Life Begins At 40: Latest Newspoll Trends

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Life Begins at 40: Latest Federal Newspoll Trends

40% Primary Vote Essential for Beazley to Breathe Life into Labor

Kim Beazley may declare he has the ticker for the top job saying he is the same age John Howard was when he became Prime Minister, but for Beazley and the Labor Party the critical number is 40.

Springboard Australia's analysis of Newspoll trends shows that the adage "Life Begins at 40" is true in politics too.

Until Beazley can lift Labor's primary support above 40% the political life of Australia's oldest party will continue to be bleak.

Our analysis shows that Labor's vote has consistently remained below 40% since the September 2001.

Ironically, the brief period it rose above that benchmark was during the early days of Mark Latham's leadership where it actually peaked at 46% in March 2004. It slide away from that level quickly to an election losing 37.6% in October 2004.

Throughout Simon Crean's leadership Labor primary vote never went higher than 38% and plunged to 33% in April 2003.

Notably, that's the same level of support Labor had plummeted to by the time Latham resigned.

By contrast, the Coalition's primary vote has only dipped below 40% twice since September 2001 - in October 2003 and August 2004. Critically, however, on those occasions their support only dropped to 39%.

The Coalition's primary support has been as high 50%, immediate after September 11, 2001 and been as high as 47% on six occasions since that time. It has remained above 45% or higher in 36 Newspolls conducted since September 2001, representing almost half the total polls conducted in this period.

From August 2004, in the lead-up to the October Federal election it never dropped below 42%.

On election day, October 9 2004, the Coalition recorded an impressive 46.7% of the primary vote.

While much attention is paid to Newspoll's two-party preferred vote and the preferred Prime Minister figures it is the primary vote level of the respective parties that is the key.

Quite simply, life begins at 40.

Two-Party Preferred Federal Voting Intention

Kim Beazley's return to the ALP leadership has had a marginal impact on the two-party preferred vote at this early stage. Below is a graphic reputation of Newspoll results since the 2001 Federal election to the most recent Newspoll released in February 2005.

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.