Possum: No bounce for Abbott

Now in new Monday flavor – Abbott’s first Newspoll outing has the primaries coming in 43 (steady)/ 38 (up 3) to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 56/44 the same way – a 1 point gain to the Coalition. The Greens are on 11 (down 1) while the broad “Others” are sitting on 8 (down 2). This comes from a sample of 1152, giving us an MoE that maxes out around around the 2.9% mark.

Rudd’s satisfaction moved up 2 to 58, his dissatisfaction went down 2 to 32 for a net satisfaction improvement of 4 points, coming in at +26.

No Satisfaction ratings for Abbott first week out – which isn’t unusual for a new leader, but there was a Better PM rating. If we look at the Better PM ratings for every Opposition leader that was elected mid-term going back to Downer, something interesting pops out.

Abbott gave not only the worst debut result of any Opposition leader that has taken control of the party mid-term, but was also the second lowest Uncommitted result of any new Opposition leader (including those that took control immediately after an election defeat). Only Beazley Mk 2 had a lower level of uncommitteds, suggesting that Tony Abbott is a significantly known quantity in the electorate, meaning there isnt much fat in the figures.

If we look at the last four Newspolls of Turnbull’s leadership, take their average and compare it to this poll’s result – we see that the ascension of Abbott has done absolutely nothing to the vote estimates. A point up on one primary, a point down on the other and a two party preferred unmoved when the whole lot is rounded.

It’s pretty safe to declare no Newspoll bounce. It might also be worth looking at the way the primary vote estimates have changed for every mid-term leadership change since Downer for a bit of context. If we take the primary vote average for the 6 weeks leading up to a leadership change and then compare that average (the “before“) to the first Newspoll after a leadership change (the “after“), it gives us an idea of the nature of any bounce. We’ll also add the other side, to see how a mid-term leadership change in Opposition affected both the Opposition and government primary vote estimates.

Abbott seems most comparable to Beazley Mark 2, with both having either nil or a statistically insignificant impact on the primary vote estimates of each party.

UPDATE:

Um… no, I have no idea what some of the folks over at The Australian were smoking either.

Meanwhile, the usual charts come in like this.