Little change in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week (see the sidebar for details), though what’s there is enough to send the Greens to a new low and “others” to a new high for the current term. The only new additions are the latest numbers from the two weekly pollsters:
• Essential Research has moved in Labor’s favour, their primary vote up one to 36% with the Coalition down one to 47% and the Greens steady on 8%. On two-party preferred, the Coalition lead is down from 55-45 to 54-46. The monthly personal ratings record very little change, with Julia Gillard down one on approval to 37% and steady on disapproval at 54%, while Tony Abbott is steady on 40% and down one to 49%. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 41-39 to 40-39. Pleasingly, further questions concern campaign finance and find 29% support for public funding of political parties against 47% who think they should be funded only by donations; 65% support for donation caps against only 17% for unlimited donations; and only 5% opposed to public disclosure of donations (Institute of Public Affairs, take note). Thirty-six per cent supported the $1000 disclosure threshold originally proposed by the government, 26% favoured the $5000 agreed to under the doomed compromise with the Liberals, and only 17% supported the present $12,000 threshold. Other questions concerned tolerance (69% rating racism a large or moderate problem in Australian society) and Pauline Hanson (58% think it unlikely she would make a positive contribution to parliament against 30% for likely).
• The weekly Morgan multi-mode poll has Labor down half a point to 31%, the Coalition up half to 46% and the Greens steady on 9.5%. Both previous election and respondent-allocated preference measures of two-party preferred are at 56-44, compared with 55.5-44.5 and 55-45 last week.
Further polling:
• The Sunday Fairfax papers carried results from a ReachTEL automated phone of 3500 respondents in six Labor seats, which found Jason Clare on 48% of two-party preferred in Blaxland, Peter Garrett on 49% in Kingsford Smith, Bill Shorten and Wayne Swan on 53% in Maribyrnong and Lilley, and Jenny Macklin on 57% in Jagajaga. Also covered was Craig Emerson’s seat of Rankin, but here we were told only that he was trailing. The poll also inquired as to how people would vote if Kevin Rudd was returned to the leadership, which had Labor improving 4.5% in Kingsford Smith, 8.4% in Blaxland, 3.6% in Lilley, 11.8% in Rankin, 3.1% in Jagajaga and 8.6% in Maribyrnong.
• Roy Morgan also published a phone poll of 546 respondents on Friday which found 21%, 16% and 16% of respondents would respectively “consider” voting for Julian Assange’s Wikileaks Party, Katter’s Australian Party and the Palmer United Party. The Australian Financial Review also reported that Labor pollsters UMR Research had found 26% of respondents “would be willing” to support Assange’s party. Personally, I don’t find questions on voting intention of much value unless respondents are required to choose from a limited range of options.
Preselection news:
• Martin Ferguson’s announcement that he will bow out at the coming election has unleashed a preselection struggle for possibly the safest Labor seat in the country, the inner Melbourne seat of Batman. The vacancy was immediately perceived by Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten as a chance to accommodate Senator David Feeney, a Right powerbroker and key Gillard ally who has been stranded with what looks to be the unwinnable third position on the Victorian Senate ticket. However, Feeney is meeting fierce opposition from the local Left and those who believe the seat should go to a woman after Tim Watts was chosen to succeed Nicola Roxon in Gellibrand. Penny Wong and Jenny Macklin are in the latter camp, while Julia Gillard’s intervention has been criticised by Brian Howe, the Keating-era Deputy Prime Minister who held the seat from 1977 to 1996. The early talk was that Feeney might be opposed by ACTU president Ged Kearney, but she soon scotched the idea saying she wished to remain in her current position. Support is instead coalescing behind local Left faction member Mary-Anne Thomas, executive manager of Plan International. Two early starters have withdrawn to give her a clear run: Tim Laurence, the mayor of Darebin, and Hutch Hussein, refugee advocate and former national convenor of Emily’s List. Brian Howe has come out in support for Thomas, while Martin Ferguson is backing Feeney despite his long association with the Left. Stephen Mayne and Andrew Crook of Crikey have an extremely detailed review of the situation in the local branches.
• Ed Gannon of the Weekly Times reports the Victorian Liberal Party has defied Tony Abbott and angered the Nationals by resolving to field a candidate in Mallee, which will be vacated by the retirement of Nationals member John Forrest. The Nationals candidate, former Victorian Farmers Federation president Andrew Broad, said any opponent fielded against him would be “another Liberal Party muppet run out of Melbourne”, which Liberal state director Damien Mantach said was a “shrill outburst … unbecoming of someone who is aspiring to be a local leader and elected to high office”.
• Katter’s Australian Party and the Palmer United Party have unveiled high-profile Senate candidates in country singer James Blundell and former Western Bulldogs AFL player Doug Hawkins, who will respectively run for the KAP in Queensland and the PUP in Victoria.
Reith arguing that performance pay should not apply to him.
Bob you summed it up perfectly.
Love the smell of hubris in the evening…or is the lamb burning?
Rudd cuts through and they do want him, put bluntly the Labor movement is killing itself.
FitzGibbon!! They’ve gotta be joking!
Next they’ll have a medium trying to channel Arthur Calwell.
rummel
good for you.
Personally, I think people should stick to fishing. The hunting groups have been affected by the gun lobby in the USA. The NRA hate Australian gun laws both on principle and because the stats prove they work. They hate it that our laws are held up as a real-time social experiment that shows gun controls make the community safer.
If you are a hunter, the gun lobby does not represent you, they represent the USA arms manufacturers.
[”We’ve got a hard fight ahead but it’s a fight for women we must wage and we must win on the 14th of September,”]
So why did Feeny get the safe seat again? Im confused at all of Gillards mixed messages.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/women-banished-under-abbott-pm-20130611-2o1hc.html#ixzz2VtatFsJJ
Evening all.
Noting the hysteria from the Liberals about the PM’s comments launching her Women for Gillard platform.
They are touchy about the LOTO’s problems with women, are’t they?
BK:
What has Fitzgibbon done now?
[Rudd cuts through and they do want him, put bluntly the Labor movement is killing itself.]
Serious question. If that’s true, why would you care?
Gloves off! Kicks to the (political) nuts in!
confessions
Toolman’s special guest tonight on 7:30
guytaur
Is this Hockey’s fwitter account?
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoeHockey
[confessions
Toolman’s special guest tonight on 7:30]
TWO_MORE_WEEKS
(then he’s a feather duster).
[Gillard says Coalition will banish women from politics]
Her message is stupid and so obvious that it will insult women that she thinks she can do a little whistling and they will all come running.
My wife was most upset to hear Mr Abbott would be banishing women!Breaking up families.
I assured her that the poor old PM had just got a bit mixed up with her addiction to Game of Thrones…just a bit of heraldic hyperbowl. Winter is coming.
guytaur
[Is this the fake account? I ask given the content]
The language matches the tone of Surly Joe in an interview last week so it may well be the real HoJo.
BK:
730 has lost whatever shred of credibility it had when Red Kerry departed and may as well call itself Today Tonight Later Edition.
Why would anyone be interested in anything Fitzgibbon had to say?
TP,
She certainly seems to have you on heat again.
confessions
Toolman’s 7.5 = Today Tonight Lite.
victoria and poroti
Its the real one. It also explains for any doubters the LNP behaviour in and out of Parliament.
[Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:47 pm | PERMALINK
rummel
good for you.
Personally, I think people should stick to fishing. The hunting groups have been affected by the gun lobby in the USA. The NRA hate Australian gun laws both on principle and because the stats prove they work. They hate it that our laws are held up as a real-time social experiment that shows gun controls make the community safer.]
I watched last night and changed on the spot. I sent a letter to them a few months ago complaining about fishing being under represented by them and there policy to try and bring back semi auto guns was the last straw.
victoria:
The blue tick on the twitter account is to tell people it’s the real Joe Hockey.
Confessions, this women stuff is not what the public are interested in, Julia has been using this on and off for a year and it has not worked. The polls show this.
Soon if something is not done Labor will be in government maybe next year in only one area Canberra and the Libs will wreck everything Labor stands for, Labor must simply change leaders to someone who cuts through because Julia is not.
Paine – how did you end up at the launch? I always thought you were a bloke.
zimmerman,
You were wearing a blue tie at the time, weren’t you!
[Why would anyone be interested in anything Fitzgibbon had to say?]
It’s a good question.
* He’s so gook looking?
* He’s so intelligent?
It is a little known phenomenon but the numbers in the Bludger track above are actually quite invisible to the hallucinators here, known collectively as “Let’s stick with Julia because it’s going to work out OK, we know it is, it really is, because you know what? She’ll come through in the end when everyone starts listening, they really will. Yes.”
Essential smells rogue and is done by a biased union funded polling outfit.
TP is right, it is desperate stuff, fear tactics do not work.
I thought this was brilliant from the PM, as it is not only true, but makes a mockery of Abbott’s having thrown out every tie from his wardrobe which isn’t blue:
[“I invite you to imagine it. A prime minister – a man in a blue tie – who goes on holidays to be replaced by a man in a blue tie. A treasurer, who delivers a budget wearing a blue tie, to be supported by a finance minister – another man in a blue tie.”]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/women-banished-under-abbott-pm-20130611-2o1hc.html#ixzz2VtdKVc8g
rummel,
You voted for them, you own them.
[Bushfire Bill
Posted Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:56 pm | PERMALINK
Why would anyone be interested in anything Fitzgibbon had to say?
It’s a good question.
* He’s so gook looking?
* He’s so intelligent?]
He is the funniest man on morning TV.
[Greensborough Growler
Posted Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:58 pm | PERMALINK
rummel,
You voted for them, you own them.]
Yes i did GG and i wont do so again.
[Sean Tisme
Posted Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 6:57 pm | PERMALINK
Essential smells rogue and is done by a biased union funded polling outfit.]
No it not. Fits in with every other poll taken while there is a chance of rudd coming back. Problem for Labor is that the rising polls saves Gillard every time… very ironic 🙂
Of course. The PM. is totally correct…Mussolini did the same..ie.; banished women back to the kitchen sink when HE became dictator…You don’t really think Tabbott is any different do you…?
Check-out Mussolini’s political time-line against the possibility of Tabbott.
[this women stuff is not what the public are interested in, Julia has been using this on and off for a year and it has not worked. The polls show this.]
Her misogyny speech went viral and the polls narrowed to 50-50 or thereabouts afterwards.
As a woman I am very interested in issues which affect women, esp the prospect of a man who has a demonstrable history of anti women statements and anti women behaviour and anti women policy efforts becoming PM.
And I suspect there are a great number of women in Australia who feel the same way I do.
Sean
[Essential smells rogue and is done by a biased union funded polling outfit.]
You’re stealing the bludgers’ lines, but in reverse.
rummel,
You said recently that you don’t care about self iterest, you’re gonna vote Gillard down.
Your NSW experience should give you pause. But, of course, you are to stupid to connect the dots.
Do you want a marshmellow with that Abbott bollocking that’s coming your way?
If Labor get thrashed at the election it would now be entirely the fault of Gillard and Shorten. They can make no other excuses now.
Gillard should stand down because she is leading the part into destruction. If she doesn’t she is doing it deliberately so.
Shorten should tap her on the shoulder because of the same reasons. If he does not he will be seen to deliberately destroying many MPs.
This is the point in time that the election can be saved, and obviously so. A failure to act can only be seen as the willful destruction of the party….and buy factional warlords and what will be obviously recognized as their puppet.
Gillard and her factional warlord backers started the whole mess by backstabbing a first term PM for pure selfish internal power play politics, regardless of democracy and the public.
They will be seen guilty from the start and at the end.
If anybody should be expelled from the party it should be Gillard for becoming part of a selfish power grab regardless of democracy, and those factional wankers who precipitated this.
Those poor little babies who a crying that naughty Rudd should be punished…for being a victim, for being eternally slagged and demonised by the factional magots…. are hypocrites on a biblical scale.
They fein intest in the Labor, that Abbott should be kept out…but make it plainly obvious that it is nothing about those things…only jealousy of Rudd because he remained so popular. The are all in favour of an Abbott govt and Senate…by their very stupid support of a guaranteed losing position.
I will be around to tell that they supported Abbott 100%
[this women stuff is not what the public are interested in]
Says a lot, this sentence. “Public” meaning the men, presumably.
If all Julia Gillard has left is the gender card, then she’s just about finished I think. She is completely out of touch with the broader population if she thinks this gender stuff will get her anywhere. The same thing goes for the class warfare.
She is one of the less adept politicians I have ever seen operating at the highest level. I almost feel embarrassed for her.
bushfire bill
let me be thick. two more weeks to …?
is that some tinge of optimism?
i myself are 100% optimist – a colleague today called me delusional but then even delusions are better than ….
I see there is no politcal news. Papers reporting trivia, poll bludger debating same.
Yes whilst i agree with statements Julia makes on this issue you must look at the things overall and i believe in the wider swinging electorate people are not interested in this issue one bit. They are interested in the hip pocket that is the issue not misogyny or abortion.
Abbot may anti women but will it change people’ minds no.
The general population ( Not me) is fairly misogynist and racist in my view and trying to change this overnight will not work as we do live in a utopian world.
Thomas. Paine.@40
I will be around to tell that they supported Abbott 100%
I’m sure you will.
lizzie
Only some of the men. A lot of men despite what some blue tie wearers would have you believe are truly for equality. They have no worries with defending a woman’s right to choose.
Whistle?..Thos’ Paine…”do a little whistling and they will all come running.”…you know all about the dog-whistle..don’t you Thos’?…You DO know how to whistle, don’t you Thos’?….”You just put your lips together and ..blow!”…Of course you know!
[So why did Feeny get the safe seat again? Im confused at all of Gillards mixed messages.]
That he of all people gets that just goes to prove how systemically sick Labor is.
SBS doing story on Cricket Australia. No blue ties in office