Newspoll and Essential Research: 56-44 to Coalition
GhostWhoVotes reports Newspoll has come in at 56-44 to the Coalition, down from 57-43 last time, which exactly matches Essential Research’s progress over the last week. In Newspoll’s case, the picture on the primary vote is very much the same as a fortnight ago, with Labor, the Coalition and the Greens all up a point at the expense of “others”, to 29%, 48% and 12%. Personal ratings offer multiple stings in the tail for Julia Gillard. Where last time she was up three points on approval and down four on disapproval, those results have exactly reversed, putting her back at 28% approval and 62% disapproval. Tony Abbott has seized the lead as preferred prime minister, gaining four to 41% with Gillard down one to 39%, and his approval rating is up three to 35% with disapproval down four to 54%. GhostWhoVotes also relates that Gillard’s “trustworthiness” rating is down from 61% to 44% since the 2010 election, with Abbott’s down from 58% to 54%. Presumably this portends a battery of attitudinal results concerning the two leaders.
Essential Research had the primary votes at 48% for the Coalition (down two), 31% for Labor (steady) and 11% for the Greens (steady). Also featured were its monthly personal ratings, which had Julia Gillard’s approval steady at 32% and her disapproval down three to 58%, Tony Abbott’s respectively up two to 38% and down two to 50%, and Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister shifting from 40-37 to 38-36. Support for the National Broadband Network was up a point since February to a new high of 57% with opposition down three to 22%, and 46% saying they will either definitely or probably sign up for it. There was also a question on appropriate areas for federal and state responsibility, with the states only coming out heavily on top for public transport and “investing in regional areas”.
I now offer a Senate-tacular review of recent happenings relating to the upper chamber, where it’s all happening at the moment:
• There has been talk lately about the potential make-up of the Senate if the Coalition wins next year’s election in a landslide, which might upset long-held assumptions about the political calculus under an Abbott government. Half-Senate elections usually result in each state’s six seats splitting three left and three right, and the territories’ two seats invariably go one Labor and one Coalition. However, four and two results have not been unknown, usually involving Labor winning three and the Coalition two with the last seat going to the Greens or the Democrats. The only four-right, two-left results were when John Howard gained control of the Senate at the 2004 election, in Queensland (four Coalition and two Labor) and Victoria (three Coalition, two Labor, one Family First). There is also the occasional unclassifiable like Nick Xenophon, who is up for re-election in South Australia next year and presumably likely to win, and perhaps even Julian Assange, of whose aspirations we have heard nothing further.
The difficulty for the Coalition is that a four-left, two-right result in Tasmania at the 2010 election (three Labor, two Liberal and one Greens) will carry over to the next parliament. However, on the basis of Newspoll’s recent state breakdowns it is easy to envision this being counterbalanced by a four-right, two-left result in Queensland, either through a repeat of 2004 or, perhaps, a Katter’s Australian Party Senator joining three from the LNP. This would leave the left with 38 and the right with 37 (including the thus-far low-profile Victorian Senator John Madigan of the DLP, a carryover from 2010), plus Xenophon – still leaving the left with a blocking majority, even when Xenophon voted with the right. However, the Queensland election wipeout and a further dive in Labor’s federal poll ratings encourages contemplation of further four-right, two-left results in New South Wales and Western Australia. Assuming no cross-ideological preference deals such as that which produced Family First’s win in Victoria in 2004, a rough benchmark here is that the combined Labor and Greens vote would need to fall to about 40%. This compares with Labor-plus-Greens results in 2010 of 42.2% in Queensland, 43.7% in Western Australia and 47.2% in New South Wales. Any two such results would be enough to get the carbon tax repealed, given the likely support of Xenophon, and all three would leave a Coalition government similarly placed to its state counterpart in New South Wales, where Labor and the Greens can be overruled with the support of the Shooters Party and the Christian Democratic Party.
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Categories: Federal Politics 2010-
Grooming to me is waxing, shaving and haircuts.
A more appropriate word could’ve been sourced IMO.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Mod Lib no,
Keating was well behind Hewson into the 93 election campaign.
You see Abbott will be exposed badly, especially when he needs to cost his pretend policies.
Are we in the election campaign yet? NO!
by Centre on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Pegasus
The context of Milne’s comments are based on the premise that the ALP are being inauthentic in bringing back the budget back to surplus (she should read a bit about the history of the Hawke/Keating government on the economy), it’s simply a political objective and it’s all Tony Abbott’s fault.
Wrong, half truth (they’re wedging the Coalition on the $70 Billion hole and lower interest rates are definitely good politically) and wrong in the extreme
by spur212 on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Centre and others
ITS
NOT
A
F.CKING
TAX!
Here endeth the lesson.
by Marrickville Mauler on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:46 pm
I’m off my game most nights Aguirre, but take comfort in the reality that I wake up in the morning and re-join the real world!
Check out the dive in ALP support after they shelved it.
You can’t go from
“Greatest moral challenge of our time”
to
“lets just sit on our hands for 3 years because we are too scared to go to an election in case we can’t argue our case”
by Mod Lib on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Mod Lib, do you agree that if no company emitted CO2 there would be no tax to pay?
by Centre on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Yes, esp as there is no land on which to plant the number of trees required to achieve the coalition’s 5% emissions reduction target.
Even more so when you consider the coalition has a policy to build dams all over the place.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Fess
Grooming, unfortunately, is a common description for perverts seeking out children for sex
by shellbell on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:46 pm
shellbell – The Northern lot sounds right. More likely by a long way for US support.
But the last time the other side gained power it was not ‘pretty’.
He’s stuck at it but now at odds with the US (who wouldn’t be!).
It’s over there and always was as soon as the US ‘left’. ‘Afganisization’ – No Nixon needed, Obama can get the septic fall-back strategy done.
by CTar1 on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:48 pm
And if no company sold anything, there would be no GST to pay.
by Mod Lib on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Exactly.
I listened to what Milne actually said. It was in no way an attack on the coalition, and seemed deliberately designed to tag the PM as beholden to Abbott’s latest crazy outburst.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:50 pm
Mauler
Of course it is not a tax.
It is a scheme in the very true sense of the word, as I have commented in the past.
But who do you blame for us being stuck with the word tax?
Have a guess?
I told you, I’ll tell everyone, keep away from them, they’re bad news
by Centre on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Yes it is, which is why I feel the headline could’ve been a bit better targetted in that direction.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Spur
You are wrong. First by thinking Labor is left. It is not. That ground has been ceded to the Greens. Labor is in the centre. Just see their immigration policy m
Second by thinking Abbott can split Labor and the Greens. That is right wing wishful thinking on getting an early election. All that is happening is a differentation between Greens and Labor. Milne just called out the Coalition spin on the Budget Surplus for what it was.
by guytaur on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:52 pm
ctar1
don’t tell me tell the great australian public
personally i have no idea what you are talking about – are you wayne swan moonlighting?
by geoffrey on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:52 pm
@Mod Lib/998
That didn’t answer my question.
Also, we did tree planting ages ago (in primary school i think).
by zoidlord on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Sorry, but was this ever answered?
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:53 pm
Yeh, what’s happened to that little brain spasm? As I recall, they made a big noise about “the need to build dams” just at the time when Queensland and New South Wales were suffering very damaging flooding. That’s the idea of the conservatives: get at people while they’re down, manipulate them with non-core promises while they’re vulnerable.
by Cuppa on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:55 pm
3 years? Was it not policy at the 2010 election?
My memory of it was that after Copenhagen and the Greens voting against the ETS, they were onto a loser anyway. You’ll note that there was no increased demand for action on carbon pollution – in fact, opinion went heavily the other way. Denialism got a big boost, Monckton was flavour of the month. The ALP were going to get beaten up anyway. There was already talk along the lines of “why should we do anything about it when it’s clear the rest of the world aren’t going to?” before the ALP even shelved it.
And I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there was a little bit of negative reportage over the Insulation Scheme and the BER at the time. It didn’t get a lot of press, but I believe it had some impact on ALP polling.
by Aguirre on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:55 pm
How many businesses would be affected by an Abbott PPL scheme? I can think of many, perhaps more than would be affected by carbon pricing, and which would pass on the costs to consumers.
Insurance for eg.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Um Mod Lib,
I am replying to your suggestion that the compensation for the carbon scheme may phase out.
So you liken the fact that companies one day may cease to emit CO2 with them no longer producing goods and services?
No wonder you vote for the :mrgeen: it takes one to vote for one I suppose!
by Centre on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:56 pm
confessions
I saw Milne live she attacked the Coalition over their political tactics on economics. Patronising to the Government she was not. If anything the opposite. She was effusive about the conclusions drawn by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The only patronising I saw was about Coalition tactics.
by guytaur on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:57 pm
That’s easy. Ross Garnaut, whose economic advice the government followed, recommended a rate of between $20 and $28, preferably on the higher side, in order to fund the compensatory payments. The $23 was about what was felt could reasonably be sold while pacifying the Greens that it was significant.
Garnaut was very happy about the package finally negotiated, especially combining some of the Ken Henry reforms such as raising the tax-free threshold.
Abbott’s constant predictions of doom are probably no worse than Keating’s anti-GST campaign, but they have been a senseless distraction.
by Gorgeous Dunny on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:57 pm
So where is the money coming from for the reduction in company tax, personal tax, clean energy programs etc.
by fredn on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:58 pm
“Saw”?
Her interview was on Fran Kelly’s Radio National breakfast program.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/new-greens-leader-christine-milne/3951876
That’s what spur212 and I are referring to.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:59 pm
geoffrey – I really am going to bed now. Response if any I’ll read in the morning.
WTF – They’re the munts who vote!
Am I Swanee – No thanks!
by CTar1 on Apr 17, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Ltd News dropped it because it was not bad enough for Labor and the Greens had a +1 against it. Makes it hard to write crap about the Greens falling apart without Dr. Bob Brown steering the ship.
Qld ex – minister lost licence due to speeding tickets, suspended and then got caught driving a speeding RENTAL CAR ? Didn’t pay his fines , even after 5 notices and a quiet word from the cops ?
Labor should decriminalise drugs and set up a shop and sell drugs and get back in surplus, while helping Druggies kick their habit. They could monitor usage , hand out clean needles etc etc. A win win. Makes selling drugs not profitable for gangs, which will slow drug crimes down and drive by shootings in sydney will disappear. The War on Drugs is only good for Private Prisons , arms dealers, Bike gangs and drug dealers.
by Lord Barry Bonkton on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:00 pm
Ian at 445 – thanks for that beautifully written post.
by Lynchpin on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:00 pm
guytaur
Labor is and pretty much always has been a centre left party. Abbott is trying to paint the ALP as being lead by the Greens and the it just proves his point when Milne starts implying that the ALP are being inauthentic on the economy when in fact it’s Abbott who’s the one being inauthentic on the economy (direct action, standing green army, PPL, nanny subsidies, no deregulatory IR policy is a very unusual pitch from the Liberal Party)
by spur212 on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:00 pm
Pretty dam close to being equally likely. I haven’t seen anywhere, anybody claiming we will get a zero carbon economy. If that is what you need to claim a tax is not a tax you really are out on a limb.
by fredn on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Notice how there’s no straight answer….
This is the same character who, back a page or two, was asking not one, but a string of questions, that had already been answered ‘for’ him numerous times already. The sort of questions that, being of a fact-based nature, would be easy enough for anyone to find the answers for themselves if they were really interested. But when someone asks him a question, not data-based but in the spirit of debate, there’s a forked-tongue slippery non-answer in response.
In any case he’s not correct. GST applies to more than just stuff “sold” by “companies”.
by Cuppa on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:01 pm
confessions
Well maybe in that interview she indeed seemed condescending. If you had seen the one she did just before lunch you would disagree with yourself
by guytaur on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Connie 300 businesses will experience an increase of 1.5% on their net profit thanks to Abbott’s paid parenting scheme.
A scheme rightfully opposed by many in his own party.
Compare that to only the 50 largest polluters paying the carbon tax?
Also, it is a Labor policy to cut company tax to 29% if the stupid Greens would just shut up and do as they’re told for the good of our economy!
by Centre on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:03 pm
spur
Right wing spin. There is no way the AM interview was different on detail. The ALP is not centre left. They are centre right courtesy of NSW right. Abbott can say as much as he likes about ineffectual Labor Policies. The facts tell all otherwise.
by guytaur on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:05 pm
It gets trotted out every now and again – for political expediency of course.
Usually about the same time we get told planting trees is more cost effective than market based approaches to reducing pollution.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:06 pm
Why aren’t Gillard, Combet, Swan and the other Labor ministers arguing that “it’s not a tax” if it is not a tax?
by Diogenes on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:07 pm
ML # 1009 and centre please please please can you both stop missing the point.
I thought the quality of teaching of economics at Sydney in the 80s was pretty ordinary but clearly it was better than nothing. I cant really believe I really have some special knowledge that eludes you.
Its. Not. A. F.cking. Tax. … if, instead of paying a compulsory exaction to the Crown for [engaging in the specified activity or holding the specified asset] and getting nothing back other than (1) a sense of duty done and (2) being quit of tax liabilities, you get (3) an asset you can trade.
Too hard for Murdoch minions? of course. Fairfax flyweights? probably. But Bludgers?
Cmon!!
by Marrickville Mauler on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:07 pm
50?
by Mod Lib on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Dio
They are not falling into the Mod Lib trap. Instead they are getting on with the job.
by guytaur on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:08 pm
Fredn, if you want to join in the debate with myself and Mod Lib, feel free but don’t take comments out of context.
Go back and get upto date with the argument.
Also, the carbon tax is effesctively a scheme. Why?
Because the entire revenue it raises is directed back into the economy purely for the purposes of compensation and investment to cut emissions.
by Centre on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:09 pm
MM:
I recommend you don’t try that one on the billboards at the next election campaign. A more convoluted example of sophistry I cannot remember…
by Mod Lib on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:09 pm
The Abbott Liberals’ Great Big New Tax: Applies to 3300 businesses
Labor’s carbon price: Applies to 500 businesses
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/maiden-tonys-great-big-tax/story-fn6br25t-1226295921746
by Cuppa on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:10 pm
fredn, heres one from John Lennon for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNjTPZW7GCU
by Marrickville Mauler on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Diog
I expect they have more important things to worry about.
by zoomster on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Centre says 50, you say 500.
Kinda supports my argument about how poorly this has been sold doesn’t it?
by Mod Lib on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:11 pm
some questions for you Mod lib:
So how is planting a billion trees going to lower my electricty bill?
and WTF are the 15,000 strong Abbott’s (Green) Army going to do?
and why are the Nationals salivating about the Carbon Farming grants to be run out of a Nat minister’s office?
by sprocket_ on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:12 pm
A slight revision to my idea of a slogan for Labor.
Labor
Building an economy that works for you.
by guytaur on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:12 pm
Overseas reports. Check the comments below the Telegraph one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9208227/Australia-set-to-withdraw-troops-early-from-Afghanistan.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/world/asia/australia-to-withdraw-from-afghanistan-earlier-than-planned.html
by Leroy on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:12 pm
And wrong. Not only was the entire premise of her attack on the govt wrong, it played entirely into the hands of the coalition because she referenced the very same points they make! FFS!
As for the patronising position she took, I don’t expect to tune into RN breakfast and hear a woman Greens leader deferring to a misogynist conservative political leader (in opposition mind you), in order to attack a woman Labor PM.
If this is the angle the Greens will be taking in order to attack Labor under its new leadership, then good luck with that. They are likely to alienate a good number of women voters along the way.
by confessions on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:13 pm
ML. Good job in at least spelling sophistry But otherwise, how do you sleep??
by Marrickville Mauler on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:14 pm