The Australian trumpeted the ‘slam-dunk case’ (sic) for invading Iraq.”

    For me I think it was 2007 or 2008 after yet another turgid 16,000 word op ed by a climate denier.
    ____________

    Discovering Pollbludger has greatly helped my awareness of media bias – including the diversity of perspectives of posters here.

    This leads me to a disturbing thought: I’m not a low-information voter and my understanding of the media game was, until recent years, poor. What chance the majority of (definitely low-information, low-engagement) voters?

    Discovering Pollbludger shortly before or after Abbott became PM (I can’t recall accurately) kept me sane. I couldn’t believe the Australia I thought I knew had voted for him. At that stage, just returned from 18 years in the USA, I didn’t even know what the IPA was. I thought it was a nice beer! Boy was that wrong. It’s been a slow learning process since then.

  47. Arky

    “Lars, the biggest damage to family life has come from right wing economics destroying the days of job security and good wages in favour of large numbers of people in insecure work without guaranteed hours often needing multiple jobs and shifts which disrupt how much time they can give their kids.”

    Sadly true. Even worse, short term contracts and job insecurity often leads to housing insecurity, since people on short term contracts (even on good hourly rates) have trouble getting housing loans.

    A casualised workforce is a recipe for entrenching an underclass.

  48. Meanwhile indictments are coming for Trump in the new year. Wonder if he still plans on escaping to the middle east.

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  49. C@tmomma @ #1365 Friday, December 30th, 2022 – 8:29 am

    No, CANNABIS DOES NOT CAUSE SCHIZOPHRENIA!

    Even if it did, ‘informed consent’ is still a better policy than ‘go to jail if you touch this’. Nothing is ever 100% safe, and it’s not the state’s job to build walls around everything that isn’t (or if it is, they’ve failed massively on alcohol, tobacco, and letting people drive around in cars).

    Educate people about the risks, then let them choose for themselves. And tax the hell out of recreational substances, with revenue put towards treatment for anyone who wants/needs it.

  50. ‘Socrates says:
    Friday, December 30, 2022 at 11:03 am

    Arky

    “Lars, the biggest damage to family life has come from right wing economics destroying the days of job security and good wages in favour of large numbers of people in insecure work without guaranteed hours often needing multiple jobs and shifts which disrupt how much time they can give their kids.”

    Sadly true. Even worse, short term contracts and job insecurity often leads to housing insecurity, since people on short term contracts (even on good hourly rates) have trouble getting housing loans.

    A casualised workforce is a recipe for entrenching an underclass.’
    —————————————————–
    Especially when a large part of the casualised workforce are foreigners who are being ‘rewarded’ for being allowed to stay by being pushed into poorly policed, poorly paid casual jobs with poor conditions and with the threat of deportation hanging over their heads.

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