The always reliable James J relates in comments that the latest Newspoll result is 56-44, with primary votes of 31% for Labor, 48% for the Coalition and 11% for the Greens. Julia Gillard’s ratings have gone backwards, her approval down three to 27% and disapproval up two to 61%, and her 39-38 lead as preferred prime minister last time has become a 39-36 deficit. Tony Abbott is up a point on approval to 32% and down one on disapproval to 57%. UPDATE: Newspoll also reports 32% find Labor most to blame for the asylum seeker impasse against 28% for the Coalition and 16% for the Greens; 66% believe Labor at least partly to blame against 60% for the Coalition and 57% for the Greens; and 37% think the Coalition best to handle the asylum seeker issue (down 10% on last time), with Labor on 17% (down 4%) and “others” on 13% (up 1%).
The weekly Essential Research poll also has the Coalition’s two-party lead at 56-44, where it has been for six successive weeks, from primary votes of 31% for Labor (down a point for the second week in a row), 49% for the Coalition (steady) and 11% for the Greens (up one). There are further questions in asylum seekers, of which the most illuminating is the findings that 60% believe the government is too soft, the carbon tax (31% say they have noticed an increase in costs, 54% say they haven’t) and the European economic crisis. We have also had Roy Morgan publish results from its last two weekends of regular face-to-face surveying, which interestingly shows the Greens up 4.5% to 14.5%, their best result since February and equal best result ever from this series. Both parties are down on the previous fortnight, Labor by 3% to 29.5% and the Coalition 2.5% to 45.5%. The Coalition’s two-party lead is down from 54.5-45.5 to 54-46 on previous election preferences, but up from 56.5-43.5 to 57.5-42.5 on respondent-allocated preferences.
Developments:
• NSW ALP state secretary Sam Dastyari will present a motion to the party’s state conference on the weekend calling for the party to put the Greens behind the Coalition on preferences at the federal election. Despite the focus of some news reports, this would mean little with respect to the lower house: Labor can be relied on to make the final count in all seats which matter to the Greens, meaning their preferences are not distributed (the key question remains what the Liberals will do, which will most likely be to follow the Victorian party’s example at the state election and put them last). However, it could come at a very high cost to Labor as well as the Greens by delivering to the Coalition Senate seats which would otherwise stay “left”. In 2010 the Greens polled well enough that would have won seats in each state in any case, having scored quotas in their own right in Victoria and Tasmania, and close enough to it elsewhere that preferences from left-wing micro-parties would have make up the difference. However, it would only take a gentle swing to cost them seats in New South Wales and Western Australia without Labor preferences, which on anything like present form would mean results in those states of four seats for the right against two for Labor (as well as making life all but impossible for the Greens in South Australia, given the complication of Nick Xenophon).
• The most excellent pseph blog Poliquant has analysed the likely impact of Labor preferencing the Greens list with reference to current state-level opinion polling, which suggests it would result in 4-2 rather than 3-3 left-right splits in Western Australia and possibly New South Wales, and that a 4-2 split looms in Queensland regardless of preferences. In each case, one of the four right-wing seats would go to a minor party, obvious possibilities being Katter’s Australian Party in Queensland and the Nationals in Western Australia. Poliquant also offers a review of the lower house effects, which argues the Greens stand to lose a share of anti-major party protest voters whose preference flows are not especially favourable to Labor.
• James McGrath, former Liberal federal deputy director, LNP campaign manager at the Queensland state election and chief advisor to London lord mayor Boris Johnson, has dropped a bombshell by nominating for LNP preselection in Peter Slipper’s seat of Fisher. His decision to take on the presumed front-runner, Mal Brough, is said by Michael McKenna of The Australian to have “the support of LNP powerbrokers, increasingly concerned about Mr Brough’s involvement in an anti-corruption probe and role in the sexual harassment case against Mr Slipper”. McGrath had long been considered the likely successor to Alex Somlyay when he retires as member for the neighbouring Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax at the next election. His formidable reputation as a political strategist received a considerable boost by the state election result, despite his having been sacked from his job with Boris Johnson in 2008 after telling a black activist that immigrants should “go if they do not like it here”. Other known candidates for the preselection are Peta Simpson, director of a local recruitment agency (who has Nationals connections and is backed by Brough foe Barnaby Joyce); Richard Bruinsma, a former adviser to Slipper; and Andrew Wallace, a barrister.
• A warning from acting LNP president Gary Spence that expulsion awaits those who comment to the media on the party’s internal affairs has been interpreted as a knock to Clive Palmer. After failing to nominate as threatened for the Lilley preselection last week, Clive Palmer told Lateline he had held off at the insistence of Tony Abbott. Palmer has given the publicity wheel further spins by announcing he plans to run for another seat, indicating Fairfax or Kennedy might fit the bill. This echoed a report from Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail that “some LNP figures” were pushing him in the direction of Kennedy, presumably secure in the knowledge that he would face a humiliating defeat at the hands of Bob Katter. Tony Abbott continues to present thinly disguised arguments against a Palmer candidacy, citing the need for candidates to be “there first thing every morning at the bus stops and the railway stations”, and for members to treat their parliamentary vocations as full-time jobs.
• The LNP’s burst of preselection activity has including the endorsement of its first three candidates for Queensland’s eight Labr-held seats, including confirmation Malcolm Cole will again run against Graham Perrett in Moreton. Cole’s CV includes a period as a journalist at the Courier-Mail and AAP, and later as a staffer to Alexander Downer and former Senator and factional chieftain Santo Santoro. In Oxley, which Bernie Ripoll holds for Labor on a margin of 5.8%, the LNP has also preselected Andrew Nyugen, a 28-year-old policy adviser to Brisbane lord mayor Graham Quirk. The choice of a candidate so named in the electorate formerly held by Pauline Hanson has been noted. In Blair, held by Shayne Neumann on a margin of 4.3%, the candidate is Teresa Harding, who is “director of the F-111 Disposal and Aerial Targets Office” at the RAAF Base Amberley.
• Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reports the candidate for Lilley in 2010, Rod McGarvie, a former soldier and United Nations peacekeeper, is the front-runner to again contest the seat from an LNP preselection field of “about six” in Lilley. Also mentioned has been John Cotter, GasFields commissioner and former head of agriculture lobby group AgForce.
• Rosanne Barrett of The Australian reports John Howard is among those who have thrown support behind former Wallabies coach in his bid for LNP preselection in Petrie, where 11 candidates have nominated to take on Labor member Yvette d’Ath, who holds the northern Brisbane seat on a margin of 2.5%. Connolly ran unsuccessfully against independent incumbent Peter Wellington in the Sunshine Coast seat of Nicklin at the state election.
• Andrew Crook at Crikey reported earlier this week that Senator David Feeney, who is unlikely to be re-elected from his third position on Labor’s Victorian Senate ticket, has been given the right to contest the first House of Representatives seat which becomes available in the election. He would presumably not have to wait long if Labor was defeated, and it suggested a vacancy would shortly become available in the Prime Minister’s electorate of Lalor. Such an agreement would presumably have been owed to the agreement by which Feeney’s own support base and that of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association came back under the wing of the Labor Unity (Right) faction, associated in Victoria with Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy. The earlier divide in the Right had seen various right forces estranged from the Shorten-Conroy axis and frozen out of a “stability pact” which divided spoils between Labor Unity and the Socialist Left.
• Andrew Crook at Crikey also reports Mark Hay, lawyer with the Office of the Director of Military Prosecutions, is gearing for a preselection challenge against Throsby MP Stephen Jones with the backing of his mother, Wollongong MP Noreen Hay. NSW Right sources quoted earlier in the week by Crook argued a decision to hold a rank-and-file preselection in the seat doomed Jones to defeat, as he had the support of about 50 members out of 300 and held the seat through a long-standing arrangement in which the Right had ceded Throsby to the Left in exchange for the western Sydney seat of Fowler. However, a Left source “suggested a deal could be reached to avoid a ballot in Throsby, with the Right extracting a chop out elsewhere”.
• The Liberals have taken the sting out of the looming NSW state by-election for Heffron by announcing they will not field a candidate. A by-election will be held for the seat on a date to be determined after Kristina Keneally quit politics to take up a position as chief executive of Basketball Australia. Ron Hoenig, a barrister of Jewish extraction who has been mayor of Botany Bay for no fewer than 31 consecutive years, has won Labor preselection unopposed, early favourite Michael Comninos having decided not to run. Hoenig was last on the preselection scene in 1990, when former state and future federal minister Laurie Brereton defeated him for preselection in Kingsford-Smith. The Liberals’ decision to abstain comes despite the margin having been cut from 23.7% to 7.1% at last year’s election, and the 3.0% swing recorded by the Queensland LNP in similar circumstances after Anna Bligh quit her seat of South Brisbane. Sean Nicholls of the Sydney Morning Herald reports some in the Liberal Party feared “a very strong possibility of a swing back, which would allow Labor to claim the byelection as a damning referendum on the first year of the O’Farrell government”.
[The real question between now and election day is can Tone whole it together, he still has a $70 Billion dollar problem but he may be able to explain it away.]
Why does Abbott’s budget bottom line pose a problem?
It didn’t in 2010. It didn’t last year. It doesn’t now.
The voters don’t care, and the media are happy to play along. The bigwigs have chosen their winner.
[He has probably come to the view that the Government won’t do this, enabling him to advocate a reform for which he will not have to vote.]
Sure, so call his bluff and make him vote on it. If he votes against it, then that means he would’ve voted against both same sex marriage and civil unions in the space of one parliament.
[The Government have had enough trouble with the amendment to the Marriage Act. They won’t want to revisit the same territory again.]
Well putting civil unions into law wouldn’t be the same territory because it isn’t marriage.
I would also like to think that Gillard would show some leadership and get the entire Labor partyroom to support it.
Of course Gillard may not be PM by early next year.
[ He’s also got to find another $7bill per yea
Not $7b. $70b. ]
Yes but the useless MSM won’t allow any scrutiny of him.
For those that are thinking Mr Turnbull may have merit in his suggestion.
@AlexGreenwich: Civil Unions are legislatively impossible, as they require referral from all states, many have them or will never refer (eg Qld)
No Shows, that would be several light years way past funny. 🙂
Troy Bramston@TroyBramston
Newspoll. Interesting to note that the Greens vote has fallen in each of the last three polls: 14-12-11. The Brown curse? #auspol
Patrick Bateman (previous thread)
[If Labor really wanted to hurt the Greens it would adopt some moderate pro-environment policies with a mainstream twist to them. Let people who care about the Greens’ key issue feel good about voting Labor. Instead of, you know, supporting brown coal and logging and so on. The recent marine parks thing was the right idea.]
I was reading all the posts from a bit earlier and saw the arguments, some of which I understood, some I tried too and couldn’t but I agree with American Psycho guy here.
It’s just a jump to the left…
[just needs Julia to put the party first and for Rudd to stay well away from the job.]
But you wont put the party first hey. You want Gillard to be replaced but can’t put your pride away and admit Rudd is the one with the greatest chance of getting the greatest recovery for Labor.
But I am beginning to think that the Labor fools have just done too much damage to their credibility and trust to be saved from its cesspit.
It looks like the polls are saying that people hate both leaders
Glory
[Dee – some are rational.]
Some are purely driven by polls and focus groups!
Luckily JG ditched that work practice or we wouldn’t have the reforms at present or those in the pipeline.
Can’t have it both ways!
Le voyageur@P4551
@GhostWhoVotes Where the hell do you find 32% of people who approve of Abbott? RSL? CWA? Miners club? Dementia ward?
Mick
Yes I agree there the polls do appear to be saying that.
Well the Magic Date .. July 1 .. it’s come and gone
_____________
Where is GG??
He always assured us that all would be well after July 1
and the new Morgan says the Greens at 14.5% are at a new high and “Centre”has told us that it was “RIP Greens” and they would collapse now
Both our prophets are false and quite wrong
What now ??
Its all a big game of chess atm Guytur.
Glory
[The bigwigs have chosen their winner.]
Perhaps on that we can agree!
Night! 🙂
@Colvinius: How mutually corrupted was the relationship between NotW, Royal Family & Press Complaints Commisiion?
http://t.co/pIuUsRLB
Bollocks he has you has-been obsessed twit! He’d last about a week as PM before his mates in the MSM turn on him for the entertainment value.
Outside looking in for me TP – I’m not Labor and won’t be voting for them at all if Rudd returns
Hopefully things get better for Julia – she needs to do something, almost anything on the boats – my guess again is Nauru / PNG and TPV’s (did anyone else notice Bowen’s slip on that tonight????)
Worst thing is she’ll get whacked with marriage equality shortly after and face more pain because of position on it 🙁
Awwwww Receivers have been appointed to the Sandringham hotel.
Another live venue at risk of closing.
Oops sorry. Sandringham in Newtown, Sydney.
Equitist@OzEquitist
@ConGeorgiou Howard’s lowest approval…was 28% in June 1998 & March 2001. Gillard’s atm is 27%. #auspol #newspoll <<Yer, Howard survived!
You need to use slam tactics on the devopers.
It worked for the Tote down here, in saving its LL.
Jesus, like I say to those gloating that prices haven’t been affected by the carbon tax, at least wait a couple of months before you gloat that the polls haven’t bettered now the carbon tax hasn’t caused Armageddon!
The only viable replacement for Gillard is Rudd, like it or not.
Senior ministers will just have to put their egos aside and beg Kevin to take on the leadership again.
She’s finished – Julia’s had more than enough chances.
Recovery of Labor’s figures was never going to be a cobra strike on July 1.
More like a python squeeze in the months following.
Matt Franklin writes that compensation has failed. He is not necessarily right, and could well be outright wrong there.
It more like a bunch of dummy spitters – the bogan voters who wouldn’t know a good government and an atrocious opposition if they stubbed their toe on one – who can’t bring themselves to admit they were wrong about the Carbon Tax. They can see it’s no big deal to their personal hip pockets, but they’re still hearing that it is. So it must be someone else who’s feeling the squeeze.
When they realise that it’s universal – the CT is no horror story – they’ll start to come around.
It’s in the interest of the Newspoll peddlars to treat their jumble of numbers as something that picks up instantaneous mood changes in the electorate, and that indeed the electorate has such instantaneous changes to be picked up.
They don’t exist.
Newspoll spruikers want to arrogate to themselves power. They claim their poll is a finely tuned barometer. “If Newspoll doesn’t pick up something straightaway, then it’s never going to happen.” Rubbish like that is used to make Newspoll and its proprietors seem much more powerful than they are.
If anyone’s looking for an Acme solution to the nation’s woes – just add water (or write a bootstrapped beat-up in the Murdoch media) – then they are kidding themselves.
It’ll be a long slow grind back, inch by inch. All great battles of ideas are like this.
Oh, and this Labor war on the Greens is so fake and stage managed that it’s getting ridiculous.
Dastiyari & Howes are trying a last ditch strategy to save their girl Julia, simple as that – ie. beat up on the Greens, and she might get some kudos in the polls. 😆
I don’t know why you think so many of your posts are worth laughy-face emoticons, TLM. They’re never even good-humoured, let alone funny.
Gloryconsequence –
I don’t think the potential $70Billion gap in Liberal Party costings in itself will cost the Libs the next election but how they plan on handling it may determine the size of the victory.
Why is it important, partly because at least three state Liberal Governments have been elected promising moderate Governments then have needed to rain in spending, and people may question what will Tone do.
Although Tone has been upfront in saying a large number of APS jobs will be axed if he is elected PM.
Historically budget blackholes have being damaging to oppositions, just ask Howard in 1987 although some may argue that the Joh for Canberra may have been a bigger factor in that election.
@109 – yes, neither Leader is particularly popular, but they hate the ALP a lot more than the Coalition and that is what matters most.
@121 – but what were the 2PP at those times?
In answer to what someone said earlier on in this thread – Gillard is no John Howard.
Rudd would be good for a short term bump but things will go to shit pretty quickly again.
Labor’s problems are completely structural. It’s only because Tony Abbott is the alternative that anybody cares anymore. Otherwise, a good helping of opposition time would be good for the ALP to address these concerns.
TLM – How is Rudd going to turn this around, the major policies are in place and for the ALP to try and walk away from those policies they will be seen as weak and we will quickly see the Libs TPP in the 60s.
Rudd may be popular in Queensland but the dye has been cast and I just cannot see him turning this around.
What do you really think Rudd can do to improve the situation, yes he may see a small bounce but very quickly that bounce will flatten for the issues hurting this Government are policies.
This Government was elected solely because Howard stayed too long and of-course Workchoices, not because the voters had become progressive
[In answer to what someone said earlier on in this thread – Gillard is no John Howard.]
Indeed. One of her saving graces.
Another as pointed out by Deb, since 2008 most if not all Governments have fallen.
@125
[Recovery of Labor’s figures was never going to be a cobra strike on July 1.
More like a python squeeze in the months following.]
And who said Whyalla would close on 1 July 2012 apart from unhinged Ministers for Trade?
@134 – and isn’t that working well for her.
[TLM – How is Rudd going to turn this around, the major policies are in place and for the ALP to try and walk away from those policies they will be seen as weak and we will quickly see the Libs TPP in the 60s.]
Setting aside the carbon tax, Labor’s policies are waaaaaaaay more popular than Gillard.
But Rudd doesn’t have the baggage that he lied about the carbon tax. In fact he won an election saying he would introduce an ETS, so he could just propose amending the carbon tax to make it an ETS sooner.
Emerson certainly hasn’t done any favours for Labor with those silly stunts – I think the public expects better behaviour from a senior cabinet minister.
[And who said Whyalla would close on 1 July 2012 apart from unhinged Ministers for Trade?]
Well, Abbott said it would be “wiped off the map”. That doesn’t sound like a slow process.
Shows On: Rudd can stick with Gillard’s policies, give or take a little tweeking with the carbon price and asylum seekers….simple as that.
I see no way that she can win any election from here, despite how odious Abbott is. The public have stopped listening to Julia.
Rudd’s the better campaigner and the better communicator.
[@134 – and isn’t that working well for her]
Something tells me you completely missed the point of my post.
ShownsOn – Okay, lets presume for a moment that Rudd was made leader and as you say changes the carbon price to an ETS (which I think would be the right thing to do) and fixes the AS issue which he was unable to fix in 2009/10.
What if after that the Liberals remain ahead in the polls.
Has much as I was impressed by Rudd in 2007, I just cannot see how the disunity of the past few years can be washed away when so much hatred and vile has been expressed across the political landscape.
I will play the game evan14.
What will Rudd do with asylum seekers?
I also find it curious how Rudd will ‘tweak’ the ETS when neither the Greens or Coalition will support anything in the Senate.
@138
[In fact he won an election saying he would introduce an ETS]
To be more accurate – he won by saying he would do whatever Howard would do.
Mithrandir – This is an important point for it is all very good to say Rudd return to the leadership but then he has to make the parliament work and I can be confident in writing that the Liberals will not give an inch and the greens will be every bit as hard edged as they are currently.
Basically the ALP are between a rock and a hard place and the only think that can get them over the line is to hold firm and put forward a clearer plan than the alternative and this leadership talk is not helping just as it didn’t help the Liberals during the 1980s
An excise in Russian ( subtle /) diplomacy
__________________
Trade as we know from our own experiences with NZ and the EU /USA..can be a not-to-subtle part of diplomacy
How’s this for a move
The Russian are angry with Turkish support for the US -inspired war on the Assad rgime in Syria
—–Turkey is a major agricultural supplier to Russia..20% of all their produce goes there..$8 Billion last year
Now the Russians have discovered “american pest” insects in Turkish tomatoes/strawberries/the lot.
..American pests mind you…and the Turks are on a very short warning to end the problem or else…there being a glut of such produce in the region,and the loss of the Russian market would create a huge problem at home for the Turkish Govt.
In their subtle way the Russian are saying to the Turks “Back off Syria” or we’ll deal a huge blow to your domestic economy which you will have to deal with at home
Quite a clever tactic which Clinton and the US can’t counter
…
CC – 2007 was about Workchoices, An ETS was not really an issue for both sides were committed to it.
[Shows On: Rudd can stick with Gillard’s policies, give or take a little tweeking with the carbon price and asylum seekers….simple as that.]
I agree. It’s not the product it is the sales team that is killing Labor.
[I see no way that she can win any election from here, despite how odious Abbott is. The public have stopped listening to Julia.]
I stopped thinking Gillard could win late last year.