The new government’s first opinion poll is testament either to a striking weakness in its honeymoon effect, the fact that it’s only partly a post-election poll, or the observed tendency towards constancy in results from the pollster in question. That pollster is Essential Research, and its poll is its routine fortnightly average of federal voting intention conducted online from samples of about 1000 respondents each week. The latest result was thus half-conducted over the period of the election itself, such that one might dispute its provenance as a post-election poll (which you can pile on top of general doubts about the value of any polling conducted immediately after a change of government). For what it’s worth, the poll has the Coalition on 44% of the primary vote (45.7% at the election on current figures), Labor on 36% (33.5%) and the Greens on 9% (8.4%). The published 53-47 two-party preferred (the current election result being 53.4-46.6) is weaker for Labor than the primary vote shifts suggest it should be, which may be because they are still using preference allocations from the 2010 election.
Further questions, which unlike voting intention were derived from this week’s sample only, have 38% rating the election of micro-parties to the Senate as “good for democracy” against 25% for bad, although I’d like to see more specific questions in relation to this topic. Forty-four per cent believe the lack of a Coalition Senate majority will make for better government against 30% for worse. Respondents were asked about various aspects they might expect to get better or worse under the new government, including the surprising finding that cost of living and interest rates are expected to be worse. A finding on the state of the economy is an instructive insight into the influence of partisan considerations on such polling. Overall, 40% describe the state of the economy as good and 25% as poor, compared with 36% and 30% when the question was last asked in mid-July. Tellingly, the good rating among Coalition voters is up 14 points to 32% while poor is down ten points to 35%, while Labor voters are down nine points on good to 50% and up four points on poor to 18%.
As to proper election results, this site continues to follow close counts in dedicated posts as linked to on the sidebar. As far as I’m concerned, there are four seats which are still in serious doubt – two in the House, and two in the Senate. The 1550 votes in Indi are too few to reverse Sophie Mirabella’s 405-vote deficit against Cathy McGowan, while the 849-vote lead of Labor’s Julie Owens in Parramatta is enough to withstand anything the outstanding 3258 votes might conceivably throw at it. That leaves:
Fairfax. Continuing an ongoing trend, Clive Palmer’s lead shrank yesterday from 502 to 362. This resulted from a heavy flow of postals against him (758-465) being greater than an advantage on absents (722-569 in his favour on yesterday’s batch), both of which reflect the earlier trend of postal and absent counting. The number of outstanding absents and postals has diminished to around 1000 each, which leaves the ball in the court of about 2500 outstanding pre-polls, which have so far gone nearly 57-43 against Palmer. If all existing trends continue over the remainder of the count, Palmer will land a few dozen votes short. He will then perhaps take the matter to the Court of Disputed Returns, his current Federal Court injunction to have counting stopped presumably being doomed to failure. Palmer has been invoking an anomaly in the count, much remarked upon on this site, in which the Coolum Beach pre-poll voting centre result had a more-than-plausible number of votes for LNP candidate Ted O’Brien and a mismatch with the number of votes recorded for House and Senate. However, much as Palmer might wish to invoke a ballot box-stuffing operation at once brilliantly efficient in execution and bone-headedly stupid in conception, the AEC’s explanation that the Coolum Beach and Nambour PPVC results had been entered the wrong way around is likely to stand up in court. It is a duly troubling prospect that Palmer’s Senate representatives may emerge as important players in the looming round of electoral reform.
McEwen. After late counting initially flowed heavily against him, Labor member Rob Mitchell has rallied with a strong performance on absents and late-arriving postals. He now leads by 192 votes, which will widen if the tide continues to flow his way. However, it remains to be seen what as many as 5000 pre-polls hold in store. The first batch favoured Mitchell 497-458, but the remainder might come from less favourable areas.
Western Australian Senate. The most excellent Senate modelling of PB regular Truth Seeker illustrates the delicate balance of the count here, and the stars that need to remain aligned if Wayne Dropulich of the Australian Sports Party is indeed to find his way to the Senate off 0.2% of the vote. Key to the outcome is Dropulich remaining ahead of the Rise Up Australia party after distribution of preferences from Australian Voice, after which his snowball builds all the way to a quota. This might yet be undone by a gentle trend towards RUA on late counting, together with the unknown quantity of below-the-line votes. Should Dropulich fall short, not only will his own seat instead go to Zhenya Wong of the Palmer United Party, but the complexion of the race for the final seat between Scott Ludlam of the Greens and Labor’s Louise Pratt will change. This is because the comfortable win presently projected for Ludlam is achieved off Palmer preferences, which won’t be available to him if the votes are used to elect Wong. Truth Seeker’s projection is that Pratt will “almost certainly” defeat Ludlam on a scenario in which Wong is elected.
Tasmanian Senate. The issue here can be neatly observed on the ABC results calculator, the crucible of the outcome being the second last count (Count 24). Here the calculator, which treats all votes as below-the-line, has the Liberal Democrats leading Palmer United Party candidate Jacqui Lambie by 29,705 votes to 28,608. Since Palmer preferences favour the Liberals over the Liberal Democrats, their candidate’s exclusion then delivers victory to the third Liberal, Sally Chandler. However, if that gap of 1097 should close, the Liberal Democrats will be excluded instead, and most of the votes then distributed will flow to Lambie and secure election for another PUP Senator. The size of the gap might make that appear unlikely, but Tasmania has an unusually high rate of below-the-line voting, and one might surmise that it will favour the greatly more visible PUP over the Liberal Democrats. UPDATE: Looks like I wasn’t taking the Sex Party challenge with due seriousness – they win the last seat that might otherwise go to Liberal or the Palmer United Party if they stay ahead of Labor at Count 21, as they get Palmer preferences ahead of the Liberals. The current count has them doing this by the grand total of 14,275 to 14,274.
Mirabella concedes 🙂
ML
[Don’t take this the wrong way, but there appears to be an overrepresentation of childless or lesbian with child women in politics at the moment.]
What way should we take it? What would you have the parties do? In just what way is this a problem? How many “childless or lesbian with child women in politics” is “about right” in your view? What is the ethical basis for your “about right” benchmark?
This should be interesting.
1045
The Greens have not previously has the resources that Palmer brought to this campaign.
[Don’t take this the wrong way, but there appears to be an overrepresentation of childless or lesbian with child women in politics at the moment.]
So 1 lesbian with a child in politics is an over-representation? What a ridiculous statement.
it seems that Chris kenny’s son, Liam, is nothing at all like his father.
Unusually for me, I have nothing to add to his remarks on the matter of the photoshopped image appearing in The Hamster Wheel
http://junkee.com/in-defence-of-the-chasers-picture-of-my-dad-having-sex-with-dog/19967
I think what Mod Lib meant to say is that there is an underrepresentation of married women with children.
DisplayName
[I think what Mod Lib meant to say is that there is an underrepresentation of married women with children.]
If so, then ML went about it in a very eccentric and obtuse way.
Thinking about it, I’d say that there is an over-representation of old white men who plainly aren’t holding up their half of domestic heaven yet speaking much as if they do. The glorious leader not only fits this description, but in addition likes rating the females in his orbit according to their sex appeal, so I’d say that people of this tendency are also over-represented, or at any rate, have more representation than is healthy in a society where it’s often claimed that gender inclusivity is a goal.
Bludgers have been posting comments over at the victorian thread today
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2013/09/18/newspoll-51-49-to-labor-in-victoria-3/?comment_page=6/#comments
Tom
You Greens have got excuses for everything.
Excuses for losing control of the Senate, excuses for your vote dropping to a PUNY 8%, excuses for sane people not adopting LOON way of thinking – Sheezus 🙂
Centre:
[Excuses for losing control of the Senate]
We never had control of the Senate. Control means that we can propose laws and expect to carry them on our own votes or those of reliable allies. Our non-control was demonstrated when no defencible bill on asylum seekers was carried in the Senate.
[excuses for your vote dropping to a PUNY 8%]
There are reasons we dropped to about 8.5%. Protest voters stopped voting for us and went to actual loons.
[excuses for sane people not adopting LOON way of thinking – Sheezus]
As you are the chief loon here, this seems to be a whimsical complaint. You will need to sort this one out yourself, if you can, but by all means borrow one of our excuses if it helps salve your pain.
Centre:
[Excuses for losing control of the Senate]
We never had control of the Senate. Control means that we can propose laws and expect to carry them on our own votes or those of reliable allies. Our non-control was demonstrated when no defencible bill on asylum seekers was carried in the Senate.
[excuses for your vote dropping to a PUNY 8%]
There are reasons we dropped to about 8.5%. Protest voters stopped voting for us and went to actual loons.
[excuses for sane people not adopting LOON way of thinking – Sheezus]
As you are the chief loon here, this seems to be a whimsical complaint. You will need to sort this one out yourself, if you can, but by all means borrow one of our excuses if it helps salve your pain.
A toast to the electors of Indi! I just posted on the Vic thread how intersting it was that Mirrabella had put out a statement but there was no press conference.
I said a few days ago that Mirrabella withdrawing from Cabinet consideration would be as close to a concession of defeat that McGowan would get.
Abbott wastes no time in punishing his enemies:
[Dr Don Russell lost his job as head of the Department of Innovation, Industry Science and Research; Blair Comley was the head of the Resources, Energy and Tourism Department; and Andrew Metcalfe, a former Immigration Department chief, has been sacked as head of the Agriculture Department.
“Each of these secretaries has made a substantial contribution to public life in Australia and I wish them well for the future,” Mr Abbott said in the statement.
The Treasury Secretary, Dr Martin Parkinson, has also told new Treasurer Joe Hockey he will stand down in the middle of 2014.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-18/abbott-sacks-three-public-service-bosses-as-first-act/4965690
No hard feelings, I’m sure. A clear message that stating your view is entirely your right, as is looking for a new job. Abbott will be wanting frank and fearless advice on why his policies are brilliant.
Though, for the record, I have been asked to justify equally stupid policies by Labor staffers when I worked in government.
so brendon nelson gets cut off by the abc
and one junos bet we know where from
wtte that Brendon sound like he belongs to other party
it sad but if the worst happened to the economy ect,
it may be the only way we get out dem back
so job loses at centre link
one guided democracy [people get sick of holding on to the phone
the other one will be jop loses
for 1000 people who lose a job in a town two/three shops close
He doesn’t get that,
so its not about gov, it must be about revenge and power
so having your mates
tell u your a great with policy making
does not always prove to be the correct thing it s usually people just saying what they think their mate wants to hear
bring it on I say
after al the job loses and int, climb
I read that this int, if it s down will be the last
then up it was reputable eccon who posts on line all the time
he used the word up and up
Sorry to hijack the thread, but wanted to congratulate you on the crystal clear analysis through the whole campaign. Keep up to good work, means I don’t have to touch mainstream media.
When One war just isn’t enough
from a Washington source
______________________
In Washington one of the worst Neo-con warmongers Sen Graham is to move in the Senate for a resolution authorising an all, out US attack …not on Syria but on Iran!!
…and they say that such an attack must target all the nations’ infrstructure to destroy Iran as Iraq was destroyed
In this they have the full support of the zionist lobby ion Washington whose policies are …as Israeli want.. to make at attack on Iran and destroy it’s whole infrastructure
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/lindsey-graham-still-wants-to-go-to-war/
Jenkins @HarryJ_MP 52m
WA has lost its AAA credit rating. Ah yes, that wonderful Liberal economic management.
Retweeted by Helena Karter
Expand ============================================================
well I bet we are next,, I realy hope so
deb
can they so that with consent from the president
Melbourne Federal seat
_______Adam Bandt explains why the Greens superiour oganisation
won the seat of Melbourne and swung so many Lib prefs to the Greens
Over 46.000 houses doorknocked and over 500 volunteers enlisted for electoral duties
By contrast the ALP camplaign was very lack lustre,snd short of workers due to the collapse of much of the branch structure in the electorate,and the “puny” ALP campaign which has seen a huge fall in the former Labor vote
The Greens have a good chance in seversl inner city seats at the coming state elections
http://www.adambandt.com/ourcampaign?utm_source=melbourne&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=0917
Re Senator Graham’s resolution
___________________________
If you read the article you’ll see that they want to give the President power to make war on Irram without the Con ress having a say in the matter
tHat flows from the likely Congressional veto on any attack on Syria
Graham and Mad McCain want a full-on Gulf war on Iran despite US public opinion being deeply hostile to any more Middle eastern wars…and this is being urged on by the Israeli Lobby who want IOran destroy as a major force in the Gulf…a matter that will bring stern Russian response
[At least the Abbott cabinet can’t be accused of being ageist..
Must be one of the highest quantity of over 50′s in history]
No, they’re ageist. They’re anti-younger people.
Bludgers are on the victorian thread today
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2013/09/18/newspoll-51-49-to-labor-in-victoria-3/?comment_page=11/#comment-1795971
To prevent further confusion, I’m closing this thread. All discussion should go to the Victorian Newspoll thread. I’ll be making it clearer in future that state poll threads are not intended to be the “main” threads.
apolgise for the repeats above
===========================================
deb did u work in the campign I did
to a small degree
the adds on social media where amazing
one every hour some times
vicy was one of the people I was emailing them
I had a list of people I emailed to
placed them on face book pressed shares and
likes very modern adds
and some aimed at older people and the young
the NBN add had videos attached
I never saw one add from the libs
on social media
the adds on tv are very expensive
letter boxing was done
there was you may not be aware 100th voluntees on the ground
]of which proudly I was one
now we have some here
Roxanne spray, Mexican
did they stand 5 hours at a time at polling and prepolling
with the arthritis in my feet I spent whole day in bed
after one stand of 5 hours, on cold concrete
just wondering