The biggest head-turner to emerge from the latest batch of polls was Labor’s sub-30% primary vote in Nielsen, but the BludgerTrack poll aggregate in fact records a slight improvement this week for Labor, who appear to be trending back to equilibrium after last month’s leadership crisis. As well as Nielsen, the aggregate has been updated with results from Galaxy, Morgan and Essential (there was also last night’s ReachTEL poll for Channel Seven, but I haven’t included this as I don’t yet have enough data for ReachTEL to determine bias and accuracy weightings). Nielsen’s breakdowns have also allowed for the state relativities to be revised.
Speaking of which, I thought it might be illuminating to plot how the mainland states have been tracking relative to the national polling since the 2010 election. The following charts do so with reference to Labor’s two-party vote. Keep in mind that this measures the states’ deviance from the national result, and not simply the level of Labor support – so a flat line tells us not that support for Labor in that state has been steady, but that the ups and downs have closely matched the national results (as they usually do).
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The most obvious point to emerge is that Queensland is the odd man out on account of its volatile trendline. This relates to the “smooth” function displayed at the top left of each chart, reflecting the smoothness of the line which most meaningfully represents the scattered data points (in the estimation of my stats program, going off something called the AICc criterion). Where the trend is either consistent or non-existent, as it is for the other four states, the smoothing parameter is high and the line fairly straight. But where there is a distinct pattern to the variation, as in the case of Queensland, the number lowers to produce a line variable enough to follow the trend (different smoothing parameters also explain why the Coalition’s primary vote trendline on BludgerTrack is smoother than Labor’s).
The Queensland exception is down to a fairly clear 3% sag for Labor from March to July 2012, which happens to be coincide with the immediate aftermath of their devastating state election defeat. This seems to suggest that temporary static from Queensland state politics added over half a point to the Coalition blowout in the national result at this time, which can be clearly observed on BludgerTrack. It should be noted that this week’s Nielsen result is the only data point for Queensland since last month’s Labor leadership crisis, and it’s solidly lower than anything recorded since November. BludgerTrack will need more than one 350-sample result before it draws any conclusions, but the Nielsen result may point to a downturn the Queensland trendline is yet to catch up with.
Something similar may also be happening in South Australia, where Labor’s downward turn since late last year would be much sharper with a lower smoothing parameter. If forthcoming results for this state remain poor for Labor, their already weak projection will deteriorate fairly rapidly.
Other news:
• Barnaby Joyce had a clear 150-10 win over local IT businessman David Gregory in the Nationals preselection for Tony Windsor’s seat of New England, conducted after the withdrawal of Richard Torbay. The LNP will now have to choose a (presumably Nationals-aligned) candidate to fill Joyce’s casual Senate vacancy when he resigns to the contest the election, with the winner to serve out the remainder of a Senate term that will end in mid-2017.
• WA Labor has determined the order of its Senate election ticket, the top two positions going to Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Assocation state president Joe Bullock and incumbent Louise Pratt, in that order. Bullock takes the seat designated for the SDA from the man he succeeded as the union’s state secretary, Mark Bishop, who bowed out of the race on Monday in recognition that he faced certain defeat. Bullock’s success in securing the top position was the contentious fruit of an arrangement between the Right faction SDA and the largest Left union, United Voice, which secured the state lower house seat of Fremantle for United Voice faction member Simone McGurk at the expense of Adrian Evans of the insurgent Maritime Union of Australia. Pratt’s demotion from top of the ticket in 2007 is more than symbolic, as there are fears Labor’s vote in WA is so weak it can’t be guaranteed a second seat. Former state upper house MP Jon Ford, who is associated with the United Voice’s main Left rival, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, complained that the SDA-United Voice deal very nearly led to Pratt being excluded altogether.
• Also determined by the Labor state executive was the Senate vacancy created by the retirement of Chris Evans, which will stay in the United Voice fold by going to Sue Lines, a WA-raised but Sydney-based official with the union.
• Labor’s state executive also chose candidates for four lower house seats, three of which would be winnable under normal circumstances. Hasluck will be contested the aforementioned Adrian Evans of the MUA, whose partisans reportedly account for a quarter of the state party’s membership after a recruitment drive swelled their numbers from 150 to 850. There will be more on Hasluck in Friday’s Seat of the Week. The other candidates are lawyer Tristan Cockman in Cowan, Victoria Park deputy mayor John Bissett in Swan and, in the safely conservative regional seat of Durack, Fitzroy Crossing musician and party activist Daron Keogh.
• The Liberals have a new candidate for the Melbourne hinterland seat of McEwen after their initial nominee, Ben Collier, withdrew due to “unforeseen family circumstances”. The party’s administrative committee unanimously chose as his successor Donna Petrovich, a member of the state upper house for Northern Victoria region and former mayor of Macedon Ranges. Sue Hewitt of the Northern Weekly was able to confirm that ReachTEL had earlier conducted a poll of the electorate on behalf of an undisclosed client gauging name recognition for Collier and Petrovich. Petrovich will relinquish her seat in the upper house on June 30.
• John Ferguson of The Australian reports Liberal internal polling has them leading 56-44 in the Labor-held Melbourne seats of Chisholm and Bruce, with the primary votes at 29% for Labor’s Anna Burke and 48% for the Liberal candidate in Chisholm, and 32% for Alan Griffin against 48% for the Liberals in Bruce.
• Former Victorian Farmers Federation president Andrew Broad has won preselection to replace retiring Nationals member John Forrest in Mallee. The other candidates were Swan Hill councillor Michael Adamson, Buloke mayor Reid Mather, Horsham farmer Russell McKenzie and Mildura resident Anne Webster. Swan Hill deputy mayor Greg Cruickshank was a late withdrawal. The Liberals are yet to determine whether they will field a candidate.
[ mexicanbeemer
Posted Friday, April 19, 2013 at 10:42 pm | Permalink
Dave
You seem to be misreading my comments ]
Nope – Just get on your knees for murdoch.
Has anyone worked out what the story with Tripathi is?
Several media outlets including Slate are quoting the comment about not having any American friends.
1742
The Afghanistan of the 60s and 70 and 1980s had some development, mainly in the cities, but most of the rural areas were still poor. The the collapse of the government that had been backed and what followed dramatically reduced that development significantly.
Dave Murdoch doesn’t own CNN unless i missed that take over
mexicanbeemer@1755
Its abbott who he owns
Well that is a questionable investment
Interesting listening to the uncle who seems to have a low opinion of the older bother and surprised by the younger bother involvement.
Who knew the Boston Police Department had tanks?
1759
Are they actually BPD or are they State Police, National Gard or some such?
Seems like WA got the raw end of the deal in the Goneski’s
Less money than Tasmania despite having 10 times the population.
Seems to me the money is based on how many seats Labor wants to shore up in each state.(only probably 1 winnable in WA)
Based on the last WA election and the Court slides i think the ALP will hold Fremantle, Brand whilst Perth is very close
Sean WA misses out because they are already spending more per student than other states. At one level it makes sense to direct the funds where it is needed most but on another level it seems to reward under-performing states. Personally I think the biggest barrier to the PM’s plan getting off the ground will be a strong reluctance by states to transfer control for education to Canberra bureaucrats.
I’ve been told (not having really experienced any personally) that people who aren’t of X, not experiencing any prejudice against X, will be blind to and/or fail to comprehend the prejudice directed at X.
However, this applies equally to people who experience one type of prejudice but not others. It is my experience that people subject to one type of prejudice are often not any more aware or understanding of other types.
So when a person identifies a place (such as a university campus) as hosting only one particular type of prejudice but makes no mention of others, one wonders whether they are subject to the same blindness.
1739
castle
[Turnbull also said that 6 Mbps is fast enough for residential customers and that only businesses will need speeds of 1Gbps.
6 Mbps is slower than what I get now on ADSL, is that what the libs are now promising,slower speeds unless you are a business.]
So if I register a nominal business at my home address will that make me eligible?
david, they should take it as a compliment that they’re educating their students better and push the other states to follow their example :).
Lt’s be fair to Mick 77_______
________
He despises and denounces many Jews who oppose Netanyahu and his far-right Likud Party…
I made posts here from a respected elderly Israeli writer Uri Avernery ,and from a young Australian Jewish writer Anthony Lowenstein…both were dismissed by Mick 77,,,as being traitors and enemies of Isreal(though Avernery was a
soldier ,Knesset member and formed the Peace Now group in Israel)
In various sites Avernery’s criticisms of Netanyahu and his gang is far harsher than anything on PB
If I made them Mick 77 would denounce me as an anti-semite
Both men appear on a notorious black list of “self-hating Jews” put out by estremists in Likud(about 8000 names,including jews in the arts./adademia and the media and politics)these are of
Jews who oppose Likud
I guess Mick’s rabid support for Netanyahu makes him some loath many fellow Jews
On the whole Mick77 does his zionist cause a great deal of harm by his silly and offensive posts…but some people never learn !!!
prejudice can be subconscious, we naturally have preferences and someone that doesn’t fit that might be seen as different and are discriminated against.
The last three PB pages have not had a single reference to Rudd. Is this some kind of record? (and apologies for breaking the streak…)
Prof Cole from Michigan Uni…gives a lucid and up to the mimute version the the events of the last few hours in Boston
The Brothers are from the Dagestan region of Russia’s south,which like Chechnya has suffered much under Putin
They seem from accounts to be isolates and loners and have come from Russia to a new life in the USA…but lived in isolation from US society
http://www.moonofalabama.org/olates and loners,
probably acting out some fantasy
Deb
Interesting, some media reports indicate that the younger brother still held out was popular but does seem to have lost touch with his former class mates in recent times.
Its quite possible that the older brother had an emotional hold over the younger brother.
Rossmore 1769 re Rudd
_________
I understand that Rudd is providing Mandarin interpreter services to the Boston Police
Rudd scored a spot on the Buzzfeed for his sporting abilities
Anthony Loewenstein excellent website on world events
He has links to the Melb-based Jewish Democratoc Sopciety
_______________________
a different Jewish view than than that Mick 77 and updated daily
_________
http://antonyloewenstein.com/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter&utm_content=Newsletter+C
The uncle hasn’t exactly gone in to bat for his nephews.
[“They do not deserve to exist on this earth,” he said.
“I just wished they never existed. I am wordless.”
Their parents live in Russia, the uncle said.
Dzokhar was a quiet boy, Ruslan Tsarni said. He called Tamerlan “a loser” and said of his death “he deserved it.”]
I should add that I’m sure the uncle is right.
Mick is self-evidently a fraud. He purports to be opposed to antisemitism, but this is a charade. In fact, he simply finds excuses to link violence, Islamic extremism and “leftism” together as if they are all one and the same.
Since the Boston bombing occurred, he has been speculating here practically non-stop, using the blood of the dead and injured as an excuse to defame the objects of his hatred – Muslims, the “left”, the “radical”, and, it seems, the educated too.
This is practically the oldest trick in the racist book. By purporting to defend a helpless victim – in this case, the victim par excellence, Jews – Mick is trying to arm himself with some sort of moral authority that he can then use to associate violence with his political enemies. The Nazis employed the same techniques to traduce Jews and arouse hatred for them. Perversely, Mick is now using violence against Jews to make achieve the defamation of those he hates.
I very much doubt that Mick is concerned in any way about antisemitism, or about racism and bigotry in general. He has certainly never spoken up to oppose the vilification of Aborigines or Afghans, nor to denounce homophobia and sexism. Rather, he lets these things pass or finds a way to excuse them.
He is just a die-hard right-winger, determined to vilify his opponents and to use any passing event or remark to link those he despises – the left, the dissident and the educated – to bloodshed and hatred.
He is a transparent sham.
Deblonay
Just before turning in, I notice more rants from you. I have never mentioned Netanyahu once (this is the first time) in my posts so what are you on about. You and others who hate Israel do so not because of any government or any government policy. I’m sure you hated Israel just as much when the PM was Olmert, or Sharon, or Barak or whoever and whatever the policies. I love our Jewish homeland Israel and its eternal capital Jerusalem 3,500 years), as do 99%+ of Jews, no matter who is in power so it’s nothing to do with policies. I loved it when Rabin was PM, and Golda and so on. You can criticise policies all day and on some of them I might join you, and Israeli papers are full of criticism of government policies. However your denial of our right to exist and your wish to see us disappear, often subtly expressed by you, and backed up by your favourite anti-Israel Jewish posters clearly marks you for what you are. There are thousands and thousands of information sites on Israel and its history and crises but your only sources are hate sites that you seek out and that are maintained often by Jews whose connection to other Jews is never in communal charity work or religious or welfare or social organisations which form the fabric of our community. Lowenstein’s connection to the Australian Jewish community in any of the dozens of possible capacities is zero, much to his parents’ disappointment, but he makes a career out of keeping away from the community and using his Jewishness as a badge for his hatred of Israel. It takes all kinds to make a world and he is entitled to say what he thinks and no-one in the community shuts him up, which he loves to claim, and we don’t issue fatwas so the presence of fringe dwellers like him is of no consequence. Try visiting some non hate sources and maybe you’ll learn something about Jewish history, ancient and modern, and the unbreakable connection. In particular you may learn what it was like to be a Jew living in a world when there was no Jewish state that so many of our grandparents and their relatives and their parents knew only too well. The Jewish state exists even for the Lowensteins of this world, and always will. If we’ve learnt anything from our history we’ve learnt the importance of that. Look forward to reading your apology tomorrow morning.
briefly
And I’ve just seen your rant. Diog, as I pointed out, you were wrong about briefly. We outed him earlier – he’s the real deal.
If you speak up to denounce racist attacks on others, including Muslims, I will believe you are sincere, Mick. Till then, I will conclude you’re just faking it.
Diogenes
“I should add that I’m sure the uncle is right.”
I concur.
Well done guys! I’m sure Muslims all around the world are so grateful for your heroic blowing up of kids and participants in exercise! Fuckwits.
Holy wall of text, Mick. That’s paragraph terrorism right there. Even if I wanted to read whatever you have to say about who’s racist or whatever I couldnt.
New thread.
Far right on the march in Greece
Far right on the march in Greece
This guy is a crackup. What dont have any funny politicians in Australia?
http://www.upworthy.com/this-new-zealand-politician-unleashes-one-of-the-funniest-gay-marriage-speeches-on-record-2?c=bl3
And more broadly: how on earth did Abbott come to own the marriage equality issue? Oh, now he’s promising to review it after the election in the party room towards a possible conscience vote, etc.
Oh please. Whether credible or not, the question is how the ALP screwed the pooch so badly on this one that they became the less important centre of attention for this reform? They should have been pushing it as a binding vote and splitting the coalition into doing the right thing – dividing them into small-L’s smellling reality overwhelm them, and the reactionary hold-outs, there for for everyone to see.
But instead: A couple of reactionary SDA museum pieces who should be in the DLP said no, and that was good enough for the leadership of the ALP.
Pathetic.
WHAT THE F IS THE MATTER WITH THE USA?
A Texas judge just threw out a case against two people who made so-called ‘crush videos’ saying it is freedom of expression.
For those who do not know what a crush video is, think animal (usually puppies kittens) snuff films.
The decision will be appealed. Don’t read what this couple did. I read half a line and backed out, I do not need the images in my head, that is why all I can do is sign petitions.
A federal anti-crush film law as brought in by Pres Obama and Federal gov’t after much lobbying by animal welfare associations. And now a Texas judge calls this a first amendment right?
This comes just after Iran declared dog-owning a ‘Western indulgence’ (they have kept dogs on Persia for thousands of years.)
Sometimes I think the Earth is not better for habiting our species.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/Judge_Animal_snuff_films_protected_by_1st_Amendment.html?gjgj&fb_source=message
My blood is boiling. If everyone is feeling good tonight don’t read my recent post till tomorrow.
Some of those ignorant fools they elect as judges are not worth the birdshit on the courthouse roof.
womble
Posted Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 5:26 am | PERMALINK
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.