Three weeks after I hit reset on BludgerTrack (a fact now represented on the sidebar charts, in which the Gillard and Rudd epochs as separate series), the results remain sensitive to weekly variation as the overall pool of data is still very shallow (eleven polls in all). This week we have had Nielsen’s monthly result, the poll which appeared last week from newcomers AMR Research, and the usual weekly Essential and Morgan. The state relativities have been updated with last week’s result of federal voting intention in Queensland from ReachTEL, along with breakdowns from Nielsen and Morgan (the latter of which pleasingly looks to have become a regular feature).
What this all adds up to is a move this week from minor to major parties, one consequence of which is that the Greens have recorded what by some distance is their worst result since BludgerTrack opened for business in November. This may well portend a further decline born of the leadership change and the tightening focus on the major party contest, but I would want more evidence before I signed on to that with confidence. It’s certainly clear that the return of Rudd has been bad news for the combined non-major party vote, but the scale of it is a bit up in the air at the moment. So far as this week’s result is concerned, the shift has enabled Labor to both handily break through the 40% primary vote barrier while going backwards slightly on two-party preferred, on which the Coalition recovers the narrowest of leads.
Tellingly, despite two-party preferred being a mirror image of the 2010 election result, the seat projection still points to a continuation of Labor in office, albeit that it would rely on Andrew Wilkie (whom ReachTEL suggested to be on track for victory in its Denison poll last month) and Adam Bandt (who will continue to be designated as the member for Melbourne until polling evidence emerges to suggest he will lose, which will by no means surprise me if happens) to shore it up in parliament. This points to the crucial importance of Queensland, where there are no fewer than nine LNP seats on margins of less than 5%. So long as the swing in that state remains where BludgerTrack has it at present, Labor could well be in business.
However, as Kevin Bonham notes, there is an obstacle facing Labor on any pathway to victory that runs through Queensland: eight of the nine marginals will be subject to the effects of “sophomore surge”, in which members facing re-election for the first time enjoy a small fillip by virtue of acquiring the personal vote which is usually due to an incumbent. In seven of the nine cases this comes down to the LNP members having won their seats from Labor last time, although Leichhardt and Bonner are a little more complicated in that the members had held them at earlier times. The other two LNP marginals are the Townsville seat of Herbert, which stayed in the LNP fold in 2010 upon the retirement of the sitting member, and Fisher, which as Kevin Bonham notes is a “fake marginal” and an unlikely Labor gain.
The BludgerTrack model has sophomore surge effects covered, with adjustments of between 0.4% and 1.9% applied according to whether the seat is metropolitan or regional (the latter being more susceptible to candidate effects generally) or has what Bonham calls the “double sophomore” effect, in which the challenging party also loses the personal vote of its defeated member from the previous election. Other factors used in the model to project a seat’s result are the existing margin, the statewide swing as determined by the poll trend, and a weighting to account for an electorate’s tendency to swing historically. These results are then used to calculate a probability of the seat being won by Labor, and the sum of the various seats’ probability scores determines the statewide seat total shown on the sidebar. Sophomore surge effects are currently reducing Labor’s Queensland total by about 1.3 seats, which means they will be down one seat for about two-thirds of the time, and down two seats for the remainder.
Finally, sharp-eyed observers may note that the projection has Labor down a seat in New South Wales, by the narrowest of margins, despite a small swing in their favour on the two-party preferred. The loss of sitting members in three loseable seats (Dobell, Kingsford Smith and Barton) is playing a part here, but it also represents the fact that the model rates Labor as having been slightly lucky to have won a twenty-sixth seat there at the last election.
‘Grow up, adrian.’
Learn to use apostrophes Player One. It’s not hard and I could recommend several books if you are so inclined.
daretoread@2635 – I’d be prepared to suggest that Iran has been persecuting various religions & political parties, whether it be by the Shah or the Ayatollah Khomeini for many years. What makes you think this is not so?
“@ABCNews24: Opposition Leader @TonyAbbottMHR is speaking at a car dealership in Brisbane. Watch live: http://t.co/TtTI3ZYXOH #auspol #ausvotes”
Abbott has latched onto FBT.
Something new to say NO to.
@guytaur/2653
Joe Hockey eyes are wondering.
Must be thinking about something.
@kfm52: I demand the right to rort the tax system using my car, overseas conferences, restaurant meals and entertaing “clients” at the footyl. #fbt
Retweeted by Stephen Long
What is Abbott on about? Another version of the mining tax.
Joe Hockey is starting to sweat
It’s a wonder any politicians bother to do anything these days, such is the sense of enlightenment and whining and whinging that inevitably accompanies any remotely worthwhile change.
This has become so much worse since the media became intent on beating up any supposed controversy mercilessly.
[Must be thinking about something.]
He has a brief period of sentience after lunch I believe.
Hockey calls it a new tax. Idiot same tax its compliance
DTT:
[For example if it has been common practice to “entertain” visitors with food, wine and other services]
I find this whole area at best in the ethically grey area, in terms of business, but it is hard to legislate. OTOH, whereas most people in business will happily admit to having taken a client to lunch, most clients wouldn’t want their sexual entertainment made a matter of public record.
Can’t you imagine a person filling out their business ledger with the particulars of service? Nice …
If you can’t talk about something in public, then you probably can’t be claiming it as a business expense since it is, at best a purely private matter.
IMO, If the HSU was, incompetently, recklessly or wittingly using member funds to pay for brothel visits by anyone, it was not only the sex workers but the members as well who were getting screwed.
Looks like they at a Ford Dealership.
Some people might need to remember it way Coalition Party that was split on getting rid of $500 million dollar subsidy.
Anyone of the leftish/progressive persuasion hankering for Malcolm really does need a Bex and a good lie down. Sure he is made to look positively charming in comparison to Abbott, but that’s no recommendation. He is decidedly dry in his economics and would have no hesitation dismantling and privatising as much of our public sphere as he could get away with. The billions flowing to his mates in the finance industry through consultancies and fees would merely be a nice bonus that he would surely find a way to tap into via family trusts or other vehicles at arms length.
He doesn’t have any particularly strong social views so he can come out and say he supports things like gay marriage, but there is no way on earth that he would ever actually lift a finger to make it happen in government or even allow a conscience vote whilst he was dependent on the good will of the reactionaries that tore him down once before for the leadership.
In fact he pretty much wouldn’t have any strong view on anything that much differed from the Liberal’s current position. The barrister in Turnbull is always close to the surface. He is perfectly happy arguing any old rubbish using any trick he can think of and feeling pretty chuffed with himself for a great performance if he can successfully suck people in. He’d be perfectly happy running whatever brief the Liberal powerbrokers gave him so long as he could perform on the big stage. So carbon pricing, gay marriage and any other issue those falling for reTurnbull are imagining will suddenly be less stupid from the Libs under Turnbull will be sorely disappointed.
But don’t worry, Malcolm will probably put in such a convincing performance explaining why Bernardi and Minchin were right all along you’ll probably find yourself still liking him. If not then he’ll just smear you like he does anyone who points out inconvenient facts about fraudband because the urbane charm is just a veneer over a nasty streak that he doesn’t mind letting out on those he can’t baffle into submission.
If anything he’d be much worse than Abbott. Probably driving an even more right wing economic policy and gutting our public institutions whilst pandering to the worst of the tea-baggers that infest his base to keep em sweet, but with enough brains and chutzpah to make the swinging middle believe his shit was chocolate ice cream. Howard as Howard wished he could be but with a personality.
Will it wipe out Wyalla?
“@AshGhebranious: LOL A car dealer is NOT the motor industry nor can they speak on BEHALF of the motor industry. Another Abbott stunt #auspol #abcnews24”
Labor can’t eliminate a Labor Tax without introducing a new Labor Tax
Sean
FBT is not a new tax. Keating introduced it before Howard was PM
[ Learn to use apostrophes Player One. It’s not hard and I could recommend several books if you are so inclined. ]
If you’d rather argue the use of apostrophes on a psephological blog, I presume it is because you can’t actually argue the issues.
So by all means – knock yourself out.
One things for sure – the ordinary working HSU members didn’t ‘authorise’ Thomson’s use of the cards for the purposes found by the FWC.
In my experience a Ford dealership can’t even speak much about Ford cars, so heaven knows how they can speak about the whole industry.
[On April 5, 2006 a call was made from Mr Thomson’s hotel room at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne to Young Blondes escort agency and later to Confidential Models escort agency.
On June 7, 2006 a call was made from his room at Pacific International Suites in Melbourne to an escort agency called Bad Girls.]
Perfectly legitimate business expenses, your honour.
20 minute rant.
Breaking: 25,000 cattle “excited” at promise of free trip to Indonesia.
Hockey was embarrassed of abbotts ramblings so he interrupted him
ratsak,
You do realize that your regurgitation of the Guardian article is just in essence saying that Turnbull is nothing more than your “classic” liberal?
Quite so – this is precisely why he would be so electable.
Labor better start reminding the media and everyone else of the Liberal plan to cut subsidies to the car industry
apostrophe devil got me too – ‘thing’s for sure’, not ‘things for sure’
What an utterly hopeless presser that was.
Evan Parsons
Posted Friday, July 19, 2013 at 2:25 pm | PERMALINK
Labor better start reminding the media and everyone else of the Liberal plan to cut subsidies to the car industry
————-
well start to put pressure on the pro coalition media hacks
Abbott’s getting caught in Rudd’s word game quicksand … similar to the way Gillard got caught in Abbott’s word game quicksand
He’s going to sound even crazier in the coming weeks as the emotional vibe starts to slip out of his fingers
‘Abbott’s getting caught in Rudd’s word game quicksand … similar to the way Gillard got caught in Abbott’s word game quicksand’
Have you got some examples spur212?
I hope this is so.
I think FBT is another reason to have parliament sit.
Once passes Abbott has to repeal while defending against a new word slogan (Remember Abbott has proved slogans do not have to be true.) “Rorts for the rich”
spur212@2681
But spur, weren’t all Gillards problems caused by Rudd white-anting??? 😮
“@SenatorWong: Conservative PM David Cameron gave MPs conscience vote & SSM is now law in UK. Marriage equality happens when all MPs have a conscience vote”
Interesting timing from Senator Wong
Same sex marriage – support for it – is something Rudd should use as an election campaign issue.
Adrian
Hear the tone.
Oppose, negative, no. Rudd’s already framed that as being “negative politics”
On boats, if his tone gets aggressive and confrontational, that plays into Rudd’s “conflict” frame
‘But spur, weren’t all Gillards (sic) problems caused by Rudd white-anting???’
The apostrophe nazi strikes again, but you should know by now that yes it was all Rudd’s fault.
Tony Abbott is what he always has been: the standard bearer for News Ltd and right wing talkback radio(especially 2GB)
When 2GB starts bagging Labor over some issue, you can guarantee that it will become official Abbott policy 24 hours later.
[But don’t worry, Malcolm will probably put in such a convincing performance explaining why Bernardi and Minchin were right all along you’ll probably find yourself still liking him.]
This is what people want when they say they want “leadership” though, isn’t it?
The Coalition are trying to get Rudd caught in the “fake change” frame. That won’t work unless Rudd does or says something really stupid to validate it
Same deal with the “celebrity” frame which I hope they continue with. “Don’t you get it, he’s ‘popular!'” LOL
[Joe Hockey @JoeHockey 53s We oppose and will not introduce Kevin Rudds flawed FBTtax grab. 10,000 car orders frozen and jobs gone and more going.#krudd can’t govern!]
someone is losing the plot on the FBT rorts crackdown.
Next we weill have Alan Jones leading a motley crew of novated lease holders an used car salesmen in a march on Parliament.
What do we want?
More Rorts
When do we want it?
Now!
A Melbourne Car loan company has sacked half it’s workforce.
Rudd should apologise to these sacked workers
Interesting to see what happens in the Liberal Party and associated media should Turnbull get the leadership. A lot of Liberals like Rudd more than they do Malcolm.
[Rudd should apologise to these sacked workers]
If people build businesses based on rorting the tax system, they can’t expect much sympathy when their rorting is stopped.
[ This is what people want when they say they want “leadership” though, isn’t it? ]
What people generally seem to mean by “leadership” is anything that allows them to feel good about themselves without every actually having to think for themselves.
[I got slammed yesterday for suggesting the FBT change will bite in SA, and I bloody live there.]
Who slammed you? I certainly didn’t. I just offered a counterpoint.
@Sean/2693
If you built a business based on Goverment taxes, then your that’s your fault.
[ Interesting to see what happens in the Liberal Party and associated media should Turnbull get the leadership. A lot of Liberals like Rudd more than they do Malcolm. ]
And some Laborites like Turnbull more than they do Rudd.
Sean
Cannot be due to FBT changes. Has to be something else. Not retrospective and has transition phase. It affects no one who has been doing what the rules say they should have been doing all along.