Oz Politics Blog

Today’s Newspoll, predicted a national two-party preferred vote of 52 per cent for Labor and 48 per cent for the Coalition, were a Federal election held last weekend.

The predicted primary votes were less definitive, with Labor on 39 per cent and the Coalition on 41 per cent. Labor’s primary vote in the last Newspoll was unusually high, and the Green’s primary vote was unusually low. While the Australia did not publish the latest Green vote, it is likely to have returned to its usual level. If so, it would explain the the anomaly of the previous Newspoll. (Update: the Green vote has returned to its usual level [link]);

If I could interpret the recent volatility in the Newspoll series, I suspect the primary voting intention for both Labor and the Coalition has been a flat line since the middle of February 2006.

Notwithstanding Labor’s winning position in the poll, perhaps the biggest news was Beazley’s satisfaction ratings, which have been going south since the middle of February (after a long period of stability, albeit lacklustre stability from Beazley’s perspective). According to the Australian, “Mr Beazley’s voter satisfaction dropped three points to a record low for his seven years as Leader of the Opposition to 26per cent and a personal record dissatisfaction rate of 61 per cent.”

Newspoll also looked at the IR laws.

A separate Newspoll survey on industrial relations, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, shows an across-the-board fall in support for the Coalition’s industrial relations laws.

When asked if people thought it was good for the economy, only 33 per cent agreed, down from 38per cent four months ago.

On the issue of job creation, 32per cent said it was good, down from 36 per cent four months ago, and 45 per cent said it was bad, up seven points on December last year.

The biggest falls in support for the new laws were among women, Coalition voters, young people and people earning less than $70,000 a year.

Yet when asked about their personal position and whether they would be better or worse off, there was a movement to the middle, with more people saying the laws were not affecting them either way.

This trend included a huge drop from 62 per cent of Labor voters who thought they would be worse off personally in December to 46 per cent.

On the other hand, there was a similar fall in the number of Coalition supporters who thought the new laws would be good for creating jobs, down from 67 to 52 per cent.

So the industrial relations survey suggests there is a growing difference between how people perceive the new laws affecting others and how they see them affecting themselves.

Almost half of voters believe they are not affected, either way, by the new laws in almost every category except among those aged 18 to 34, those earning lessthan $30,000 and Labor supporters.

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