Morgan: 61-39

The latest Morgan face-to-face poll gives Labor its best result since April: a 61-39 two-party lead, up from 58-42 last week. Labor is up three points on the primary vote to 50.5 per cent, the Coalition down one to 33.5 per cent, the Greens steady on 9.5 per cent and “others” back down to 4.5 per cent after a spike to 6 per cent last week. Some quick ones while I’m away:

• The New South Wales ALP has taken a possibly unprecedented move in banning state MPs from seeking federal preselection. Nathan Rees claims this is to prevent unnecessary by-elections – a believable motive for the state government – but is also being interpreted as a move to “stop state MP’s tarnishing the Rudd government”. Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports “rumours that the state ministers Joe Tripodi and Paul Lynch have been eyeing off the western suburbs seat of Fowler, while the former police minister Matt Brown has been linked with Gilmore”.

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports a “growing sentiment” in the New South Wales Labor Party that Belinda Neal should retain preselection for Robertson, due to sympathy over her husband’s misbehaviour together with the fact that she has “worked hard” and “kept her head down” since the Iguana’s incident.

• Andrew Landeryou of VexNews reports Victorian Liberal chatter that “controversial Baillieu faction honcho” Bruce Atkinson faces a preselection threat in his Eastern Metropolitan upper house region. This threatens to boil over into an “open slather” that could equally threaten Atkinson’s first-term Eastern Metropolitan colleague Jan Kronberg.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

862 comments on “Morgan: 61-39”

Comments Page 15 of 18
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  3. Dio is right. Japan and the EU have already done the “heavy lifting” in reducing their emissions. We have done bugger all by comparison, same with US and Canada.

    This situation didn’t happen by accident either. In the late 80s and early 90s the EU actually bankrolled the closing down of a lot of old very badly polluting power plants in eastern europe. They shut dwn their local equivalent of our Victorian power plants 20 years ago. That is why there is already discussion in the EU Commission of tariffing the products of countries that don’t reduce emissions. We would be niaive to think that won’t include us; we are one of the worst offenders.

  7. Rewi Lyall,

    I think that was announced almost from the start. The rupture must be in a particularly inconvenient spot if drilling another well to tap it further down is the best way to go.

  9. Socrates
    It will be interesting to see if the Copenhagen agreement overturns the WTO agreements, if that is possible. Not sure how tariff barriers would gel between the two.

  10. So, at the current rate of leakage the total area by the time it’s done could be as large as the area of the three islands that comprise Malta or the catchment for the Nepean reservoir (thanks Google).

  12. Yes, Boerwar, I had an opportunity to go to Sidoarjo in 2007 and stand on a fairly dodgy dyke to look over the mudflow site. At one point the dyke gave a little tremor and the twenty or thirty of us scarpered.

  13. [It will be interesting to see if the Copenhagen agreement overturns the WTO agreements, if that is possible. Not sure how tariff barriers would gel between the two.]
    There has already been statements from WTO that a “CO2” tariff would be permissible.

  15. Those mudflows. Terrible. For those who lived there, and those who are still to be inundated, it’s the end of the world. Incredible incompetence by the drilling engineers (although to be fair, it’s not the thing you expect to happen when you dig a hole).

  17. I take it you know about the channel to the river technical solution?

    Apparently a big problem with this (relayed to me second hand) is that during the dry season there isn’t enough water to carry off the mud, so the channel gets blocked.

  18. [Yes, Boerwar, I had an opportunity to go to Sidoarjo in 2007 ]

    Yes, the famous kerupuk (crackers) of Sidoarjo have also gone the way of the mud.

  22. evan 14, your guess is as good as ours. Usually Essential Media would have lifted the embargo and published by this time, but nothing beyond the end of Sugust is available on their site.

  23. [Finns had Howie not saved all that stim cash for Rudd to spend jobs would be down, (interest rates would still be down because of the GFC) and we’d be in recession!]

    What savings? You mean the structural deficit they left us with?

  28. Indeed. In that same visit we went to the refugee camp, which was set up in the nearest marketplace.

    Two years later, the displaced families are still awaiting their compensation:

    http://www.tempointeractive.com/hg/nasional/2009/04/22/brk,20090422-171840,uk.html

    and the criminal investigation into the company responsible has been dropped:

    http://www.walhi.or.id/websites/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=305%3Apolice-drop-criminal-probe-of-lapindo-over-mudflow&catid=114%3Awalhi-di-media&Itemid=133&lang=in

    Let’s hope that the investigation that will follow the clean up of this oil slick is as rigorous as possible.

  29. Where are all the technical solutions?

    Well, where do you put it? If the flow isn’t capped in very short order (which it definitely was not), then how do you get equipment to the site to stop it? The original drill site is under a heap of mud.

    Now it’s a question of “can we build the dykes high & thick enough?” until it stops. Assuming it stops…

  32. Kersebleptes
    Yes. That’s what makes it fascinating. It might turn out something like the lava flow just to west of Melbourne. It might just keep going and going.

  35. OK, possibly straying way outside the Pollbludger brief now…

    Boerwar, check this out. I didn’t realise this was part of the process (Wikipedia disclaimer):

    [In 2008, it was termed the world’s largest mud volcano and is beginning to show signs of catastrophic collapse, according to geologists who have been monitoring it and the surrounding area. A catastrophic collapse could sag the vent and surrounding area by up to 150 meters in the next decade. In March 2008, the scientists observed drops of up to 3 meters in one night. Most of the subsidence in the area around the volcano is more gradual, at around 0.1 cm per day.]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_volcano

    At its highest, Sidoarjo is 25m above sea level.

    http://www.petra.ac.id/eastjava/cities/sidoarjo/sidoarjo.htm

  37. I would take any Morgan and Essential political poll with a kilo of salt to be frank.

    If Newspoll or Galaxy had it at 60/40 then you’d have a point.

  38. Rewi
    That is very interesting. The link I gave above, which was dated August this year, had the mud erupting up to three metres into the air. If it does not know whether to collapse into itself or erupt higher it must be fairly unstable.

  40. [Newspoll ?]

    Well given Morgan and Essential lean a couple of points left, let’s call it 59 the mean, and given newspoll leans a couple points right, let’s go for a newpoll of 57-43.

  41. Glen,

    The published polls have moved about 2-3 points to Labor since the last Newspoll. AS I’ve said before, it’s the trend that is important when assessing polls.

    My point is all the ingredients are there for a further move to Labor.

  42. Rewi Lyall & Boerwar,

    It’s called “accommodation”, where the stuff coming in (mud, lava or just normal sediment flow), simply by its weight, depresses whatever it’s sitting on.

    So the more stuff you put in, the more room there is in which to put even more stuff.
    But it will mean that the area affected will increase enormously. As Rewi showed, even if the mud is kept confined, many areas could still end up way below sea level.

  43. Talking about Indonesia. A brewing bank bailout scandal is tarnishing the final days of President SBY first term. It is particular damaging to the much praised Finance Minister, clean and proper Sri Mulyani:

    [Vice President Jusuf Kalla turned up the heat in the debate over whether the government should have bailed out Bank Century last November, saying he would have disapproved of the costly bailout had he been consulted before hand. He said the bank should not have been bailed out as it’s problems were largely caused by fraud, and not the impacts of the global economic crisis.

    Kalla told a press conference Monday that the decision to bail out Century, made by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and then central bank governor Boediono, was done so without his permission as deputy to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was abroad at the time.]

    http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/09/01/kalla-heats-debate-over-costly-bailout.html

  44. Julia Gillard is pretty smart. She worked out that an octahedron has six vertices.

    And she said that the most stressful things in her life were question time, interview with Red Kerry and interview with Tony Jones.

  45. The Finnigans, pretty easy for Jusef Kalla to start throwing this stuff around now, after the elections. If he was really as concerned as he is suggesting now, surely this is exactly the kind of story that should have been brought to light during the campaign, and one which would have caused serious problems for PD.

    Maybe he was convinced by SBY’s call for a respectful campaign.

  46. Rewi, personally i have no confidence in any of them. It does not matter how clean they are supposed to be. None of them can help it. it’s only a matter of time before they are corrupted by the system. Sad, but it’s true.

    Indonesia, riwayatmu.

  47. [And she said that the most stressful things in her life were question time, interview with Red Kerry and interview with Tony Jones.]

    I find it hard to believe she gets too stressed by QT

  50. Someone asked what was on Ch 7 News. And ICAC is launching a “preliminary inquiry” into McGurk’s allegation.

    [However, new allegations that a police officer was being paid by a businessman to frame Mr McGurk have since been aired on the Seven Network.

    It reported Mr McGurk went to Surry Hills police station on the day of his death to make a formal complaint about the officer, who then learned of the complaint and asked the businessman to “take care of matters”. ]

    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26040258-5006301,00.html

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