Latest Federal Newspoll Trends

Latest Federal Newspoll Trends

Better Prime Minister Rating Shows Tight Contest

Below we have graphed Newspolls historical trends of voters response to the question “Who do you think would make the better Prime Minister?” from the July 1987 Federal election to the most recent poll conducted in early April 2004.

The recent trends show the strong upward trend for the new Labor Leader Mark Latham, including an historical high for an Opposition leader in late March.

Since that time his rating had dropped following his declaration to bring Australian troops home from Iraq by Christmas.

While the drop is statistically significant it is too early to determine if this is a return to more traditional levels for an Opposition Leader or a direct response to his most recent performance.

Notably, only once since 1987 has an Opposition Leader rated better than the incumbent Prime Minister on this score in a statistically significant sense.

That occurred when voters compared then Liberal Leader John Hewson to Prime Minister Bob Hawke in December 1991. Hawke was soon dumped as Labor Leader for Paul Keating.

At the 1996 Federal election, Prime Minister Keating rated 45 percent compared to then Opposition Leader John Howard on 40 percent.

Previous Labor Leader Kim Beazley actually out-rated Prime Minister Howard 41 to 40 percent at the time of the Federal 1998 election but quickly fell well behind Howard after he lost that poll.

The now Labor Leader Mark Latham came the closest to being considered the “better Prime Minister” since that time in late March where he trailed John Howard by just one percent.

The most recent poll conducted in April, however, has seen John Howard take 9-point led on that score over Latham.

While Latham’s rating has dropped significantly between these two polls, his “better Prime Minister” rating, at 37 percent, is still the highest for a Labor Leader and the closest to Prime Minister Howard since October 1998.

Critically, his rating on this score is dramatically up from the 14 percent former Leader Simon Crean scored six months ago in November 2003 demonstrating the forthcoming election will be much more closely fought.

Volatile Two-Party Preferred Federal Voting Intention

Continuing the series from last month's Political Briefing, below is a graphic reputation of Newpolls results since the last Federal election in November 2001 to the most recent Newspoll released in early April 2004.

The graph plots the two-party preferred position of the Coalition Government and the Labor Opposition. It also plots the primary vote of the minor parties.

The polling shows Labor is clearly in the strongest position it has been in since the November 2001 election. Notably it shows the respective positions of the Coalition Government and Labor Opposition have virtually switched since October 2003. This is a significant shift in voting intention in the past six months and demonstrates the volatility of the electorate.