Newspoll has registered another 50/50 polling result:
Voter confidence in Malcolm Turnbull’s performance has tumbled to a five-month low and dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister has reached the highest level since he seized the leadership from Tony Abbott in September.
The latest Newspoll, taken exclusively for The Australian, also shows that despite stronger than expected economic growth figures last week and the release of its defence white paper, the Coalition has failed to lift its standing, remaining deadlocked with Labor at 50-50 in two-party terms.
Bill Shorten has posted the third consecutive rise in his stocks, lifting satisfaction with his performance to a level not seen since Mr Abbott was prime minister, although Mr Turnbull still remains overwhelmingly the preferred prime minister.
Roy Morgan is also out and is unchanged:
March L-NP support is 53% (up 0.5%) cf. ALP 47% (down 0.5%) on a two-party preferred basis. If a Federal Election were held now the L-NP would win.
Primary support for the L-NP is 43% (down 0.5%) with ALP at 29.5% (unchanged). Support for the Greens is down 2% to 13%, Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) 5% (this is the first time the Morgan Poll has measured NXT in all States; 18% in South Australia), Katter’s Australian Party is 1% (unchanged), Palmer United Party is 0.5% (down 0.5%) and Independents/ Others are at 8% (down 0.5%).
Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating
The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating is down this week – down 3pts to 102 with 41.5% (down 1.5%) of Australians saying Australia is ‘heading in the right direction’ and 39.5% (up 1.5%) saying Australia is ‘heading in the wrong direction’.
This week’s Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention was conducted over the last two weekends, February 27/28 & March 5/6, 2016, with an Australia-wide cross-section of 3,011 Australian electors.
Analysis by Gender
Analysis by Gender shows men strongly favouring the L-NP while women are more evenly divided. Men: L-NP 55% (up 0.5%) cf. ALP 45% (down 0.5%); Women: L-NP 51% (unchanged) cf. ALP 49% (unchanged).
Analysis by Age group
Analysis by Age group shows that Turnbull’s biggest problem remains convincing younger voters to support the L-NP. The ALP leads with electors under 35: 18-24yr olds (ALP 60.5% cf. L-NP 39.5%) and also leads amongst 25-34yr olds (ALP 54.5% cf. L-NP 45.5%). However, the L-NP leads with all older age groups: 35-49yr olds (L-NP 52% cf. ALP 48%); 50-64yr olds (L-NP 54% cf. ALP 46%) and easily amongst those aged 65+ (L-NP 64% cf. ALP 36%).
Analysis by States
The L-NP now holds a two-party preferred lead in four Australian States with two evenly divided. The LNP leads in Queensland: LNP 57.5% cf. ALP 42.5%, New South Wales: L-NP 55% cf. ALP 45%, Western Australia: L-NP 53.5% cf. ALP 46.5%, and Tasmania: L-NP 50.5% cf. ALP 49.5%. Victoria: L-NP 50% cf. ALP 50% and South Australia: L-NP 50% cf. ALP 50% are evenly divided.
A lot of weakness is apparent in the Government Confidence measure which continues to crash:
The release of Newspoll in today’s Australian caught me a little by surprise. I was expecting it to be released next week to coincide with the next Parliamentary sitting week (a typical Newspoll practice). Anyway it’s out and it is unchanged on a fortnight ago (50/50). Dropping the result into the aggregation yields a national two-party preferred voting estimate of 52.3 per cent for the Coalition and 47.7 per cent for Labor.
It is worth noting that we are tracking the new Newspoll as being 1.3 percentage points biased towards Labor (in comparison with the other opinion polls, and assuming the house effects of all polling houses sum to zero). Much of that house-effect bias has been evident in the poll results since the elevation of Malcolm Turnbull (where Newspoll-2 has been consistently towards the bottom of the pile).
Turning to the primary voting intention model, again assuming that house effects sum to zero, we can see the following.
The other thing of note in today’s Newspoll is the continuing decline in the attitudinal polling for Malcolm Turnbull. Let’s start with the raw data before moving the attitudinal aggregation. Of note in the negative PM polling, whereas the former Newspoll tracked closely to the other pollsters, the Newspoll is significantly more than its competitors.
Moving to the comparative results for both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, we can see a small improvement in the net-happiness position of the Leader of the Opposition, a more significant decline for the Prime Minister, in the context where the Prime Minister is still well ahead overall.
Technical information on the polling aggregation process can be found here.
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.
