BludgerTrack: 50.3-49.7 to Coalition

After substantially narrowing last week, this week the two-party preferred poll aggregate gap all but disappears, while leaving the Coalition some breathing space on the seat projection.

It’s been a quieter week on the polling front in the wake of last week’s bonanza, with only the regular weekly Essential Research and fortnightly Morgan added to the mix. The new additions do nothing to halt the momentum to Labor which emerged in the previous result, with shifts of 1.3% shift on the primary vote and 0.5% on two-party preferred. The latter gain is blunted by the fact that the Greens are down 1.2%, having failed of late to replicate a series of stronger results in early to mid-November. The two-party preferred measure is now being calculated with newly available preference flow results from the September 7 election, replacing modelled preference projections used previously. This hasn’t made much difference to the national result, but it’s helped eliminate an anomalous gain for the Liberals on the seat calculation in South Australia. The other change on the seat projection is an extra gain for Labor in New South Wales. It should be noted that the model continues to leave the Coalition well ahead of Labor despite the position of near-parity on two-party preferred, indicating the impact of “sophomore surge” effects on the BludgerTrack model in the seats Labor most needs to win. See the sidebar for full results.

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.

2,516 comments on “BludgerTrack: 50.3-49.7 to Coalition”

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  1. Another cunning ploy from the masters of the pea and thimble trick.

    After the election Wazza Truzz announced that a few hundred projects funded by Labor’s Regional Development Australia Fund would not go ahead if contracts had not already been signed. Truss said they were merely Labor election promises and there was no money for them, never had been. Right across Australia country towns had much needed projects pulled away, planned work couldn’t go ahead, in many cases anticipated jobs were lost and workers faced a bleak time. Now, miraculously, Truss has found some ‘savings’ and the projects will go ahead after all. Labor’s scheme was worth $1 billion, the replacement this government has set up is worth only one third of that – $345 million. It is being touted as a wonderful new initiative when it is actually taking funding away.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/warren-truss-ticks-unsigned-regional-grants/story-e6frg8zx-1226774554862#

    And today, across the country, it all becomes clear. Local Coalition MPs are announcing that thanks to their hard work and negotiation these works will be permitted, despite the bleeding obvious – these MPs didn’t lift a finger. It was all a ‘look at what we are doing for you’ stunt. People were played – told there was nothing for them , allowed to grow angry and resentful, then given the glad tidings that work would go ahead after all. So transparent, so bleeding obvious, and so many will, of course, fall for it.

    This, from my local paper this morning, shows how it works –
    http://www.portnews.com.au/story/1951527/funding-for-surf-life-saving-hub/?cs=256

    All the projects this clown is supposed to have won were actually organised by Rob Oakeshott, funded by Labor and announced at the beginning of June this year.

  2. guytaur

    Just had a thought. The lawyer handling the matter mentioned something about having written to PMJG back in December regarding the matter, but never received a response.

  3. Re 51 and 53Labor need to get out there and set the record straight.

    Specifically, make it clear that promised programs have actually been cut by the incoming Government. And also ask who believes any promises from the new Government even for the reduced programs, given its record to date.

  4. leone

    and yet, strangely, in Indi we’re not going to get one project reinstated (out of at least half a dozen) — even though Barnaby said during the election campaign that one of these projects wasn’t under threat, because it would generate an economic return for the region.

  5. “@mrbenjaminlaw: “Subtle propaganda to children is all part of the ABC’s long march.” To be fair to Miranda Devine, B1 and B2’s attire is vaguely communist.”

  6. Is this a spoof or not?

    [George Brandis QC ‏@George_Brandis 10h
    I have decided to join Twitter as a platform to express both my personal views and official professional press/information releases.-GB]

    Tanya P replied “Gosh!”

  7. Bingo

    [Greens hand Abbott early Xmas present in the form of unlimited credit card for their good work on education, asylum, NBN, climate change.]

  8. [So is Hird being paid or not?

    Demetriou has completely lost control.]

    It is a farce and as damaged as the AFL is by it, shouldn’t the doping sports people be in deep trouble as well?

  9. WWP

    Yes. Judicial bodies should know not to let the target of investigation be part of running an investigation.

    The AFL part is a symptom not the cause of the investigation problem

  10. It is a farce and as damaged as the AFL is by it, shouldn’t the doping sports people be in deep trouble as well?
    ———————-

    The AFL is not a statutory body but a private enterprise. As such it cannot take action against those not employed within the AFL.

  11. Morning all.

    [Mick Keelty has told the Australian Electoral Commission that the missing 1370 votes from the botched WA Senate count are unlikely to be found.

    The former Federal Police chief’s advice has prompted the AEC to ask the High Court to rule on the WA poll by March 18 at the latest to allow writs for an election to be issued three days later.

    Given there must be a minimum 33 days between the issue of the writs and election day, the latest a repeat Senate election could be held is April 26.]
    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/20160456/lost-senate-votes-wont-be-found-keelty/

  12. [BB

    it would appear that Mark Kenny has given up on polishing the turd]

    Kenny is a Coalition-leaning writer, and I presume what he wrote today would be his version of a “wake-up call” to the government to get its act together.

    Abbott’s problem is that Peta Credlin has been central to his campaigns, both in Opposition and in government.

    She was the one who did the deal: if she came to work for Abbott, she would need him to follow her instructions to the letter.

    We all know it worked well in Opposition, but not so well after that. Pity that being in government is by far the more important of the two periods.

    Abbott’s character is that of the Whirling Dervish. He loves a fight. Stoushing, mucking, wrecking, slagging and demolishing are the obvious channels for his natural aggression. They legitimize it; focus it. “Creative Chaos” is the Abbott way. In confusion is profit.

    But it’s not very useful to be fighting all the time when you’re in government, especially when your own side comes in for the king-hit as often as your opponent.

    Whenever Abbott is left alone by himself he goes the biff. He can’t help himself. Credlin saw this and made it a condition of her life-coaching that he stick to the plan strictly. The dividend was government.

    But now that he’s there, the big change from “unpredictable bovver boy” to “statesman” has not happened. It takes more than a comb-over and some waffle about “the man growing into the job” to effect such a character transplant.

    Then there are his henchmen.

    Joe Hockey, in charge of the national economy, can’t stop trash-talking it. Every time we see him he is full of gloom and pessimism. The Treasurer should always talk the economy up, not slag it off.

    Pyne… what can we say about Pyne that hasn’t already been said? He’s a teenage, prep-school twat given an adult’s job. He is utterly incompetent to perform any task except being an obnoxious smartarse. Hopeless.

    Bernardi wants to nobble the ABC as part of his Tea Party program. I don’t personally have too much sympathy for the ABC. They really should have realized that they were going down the wrong path, joining in the group-think Slag-a-Thon during Gillard’s tenure. It was only going to end up with an Abbott government, and an even bigger problem for them, one could say an existential one, which they never would have had under Labor. But I suppose they will need to be supported. Something’s better than nothing. There are some good people at the ABC. They should be preserved.

    Bishop, the minister for cocktail parties. What an embarrassment she is: an emaciated clothes-horse with no talent, and no idea of where to find it.

    All of these problems were put to one side in the quest for government. There was little or no policy development. They have given themselves no positive agenda and no roadmap forward except cutting spending and repealing the Carbon Tax which will have virtually nil effect on the economy, even on domestic economies out there in Rooty Hill.

    Meanwhile droughts and flooding rains will continue unabated, and unchallenged, put in the too hard basket for another few years until common sense makes the advent of climate change obvious… too late, of course. It’s probably too late even now. All sacrificed so that Abbott could fulfill his life’s destiny of being in charge… of a rabble, worse luck (for all of us).

    At the moment I think journos like Kenny are prepared to report on failure, and to cite it as such – how I love that word “incompetent” applied to the entire government – but they hope, like Graeme morris for a brighter future.

    They have a lot invested in Abbott, not the least being their reputations and their actual jobs. We all have to pay the mortgage, after all.

    But, positive outlook and all that, let’s look to the future, as Kenny does.

    Coming up next year is Murdoch’s attempt to stage a coup over the rest of the media and to move it all over to his beloved Pay-Wall model. When he threatened to take his newspapers out of News Corp central, the gnomes of New York said “Yes, please!”.

    Murdoch has returned – or perhaps retreated – to home ground. Australia is his last redoubt. Murdoch has determined to show those little gnarled men of money in the US just how a media empire should be run. He did it once – from the Adelaide News to the World – and he can do it again. He reckons.

    This time the vehicle is Foxtel, anachronistically challenged both in its business model and its antiquated technology. Only Foxtel needs a smart card and a clunky set-top box to authenticate user identity. Everyone else does it with encryption keys nowadays.

    Enter broadband. Carefully nobbled so that it can just accommodate Foxtel-like bandwidth (but nothing faster or better), he’s already got the government agreeing to cable the entire nation for him at taxpayer’s expense. That’s a big saving.

    Now he intends to merge Pay TV and broadband, packaging them together in (what he hopes is) an irresistable bundle. It’ll all come down the same cable. Who could refuse? Turnbull’s broadband is good enough for Foxtel’s business model, but not much else. By the way… eff the nation.

    Our schools produce under-performing, uninterested students by the million, because Howard funded islands of privilage like The King’s School and Riverview, at the expense of public schooling, got far more money, on top of huge fees, than they deserved. These institutions produce the managers and directors who tell the public school-educated kids where to dig the holes, so we can mine dirt and sell it to more enterprising countries, who add value to it… then sell it back to us at 1,000% mark up.

    Who needs a world-class, indeed world-beating NBN-type broadband system that permits decentralization, more work-from-home, remote health, fewer traffic jams on expensive freeways pointed at CBDs, a rebirth of the bush, and yes… this is the killer for Murdoch… better and more diverse television content and reception?

    Oh, and did I mention cheaper, too? Sorry, I forgot.

    When Murdoch makes his move, when he re-births himself, the rest of the media will have to make a decision: Do they just roll over and let him put them out of business, or do they fight back?

    And that is when I’ll be keen to see what the Kennys and the Hartchers and the Jack Waterfords have to say for themselves.

    If they still have a job, that is.

  13. [Colin Barnett says politicians have “fallen into the trap” of being “too specific” about election promises before they are in possession of all the relevant information.]

    It is a little ironic though, he was in possession of all the information before he went through the last election campaign where he just lied his ass off every day.

  14. Today’s Mumble:

    [We don’t know how long Abbott’s tenure as prime minister will be. Two terms is most likely. Maybe three. An outside chance of one.

    Right now the Coalition’s smarter strategic minds will be considering the choices the Australian voters face at the next election. That’s easier said than done for governments, who have to handle the increasingly frenetic weekly, daily and hourly demands of a trivia-oriented media. An opposition has more freedom. And Bill Shorten, thanks to his party’s new rules, has greater job security than past leaders.

    Australians usually give a government a second term, but elections are also usually predominately about the economy. Over their six years in government the ALP was dealt a bad economic hand, but they also blew the politics of debt and deficits. That led to its defeat at the hands of one of the least-liked and least-trusted opposition leaders in history.

    Labor still doesn’t grasp that (and neither evidently do their market research gurus) and they probably won’t have by the next election.

    Try to imagine the morning after election night 2016. Will anyone care about a few stumbles in late 2013?]
    http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_last_laugh/

  15. WWP:

    I didn’t hear the interview, but the report of it in the West is just galling. Most of the re-election promises they’ve dumped since the election were ones made to neutralise Labor’s advantages. Does Barnett think voters are stupid?

  16. Morning all. It’s a wet morning here in Adelaide but has cleared up a bit. Hopefully it can be definitely clear in an hour and stay clear until the evening (or, at least, bypass Adelaide Oval)

  17. zoomster
    The residents of Lyne will be seeing a lot more punishment from this government for having the audacity to elect Rob Oakeshott. Indi can expect the same spiteful, petty, vindictive treatment.

    Not every project here will go ahead as planned. The big one, extensions to the local indoor stadium is in limbo. Labor had kicked in something like $2.8 million towards the project, there were long delays due to local kerfuffles, but the final plans were put on public display and approved by council back in March. That federal funding was in the 2012/2013 budget and again in the current budget. No-one can say that money didn’t exist or that the project was simply an election promise.

    On Sunday there was a public meeting and our new Nats MP was invited. He could only stay for 20 minutes due to a ‘prior engagement’, said he knew nothing about any funding or anything else and then left. Today he had nothing to say about when the stadium project might finally get that funding and go ahead.

  18. mumble ignores the fact that perception is all – and perceptions of a government, shaped in its early days, are hard to shift.

    Howard was only NOT a one term PM because he got the votes in the right seats. The perception had been shaped, very early, that he couldn’t be trusted (core and non core promises) and that his government was incompetent (mass ministerial sackings).

    And he was travelling better at this stage in the political cycle than Abbott was.

  19. leone/zoomster

    [On Sunday there was a public meeting and our new Nats MP was invited. He could only stay for 20 minutes due to a ‘prior engagement’, said he knew nothing about any funding or anything else and then left. ]

    Invited to a public meeting and doesn’t bother to do his homework beforehand? He must be lazy, incompetent and very sure that he’s got a job for life!!

  20. In the interests of fairness, it should be pointed out that the last Labor government only got a second term because of successful negotiations with the indies…which suggests we’re not as ‘rusted on’ when it comes to automatically doling out two terms as mumble believes (and also, I think, raises the question of whether ‘sophomore bounces’ are that important…)

  21. zoomster

    Mumbles also does not take into account the no honeymoon effect. Such an effect gives a new government political capital. We know Abbott has to build political capital because he has none to burn

  22. zoomster:

    I also don’t think parallels can be drawn between now and 1996 for other reasons, namely the media cycle and swiftness with which every error and detail is captured and able to be disseminated widely. Howard didn’t have that in his early tenure.

  23. zoomster@91

    In the interests of fairness, it should be pointed out that the last Labor government only got a second term because of successful negotiations with the indies…which suggests we’re not as ‘rusted on’ when it comes to automatically doling out two terms as mumble believes (and also, I think, raises the question of whether ‘sophomore bounces’ are that important…)

    And also in the interests of fairness the insanity which got Labor into that precarious position should be pointed out.

  24. I think Mumble is being a bit too condescending in that article. Nobody I know of in the party (I exclude the die-hard “Labor can do no wrong” party hacks) has any delusions of the fight ahead of them in 2016, the fact that current issues will possibly be non-issues by then or the fact that making predictions based on current polling etc is a fool’s exercise.

  25. The govt has decided to allow Labor’s RDA projects here to proceed. I guess that’s all part of rewarding Rick Wilson for winning the seat back for the Liberals.

  26. zoomster@88


    mumble ignores the fact that perception is all – and perceptions of a government, shaped in its early days, are hard to shift.

    Howard was only NOT a one term PM because he got the votes in the right seats. The perception had been shaped, very early, that he couldn’t be trusted (core and non core promises) and that his government was incompetent (mass ministerial sackings).

    And he was travelling better at this stage in the political cycle than Abbott was.

    Very true. abbott is no howard.

    Plus abbott hasn’t even started to make hard decisions yet and he has made a big dent in his political capital – for bugger all return.

    Who says he will be ‘more capable’ when facing the harder decisions that await him. Who says his cabinet has the capacity to do better ?

    His support in the media is ebbing away as well, apart from murdoch.

  27. Peta is the one who knows the correct doses of beta blockers and anti-psychotic drugs to give to Tones, and feeds him his slogans and lines through the ear-piece. the media want to get rid of here, because they know they he and his bunch of clowns will be much more entertaining without her control.

    In a perverse way I am beginning to like the abbott government. sure, they’ll trash the joint, but it may be the wake up call complacent voters need to realise Labor were in fact pretty good at governing the nation (if not themselves) and did stuff in the national interest rather than the interests of party financiers and ideological extremists. The US has woken up the Tea Party, and the republicans are dividing between old GOP and tea party fanatics. Unfortunately the Tea Party has won out in the libs here. I think a central small l liberal party could emerge (although to an extent labor plays that centre-right role in australian politics, and could do more so if they could just lose some of the union cronyism and corporate influence)

  28. [Who says he will be ‘more capable’ when facing the harder decisions that await him. Who says his cabinet has the capacity to do better ?]

    If anything what we’ve seen is a distinct lack of capability from this Cabinet.

  29. Any comparison to 1996 and now is silly. Next federal election is due in 2016. Which will make 1996, 20 years ago. A lifetime ago in the technological age

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