Four new poll results have been added for the BludgerTrack aggregate this week, with Newspoll handing Labor a relatively weak result and ReachTEL, Essential Research and Morgan recording little change. The force of Newspoll has pulled the two-party preferred total 0.4% in the direction of the Coalition, which nets it a handy three seats on the national projection. The high yield is testament to the sensitivity of Queensland, where Labor’s projected gain of six seats from last week has been halved by a 1.8% shift on the two-party vote. Some soft polling for Labor in Tasmania has also brought them down a peg in that state, but this is cancelled out by a gain in New South Wales, where the model continues to have them on the cusp of 25 and 26. The projected total still leaves us in hung parliament territory, but with the Coalition able to govern with help from Bob Katter.
Newspoll especially has been keenly scrutinised for the effect of Friday’s asylum seeker policy announcement, but this would seem a fraught endeavour at this stage. The asylum seeker issue played badly for the government throughout last week up until Kevin Rudd’s move to seize the initiative on Friday evening, news of which would have taken a while to filter through. Nonetheless, it’s interesting to note the latest polls are solidly better for the Greens than a particularly weak batch last week, and that Labor’s primary vote is down correspondingly. This of course will mostly come out in the wash on preferences, but a refugee backlash could nonetheless be of considerable consequence in the Senate.
Usually the six Senators returned by a state at a normal half-Senate election split evenly between the parties of the left and right, but Labor’s polling under Julia Gillard was bad enough to allow for the possibility of four right, two left results in as many as three states (or perhaps four, depending on what view you take of Nick Xenophon). Now it appears that Senate battles will proceed along more familiar lines, with Labor comfortably winning two seats and fighting it out with the lead Greens candidate for a third. Labor’s starting position in such contests is its surplus vote above 28.6%, which can generally be expected to leave them in about the 7% to 10% range where the Greens vote is fluctuating at present. So while Labor’s western Sydney MPs might have cause to cheer the Prime Minister’s new policy direction, its number three Senate candidates (including incumbents Ursula Stephens in New South Wales, Mark Furner in Queensland and Lin Thorp in Tasmania) will feel less pleased.
BludgerTrack arrives with some new toys this week, starting with a new set of graphs on the sidebar which plot the polling over the four weeks since the restoration. These look a bit threadbare at present, but they will have a story to tell soon enough. The Gillard era model remains preserved for posterity at the bottom. In between is another new feature, which projects the likelihood of seat outcomes under the present BludgerTrack results. This is done by simulating 100,000 election results from the ALP seat win probabilities I have been using to determine the seat projection totals and observing the frequency of each result. The chances of majority government are currently put at 42.8%, which increases to 50.4% if you take the view that Labor will win Melbourne from Adam Bandt. Labor’s chances of holding on with the support of whoever ends up representing Denison and Melbourne are put at 28.7%.
Pardon me, I am watching footy, not quiz.
Hope Essendon win so they can be stripped of even more.
Confessions
It was a nice diversion.
Shows – none of them.
Rahul Dravid
Well Confessions, I stand corrected (assuming that Wikipedia entry is correct).
Yes, thanks, it was a good diversion.
[Shows – none of them.
Rahul Dravid]
BULLSHIT!
Dee:
It’s Friday night. 🙂
i have always though meetings of the fusion party must have made the Labor caucus look like a picnic. On the other hand Deakin was loosing his mind by 1913 and the detested Lyne was dead so that progressivism was rapidly disappearing
alias:
Wiki could well be wrong.
ALP razor gang?
Mmmmm…..
[
Sean Tisme
Posted Friday, July 26, 2013 at 7:48 pm | Permalink
AA,
Abbott will dump Direct Action after the election
]
Abbott stands for so little the insane can believe he stands for sanity.
No idea Showy but Mark Waugh was pretty wristy.
[Ms Gillard will quit politics at the next federal election after losing a Labor leadership spill against Kevin Rudd.
She told The Monthly magazine that some of the contempt she was shown as prime minister was about being the first woman in the job.
She harked back to the incident when Opposition Leader Tony Abbott appeared at an anti-carbon tax rally with a sign appearing behind him that said “Ditch the Witch”.
“If I was the first Indigenous prime minister, and Abbott had gone out and stood next to a sign that said, ‘Ditch the black bastard’, I reckon that would be the end of a political career,” she told reporter Chloe Hooper.
“I think some of the stuff about me, because it is about gender, gets glossed over more easily.”]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-26/gillard-opens-up-in-monthly-interview/4847054
Tony The Geek Rulz @geeksrulz 10m
Rumour that LNP will re-introduce national conscription after the election to fight this spate of national invisible emergencies. #auspol
Dee:
You can read the full Monthly article here.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/august/1375315200/chloe-hooper/road-julia-gillard
I believe it’s been de-paywalled for 24hrs.
There was an invisible emergency in our street this afternoon! Neatly dressed man in the street,but he was brown!
I think the answer to Showy’s question is Azharuddun. they say that his wrists became extra supple from pocketing envelopes full of 100 rupee notes supplied to him by Dawood Ibrahim.
Sir William Lyne (shouting at Deakin): Judas! Judas!
Billy Hughes: I hear a reference to Judas. I think this is unfair – unfair to Judas, who did not seek to gag the man whom he betrayed, and who had the decency to hang himself afterwards.
So why is Abbott saying he will implement ‘Direct Action’ if he has no intention of doing so. Is it a ruse to convince people who think we need to do something about climate change that the ‘liberals’ have it all in hand and they can vote ‘Liberal’ with a clear conscience? What a cynical liar Abbott is. Not only does he have no effective policy to meet the bipartisan target to reduce emissions of an invisible substance, he has no plan at all. I expect Abbott to repudiate the emission reduction target once in power. Actually, no, he will quietly drop it.
Will a $6 price on carbon have any significant impact on emissions?
Meher Baba then Hansie Cronje must be the supple champion of all time.
confessions@3158
Speaking of wikipedia, I just read this.
Note, it might need to be taken with a grain of salt. Possibly the author has their own axe to grind.
I hope the Australian batsmen have been paid bribes to bat as badly as they have…..then we at least have a chance if someone bribes them even more to play well.
Otherwise we are stooofed!
Confessions
Thanks! 😥
[Will a $6 price on carbon have any significant impact on emissions?]
Maybe not, but with the framework to impose a price and issue permits for emissions in place there is a good chance that it will as the price rises, and the number of permits issued reduces over time.
ML if they are being paid to play badly then they are well and truely earning their pay.
confessions
Having read the Monthly article, it made me again feel the emotional rollercoaster ride of the past three years. In a strange way, i feel so relieved that JG has been spared further grief.
[No idea Showy but Mark Waugh was pretty wristy.]
I agree with davidwh that Mark Waugh was pretty wristy.
Give davidwh 5 extra bonus points.
One of the best on side drivers I have ever seen and you need to be wristy to do that.
Dee:
I wonder whether we’ll ever again see another political leader with her strength of character, commitment and genuineness. After reading the bits about her father (particularly his quoted statement that he walks taller whenever he’s with her), I laughed aloud at this:
[“I’d tell him, ‘Don’t subscribe to the Australian,’ and in the end he didn’t.”]
😆
[ShowsOn
Posted Friday, July 26, 2013 at 8:59 pm | PERMALINK
No idea Showy but Mark Waugh was pretty wristy.
I agree with davidwh that Mark Waugh was pretty wristy.
Give davidwh 5 extra bonus points.]
Thats why The Fellowship awarded him Brown Wizard status!
victoria:
There is a degree of that, yes.
Gillard is one of the luckiest politicians in Australian history.
Now she (and her followers) can spend the rest of eternity pretending she was effective.
Really interesting dinner with friends in Sydney’s Western Suburbs.
The return to Labor by former heartland voters is remarkable. One fellow in particular who is a Ray Hadley listener said he was sick of Abbott being inarticulate and being negative, and “sausages” Hockey was a carping bag of wind. Rudd was at least trying to do something, and explaining the economic situation better to him.
He felt so riled about matters that when he saw Michelle Rowland at a stall in a shopping centre he went up to her and asked her what was wrong with Abbott and co. She told him they were being childish. He told her that she had his vote.
victoria
OH&son must be happy at half time.
Will the Hawks have the legs to run out the game?
unlike your own outstanding record of achievement in public life ML #3182. If you can find a taxidermist prepared to take on the work , then …
Mod Lib@3182
Probably the only thing I will ever agree with you on.
I believe the sentiment in Caucus is now predominantly one of relief that her leadership is over.
[Mod Lib
Posted Friday, July 26, 2013 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
Will a $6 price on carbon have any significant impact on emissions?]
Do you just pretend that you don’t understant how an emission trading scheme works or are really that miss-informed?
Smoke that pot
Eat those mushrooms
ML
‘Gillard is one of the luckiest politicians in Australian history.’
Yeah? What other prime minister has had a rotten apple in her own team, a minority government and a rotten apple as a LOTO.
With luck like that…
effectively exposing moddy’s tiny black heart.
go large moddy for your own sake .
Boerwar:
Far too much is made of the minority government.
She had independents whose very political existence completely depended on her government’s success. Even when she lied to them, they just kept their mouths shut and smiling…..what else could they do?
Mod, anyone can do that for any politician.
Boerwar@3188
And what other PM ran such a dismal election campaign that they ended up in a minority government situation?
PPfffft.
[frednk
Posted Friday, July 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm | PERMALINK
Mod Lib
Posted Friday, July 26, 2013 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
Will a $6 price on carbon have any significant impact on emissions?
Do you just pretend that you don’t understant how an emission trading scheme works or are really that miss-informed?]
I asked here why it had to be $23 and was ridiculed.
Now that it is going to be $6 I am ridiculed.
[It was genuinely thought that Rudd might eventually feel relief to have been moved aside, given he so clearly wasn’t coping with the pressures of the job. It’s possible some part of him was relieved. A larger part, however, felt an Old Testament–style thirst for vengeance. Gillard couldn’t have predicted this, nor the way some in the media would do his bidding.]
Yeah, real lucky.
FFS.
bemused considering what Rudd did your best cause of action is to keep your mouth shut!
Boerwar
They are happy campers. Hopefully the Hawks will finish strongly.
On the subject of JG, you give too much credit to the rotten apples of Abbott and Rudd. The Oz electorate shoulders a fair chunk of the rotteness that has been on display over the past three years.
Now she (and her followers) can spend the rest of eternity pretending she was effective.
Well, as Woody Allan said, eternity is a really long time, especially towards the end. History will be much kinder to Julia Gillard than her contemporaries. Hopefully Abbott has a brilliant future as a right-wing columnist or shock-jock and guest on ‘The Drum’. Although, come to think of it, that would require him to construct coherent sentences. Maybe a Rugby commentator.
Mod, we’ll ridicule you whatever you say.
Whether that tells you something about you or about us is up to you ;).
Sprocket
Very interesting feedback.