'; ?> June 2011 Quants | What The People Want
June 2011 Quants
Saturday, 16 July 2011 17:53 | Written by Graham Young

This time around the pollsters have the Coalition on 58 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

What is interesting is that our longitudinal result using the whole sample places it around 56 per cent - a couple of points lower. Given that our samples are composed of people who think more frequently about politics than the average this suggests that things are not quite so bad for Labor.

More significantly, analysis of our sample weighted for voting intention has Gillard performing badly on approval, but still ahead of Abbott as preferred Prime Minister. This is quite at odds with quantitative polls which have Abbott ahead on this measure. You can read Newspoll's latest here.

On the key question of whether the country is heading in the right direction, our respondents are on balance negative, with only 30 per cent agreeing that it is, and 57 per cent disagreeing.

Omnibus_11_06_Direction

Not surprisingly, the Prime Minister who might be held responsible for this is rated as doing a good job by only 28 per cent, compared to 60 per cent who rate her poorly. Only 12 per cent are neutral and 1 per cent unsure, so for this figure to change Gillard would need to turn a lot of opponents into friends as well as collecting most of the neutrals, a tough ask.

Omnibus_11_06_Gillard_Approve

However, while Abbott is approved of by 38 per cent - ten points ahead of Gillard - he is still disapproved by 54 per cent - 4 percentage points higher than a simple majority, and only 3 percent lower than Gillard. If he is travelling well, it is because his opponent isn't as much as what he is doing. No room for complacency here from the Coalition.

Omnibus_11_06_Abbott_Approve

Which is underscored by the fact that despite the varying levels of approval a small plurality prefers Gillard to Abbott as PM, but neither of them receives more than 50 percent support.

Omnibus_11_06_Preferred_PM

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