Latest Federal Newspoll Trends

Latest Federal Newspoll Trends

Better Prime Minister Rating Shows Howard Reigns Supreme

After surging to be within one percentage point of the Prime Minister in the "Better Prime Minister" question asked by Newpoll, voters' initial enthusiam for Mark Latham has cooled significantly.

Since Latham's highest score of 42 percent in March 2004 he is now seen as the better Prime Minister by only 33 percent. Meanwhile, John Howard's rating has improved from 43 to 48 percent.

Disturbingly for Labor, Howard's score on this measure, is 8 points higher than it was in 1996 when he was first elected Prime Minister.

Below we have graphed Newspolls' historical trends of voters' responses 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 July 2004.

It clearly shows the strong upward trend for Mark Latham immediately after his elevation to the leadership and the more recent decline.

While the decline will be a concern for Labor, Latham continues to perform better on this score than former leader Simon Crean.

As we have noted in previous Newsletters, 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.

Two-Party Preferred Federal Voting Intention

Continuing the series from previous Springboard Australia Political Briefings, below is a graphic reputation of Newpoll results since the last Federal election in November 2001 to the most recent Newspoll released in July 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 ahead of the Coaltion on a two-party preferred basis, but the contest is still incredibly close. Notably, it shows the honeymoon Labor enjoyed immediately after the election of Mark Latham as leader has ended. Labor's two-party preferred position is actually at the same level it was in October 2003.

Most Important Federal Issues

The graph below shows the trends from September 2001 to June 2004 on what voters identify as the most important Federal issues.

Health, medicare, education and national security related matters, including defence remain the dominant issues. Notably, these issues score higher than they did in the lead up to the 2001 Federal election. Leadership has also emerged as a more important issue for voters than in 2001. The areas of welfare and social issues still remain important, but marginally less important than in 2001. As could be expected immigration has declined significantly since September 2001.

Government Improves Its Position on Important Issues

While Labor is still seen as best to handle the key issues of health, medicare, education and social and welfare issues, the Government has made up significant ground in recent months with an increasing number of Australians indicating that they believe the Howard Government is best to handle these issues.

The continuing strengths for the Government are the issues related to national security and the economy. The Government's lead in the areas of taxation, interest rates, unemployment, defence and immigration remains considerable. Encouraging for the Government is the fact that in all instances a greater percentage of Australians indicate the Howard Government is best to handle these issues than they did in Spetember 2001.