Oz Politics

Today’s Australian reported on the latest Newspoll. There are a couple of interesting features worth noting. First, like the recent Nielsen poll, the attitudinals have really bounced for the Prime Minister on the back of his handling of the global financial crisis.

Second, unlike the recent Nielsen poll which translated the attitudinal bounce into a voting bounce, the Labor vote under Newspoll is continuing its slow slide. But Labor voters need not worry too much. While no longer stratospheric, Newspoll has Labor in a commanding position.

The usual graphs can be found here.

The state of the economy plays a critical role in forming voter preferences. Earlier this week the ABS released its Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) statistics for the September quarter 2008. Inflation is one of the key variables in the Sawford formula, which is used by some psephologists to predict election outcomes.

The Producer Price Inflation (PPI) statistics for the September quarter, also released by the ABS this week, were the highest since the series commenced in 1998. The PPI at the final stage of production jumped by 2.0 per cent in the September quarter for an annual rate of 5.6 per cent. The PPI is used by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to monitor upstream inflationary pressures. These PPI figures suggest the CPI figures for the December quarter will also be high.

Statistics on the Australian economy can be sourced easily from the RBA’s statistics page.

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.

Today’s Australian reported on the latest Newspoll results (link-1, link-2). The headline two-party preferred vote is steady at 55 to 45 in Labor’s favour.

While there was no bounce for the new Opposition Leader in voting preferences, Malcolm Turnbull opened well in the attitudinal polling.

In the first Newspoll survey to measure voter satisfaction with his job as Opposition Leader, Mr Turnbull hit 50 per cent — 10 points higher than predecessor Brendan Nelson’s high of 40 per cent and nine higher than Mr Rudd’s when he became Labor leader in December 2006.

Indeed, the Liberal leader’s beginning in Newspoll is a better start than the past five Opposition leaders: Simon Crean, Mark Latham, Kim Beazley, Mr Rudd and Dr Nelson.

The Prime Minister also improved his standing in the attitudinal polling.

Satisfaction with Mr Rudd, which had fallen steadily in the past two months, has sharply reversed, rising six percentage points to 56 per cent.

According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Australian last weekend, a spike in dissatisfaction with Mr Rudd’s performance has also been reversed, falling from a record 37 per cent three weeks ago to 32 per cent.

The Greens were the other beneficiary of today’s Newspoll.

… a big jump in primary vote for the Greens, from 10 to 13 per cent, has put them at a Newspoll high …

Graphs here.