Oz Politics Blog

According to Michelle Grattan in the Age:

Labor’s two-party vote has risen four points to 56%, with the Coalition down four to 44% in the Age/Nielsen poll taken from Thursday to Saturday - the Government’s best two-party position since June.

Mr Rudd’s approval as PM has soared 10 points in a month to a record high of 71%. More than three in four Australians (76%) support Mr Rudd’s handling of the crisis and the economic package which will give pre-Christmas dollars to pensioners and families and a big boost to first home buyers.

The poll isn’t all bad news for the Coalition. The approval of Malcolm Turnbull - who has offered bipartisan support to the package while criticising around the edges - has spiked 10 points to 55%.

This story is also covered by Tony Wright, Phillip Coorey, Peter Hartcher and Phillip Coorey again.

The usual graphs can be found here.

The latest Morgan poll is out. It was conducted over the weekends of 4-5 and 11-12 October 2008 with a sample of 1692 electors

Morgan also conducted attitudinal polling, which suggested that Kevin Rudd’s handling of the global fiscal crisis has enhanced his popularity:

Now 62.5% (up 7.5% in 3 weeks) of Australian electors prefer Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, 24% (down 6% in 3 weeks) prefer Malcolm Turnbull while 13.5% (down 1.5%) are undecided or prefer someone else. This special telephone Morgan Poll was conducted over the last 2 nights (October 15/16, 2008) as the ‘World Financial crisis’ panicked markets around the world.

This Morgan Poll also finds 64% (up 9% since September 24/25) of electors approve of the way Kevin Rudd is handling his job as Prime Minister, 23% (down 8%) disapprove and 13% (down 1%) are undecided.

The usual graphs can be found here.

Graphs here.

The newspoll quarterly graphs have been added to the 2010 poll graphs page.

I found the Green’s graphs interesting (particularly the disjunction before and after the 2007 election) …

Today’s Courier Mail reports on a Galaxy poll of 800 Queenslanders on the evenings of 24-25 September. It found a small boost in the attitudinals for Malcolm Turnbull, compared with a late June poll and the performance of Brendan Nelson.

On the key question of who was the better economic manager, Labor holds a lead of 50 per cent compared with 40 per cent for the Coalition. In June, when Dr Nelson was Opposition Leader, the Labor lead was 53 per cent to 37 per cent.

…

On the preferred prime minister stakes, Mr Rudd is well ahead of Mr Turnbull with 57 per cent support compared to 34 per cent.

But Mr Turnbull is performing much better than Dr Nelson, who often slipped into single digits when compared with Mr Rudd in national polls.