Coalition and Morrison gain in Newspoll, and the new Resolve poll

This week’s Newspoll, conducted April 21-24 from a sample of 1,510, gave Labor a 51-49 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the previous Newspoll, four weeks ago. Primary votes were 41% Coalition (up one), 38% Labor (steady), 10% Greens (down one) and 3% One Nation (up one). Figures are from The Poll Bludger^[1].

59% (up four) were satisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance, and 37% (down three) were dissatisfied, for a net approval of +22, up seven points. Anthony Albanese’s net approval fell five points to -3. Morrison led as better PM by 56-30 (52-32 four weeks ago).

In my article last fortnight, I suggested a backlash against political correctness was making sexual misbehaviour more acceptable. The Coalition and Morrison’s recovery in this poll appears to validate that argument.

Read more: Has a backlash against political correctness made sexual misbehaviour more acceptable?^[2]

The adverse publicity regarding vaccination problems may have been expected to damage the government. But as long as there are very few local COVID cases, it appears the general public will forgive the rollout issues.

There is likely to be a strong economic recovery from COVID, and this is a problem for Labor. The new Resolve poll had the Coalition and Morrison ahead of Labor and Albanese by over 20 points on both the economy and COVID. In March, the unemployment rate^[3] was 5.6%, well down from the peak of 7.5% last July.

Many on the left want Albanese to resign in favour of a more left-wing candidate like Tanya Plibersek. But the polling indicates Labor’s leadership is not the problem, Morrison’s popularity is. In fact, given Morrison’s ratings, the Coalition would normally be expected to lead by a substantial margin.

Outside election campaigns, most voters pay little attention to the opposition. So it’s what the government does that drives voting intentions and the PM’s popularity.

New pollster for Nine newspapers

The Resolve Strategic poll^[4] will be conducted monthly for Nine newspapers from a normal sample of 1,600 interviewed by online methods. The first sample included an additional 400 live phone interviews. Fieldwork will be conducted during the month.

Every two months, state polls of Victoria and NSW will be released. Since Newspoll stopped doing regular state polling in 2015, there have been virtually no polls of either state outside election periods.

No two party vote is given, but primary votes in the first Resolve poll, with fieldwork up to April 16, were 38% Coalition, 33% Labor, 12% Greens and 6% One Nation.

One Nation’s vote is far higher than in Newspoll, but analyst Kevin Bonham^[5] says Newspoll is only asking for One Nation in seats they contested at the last election. Bonham estimates the two party vote from these primaries as a 50-50 tie.

Respondents were asked to rate the party leaders’ performance in recent weeks. Morrison had a 50% good, 38% poor rating (net +12), while Albanese was at 35% good, 41% poor (net -6). Morrison led Albanese as preferred PM by 47-25.

Voters were asked which party and leader would be better at various issues. However, offering “someone else” as an option disadvantages Labor, particularly on environmental issues where the Greens do best. The Coalition and Morrison led Labor and Albanese by 43-21 on economic management and by 42-20 on handling COVID.

Essential and Morgan polls

In last fortnight’s Essential poll^[6], Morrison had a 54-37 approval rating; his +17 net approval dropped five points from the late March poll.

The large gender gap in Morrison’s ratings that I discussed last fortnight^[7] remained: his approval with men was 61%, but 46% with women. This gap was 16 points in late March.

Albanese’s net approval was down four points from mid-March to +5, and Morrison led as better PM by 47-28 (52-26 in mid-March).

The federal government had a 62-17 good rating on its response to COVID (70-12 in mid-March). This reverts to about where its COVID response was before a spike in November. State governments also saw falls in their COVID ratings. If Labor had been in power federally, by 44-37 voters were confident that they would have dealt well with COVID.

While Essential continues to give the federal government strong COVID ratings, a Morgan SMS poll^[8], conducted April 9-10 – after Morrison announced^[9] the AstraZeneca vaccine would not be recommended for those under 50 – had voters disapproving of Morrison’s handling of COVID by 51-49.

Less than a week before Tasmanian election, poll has Liberals at just 41%

The Tasmanian election will be held on Saturday. A uComms poll^[10] for the left-wing Australia Institute, conducted April 21 from a sample of 1,023, gave the Liberals 41.4%, Labor 32.1%, the Greens 12.4%, Independents 11.0% and Others 3.1%.

This poll is in marked contrast to the last publicly available Tasmanian poll: an EMRS poll in February^[11] that gave the Liberals 52%, Labor 27%, Greens 14% and 7% for all Others. I will have more details of the Tasmanian election in a post on Wednesday.

WA election upper house final results

At the March 13 Western Australian election, Labor won 22 of the 36 upper house seats^[12] (up eight since 2017), the Liberals seven (down two), the Nationals three (down one), Legalise Cannabis two (up two), the Greens one (down three) and Daylight Saving one (up one). One Nation (three seats in 2017), the Shooters (one) and the Liberal Democrats (one) all failed to return to parliament.

This is the first time Labor has won a majority of seats in the WA upper house. They won 60.3% of the vote in the upper house^[13], slightly higher than their 59.9% in the lower house. Labor won 21 of their 22 seats on raw quotas, and needed very slight help^[14] for their fourth seat in Mining and Pastoral region.

Read more: Labor obliterates Liberals in historic WA election; will win control of upper house for first time^[15]

Labor lost two seats they should have won to Legalise Cannabis under the Group Ticket Voting (GTV) system. That gave Legalise Cannabis double the seats of the Greens despite less than one-third of the Greens’ statewide vote (2.0% vs 6.4%).

The most ridiculous result occurred in the Mining and Pastoral region^[16], where Daylight Saving were able to win a seat on just 98 first preference votes and 0.2% of the statewide vote. This occurred owing to both GTV and malapportionment. Every one of WA’s six regions elects six members, even though the Agricultural region^[17] has just 6% of enrolled voters and the Mining and Pastoral region 4%.

ABC election analyst Antony Green’s^[18] final lower house two party estimate is that Labor won by an Australian record for any state or territory of 69.7% to 30.3%, a 14.1% swing to Labor from what was already a thumping 2017 victory.

References

1. ^{^} The Poll Bludger (www.pollbludger.net)
2. ^{^} Has a backlash against political correctness made sexual misbehaviour more acceptable? (theconversation.com)
3. ^{^} unemployment rate (www.abs.gov.au)
4. ^{^} Resolve Strategic poll (www.smh.com.au)
5. ^{^} analyst Kevin Bonham (kevinbonham.blogspot.com)
6. ^{^} Essential poll (essentialvision.com.au)
7. ^{^} discussed last fortnight (theconversation.com)
8. ^{^} Morgan SMS poll (www.roymorgan.com)
9. ^{^} Morrison announced (www.abc.net.au)
10. ^{^} uComms poll (australiainstitute.org.au)
11. ^{^} EMRS poll in February (www.emrs.com.au)
12. ^{^} upper house seats (www.abc.net.au)
13. ^{^} upper house (www.elections.wa.gov.au)
14. ^{^} very slight help (www.elections.wa.gov.au)
15. ^{^} Labor obliterates Liberals in historic WA election; will win control of upper house for first time (theconversation.com)
16. ^{^} Mining and Pastoral region (www.abc.net.au)
17. ^{^} Agricultural region (www.abc.net.au)
18. ^{^} Antony Green’s (antonygreen.com.au)