Polls favour Labor
According to the Australian (also here), the latest Newspoll of 1200 voters over the weekend of 21-23 October had Labor in the winning position — a primary vote of 40 per cent (up three points over the fortnight) and a two party preferred lead of 54 to 46 per cent. The Coalition’s primary vote would have been 37 per cent (down six points over the fortnight) if an election were called last weekend.
Regular readers will know that I am always sceptical of six point movements over a fortnight. I am particularly sceptical this time, as the ACNielsen poll did not find the same primary vote over the same weekend. Nonetheless, the ACNielsen poll of 1409 voters (here, here and here) told a similar headline story: It had Labor well ahead at 52 to 48 per cent in two-party preferred terms.
For the primary vote, ACNielsen had Labor on 36 per cent (up one point over the month), and the Coalition on 43 per cent (unchanged). According to ACNielsen Labor won in two-party preferred terms with 78 per cent of the non-Coalition-non-Labor preferences. To me this seems implausibly high given the 60 per cent flow to Labor at the last election (see next chart).
Both polls had the similar messages in the attitudinal polling.
- While Howard’s rating has fallen, he remains the preferred prime minister [Newspoll: 50 to 26 per cent; ACNielsen: 52 to 35 per cent; Howard is down 7 points with Newspoll and 3 points with ACNielsen]
- Satisfaction with/approval of the Prime Minister has also fallen [Newspoll 43 per cent satisfied: ACNielsen: 49 per cent approve; down 7 points with Newspoll and 4 points with ACNielsen]
- However, satisfaction with/approval of the Opposition Leader has stagnated [Newspoll: 31 per cent satisfied; ACNielsen: 35 per cent approve (the seventh consecutive decline); down one point with Newspoll and two points with ACNielsen]
The pollsters also explored attitudes to proposed laws on industrial relations and the war on terror.
On IR reform, Newspoll found,
Two in five voters believed the changes would be bad for the economy and for jobs, with a mere 11 per cent saying they believed they’d be better off under the new system.
A third of those polled said they were worried that their take-home pay and working conditions would be negatively impacted by the changes.
On the proposed terrorism legislation, ACNielsen found,
People are firmly in favour of life imprisonment for giving funds to a terrorist organisation (66 per cent); allowing terrorist suspects to be detained for a fortnight without charge (66 per cent); seven years’ jail for anyone supporting insurgency where Australian troops are deployed (64 per cent); restrictions on the rights of terrorist suspects such as house arrest or tracking devices (74 per cent), and restrictions on social contact and work opportunities for terrorist suspects (57 per cent).
But 60 per cent oppose giving police “shoot to kill” authority when pursuing terrorist suspects, with only 35 per cent in favour. Women are more likely to oppose it than men.
While the polls were bad news for Howard, it is unclear whether they represent good news for Labor and Beazley.
The media internet sites did not report on all the information available from the pollsters, so I could not update all of my graphs.