A relatively quiet week for national polling, with two new results available for the BludgerTrack update:
• The weekly Morgan multi-mode poll, this time enlisting 3418 respondents from its combination of face-to-face, online and SMS polling, recorded a sharp uptick for the Coalition, up four on last week’s primary vote result to 48% with Labor down two to 30.5% and the Greens up half a point to 11%. That came out particularly bruisingly on Morgan’s headline respondent-allocated two-party preferred calculation, which showed the Coalition lead blowing out from 54.5-45.5 to 58-42. The result on 2010 election preferences was a milder 56.5-43.5, compared with 54-46 last time.
• Essential Research is perfectly unchanged for the second week in a row, with Labor on 34%, the Coalition on 48% and the Greens on 9%, with the Coalition lead at 55-45. It finds a seven point drop since last June in respondents who think the economy is heading in the right direction, to 36%, and has 38% expecting the budget to be bad for them personally against 12% good and 38% neutral. Respondents were also asked about preferred revenue-raising measures, with “higher taxes for corporations” towering above the pack on 64%. Reducing tax breaks for higher income earners was net positive (45% approve, 38% disapprove), but reductions in the baby bonus and family tax and any spending cuts were rated negatively. It was also found that 45% believed population growth too fast, 37% about right and only 5% too slow.
The impact of the new Morgan multi-mode series on the current BludgerTrack modelling is still very slight, although this will begin to change as more data becomes available for assessing its performance. For now the result on national voting intention is little changed on last week, bringing an end to three weeks of movement to Labor. The availability of new state-level data from Essential Research has sent Labor back two on the seat projection by weakening their position in New South Wales and Western Australia.
Two doses of preselection news:
• The Australian reports on four contenders to fill Barnaby Joyce’s Queensland Senate vacancy, which he will formally create at the start of the election campaign period to facilitate his run in New England. The candidates are Barry O’Sullivan, who has stood aside as the treasurer of the LNP while he considers whether to run; David Farley, Australian Agricultural Company managing director, who caused a brief stir last August when he suggested the Prime Minister was a “non-productive old cow” who might be put to use at an abattoir he was spruiking; Larry Anthony, famously well pedigreed former member the north coast New South Wales seat of Richmond; and Ray Brown, mayor of Western Downs. Mentioned elsewhere were Theresa Craig, a down-list candidate on the LNP Senate ticket; Susan McDonald, “daughter of former National Party president Don McDonald and a member of a family cattle dynasty”; Kerry Latter, chief executive of Mackay Canegrowers; and Julie Boyd, former mayor of Mackay. The preselection will be held on May 25, despite the view of some that the matter be left until after the election to give unsuccessful lower house candidates an opportunity to run. Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reported “senior members of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s team” were of a similar mind, although his public position is in line with that of the LNP state executive.
• Anna Patty of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Labor in New South Wales is “under growing pressure to intervene in the preselection of a candidate for the federal seat of Throsby”. Head office has apparently held off so far to give incumbent Stephen Jones a chance to shore up his local numbers, but the upper hand has remained with local Right forces associated with state Wollongong MP Noreen Hay. This grouping now wants the seat for one of its own, something it has long been denied by a centrally enforced factional arrangement reserving Throsby for Anthony Albanese’s “hard Left” faction. This time however, state secretary Sam Dastyari has been insistent in promising a local ballot. Andrew Crook of Crikey hears the local rebellion is opposed by more senior figures in the Right, who have been “hitting the phones to demand Hay forces back down or face brutal retaliation in the form of damaging media leaks that could cut short the Wollongong MP’s controversial career”. The putative challenger is John Rumble, a local nurse and son of former state MP Terry Rumble. Stephen Fitzpatrick of The Australian reported a fortnight ago that Rumble had not definitively secured the crucial support of Hay, who suggested a third candidate might emerge. Former state Kiama MP Matt Brown, who was sacked as a state government minister in 2008 over an affair that involved him dancing in his underwear in his parliamentary office, told The Australian he had been asked to stand by “branch members”.
Finally, the final results are in from the Western Australian election, with indicative Liberal-versus-Labor two-party preferred counts completed for seats where other parties or candidates made the final count in the formal preference distribution. This reveals that the final two-party preferred vote for the Liberals was 57.2%, a swing in their favour of 5.4%. It should be emphasised that the two-party preferred concept is complicated in Western Australia by the large number of highly competitive contests involving the Liberals and the Nationals, which raises the question of whether Labor-versus-Liberal or Labor-versus-Nationals counts should be used for the electorates in questions. The AEC’s practice has been to use the Nationals count where the party wins the seat, but the WAEC favours Labor-versus-Liberal counts which tend to be somewhat more favourable for Labor. Antony Green has used the Labor-versus-Nationals count for Pilbara to preserve continuity with the calculation for the 2008 election, at which no Labor-versus-Liberal count for Pilbara was conducted. The two-party preferred numbers cited below are entirely from Labor-versus-Liberal counts.
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ELECTION March 9, 2013 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY # % Change Seats Change Liberal 559,917 47.1% +8.7% 31 +7 Nationals 71,694 6.1% +1.2% 7 +3 Labor 392,470 33.1% -2.7% 21 -7 Greens 99,437 8.4% -3.5% Independent 34,467 2.9% -1.5% -3 Australian Christians 21,451 1.8% -0.8% Family First 7,039 0.6% -1.4% # % Change Formal 1,184,475 94.0% -0.7% Informal 75,577 6.0% +0.7% Enrolment/Turnout 1,412,533 89.2% +2.7% Two-party preferred Liberal 677,231 57.2% +5.4% Labor 506,623 42.8% -5.4% LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL # % Change Seats Change Liberal 583,500 47.6% +8.0% 17 +1 Nationals 59,804 4.9% -0.4% 5 - Labor 398,260 32.5% -3.6% 11 - Greens 100,624 8.2% -2.9% 2 -2 Australian Christians 23,877 2.0% -0.3% Shooters & Fishers 21,765 1.8% 1 +1 Independent 20,633 1.7% +0.2% Family First 16,760 1.4% -1.1% # % Change Formal 1,225,223 97.2% 0.0% Informal 35,706 2.8% 0.0% Enrolment/Turnout 1,412,533 89.3% +2.7%
confessions
[IT’S official. Perth has the most expensive coffee in Australia.
Perth, in a recent national survey by coffee machine company Gilkatho, was the most expensive capital, with the average cappuccino costing $3.89, with some cafes selling a mug for as much as $7.25…….Gilkatho surveyed more than 1100 coffee venues across capital cities to compile its Cappuccino Price Index.]
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/perth-coffee-is-australias-most-expensive/story-fnhocxo3-1226633155978
Possibly a really stupid question… but how much money could we save building our navy ships in China?
Sean heaps but they would probably be programmed to shoot down our own planes.
The Minister has estimated 10000 457 rorters!! That’s funny? I heard on the grapevine it was actually 10003. I think he’s mixed it up with the 10000 dud political tactics conjured up by the PM’s adviser..”457 McSporran”.
Hasn’t O’Connor learnt anything…when you pull a dodgy Labor figure out of nowhere you make it an odd number to make the punters think it’s actually real.
jv
I appear to have lost a post:
I just wanted to tell you that I went to St Aidan’s Brigidine Convent at Maroubra Junction and was School Captain in our Leaving Certificate year 1962.
Two years before that Senator Susan Ryan was School Captain Maroubra was a strong Labor area maybe not so much now.
[ What evidence do you have that Abbott or the Coalition are anti a nuclear power industry? ]
As posted by MB earlier, Abbott is against nuclear – even if some others in the noalition are apparently not. Here’s another article:
From http://adf.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness/general-news/pollconscious-abbott-dodges-nuclear-issue/1883679.aspx :
[ “We have no plans to promote nuclear power. We have no plans for local plebiscites. Nuclear power is not on the agenda at this time and I have no plans to put it on the agenda,” Mr Abbott said. ]
Of course, if your argument is that you can never trust what Abbott himself actually says, then I guess you might have a point.
However, also keep in mind that Abbott’s “direct action” nolicy seems designed specifically to protect the interests of the fossil fuel industry. In fact, one of it’s more bizarre features (at least as far as I can make sense of such a mish-mash) seems to be that the fossil fuel companies could stand to make even more money than they do now, since Abbott will pay them to sequester the carbon their own products generate. Talk about double dipping!
poroti:
Well there you go. 😀
[Abbott’s “direct action” nolicy]
Nolicy from the opps.
I love it! 😆
Sean Tisme@2652
Heaps! Just subcontract the whole thing to Huawei.
Of course, these ships will all come with a couple of very special features – they will record and forward all onboard conversations to the Chinese government, and also the combat systems will not function if aimed at Chinese targets.
But other than these very minor drawbacks, we could really save a bundle!
Once again considering the WA Legislative Council. I’m not a statistician, but I think this is a sound chain of reasoning.
* Labor and the Greens have 13 seats out of 36, so they need to win 6 more seats to have a majority of 19.
* In other words, they need to gain an extra seat in each of the six Council electorates.
* To do that, they need to win an extra full quota in each seat, since they will gain almost no preferences from anyone else.
* In a six-member seat, a quota is 1/7 or 14.3% Therefore, Labor and the Greens must increase their joint vote by 14.3% in each of the six seats.
* Since the combined Labor-Green Council vote was 40.7%, they would need 40.7 + 14.3 = 55.0% of the vote to win a Council majority.
Has Labor, with or without preferences from other parties, ever won 55% of the vote at a WA election? I doubt it. In any case, I think it is completely impossible for this to happen given the modern demographics of WA. If that is so, the Libs and Nats will control the Council for ever.
Thanks to the Greens-Nats malapportionment deal, the Nats needed 11,960 votes to win a Council seat. The Libs needed 34,323 votes, Labor needed 36,205, and the Greens (victims of their own opportunism) needed 50,312.
MTWB…: “I just wanted to tell you that I went to St Aidan’s Brigidine Convent at Maroubra Junction and was School Captain in our Leaving Certificate year 1962.”
I shouldn’t wonder.
MTBW
Impressive credentials. One question comes to mind re Susan Ryan – did the school in 1960 have blackboards or whiteboards? 🙂
jv
Black with chalk!
jv
And Nun’s with canes!
joe
You are a delight!
MTBW
Of course. I was just being impertinent.
MTBW
[jv
And Nun’s with canes! ]
Only canes ? 😆
[Nude Nuns With Big Guns]
http://www.nudenunswithbigguns.com/
MTBW
People pay for that sort of thing these days. They long to relive the pain they seek to forget… That’s what the church creates.
Thanks poroti there was nothing like that in our day.
Don’t dare bring it to the attention of GG.
I went to a Church of England high school in the 1970’s but at school a fave was the catholic Sister Mary Elephant 😆
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa3HXdqNWIM&list=PL77180F049ACBEFD4
jv
For all of rigid rules and idiosyncrasies we didn’t turn out too bad and I actually had a lot of respect for them and remember them fondly. Well most of them anyhow!
I am off till tomorrow.
[http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/keep-calm-and-carry-on–into-a-feud-20130503-2ix55.html]
How dare they 🙁
2610
There has been a significant increase in the proportion of Australian voters who are willing to vote for minor parties since 1975.
The 1975 election was very polarised between the 2 major parties (quite possibly the most polarised in the history of the Commonwealth Parliament) and polarised elections tend to reduce the minor party vote. This election there is discontent with both the major parties and as such there is room for a higher minor party vote.
[Has Labor, with or without preferences from other parties, ever won 55% of the vote at a WA election?]
They’d have come pretty close with Burke’s two victories, but probably no cigar.
http://elections.uwa.edu.au/elecdetail.lasso?keyvalue=948
http://elections.uwa.edu.au/elecdetail.lasso?keyvalue=949
Thanks poroti for Sister Mary Elephant we weren’t quite as bad as that since there were ninety six of us in one class with Mother Enda who just walked up and down the aisle swing her cane and none of us dared to test her.
Poor dear no wonder she suffered a nervous breakdown.
See you all tomorrow!
2660
I mount no defence of the 6×6 system in WA.
I got the impression it was just one WA Green who insisted on the 6×6 system.
William, do you agree with the my prognosis for the future of the Counil?
Since Burke’s day Labor’s vote outside Perth has fallen away, and even in Perth the demographic trend is against Labor. Labor will be lucky to win any election in WA in future, let alone poll 55%.
[What they are doing is the most classic example of “tax and spend” imaginable. It is almost unprecedented in its scale, and during tough times for the budget and the balance sheet too.]
Maybe I’m missing the point but I’ve never understood what’s so bad about taxing and spending. Isn’t that what all governments do? Where else do they get their resources from if it isn’t through taxation? And what else are they going to do with it but spend it on programs and infrastructure that the country needs?
The real problem IMO is that the conservative forces have somehow managed to turn taxation into a dirty word. They love surpluses but they hate taxation – and most of all they hate spending, unless of course it’s the election bribes and middle class welfare that Howard was so good at.
Well im happy to chalk this week up as a Abbott win.
[I mount no defence of the 6×6 system in WA.]
Funny that none of our resident Greens is willing to defend this rotten deal. Where is the normally hyperlogorrheic Fran?
Psephos
[Since Burke’s day Labor’s vote outside Perth has fallen away, ]
‘Cos rural W.A. is chock full of unreconstructed racists. Meanwhile Perth is chock full of Yaarpies who fled “bliks” rule and pomgolians who write to the paper and ring shoutback radio lamenting how it all went down hill in Ingurland because they let the “immigrants” in and for ‘straya not to make the same “mistake”.
In 1983 Labor won Avon, Bunbury, Collie, Esperance-Dundas, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Kimberley, Pilbara and Warren outside Perth. Now it holds Albany, Collie-Preston and Kimberley, with not much prospect of regaining any of the others and the likelihood of losing Collie-Preston as the Labor mining vote declines. So that’s six extra suburban seats Labor has to find.
[Well im happy to chalk this week up as a Abbott win.]
I’m glad your in your happy place rum. Say hi to the unicorns while you’re there. 🙂
Rummel
I know it’s Friday, but that is taking frivolity too far.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/05/john-roskams-plan-for-enormous-government/
Lots of fun was had today at Macrobusiness on the lamentable IPA and their call for the LNP to “burn the boats” after landing in office in September…
Among the hue and cry, one typist declared:
[briefly
May 3, 2013 at 10:34 am
The libertarians are completely misnamed. They are not about liberty at all. They are arguing for measures that will revive and then perpetuate social and economic disadvantage – they are hustlers for imposition of an economic caste system.
For these frauds, poverty is a sign of system-health. Hardship, the misfortunes of illness and accident, unemployment, ingrained inequality and self-perpetuating ignorance are all to be welcomed because they reflect a moral order in which prosperity is the rightful domain of the virtuous.
While claiming to be architects of prosperity, these imposters are prepared to advocate reckless actions that could result in ruin for millions, as if this is necessary, desirable in itself, and in any case unavoidable. None of this bootlegged ideology has any validity. It is simply privilege doing what it does best – asserting its own insufferable, blind conceit.]
I really recommend this site to all bludgers. It has timely and relevant economic and political events and news with a rich local focus mixed with plenty of international reports.
[‘Cos rural W.A. is chock full of unreconstructed racists.]
As it always has been, yet in Phil Collier’s day they all happily voted Labor.
[imacca
Posted Friday, May 3, 2013 at 9:09 pm | PERMALINK
Well im happy to chalk this week up as a Abbott win.
I’m glad your in your happy place rum. Say hi to the unicorns while you’re there. ]
Baghdad Bob is the one who rides the unicorn over the rainbow every day. 🙂
Psephos
[
As it always has been, yet in Phil Collier’s day they all happily voted Labor.
]
What do you think changed ?
[Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Friday, May 3, 2013 at 9:10 pm | PERMALINK
Rummel
I know it’s Friday, but that is taking frivolity too far.]
And im sober!
[What do you think changed ?]
Labor, of course.
2680
The argument offered at the time, with which I do not agree, is that it should be made like the Senate, so it is partly the Hawke Governments fault for only increasing the Senate by 12 instead of 24, so the odd number of Senators per state at a half-Senate election was ended and partly Howards fault for not increasing it again by another 12 to restore the off number.
Well im happy to chalk this week up as a Abbott win.
Well, whatever floats your boat. Whatever floats your boat. We’ve all got our own chalk and blackboards.
Psephos
[
What do you think changed ?
Labor, of course.]
Labor’s dirty little secret is that they are the party of xenophobia and racism. They been that way from the start. Howie merely played to them.
[What do you think changed ?]
The labor party fell into the clutches of trendy urban progressives who view ordinary people and their attitudes with condescension at best and with disdain and contempt at worst.
Just watching Chinese TV as broadcast in Australia (Cantonese) discussing Gillard’s attempted superannuation tax……can take it the Chinese community less than happy.
[Steve777
Posted Friday, May 3, 2013 at 9:19 pm | PERMALINK
Well im happy to chalk this week up as a Abbott win.
Well, whatever floats your boat. Whatever floats your boat. We’ve all got our own chalk and blackboards.]
Its whatever STOPS the Boats and you can chalk another 500 or so boat people arriving in the last two days.
@Battle Turkeys/2694
Isnt’ that the view of Coalition Party?
Forget Rural, Urban it is, like their Rail project, like their version of the NBN and so forth.
[Labor’s dirty little secret is that they are the party of xenophobia and racism.
The labor party fell into the clutches of trendy urban progressives who view ordinary people and their attitudes with condescension at best and with disdain and contempt at worst.]
Thankyou, Dr Left and Dr Right, for your diametrically opposed diagnoses of Labor’s ailment. I think I’ll ignore you both, take an aspirin and go to bed.
Psephos, good idea :D.
@Rummel/2696
Coalition and Labor can talk about boats all they want, but they will keep on coming regardless.