TONY Abbott and the Coalition are clawing back support in South Australia, Western Australia and NSW but Bill Shorten and Labor are making strong gains in Queensland and dominate in Victoria.
Men and voters aged over 50 are clear backers of the Prime Minister, while the Opposition Leader’s strongest support comes from women and voters aged under 35, according to an analysis of Newspolls conducted in the September quarter exclusively for The Australian.
After being savagely marked down in the June quarter on the back of the poorly received budget, Mr Abbott’s personal standing has improved in the September quarter in every state except Queensland and across every age group, among men and women, as well as city and country voters.
And from Roy Morgan:
In early October L-NP support rose to 47% (up 1.5%) but still trails the ALP 53% (down 1.5%) on a two-party preferred basis. If an election had been held the ALP would have won according to this week’s Morgan Poll on voting intention conducted with an Australia-wide cross-section of 3,151 Australian electors aged 18+ over the last two weekends.
Primary support for the L-NP was up 1.5% to 40% while ALP support fell 2.5% to 35%. Support for the other parties shows The Greens were at 12% (unchanged), Palmer United Party (PUP) 3.5% (down 0.5% – lowest PUP support since January) while Independents/ Others rose 1.5% to 9.5%.
Support for PUP is highest in the three States that elected Palmer United Party Senators: Queensland (8.5%), Tasmania (6.5%) and Western Australia (3%). Support for PUP is lower in the rest of Australia: Victoria (2%), New South Wales (2%) and South Australia (1%).
Analysis by Gender
Analysis by Gender shows support for the L-NP increasing strongly amongst men: L-NP (50.5%, up 2%) cf. ALP (49.5%, down 2%) whereas support for the two parties was little changed amongst women: ALP (56.5%, down 0.5%) cf. L-NP (43.5%, up 0.5%).
Clearly a more positive trend for Prime Minister Abbott as the Murdoch terror machine combines with the war to lift the Coalition. Having said that, the overarching story remains the remarkable weakness of the Government despite these polling advantages.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
