BludgerTrack: 52.7-47.3 to Coalition

The latest BludgerTrack poll aggregate reflects the overall weakness of the Coalition’s polling honeymoon, without offering Labor any joy on the seat projection.

The latest weekly BludgerTrack poll aggregate features the latest results from Newspoll and Essential Research, with a stronger performance for Labor in the former driving a shift in the Coalition’s two-party preferred lead from 53.6-46.4 as recorded last week to 52.7-47.3. Both polls were strong for the Greens, who are in double figures for the first time in quite a while, although you would want to see more evidence for that before concluding the improvement to be meaningful. The solid shift on two-party preferred has yielded Labor only one gain on the seat projection, that being from South Australia. This foreshadows a certain stickiness that will be evident in the BludgerTrack model with respect to the Coalition’s seat share, as the model accounts for a “sophomore surge” bonus in the seats the Coalition won from Labor. Full details as always on the sidebar.

In other news, a by-election looms in Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith, which you can read all about in the post directly below.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,562 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.7-47.3 to Coalition”

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  2. BK
    People with Rudd’s personality issues will take those issues with them wherever they go. Let’s hope no other hapless organisation has to bear the brunt.

  3. The curate’s egg. Good in parts.
    Not a bad assessment from Denis Atkins.

    [His ambition was overweening from the beginning in 1998. He cut down Labor’s foreign spokesman at the time, Laurie Brereton, in the first few years and then stalked very leader he had.

    His prime ministership was full of promise and then disappointment. He lost the plot in early 2010 and then lost the leadership but managed to rebuild himself as the ultimate political victim – something he traded on until his colleagues and successor Gillard couldn’t take it anymore.

    Rudd’s legacy is good and bad. He delivered a career topping apology to the aboriginal people and he played a central role in keeping the country out of recession as the rest of the world was battered by a financial crisis.

    In the end he couldn’t match his promise with his performance and he overreached in almost every way.

    He spent too much, he dithered on everything from asylum seekers to climate change and health and he became paranoid.]

    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/party-games-kevin-rudd-leaves-a-mixed-legacy-as-he-exits-parliament/story-fnihslxi-1226759336940

  7. confessions

    What happens when Labor buys the narrative working with the Greens loses votes. Tactic games played above the common good.

    Of course Greens equally to blame in games.

  9. I see that Half Trillion Dollar Debt Man Hockey is threatening a shutdown if the Opposition does not OK his $500 billion debt.

    Here is an appropriate response: An announcement that:

    (a) Hockey is playing Russian Roulette with business oonfidence which has just had one of its biggest montly collapses on record.

    (b) That the Opposition will immediately seek to lodge a Primate Member’s Bill increasing the debt limit to $400 billion so that business can have confidence that Labor will assist the Liberals with their ever-growing debt problem.

    (c) Call on business to beg the Liberals not to the grow the debt to $500 billion.

  10. confessions

    An addendum. I just want to make clear that other than not talking to Labor I do not know why the Greens are playing games.

  13. lizzie:

    Mumble’s view on Rudd’s stalking:

    [He became foreign affairs spokesman after the 2001 election and energetically set about getting himself known. In the 2003 Kim Beazley – Mark Latham contest Rudd was firmly in the Beazley camp. When Latham imploded in early 2005 Rudd was urged to put his hand up but he didn’t have anything like the numbers.

    While a shameless media tart, and known as a leaker (as many in his profession are), he refrained from publicly destabilising leader Beazley; the same could not be said for members of the embittered Latham rump such as Julia Gillard and Simon Crean.

    In my opinion Beazley would have won the 2007 election if he had remained leader, by a similar margin Rudd did (but without the preceding huge opinion poll leads), simply because it was time. But the Lathamites were never going to let him get there, and if Rudd hadn’t been in parliament the leadership would have probably gone to someone else.]

  14. guytaur, lizzie:

    Surely Labor and the Greens have to work together in the Senate while they still command the balance of power. I’m not sure what is happening with the carbon ‘tax’ repeal shenanigans, but from what has been reported it doesn’t look good.

  15. confessions

    Yes I am hoping sanity returns fast. In fact Labor and the Greens need the practise. When the Senate circus comes to town cooperation for progressives will be more important than ever.

  18. Rudd’s balance sheet:

    Plus

    (1) Beat Howard but when Howard was gone.
    (2) By prompt action saved Australia from the GFC.
    (3) Apologized to Indigenous people without provision for the substantive implications: just compensation.

    Minus

    (1) First held up and then destroyed any realistic chance that Australia would be at the lead with respect to Anti AGW action. In particular, by his campaigns of destabilization of Labor leaders and Labor governments, handed the Australian Government to a crowd of deniers.

    (2) Destroyed a generation of valuable Labor people and the Labor brand, but destroyed virtually no useless Labor people.

    (3) Must take part-responsibility for whatever wanton destruction that the Abbott Governement is, and will continue to deal out.

    (4) Played personal political interests against the Australian National Interest in Indonesia, helping to turn Indonesian relations into a party political cockpit.

    (5) Helped alienate hundreds of thousands of Australia’s youth and commited people from the political system.

    (6) Helped foster that strain in the Labor culture that it is/was all about me.

  22. [Leigh Sales There was a huge response to PM Tony Abbott’s #abc730 interview on #asylum, Indonesia & spying. SEE why youtu.be/wGsplR6dB_I #auspol]

  23. Good Morning,
    The sun is shining, the birds are singing, Rudd is leaving.

    Oh what a beautiful morning, as the song goes.

  29. I couldn’t see an earpiece last night, although this pic purports to show it. I think that silly little not-quite-a-cough gives it away, tho.
    [visivoz ‏
    Cough. Cough. Hmmm “@RobedSinners: Tony Abbott #abc730 interviews with and without earpiece #auspol pic.twitter.com/e4yhnWPmEC” ]

  31. @strom_m: Refugee mother kept from newborn baby in Brisbane http://t.co/LoWmfX2Ujs via @smh #fb

    This is the story that will destroy the LNP on AS. The empathy of people with the mother and child bond is a very powerful thing. I am amazed that this decision was made. I am even more amazed that the LNP are being stupid enough politically to put secrecy above been seen to be doing the right thing.

    Especially when the Minister is the Guardian of children in detention

  33. I couldn’t see an earpiece on Abbott last night either, although at one stage, when he coughed and turned his head, maybe there was something…. Abbott was sitting in a way that hid his right ear from the cameras, the camera angle did not change.

    If he was wearing an earpiece it wasn’t much help to him, he still made a complete fool of himself. His coughing was a real tell.

  34. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/tony-abbott-and-his-ministry-of-the-misinformed-62152

    [As we reported last year, the international coal industry has a trillion reasons to see climate action defeated. It would cause coal consumption to slump more than half, prices to fall, and would result in $1 trillion lost revenue a year. That’s a fair heap of vested interest.

    The latest International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook, released overnight, confirms this. It says that coal prices could fall with climate action – to a point that will make the massive coal mines in Queensland’s Galiliee Basin unprofitable. If the world acts on climate, there will not be enough room to accommodate that amount of coal in the market.

    Abbott’s suggestion that wind and solar are intermittent are also born of breathtaking ignorance. Like his comments on climate and bushfires, it reflects the fact that he and/or his advisors, not to mention his inner coterie, are informing themselves from the worst of climate denial and anti-renewable blogs.

    It doesn’t stop there. Environment Minister Greg Hunt presents himself as someone who knows and understands the issues. On that basis, he should probably do the right thing and resign immediately, but ambition gets in the way.

    But there’s a growing realistation that Hunt doesn’t know what he’s talking about either. A few months ago, addressing a conference, Hunt, was asked by the local head of sustainability for a Japanese car giant why Australia did not have a more ambitious climate program, like Germany – the questioner’s country of birth.

    “Oh, really,” said Hunt. “And how is that going in Germany.” The tone of his response was that he presumed the answer was “badly”. He probably read that in The Australian, the AFR, or Forbes. But the real answer is actually “quite well”, despite all the political posturing in the lead-up to that country’s recent polls.]

  37. poroti
    🙁

    @AnnaVidot Warm applause as Barnaby Joyce finishes maiden speech. Speaker acknowledges Gina Rinehart who was in the gallery to hear it.

  39. [markjs

    I reckon it is the sentiment of many.

    by victoria on Nov 14, 2013 at 8:29 am]

    Nobody does hate like a Gillard supporting PB poster where most of them are deposited – and the source of that hate being Gillard’s failures as national leader.

    Rudd’s enemies and haters are Entirely made up of in denial Gillard supporters and factional wardlords with their toy soldier hacks who created the monumental stuff up. In either case Rudd should be happy and proud to have such people on the other side of the ledger.

    Oh how wonderful it would have been if they didn’t use Rudd to replace Gillard……you would have a disaster of biblical proportions facing Labor and Australia – with Abbott having a massive majority in the HOR and easy control of the Senate..for a long time….to do his every whim.

    The destroyers of Labor, since internal politics has always been more important than country, were the factional warlords wanting to take control and their front person Gillard who was in on the betrayal of Australians long before the event.

    Oh how much different Labor’s fortunes would have been if these self-serving people did not in 2010 back stab a first term PM. We wouldn’t be looking at a Coalition government now. This is the prime reason we now have Abbott as PM. The PBs could be here cheering on their 30 members in the house, still living in denial for their Australian Idol.

  40. Wow this could come back to bite Abbott big time depending on evidence in RC

    @danielhurstbne: First senior cleric to take the sex abuse seriously was George Pell, argues Tony Abbott on 3AW. “He is in my judgment a fine human being

  42. victoria@72


    Leigh Sales There was a huge response to PM Tony Abbott’s #abc730 interview on #asylum, Indonesia & spying. SEE why youtu.be/wGsplR6dB_I #auspol

    abbott (I’m not going to use loaded language) went into that interview last night pretty cocky and a hell of a lot less cautious then we have seen him for sometime.

    He also showed his glass jaw – that he inclined towards ‘blowing up’. Something for enterprising journos to work on in the future?

    This is the bit below, but it came across much more effectively in the video – reminiscent of his run in with the 4 corners team in Windsor/ Oakeshott during the 2010 minority government negotiations –

    [LEIGH SALES: You say you’re going to stop the boats. There was a lot of tough talk during the election campaign about turning boats around, but it now appears that when Indonesia stands firm and refuses to take people back, Australia buckles and brings the asylum seekers back here for processing.

    TONY ABBOTT: Why are you using loaded language, Leigh? You’re using loaded language all the time.

    LEIGH SALES: You don’t think “stop the boats” is loaded?

    TONY ABBOTT: No, no, stopping the boats is something that surely you all – we all want to do. I mean, you’d like to stop these boats, Leigh, surely.

    LEIGH SALES: What do you see as the loaded language when I’m basically quoting what the Indonesian Government has said?

    TONY ABBOTT: No, no, you said that we had somehow buckled. I mean, you’re trying to turn this into a testosterone contest. Well, I’m not interested in a testosterone contest; I’m interested in stopping the boats.

    LEIGH SALES: I don’t want to get involved in semantics, but if you’re saying that you wanted Indonesia to take people back, the Indonesians refused to do so and then you brought the people back to Australia, that is buckling.

    TONY ABBOTT: Well, I’m not going to use loaded language myself. I’m not going to run around beating my hairy chest and saying that I’ve outstared someone or that – and I’m not going to say that someone has outstared me either. This is not a question of two countries trying to prove who’s the toughest with each other. It’s a question of two good friends working together for an outcome which is clearly in the best interests of both of our countries. ]

    let not forget, “Good Spying” 🙂

    Also the end of not commenting on security matters.

    [ BoldTONY ABBOTT: Yes, and when did this so-called spying take place, Leigh?

    LEIGH SALES: Well so the spying does take place?

    TONY ABBOTT: When did this so-called spying allegedly take place?

    LEIGH SALES: Well nobody’s confirmed that it actually takes place, so do we spy on Indonesia?

    TONY ABBOTT: Leigh, please, please, we don’t comment on operational matters, but there have been reports in the press, and based on reports in the press, when did this so-called spying allegedly take place? Would you like to tell me?

    LEIGH SALES: You tell me; you’re the Prime Minister.

    TONY ABBOTT: Under the former government.

    LEIGH SALES: You’re the Prime Minister.

    TONY ABBOTT: Under the former government.

    LEIGH SALES: Does it carry on now and did it not occur also under the Howard Government?

    TONY ABBOTT: Leigh, all countries, all governments gather information. That’s hardly a surprise. It’s hardly a shock. We use the information that we gather for good, including to build a stronger relationship with Indonesia. ]

    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3890402.htm

  43. More chaos in victoria parliament

    “@bellfrances: Speaker suspends the sitting of the house only minutes after it began. He has left the chamber #springst”

  46. “@danielhurstbne: PM says Catholic Ch didn’t handle abuse issue well; suspect was then “general view in the community that certain things just didn’t happen””

    “@latikambourke: PM Abbott on 3AW – do I think Kevin Rudd was a good PM? Absolutely not.”

    “@latikambourke: PM Abbott – we got through the GFC because of Hawke, Keating and Howard not because of Rudd’s spending spree.”

    “@latikambourke: PM Abbott – do I think a coalition Govt will rush to find a job for Kevin Rudd? No I don’t.”

    “@latikambourke: Neil Mitchell to PM Abbott – you’ve started asking and answering your own questions like he did. #zing”

  47. I think this from Jonathon Green is a fair assessment (thanks lizzie for the link):

    [A moment to perhaps reflect on years of opportunity wasted not on the greater good but in the indulgent service of anger and resentment. Here was a man so overcome by rage that in all his plotting against Gillard 2010 he thought so little of what he might do in her eventual absence that he went to the 2013 poll empty-handed, just a sad parody of the Kevin of 07, a man who succeeded eventually in bringing his party to a ruinous division but without the renewed and redeeming program that might have made that tumult meaningful.

    He saved the furniture – he made that boast again last night – but only after having set fire to a house he both built then ruined.]

  49. [Washington is playing the lead role in delaying the publication of the long-awaited report into how Britain went to war with Iraq, The Independent has learnt.

    Although the Cabinet Office has been under fire for stalling the progress of the four-year Iraq Inquiry by Sir John Chilcot, senior diplomatic sources in the US and Whitehall indicated that it is officials in the White House and the US Department of State who have refused to sanction any declassification of critical pre- and post-war communications between George W Bush and Tony Blair.]

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-us-blocks-publication-of-chilcots-report-on-how-britain-went-to-war-with-iraq-8937772.html

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