The Poll Bludger’s federal election guide is now live and accessible from the link on the sidebar. Featured are profiles of all 150 House of Representatives electorates, in one shape or another. Comprehensive profiles are featured for Labor seats up to around 12% in margin and Coalition seats up to around 3%. Much of the content will be familiar to those of you who have been following Seat of the Week over the past year, although ongoing political tumult has required a considerable amount of revision. Things remain to be fleshed out for some of the safe Labor seats and a lot of the non-marginal Coalition ones, but at the very least each page comes equipped with candidate lists and graphics showing census results and voting history.
A review of BludgerTrack is in order while I’m here, as we now have a full week of campaign polling after yesterday’s slightly delayed publication of Essential Reserch. It’s clear that the evenly matched polling which followed the return of Kevin Rudd, and which was starting to look alarmingly sticky from a Coalition perspective, has unpeeled over the past fortnight. Close observation suggests this has not entirely been a phenomenon of the election campaign, the Coalition having already pulled ahead over the weekend of an election date announcement which came on the Sunday, after much of the polling had already been conducted. Aggregating the polling over the period has the Coalition already a shade over 51% on two-party preferred, to which they added perhaps a little under 1% over the first week of the campaign. The Greens seem to have made a neglible dividend out of the government’s harder line, their vote being stuck in the 8% to 9% range on BludgerTrack since the beginning of June.
Looking at the progress of state breakdowns over that time, the outstanding change is a 4% swing away from Labor in all-important Queensland, consistent with the notion of a “sugar hit” that got added impetus from a home-state feel-good factor, and is now fading across the board. After showing as many as six gains for Labor in Queensland in the weeks after Rudd’s return, Labor’s yield on the BludgerTrack projection is now at zero, and briefly fell into the negative. So it’s not hard to imagine that Labor strategy meetings last week might have been spent contemplating ways to hold back the Queensland tide, and easy to understand why the name of Peter Beattie might have come up. The most recent data points suggest this may indeed have improved Labor’s position by as much as 3%, but it will be a bit longer before this shows up on BludgerTrack, if indeed it doesn’t prove illusory.
Elsewhere, Labor support looks to have come off to the tune of 1%-2% in New South Wales and South Australia and perhaps slightly less in Victoria. The interesting exception is Western Australia, where there has essentially been no change on a result which has Labor well in the hunt to poach two Liberal seats. The main political story out of the west over this period has been hostile reaction to a post-election state budget highlighted the a bungled cut to an excessively popular solar panel subsidy scheme. This has made the Barnett government the target of public attacks from federal MPs who have been open in their concern about federal electoral impacts. It may perhaps be worth noting that Western Australia is the only state without a daily News Limited tabloid.
A Newspoll result on best party to handle asylum seekers has been the most interesting item of attitudinal polling to emerge over the past week, since a point of comparison is available from a few weeks ago rather than the pre-history of the Gillard era. Whereas the Coalition fell on this measure from from 47% to 33% after the government announced its Papua New Guinea solution, the latest poll has it back up to 42%. Labor has nonetheless maintained its gain from the previous poll, having progressed from 20% to 26% to 27%, with the slack coming from “another party” and “don’t know”. Even so, the re-establishment of a solid double-digit lead to the Coalition is interesting, and a challenge to the notion that the recent poll move away from Labor has entirely been down to a “fading sugar hit”.
UPDATE (Morgan phone poll): Morgan has a small-sample phone poll of 569 respondents conducted on Monday and Tuesday night which headlines results on personal ratings, but if you burrow into the detail there’s a wildly off-trend result on voting intention with the Coalition leading 57-43 on two-party preferred from primary votes of 52% for the Coalition, 31% for Labor and 9% for the Greens. Reflecting what was obviously a bad sample for Labor, the poll has Kevin Rudd’s lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister narrowing to 46-43 from 52-36 at the last such poll a month ago. Rudd is down five on approval to 40% and up nine on disapproval to 49%, while Abbott is up four to 42% and down six to 48%.
Sean
This is how you do it
“@annabelcrabb: I do quite sincerely apologise if I escalated things just there by referring to a Double D. It’s my regular abbreviation. #whataboob”
BK
Definitely a better standard of offerings from the papers this morning. Very cheering 😀
@spicertracey: Dear @TonyAbbottMHR I would like to apply for a job with the LIberal Party. Here is my CV. http://t.co/n6zMah1NlX #sexappeal
before I go out
was wondering
where and in what context did abbott explain
his outrageous ‘Dad moment”
one has to wonder if he understands the things he says
do not sound good.
?
My Say
It was in a response to a jorno question at this morning’s presser about 9:00 am
Sean Tisme
Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 9:46 am | Permalink
The big question is where are the Liberals costings?
Nobody cares because we have seen Labors big $30 Billion Dollar Blackhole and we know the Coalition are much better economic managers.
————————————————–
just too gutless and weak
jorno-journo
Nobody cares! I care!
Further on my earlier posts on the massive conflict of interst lying at the appointment of Hiockey’s wife as a trustee of the Q Super fund, there is a suspicious tie here to Abbott’s plans to become “the infrastructure PM”.
How will he get the money to pay for the projects? Infrastrucutre Australia already has a list of desirable but unfunded projects that exceeds $60 billion. Even with tolls, as the spectacular recent railure of the TransAppex projects in Brisbane ash proven, they will not all pay for themseleves. Investors in the TransAppex projects have received less than 20 cents in the dollar back so far.
Abbott himself has already promised to deliver close to $20 billion of road projects during this campaign (WestConnex 8.5, Melb East West 8+, Perth Gateway 2, Brisbane Gateway etc 2+, Adelaide South Rd 500m stage 1, total closer to 5). This is on top of the corporate tax cut.
It is all very well to approach super funds to finance infrastructure, as long as the super fund gets a fair return. That is good for the nation and the retirees. But that requires independent super fund directors acting as a policeman to protect the worker’s interests. There must be separation between the fund managers and the promoters of what they might be investing in.
The Liberal hypocracy on this is breathtaking compared to their own complaints about conflicts of interst for Rudd’s wife Therese Rein. They were concerned she should not stay running her own private company, with her own money, while Rudd is PM. Yet Abbott and Hockey think it is OK to have the wife of a future Treasurer in charge of worker’s super while her husband makes decisions about where the money might go, and what rules there are for taxing it???
This is doubly ironic coming from the Hockey family, since Hockey himself has spoken in the past about superannuation manages and conflicts of interest:
http://newmatilda.com/2012/08/24/super-conflict-interest
[The Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Lindsay holds a Bachelor of Business and Master of Business Administration, volunteers at local disability groups, and belongs to one of the oldest farming families in the Nepean.
But according to her boss, her greatest asset is that she’s “young, feisty” and has “a bit of sex appeal“.
…
Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey argues it’s “not offensive”. Well, how would he know? As a male politician he’s judged on accountability, not bonkability.
…
Combine “sex appeal” with “housewives doing the ironing”, a girl’s virginity as a “gift”, and abortion at “the mother’s convenience”, and you have a toxic cocktail.
The Opposition Leader once told the ABC that what he said in the heat of the moment couldn’t always be believed. But the opposite is true: Our off-the-cuff comments reveal our true selves.]
http://thehoopla.com.au/hey-tony-1950s-called/
guytaur
Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 9:51 am | Permalink
jorno-journo
————————————————-
you picked the mis-spell. dowt two meny jerno’s wud have notised
Sean Tisme
Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 9:46 am | Permalink
The big question is where are the Liberals costings?
Nobody cares because we have seen Labors big $30 Billion Dollar Blackhole and we know the Coalition are much better economic managers.
————————————————–
No they are not.
can’t do the figures right now the kids are at school, wait until after they get home
us woman will have to let ANTHONY ABBOTT KNOW
he has NO appeal at all
. wonder if he thinks he does,
interesting thought.
certainly not my type when I was young
the skin crawl again
============================================================
away to do some errands and caught the sore throats
the down side of child minding love them to bits
we went to Play school concert
and John / Andrew was the star,, re the sullivans
the children had a great time
The Daily ToiletPaper has now flicked the switch to racism, though well hidden in the sport section
https://twitter.com/JackMendel4/status/367350159744569347/photo/1
the comments have been deleted from the online version
Hockey has defended the sex appeal comments.
What are they thinking?
Why not just apologies and point out the candidates other qualities??
PMKR and DPM Albo in separate pressers next hour
Good One
“@AdamBandt: Melbourne now has a clear choice: do what Tony Abbott wants, or vote Greens.”
Lizzie *110
nice one, that’ll have Sean scratching his head for a while.
“@GMegalogenis: Abbott: ‘As the kids suggested to me, I had a dad moment.’ Hm, might be more boy than dad. No dad I know ever spoke about women that way.”
Well Press Gallery not buying Abbott’s excuse
There are 3.7 million workers who all have one good reason not to vote for Abbott – his plan to remove the superannuation co-contribution.
Cuts to company tax are more important than the superannuation future of 3.7 million low paid workers – mainly women
“@GeorgeBludger: You know what has sex appeal? Costed policies. #ausvotes #auspol”
Liberals want to do away with penalty rates.
WA Premier agrees and supports the removal of penalty rates.
He gave his Media Manager an $84,000 pay rise because she may have to work weekends.
Yes that’s right, her penalty rate for MAYBE working a weekend is more than the annual wage of 3.7 million low paid workers many of whom rely on penalty rates just to put food on the table
The Nationals are a minor party.
Less people vote National than vote Green
Will Abbott do a deal with them?
@geeksrulz: Robb on Black Hole: “The $70 billion is an indicative figure of the challenge that we’ve got.”
(ABC24, 18 August 2011) #ausvotes #auspol
Won’t anyone think about our poor banks?
[The Commonwealth Bank’s annual profit has climbed to a new record of $7.67 billion.
Australia’s biggest bank says its earnings for the 2012-13 financial year increased by 8 per cent.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-14/cba-profit-result/4885516
This “Dad moment” sexist blunder by Abbott will be hugely damaging. It’s the kind of issue that punters notice even if they’re not the least bit interested in politics. It is beyond dumb; cuts to the core of who Abbott really is – and confirms the worst fears many Australians, especially women, hold about this clown.
“@anthonyackroyd: Michael Clarke calls Aussie Ashes failure a “Dad Moment” but maintains team has #sexappeal. #dadmoment #auspol #ausvotes @702sydney”
Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2012
Australia is the number one country
AussieAchmed,
How much did the Super Co-Contribution pay when Howard was last in power?
How much does it pay now under Labor after they ripped the guts out of it?
ALIAS – You’re right. It’s much worse than the suppository gaffe (which is just about stupidity). This reinforces all the old stereotypes about Abbott. If he’d come out with this guff on a campaign trail, what does he privately think?
Mithrandir
Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 10:15 am | Permalink
Won’t anyone think about our poor banks?
The Commonwealth Bank’s annual profit has climbed to a new record of $7.67 billion.
Australia’s biggest bank says its earnings for the 2012-13 financial year increased by 8 per cent.
—————————————————-
Poor b*ggers. Any wonder they need to pass on the 0.5% cost for savings accounts.
SO Tone was just being exuberant – and possibly tumescent?
I missed Abbott’s “dad moment”, what did the idiot say this time?
[mikehilliard
Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 9:39 am | Permalink
Abbott’s rhetoric about not doing any deals with the Greens is all designed so that if he wins the election he can use them as an excuse not to rescind the carbon levy. He will never go to a DD election because IF he is elected it will be by such a close margin that he would not risk it.]
That’s the way I see it too Mike. As things stand, whoever wins, the ETS is safe and will be just one of Abbott’s numerous broken promises.
[“@GeorgeBludger: You know what has sex appeal? Costed policies. #ausvotes #auspol”]
THAT IS GOLD! Rudd should use that today
alias and K17
What is more what does it say about the party that they defend rather than make it go away by apologising for any inadvertent offence that may have been caused.
“@ABCNews24: LIVE: Labor candidate Peter Beattie is speaking in the seat of Forde with @JasonClareMP http://t.co/3YXdj7UeVK #ausvotes #auspol”
[Abbott’s rhetoric about not doing any deals with the Greens is all designed so that if he wins the election he can use them as an excuse not to rescind the carbon levy. He will never go to a DD election because IF he is elected it will be by such a close margin that he would not risk it.]
Very astute observation
Sean Tisme
Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 10:21 am | Permalink
AussieAchmed,
How much did the Super Co-Contribution pay when Howard was last in power?
How much does it pay now under Labor after they ripped the guts out of it?
——————————————————–
Under this Labor Govt – a lot more than Abbott will pay
12 years of Howard and the Super Guarantee rate never rose and Abbott will not increase it either…
If not for Keatings Labor Govt workers would not even have a superannuation fund.
Yes, Abbott voted against it…
I remain puzzled by the lack of any analysis coming from the Government of the GDP impact of the spending reductions that must inevitably be made if Abbott/Hockey are to deliver on their promises.
Perhaps the Government has been distracted by speculation about the specific areas where cuts might be made or taxes increased.
The greater concern, to my mind, is the broader macro-economic impact over the forward estimates of the spending cuts (whatever they may be) that must be made by Abbott/Hockey. What scares me most about these clowns is that the likely contraction of GDP will tip Australia into a recession with a consequent further collapse of revenues. In other words, that the Budget crisis will then be very very real.
You just can’t suck $60bn or $80bn of economic activity out of the economy over a 4 year period (and that’s the kind of numbers we are looking at) without significant knock on consequences.
I hope one of our resident economics experts can enlighten me!
Yes folks, that 0.5% on savings is not a charge on the individuals, it is a charge that the Govt applies to the Banks.
The Banks with their multi-billion dollar profits could afford to absorb the cost. The banks are choosing to pass the cost onto customers.
While the Labor Govt went a long way to saving their “bacon” during the GFC by promising taxpayer money to guarantee the banks they repay the people, the taxpayers whose money was on the line keeping them safe, by passing on the cost of this continued guarantee to taxpayers/customers.
Its in their DNA
With the figures showing that revenue to the Government has been falling it is irresponsible for Abbott and his cronies to reduce that revenue.
Be it tax cuts for companies, removal of the revenue from the carbon price or MRRT….it is plain and simple irresponsible
“@BobBrownFndn: Just about to go on @ABCNews24 to respond to Libs decision to preference ALP ahead of the Greens. Bob”
my lady miranda
you are such a tease. brrr.
MikeHilliard
Abbott said a Liberal candidate had “sex appeal”. Now he has tried to explain away this sexist comment by saying it was “a Dad moment” – and of course in doing so he has only compounded the problem.
Yes Guytaur. The party doesn’t get it either; and if they do, they are terrified of drawing attention to what a dud their candidate is.
lady miranda
all this talk about being BONED. please no more. too early in the day. maybe later PM!
The answer to preferencing Green’s is surely that “it’s up to the people to decide who they vote for not Mr Abbott”.
alias, thanks.
It seems to me lefties have a double standard. They consider calling someone as having sex appeal as being sexist.
But if they comment that a woman is ugly and they don’t see the sex appeal… well hell.. thats alright, thats okay, thats the leftie double standards way!
————-
seanie – ah, you can’t be tones. much better educated. lefties under the bed