BludgerTrack 2.0: 50.3-49.7 to Coalition

Wherein Labor under Kevin Rudd bounces all the way back to hung parliamentary territory, at least for now.

I have joined Mark the Ballot, Pottinger and Kevin Bonham in “implementing a discontinuity”, which in BludgerTrack’s case means re-comencing the model from scratch. Previously the BludgerTrack 2013 series was a single model utilising the full gamut of polling information since the 2010 election to plot out the parties’ fortunes over time. However, to continue would have meant imputing utility to late Gillard polling in determining the present situation, where plainly there is none. The charts on the sidebar represent a continuation of the old model, but it’s only there for show – the results in the tables above them are derived entirely from the polls conducted since last Wednesday (ReachTEL, Galaxy, Newspoll, Essential and Morgan). The sidebar charts will start representing the new regime when there is sufficient data to get a new model rolling which uses the return of Kevin Rudd as its year zero.

I have also started again with my relative state result calculations, as the return of Rudd has changed the game here just as much as with respect to the national result. Here things are particularly dicey at present, as I have only the Morgan SMS poll and ReachTEL breakdowns to go on. This is particularly a problem for Tasmania, so I am continuing to use Gillard era data there to determine the state’s deviation from the national result. This means the calculation continues to be dominated by the 2000+ sample ReachTEL poll of a few weeks ago (remembering that this is used to determine deviation from the national result, so Labor’s two-party result in Tasmania is still improved on last week’s, although the situation on the seat projection hasn’t changed).

Another development is that the announcements by Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott that they will not contest the election has caused me to junk the allocation of five seats as “not projected”. New England and Lyne will henceforth be treated as Nationals seats, while Melbourne, Denison and Kennedy will be credited to the incumbents unless and until published polling emerges which says differently. On a not entirely related note, it’s also interesting to observe that BludgerTrack finds the air going out of the “others” balloon which had been inflating since the start of the year, with disaffected Labor supporters who had been parking their votes somewhere (anywhere) else evidently having returned to the fold.

It’s a shame I can’t be more confident about the state breakdowns, because the results are many different varieties of interesting. Firstly, the dramatic difference between Victoria on the one hand and New South Wales and Queensland on the other has vanished, with Labor recording near double-digit gains in the NRL states but up barely more than a point in Victoria. Secondly, I’ve got four different states where the two-party result is pretty much bang on 50-50. Finally, the projected final seat outcome, which would put Labor in a position to continue governing with the support of Andrew Wilkie and Adam Bandt from a minority of the two-party preferred vote, further demonstrates the point made by Possum that a substantial advantage accrues to the party which seizes the middle ground in Queensland. So long as Julia Gillard was prime minister, that clearly wasn’t going to be Labor.

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.

3,347 comments on “BludgerTrack 2.0: 50.3-49.7 to Coalition”

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  2. Henry:

    I saw a bit of JBishop on the news last night and couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. Crying crocodile tears over the woman they’ve spent the last 3 years attacking in a highly personal manner!

    I had thought the opposition would’ve prepared for a Labor leadership change. But it now seems clear that they really haven’t. You’d have thought the people behind Abbott propping him up would’ve prepared a couple of statements other than the stupid blood on the hands stuff.

  3. Regarding Labor preselections, it seems Feeney has wn the first round in Batman. Putting debates about the candidates aside, I note the number of votes in what I assume was the local branch vote.
    [Senator Feeney won the local rank-and-file ballot with 383 votes, while his main challenger, Mary-Anne Thomas, received 247 votes.]

    Wow, 630 active Labor members in Batman!! What a dynamic branch. The last time I was a member of a Labor party branch thre were no more than 20 members who regularly attended meetings, and less than 100 on the books. Even in the FEC area (I was a branch secretary at one stage) there would not have been 300 across the Federl seat, including names of people I had not seen active in years.

    Labor party membership must really have boomed in the years since then… 🙂

  5. [Live in a regional area. 9 times in a day the system closed done. Then takes 40-45 mins to get back to the sites. How businesses cope is beyond me. ]

    Hows that Labor roll out coming along, 320,000 Fibre connected premises by July 1st wasn’t it?

    Well actually the 2010 Labor NBN Plan said 1.26 MILLION connected by July 1st 2013.

    Labors NBN has never reached one single of it’s targets. EVER. But this is typical Labor, all spin and very little substance.

  7. Sean Tisme@44


    This is complete BS!!!

    I can’t stand another 3 years of this corrupt Labor rabble!

    You may have little choice about it.

    Scream and yell, roll in the dirt nobody here cares.

  9. Socrates

    Yes, that’s over 5% of the national membership right there in Batman. Very successful membership drive! I’m sure they all joined independently of each other at completely random times. 🙂

  11. confessions

    Oh the 2gb crowd.

    My mum said the same thing. For three years the coalition decried poor St Kevin. Now they are vilifying him. How unsurprisement.
    They also egged on Labor to switch back to Rudd. Now that it has actually occurred, they are screaming blue murder.

  16. Sean Tisme

    Posted Tuesday, July 2, 2013 at 8:57 am | Permalink

    Live in a regional area. 9 times in a day the system closed done. Then takes 40-45 mins to get back to the sites. How businesses cope is beyond me.

    Hows that Labor roll out coming along, 320,000 Fibre connected premises by July 1st wasn’t it?

    Well actually the 2010 Labor NBN Plan said 1.26 MILLION connected by July 1st 2013.

    Labors NBN has never reached one single of it’s targets. EVER. But this is typical Labor, all spin and very little substance.
    ——————————————————–

    But at the end of the day, despite delays that you claim, I will have optic fibre..not 19th century copper provided Abbott does not get elected…then it will be back TO SNAIL MAIL

  17. victoria@61


    confessions

    Oh the 2gb crowd.

    My mum said the same thing. For three years the coalition decried poor St Kevin. Now they are vilifying him. How unsurprisement.
    They also egged on Labor to switch back to Rudd. Now that it has actually occurred, they are screaming blue murder.

    They haven’t got their act together with something effective to counter Rudd – as yet.

    The tories and mates are foundering a bit at present as they ponder the unthinkable – a third term out of power for the born to rule mob.

    No doubt murdoch and co are furiously trying to come up with something but they had better be damn quick about it.

    abbott must be shattered. It all looks like slipping away – at present anyway.

    And truthy, (STM) up there in townsville has almost gone into shock 🙂

    Boats truthy Boats!

  18. [Can Direct Action really be called a policy when one of the key components is to seek industry input after the election.

    Vote for one thing and get a whole different thing after the election.]

    As I posted yesterday, anything worthwhile in Abbott’s “Direct Action” was being implemented (at least by the NSW gov) in the 1990s, to help meet Kyoto targets, and Oz already has many people & companies throughout Australia doing just that!

    Reafforestation (sic; correct Oz spelling) is a long established Oz practice – given awareness of deforestation & erosion – but mainly very-fast-growing pines for paper (& building; but paper a big driver). Not only is paper a dying industry; but those pines were an environmental nightmare, as well as a pest in home gardens of those living near plantations. They seeded like crazy & grew like Jack’s beanstalk (I lived about a mile from one for 4 years & I’m not exaggerating).

    Reafforestation with Oz species native to specific areas (many/most hardwood or slow-growing cabinet timbers) is not only hugely expensive in money, manpower & more importantly, water and ongoing care until trees no longer need care; it’s also a very slow “solution”, unlikely to rip enough CO2 from our atmosphere to meet 2025 targets.

    Now, I’m 101% in favour of reafforestation, esp with trees native to specific areas – a great many farmers & other investors are already doing just that. But many of us will be long dead before “The Green Army’s” planting … BTW, Isn’t that a Whitlam Era solution to unemployment, esp youth unemployment? … provides the CO2 clean-up power needed.

    It’s a lemon, and Oz business knows that!

  19. [With Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to fly to Jakarta on Thursday for long-scheduled leadership talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the government is considering measures including stripping work rights from those who have had their refugee applications rejected, funding a processing centre in ­Indonesia, and toughening the assessment criteria for asylum seekers.]

    http://www.afr.com/Page/Uuid/0cbd9c4a-e1e3-11e2-b016-27a25b5ef3b8

  20. JV

    Indeed, I think we share a similar view of those membership numbers. Pebblesandco, sorry for the sarcasm, you are right; Batman is obviously stacked to the rafters.

  22. [ Edward Snowden Issues Statement From Moscow

    In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

    I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many. ]

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-01/edward-snowden-issues-statement-moscow

  26. MP expenses have been released for July-Dec 12.

    Abbott spent $315,511.86 on office expenses vs JG’s $88,830.29 – over 3.5 times more

  27. One more link before I go from the Guardian, on the ongoing unemployment crisis in Europe. Five years after 2008, the numbers are still as awful as ever across all of southern Europe.
    [So would countless other young Europeans. According to data out on Monday more than 5.5 million under-25s are without work, and the number rises inexorably every month. It’s been called the “lost generation”, a legion of young, often highly qualified people, entering a so-called job market that offers very few any hope of a job – let alone the kind they have been educated for.]
    It is mainly the young who suffer. Those who have a job hang on to it. There are no new jobs for new arrivals on the job market, whether educated or not.
    [ In Greece, 59.2% of under-25s are out of work. In Spain, youth unemployment stands at 56.5%; in Italy, it hovers around 40%.]
    This has dire consequences in countries where social security benefits are linked to work. Half a generation of bright energetic young people re sitting around in cafes wasting their best years.

  29. [Sean Tisme

    This is complete BS!!!

    I can’t stand another 3 years of this corrupt Labor rabble!]

    Well, go away then! Ping off OS permanently!

    You did say you’d emigrate to NZ; so do it! No immigration restrictions; no need to apply to emigrate. Just GO!

    You can do it today. There are usually some seats left on flights at odd hours; eg the night flight!

    But I guess that threat’s in the same category as your Gutless LOTO’s Tony’s 3 year toddler tantrum with 3 years’ of promising to move a Vote of No Confidence in the PM and the current Government & Be in the Lodge by Christmas … 2010, 2011, 2012 ..

    Abbott never keeps his promises; nor, I expect, do you.

  30. As someone remarked earlier, QandA turned out to be more enjoyable than usual, especially when the audience laugh3d at Sophy and even T Jones tried to pull her up.

    But what was that statement that TA had been on QandA 17 times? Did I hear right? Even if it was 7, it was “mendacious”. How could Sophy hope to get away with a lie like that? … Oh yes, of course…

  31. [This is complete BS!!!

    I can’t stand another 3 years of this corrupt Labor rabble!]

    Hahaaa! LNP minds cracking already. Love it. Well youve got no one to blame but yourseles for picking such a porkchop as leader, and for all round policy laziness on the frontbench.

    Do you thibk they giveaway PMships to any old loser mate? Youve gotta plate up son. Not stand around like noddy saying NO.

    RUDDSTORM. One doesnt like to say one was right, so I wont, but feck it: Bemused, JV, Showson, take a bow.

  32. Excellent coverage for my candidate (and the ALP) this morning, looks like ‘The Border Mail’ is becoming a red rag ===

    1. Tony Windsor has another shot at Sophie Mirabella —

    http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1610378/windsor-sophie-mirabella-doesnt-get-country-people/?cs=11

    [“I’ve seen her talk about country issues in Parliament and I don’t think she gets it; it’s pretty easy to see it’s from a city perspective.’]

    I’ve often said she talks as if she’s representing South Yarra, rather than one of the poorest electorates in Australia.

    2. Simon Crean’s legacy on the Border —

    http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1610384/crean-the-borders-70-million-man/?cs=11

    3. Robyn’s support for NDIS has a personal basis —

    http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1610368/disabilitycare-close-robyn-walshs-heart/?cs=11

    [Her daughter, now 30, lived with cystic fibrosis up until three years ago, when she had a double lung transplant.]

    And, just in case you don’t think we work our candidates hard up here —

    [Her campaign yesterday took in Wodonga, Wangaratta, Benalla, Mansfield and Alexandra.]

    Have a squizz at a map to get an idea of what that means!

    She’s off to Melbourne today to have her official photos taken for corflutes and HTVs but will take Thursday and Friday off — to herd cattle.

  34. Thanks for two links to CT court case.

    Based on them the alleged misuse of union funds is between around $26,000 and $42,000 and there I was thinking the figures bandied around by the Liberals would be accurate. Big difference between the upper figure and the $100’s of thousands ranted about by media and Liberals.

    The cost to the taxpayer for this Liberal lead Union bashing is something the Liberals should be forced to repay.

  35. No beating around the bush with this headline on yahoo.com

    [New Poll Shows That Republicans Are Totally Screwed With Latino Voters
    They don’t just need better candidates. They need better policy.]

  36. Some woman in Narrogin, today, in The West’s letters- to-the-editor, about sums up the ignorance of many a Joe(sephine) Voter.

    Railing against the return of Rudd she stressed all Rudd’s support for PM is solely from his electorate.

    She then makes the jump – goodness knows how – to excoriate the Faceless Men in Labor for making him PM.

    Meanwhile it was John Howard who used to say the electorate have chosen the Liberal Party but it is the Liberal party which choosen the PM.

    More importantly, under this crass ignorance, is a confusion in the minds of many of the great Oz public.

    When Rudd was deposed a hot debate went on about how unfair it was that “our choice” for PM had been usurped by the Labor Party. No amount of common- sense response to these people made an ounce of difference.

    They voted him in, so they thought, and they wanted the say on whether he stayed or went.

    I put a lot of this down to the presidential style of politics we have borrowed from the US.

    Trouble is, it has not welded on so well to the concept of representative democracy we have inherited from Westminster – at least in the minds on said Joe Public voter.

    When handing out how-to-vote cards, dozens of times people will say, “I am voting for Kevin Rudd” or “I am not voting for John Howard this time” so this vote for the leader stuff is now part of the game.

  37. zoomster

    Surely anyone in your electorate who watched qanda last night, would be reconsidering their vote for Sophie!

  40. OzPol Tragic

    [You did say you’d emigrate to NZ; so do it! No immigration restrictions; no need to apply to emigrate. Just GO! ]
    Sadly ST will still not be safe from Julia Gillard in NZ . NZ PM John Key has invited Julia and Tim to stay with him at his holiday home 🙂

  42. OPT.
    Reaffforestation…. on my best ever planting day, on foot and by ‘poto putti’, I smashed 6,200 blue gums into the ground up Digby way…..
    sean kickme.
    ….. more than Tony will ever do in his sad fecken life time.
    Briefly.
    …. Timbercorp. Pffft ! &co….

  44. Sean Tisme:

    [I can’t stand another 3 years of this corrupt Labor rabble!]

    Come on! You’re just having a laugh aren’t you. Admit it.

    You’re not fooling anyone. You’re not here for the result. You just love the show.

    There’s a saying about wealth which applies also to polling. Easy come, easy go.

    Tony Abbott did nothing to earn his party’s high poll figures and equally did nothing to concede them. He was really a passive bystander, much like Howard was for his nearly 12 long lazy years in office, except that in Howard’s case, when he did act, he cast a baleful pall over nearly everything he touched.

    The ALP, for all of its political failings, did nothing that ought to have offended traditional Liberal voters, or their fellow travellers. On the contrary, the ALP could hardly have served them better in the context of the GFC and events within our region. PMJG could even say of her carbon pricing policy that she was honouring Howard’s legacy with it. And Menzies and Fraser, you surely know, let in very large numbers of ‘boat people’ with scarcely a security check. The country did OK.

    The government of Julia Gillard greatly aided those over the age of 65 with rises in pensions, even though this demographic remains staunchly pro-coalition. She has aided them by pressing forward on NDIS, which will aid those of us not yet 65 but who will probably have to look after a child with a disability.

    They have legislated a modest parental leave scheme, tidied up trailing commissions and financial accountability in super and retirement investment, overseen real wage rises, cut taxes, protected asset values, kept inflation low and employmnent strong and the deficit manageable. They propose greater school funding but have not touched wealthy private schools’ funding or wealthy peoples’ super.

    So what business do ‘aspirationals’ or other right of centre folk have for objecting to the ALP, still less preferring the LNP, given their insistent refusal to show that they could do any better and clear indications that they would do much worse? There is no better deal on the table for these folk.

    If one reads Gerard Henderson, it was apparently down to Julia Gillard being a woman, unmarried, and ‘an atheist’. This seems bizarre to me, but if people really are that frivolous, then the ALP seems to have effected a remedy in choosing someone with appropriate genitals, a marriage document and presumably the standing and willingness to sing in full voice Just a closer walk with thee …

    Now we leftists will have some trouble standing the next three years. We will have to abide their asylum seeker policies, their support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and for the NATO occupation of Afghanistan, cuts to single parent entitlement, to the university sector, their spending on major defence procurements like submarines and joint strike fighters. It also rankles that R**d will have cheated his way into the top job with the help of Murdoch, a fact diminished only slightly by the fact that Gillard got the top job at his expense as consequence of the blessing of Murdoch.

    But you Sean, are absolutely having a laugh. That’s fair enough, but it’s a firm rule of jokes that one should know when to find a new joke to tell.

  45. “Hows that Labor roll out coming along, 320,000 Fibre connected premises by July 1st wasn’t it?

    Well actually the 2010 Labor NBN Plan said 1.26 MILLION connected by July 1st 2013.

    Labors NBN has never reached one single of it’s targets. EVER. But this is typical Labor, all spin and very little substance.”

    So, hows Tonies idea of a two cans and a piece of string broad-band going, Seany ?

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