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.
Check out Taliban Tony’s effort on women in Cabinet in a comparative table:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151896102826789&set=a.398667261788.195403.307341981788&type=1&theater
He’s right: Afghanistan’s gone TOO SOFT on women’s participation since Khazai!
The McDonald/Boyce/Jensen outbursts certainly bring up something I have been wondering about.
Howard, for all his awfulness, was a substantial politician who was in charge of his party because he had shaped it in his own likeness over a period of more than a decade. With a few exceptions (to the left of his party) he had few troubles keeping the outlying members in check.
Tony Abbott is a creation of that party of Howard’s. Insiders here with more knowledge may have a different perspective, but from my outsiders perspective I don’t get the sense that Abbott has anything like the level of control over his party that Howard did. Opposition brought with it its own sense of purpose but obviously discipline in government is a whole other game. How he keeps control of the discontents will be an interesting spectacle, and it does not appear to be a particularly auspicious start from his perspective.
What are they going to do about it, knife a first term PM? 😛
“@latikambourke: Wow. @DennisJensenMP just unloaded on PM-elect Tony Abbott’s frontbench + lack of specific Science Ministry. Full interview on @abcnews soon”
[131
guytaur
Denis Jensen on 24 now slamming Abbott on Science]
FOR the first time since the creation of a science portfolio in 1931, Australia does not have a science minister.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tony-abbott-has-not-included-a-science-minister-in-new-cabinet/story-fn5fsgyc-1226720375674#ixzz2f6ZHkkpz
This is a step into arcadian nostalgia. It is almost unbelievable. Abbott is essentially saying that learning does not matter.
[One of my favorite Chinese proverbs is “Sit on the banks of the river long enough and the bodies of all your enemies float by.”]
Yet another great insight into that country’s brutal history.
“Abbott is essentially saying that learning does not matter.”
Or he is saying that Science matters precisely so much as it can be a servant to Industry.
DisplayName
[What are they going to do about it, knife a first term PM? ]
I think Malcolm Turnbull would like to do that. I can’t believe he stood for parliament again just to be a minister.
fed labor did not crash electorally like nsw.
the latest poll holds up … it could close soon. an interesting situation … no honeymoon period, and a govt that is unpopular from day one (sound familiar)
i always sensed this would happen. personally attribute the salvage to rudd although many here of course deny this, puff even thinks labor would be in office today under jg.
spirit if not same side as BE
this is what tea party would look like. took australia to bring it on – even america ducked that bullet
Carey
[ One of my favorite Chinese proverbs is “Sit on the banks of the river long enough and the bodies of all your enemies float by.”
Yet another great insight into that country’s brutal history.]
Not true. It’s a Sun Tzu (and title of excellent album by The Drones). Sun Tzu is saying that often you can wait for you enemy to fight amongst themselves and burn themselves out and win without having to do much.
Abbott is watching the bodies of his enemies float by for much the same reason.
Given the Disunity in the Coalition it is pertinent to ask.
Will any LNP Senators vote with Greens and Labor to vote down carbon price repeal legislation? Especially woman Senators.
Am I misreading the data or is the ASX/All Ords still lower since the election?
Especially Malcom Turnbull :P.
And I see resident apologist for the Liberals on Crikey has spun the lack of women in the new cabinet as Abbott actually doing as he promised – that is, “Keep his front bench as it was since 2010”.
He also claims, essentially, that Abbott is correct is saying, tacitly, there are few females with talent on his side of politics.
That is an interesting take.
I wonder what this serial Labor bagger will do/say when some serious pre-election promises are trashed?
@165
With reference to Bernard Keane which whom I overlooked to name.
“@latikambourke: Lib Dennis Jensen ‘something that to me is strange, we’ve got a minister for sport for God’s sake but we don’t have a minister for science.’”
“@watermelon_man: The performance of Abbott and co in last week is a performance indicator of Australian journalism prior to 7 September.”
If it’s true that there are few women with talent in the Liberals, and with all those former Howard members, then what we have is a whole team of people in charge who over the past two decades have made sure there would be few women for a future Liberal PM to choose from.
In excusing Abbott, what are they saying about his team as a whole?
guytaur
I am waiting for someone to pop out of a cake somewhere and yell “Australia you have been punked”!
geoffrey…
I agree with PTMD …Julia would have trounced Abbott & his sexist gang …if Rudd & his cardinals had not spent her entire PMship undermining her and treacherously leaking to the media.
Denialism is not confined to climate change or the Holocaust… it also resides in the minds of otherwise rational beings within the ALP. But it does you no credit whatsoever to ignore the overwhelming body of evidence that is freely available for you, and others, to peruse at your/their leisure…
Fact: Rudd & his treacherous cronies deliberately drove down the Labor PV …then used their devilish handiwork to justify Ruddstoration…
That is how history will record the events of the past three years, but of course you and others may continue to believe whatever evidence-free fantasy you like…
lefty e@132
I agree lefty, zoomster has done well in a thankless task of repeatedly taking on the Tories in a safe seat.
But there have been idiots on here who would brand her a failure because she didn’t win! Thinking of you in particular muttley.
It is important to keep up the pressure on the Tories in all seats at every election and keep chipping away at their vote.
Well done zoomster but a pity someone else gets the reward from all your efforts.
Bronwyn sounded such a nice lady when interviewed by Fran this morning. Just the impartial Speaker our Parliament has been crying out for.
Tricot
Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 10:45 am | Permalink
@165
With reference to Bernard Keane which whom I overlooked to name.
———————————————–
I think you misrepresent Bernard and have ‘cherry-picked’ comments in order to suit your argument.
Keene – There can be no complaints about the lack of women in Tony Abbott’s cabinet: it’s exactly what he promised voters. The Liberals and Nationals have long had a woman problem.
victoria
Where is Ashton Kutcher when you need him?
You are so right. I think a lot of Australians who voted Liberal are going to be feeling that way
If anything, Labor should insist that Abbott is merely a symptom of the boys club that is the modern Liberal party.
It may be easy to make an argument about the merit of the current sitting members but are we supposed to believe that the Liberals could bring so little talent out of half the population?
haha I so can not wait for Parliment to sit. PB is going froth when labor gets ignored.
I didn’t know who zoomster was till the last few days. A big well done from me as well.
Keene
And on gender, the only difference in cabinet is that Sophie Mirabella, whom the entire Left in Australia (as well as plenty of Liberals) are death-riding in Indi, isn’t there. That means the representation of women in cabinet drops from two out of 20 to one out of 19. In the outer ministry, four out of 12 shadow ministers were women, and four out of 11 ministers are, although Bronwyn Bishop has been expunged and given the Speakership, amid the usual hilarious incantations that all incoming governments make about wanting to improve the standard of debate. The only difference is among Abbott’s parliamentary secretaries: three out of 15 opposition parliamentary secretaries were women; one out of 12 are in government.
So Abbott has delivered exactly what he promised voters: very few women. Having promised a “no surprises” government, there should be no surprise when he does just that.
guytaur
Alas. Too late. The coalition have a handy majority in the HOR, and Labor are still in the process of getting their act together.
Abbott is looking more like a looney every day. I really do feel I am living in a sitcom
Geoff, what are you talking about, we’re always frothing. We’re the frothiest people around. Get with it.
https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/?ui=2&ik=67ab4dd0f8&view=att&th=1412946d5fdec1e3&attid=0.1&disp=emb&realattid=dd0682e13a3dd320_0.1.1&zw&atsh=1
Nearly 300 votes more counted in Indi today. Sophie has caught up 10 votes.
DN
Its all those Lattes. 😉
[Matt Goodwin
There are more old boys from elite Sydney private school Riverview than women in Australia’s federal cabinet. #auspol]
“Thinking of you in particular muttley”
My heart is warmed because of your kind thoughts.
Zoomster’s efforts, unlike your own, bore fruit.
Oh good
Dennis Jensen is on the repeat cycle on 24
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/09/areas-in-need-of-resolution-by-the-new-government/
[Fairfax’s Tim Colebatch has written another thoughtful article today arguing that the new Coalition Government faces three issues that need resolution: housing, infrastructure and the future of the car industry]
Less than a fortnight into the counter-reformation and I already have that horrible sinking feeling.
[Geoff, what are you talking about, we’re always frothing. We’re the frothiest people around. Get with it.]
Oh I would say worked up but that is business as ussual around here. But I think the directed hatred will come out in time.
Another back flip by Colon.
The families of 457 visa holders in Western Australia won’t have to pay fees to send their children to a Government school until 2015.
This morning Premier Colin Barnett confirmed that the measures requiring 457 visa holders to contribute to education costs – as outlined in the 2013-14 State Budget – would be applied from 2015 rather than 2014.
Mr Barnett said for 2015 an annual tuition fee of $4000 would apply to a family’s first child enrolled in the State system and $2000 each for second and subsequent children from the same family.
Indi. Down to the last 1000. About evenly split between prepolls and absents, which on the trend counted so far, largely cancel each other. The final margin won’t change much. Mirabella might cut it back by 20 or 30. It will end up as a narrow win to Mcagowan by around 350 votes I would guess, but big enough to survive any last minute hiccups in a recount. Barring some major error emerging!
[I have a feeling Taliban Tony just gave the ALP a big free kick on the ministry.
This shit just won’t wash in 2013. I wonder how long it will take the LNP to work that out?]
Nobody gives a shit about Labors artificial Quotas
You are right it doesn’t wash in 2013… people should be selected on merit only.
Rob Mitchell now up 339 votes in the seat of McEwen
“Pretty rude and condescending to everyone she talks to” was one opinion of Sophie from Wangaratta train station. (“Bush Telegraph” on RN is broadcasting from there now.)
markjs@171
*SIGH*
Here we go again, a historical revisionist again polishing the turd of the Gillard prime ministership and slagging off the PM she backstabbed and eventually had to yield to so that the ALP wasn’t slaughtered.
Adrian posted a good link last night. Read it and learn.
http://thestringer.com.au/miners-were-not-responsible-for-rudds-downfall/#.UjerfMZkPTo
McGowan up 397 votes
And 3500 votes to go in McEwen Almost all prepolls and absents, which are both running in Rob Mitchell’s favor. He should end up with quite a comfortable lead by the end. Probably in the 600-700 range. Again, subject to any last minute hiccups!
Spin Tisme
See Dennis Jensen on merit
Outsider
Hope Mitchell is able to hold onto McEwen. 🙂
[195…..bemused]
The only good thing about the election result is it offers Labor a chance to leave the internecine warring in the past, where it most certainly belongs.