Sunday 28th of April 2024
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50/50 .....

50/50 ....

from politicoz ….

The two major polls out today are disastrous for the Abbott-led Coalition.  In the Newspoll, Labor has drawn level on a two-party-preferred basis. And on the question of who would make the better prime minister, Gillard has jumped to a 14-point lead over Abbott.According to the AC Nielsen poll, the government would still be defeated in an election held now, but the ALP has gathered serious momentum: its primary vote is up another two points, making it four months in a row that it has made a two-point gain. There are many explanations for the swing back to the Gillard government: it's about the carbon tax; it's about the ALP's 'positive reform agenda'; it reflects personal sympathy for Gillard; voters are expressing disapproval of Newman and O'Farrell's cuts; Abbott is under pressure following the revelations about his personal history.Unfortunately for the Coalition, each of them is equally plausible. Regardless of whether midterm polls are reliable indicators of how people will vote at the next election, these two herald a new atmosphere in federal politics. The pressure is all on Abbott now.Just between us, a poll like this is less important for what it actually says than how it is interpreted across the political class. And this one will be creating waves, no doubt about that. Many people in politics really believe it’s a good thing to have journalists write that you’re doing well politically. They believe in the momentum thing.

digging a little deeper ...

digging a little deeper ....

from Crikey ….

Essential: Gillard gets a boost from voters

Crikey intern Sally-Anne Curtain and Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane write:

DRUGS, ESSENTIAL REPORT, JULIA GILLARD, SOCIAL MEDIA, TONY ABBOTT, TROLLING

New polling from Essential Research has yielded no further rise in Labor's primary vote but a surprisingly strong lift in voter sentiment towards Julia Gillard. The results on Essential's semi-regular "leader attributes" questions (coming the week Julia Gillard was absent from Parliament due to the death of her father) showed a marked rise in her positive characteristics and a fall in her negative ones.

For Tony Abbott, however, the news is rather less positive.

Fifty six per cent of voters now believe Gillard is out of touch from ordinary Australians, compared to 65% in April. This brings the Prime Minister much closer to Abbott on this aspect, as 57% of voters believe he is out of touch from ordinary Australians, compared to 54% in the previous quarter. Only 37% believe Abbott is a capable leader, down four points from last quarter, while 43% believe Gillard is a capable leader, up five points on last quarter. Gillard also trumped Abbott in several other categories, including intelligent (68-62%), arrogant (46-63%), intolerant (37-53%) and narrow-minded (46-59%).

Essential also added some new attributes: on "aggressive", Abbott’s score of 59% vastly overshadows Gillard’s score of 42% (unsurprising given the focus on his behaviour 35 years ago last week), while he also has a big lead on "intolerant".

Essential also explored attitudes towards drug use and drug regulation among voters. There appears to be little support for decriminalisation except among Greens voters: while 23% of Greens voters thought current drug laws were too harsh, only 8% of all voters did so (and even 26% of Greens voters thought they were too soft).

Voters with close friend or relatives who use illicit drugs are more likely to view current laws as too harsh, but 47% of them think they are "too soft". The strongest support for decriminalisation was in relation to cannabis, for which 38% of voters supported decriminalisation compared to 49% who opposed it. But for ecstasy, amphetamines, cocaine and heroin, opposition to decriminalisation was around 80% or more.

There was also strong support for government legislation to curb online abuse following controversies over "trolling", with 83% of voters supporting legislation to "prevent people from using social media to attack and bully individuals", including 55% who "strongly supported" it.

Yet again, there has been minimal change on voting intention, with the Coalition's primary vote up a point to 48%, while the other parties recorded no change, with Labor on 34% and the Greens at 9%. The two-party preferred vote recorded no change: the Coalition leads 55-45%.