GhostWhoVotes relates that Newspoll has published its quarterly South Australian state results, which presumably portends something for Western Australia shortly. It shows South Australia continuing to look a different political planet from New South Wales and Queensland, with Premier Jay Weatherill enjoying honeymoon personal ratings and voting intention figures that would be the envy of his counterparts across the land. Not that Labor is actually ahead: they trail 52-48 on two-party preferred and their primary vote is an unimpressive 34 per cent, compared with 40 per cent for the Liberals (all unchanged on the previous poll, with the Greens up two to 11 per cent). The former result is nonetheless what Labor was able to win an election with in 2010, albeit that the redistribution commissioners will shortly be charged with the task (which I don’t envy them) of redrawing the map in such a way as to level Labor’s advantage.

Some of the shine has come off Weatherill since his debut survey, with his disapproval rating up nine points, but this is off a very low base (14 per cent) and mostly at the expense of the large “don’t know” rating. His approval rating, though down four, is still at a robust 47 per cent. Correspondingly, the poll makes grim reading for Isobel Redmond. As well as not delivering the Liberals voting intention figures of they kind they’ve been growing accustomed to across the country, her once formidable personal ratings have taken a big knock: approval down six points to 43 per cent and disapproval up four to 34 per cent. She has also lost further ground to Weatherill as preferred premier, now trailing 46-23 compared with 45-27 last time.

The poll was conducted throughout January to March from a sample of 870, with a margin of error somewhere between 3 and 3.5 per cent.