A strong result for Labor from Newspoll sees blue and red cross paths on the BludgerTrack two-party preferred aggregate, with Labor seizing its first substantial lead since the aggregate opened for business late last year. Labor has also been boosted to one shy of an absolute majority on the seat projection, with the Coalition crashing to 70. The state breakdowns find Labor back to 2010 territory in Victoria, and doing rather a lot better than that in Queensland and Western Australia.
While mostly the work of Newspoll, part of the shift to Labor is the result of a modelling tweak to deal with the particular difficulty posed by Essential Research, which instead of favouring a particular party over time appears to have a bias towards stability. Bias adjustments based on its pre-election performance have accordingly been correcting for a lean to Labor that disappeared together with the Coalition’s polling ascendancy. So I will instead be plotting the trend of Essential’s deviation from the model’s results, with the bias corrections adjusting over time.
The other big news on the BludgerTrack front is that it is now tracking leadership ratings as well as voting intention. Such data is available fortnightly from Newspoll and monthly from Nielsen and Essential Research, which at this state leaves a fairly shallow pool. It is nonetheless clear from the sidebar that meaningful trends are already evident. I am excluding from consideration the personal ratings from ReachTEL, whose refusal to give respondents an uncommitted option leads to idiosyncratic results.
In other news, Crikey subscribers might care to enjoy my article yesterday on the inquiry into the missing WA Senate ballots.
UPDATE: Kevin Bonham offers an excellent review of what the polls say, and what they mean (and don’t mean).
BH
[Good on Louise for leaving home to work and live with her boyfriend but this is the 21st century. I wonder how he felt about being hidden away from the media to protect Abbott’s inane views on modern relationships.]
Remembering of course that Abbott had a child in an earlier relationship before he married.
Mark Latham in the AFR. Oh dear. Peta Kremlin!!!
[MARK LATHAM
When Tony Abbott promised a government of no surprises, he couldn’t have been talking about his media strategy. Since September 7, commentators have been befuddled by the Liberal leader’s low-key, regimented style, under the iron fist of his chief of staff, Peta Kremlin. Against expectations, Australia has a Mogadon prime minister.]
http://www.afr.com/p/national/arts_saleroom/tony_abbott_and_the_iron_fist_of_yPLdvCVaw3AHyk9Siok1PN
confessions the point Iwas making was that someone else was talking procurement.
However no you have to focus on the clever wordplay of coincidence regarding the daughter. Even though the tweet made the point about procurement and I specifically referred to it.
zoomster@1682
Please provide the rule book or at least quote the relevant rules. 👿
Diog
don’t see anywhere where anyone was attacked for being nice, or even for being Liberal.
The point being made is one about the role and responsibilities of those on protective detail.
Diogenes@1683
zoomster wants you to prove it. 😛
bemused sorry ingrate was meant to be integrity in my 1697 post
Dio @ 1686
If they disown the past two terms they’re also disowning policy. So then they have to somehow squash into their soundbite that they still believe in their own policy.
Dio
This place becomes like a children’s playground sometimes – it’s nah nah na nah nah!
So now all those who correct the twitter lunacy that 1) Abbott’s daughter is working for BMW, and 2) that her appointment with the ATC was a cunning plot for BMW to win the tender for the PM’s vehicle are Obeid drones.
Well done guytaur. You’ve officially jumped the frickin shark.
Report card first 100 days
MTBW
[This place becomes like a children’s playground sometimes]
Nah ah!
bemused
[zoomster wants you to prove it]
Incorrect. You’re always going on about other people’s lack of comprehension, so you think you’d try harder yourself.
I’m not defending Bligh’s comments. I’m disputing that they led to a bigger ALP loss than was predicted anyway, and asking those who dispute THAT to provide actual figures to back it up.
The Queensland loss was bigger than expected, but my understanding was it was because of the way the seats fell (that is, the polling was accurate, but the number of seats lost was disproportionate).
MTBW
yes, and posters calling others things like ‘moron’.
guytaur@1697
Now I know you have gone completely mad.
confessions
Welldone with your red herrings a good try at diverting from the point of Tony Abbott not following rules.
Something the Liberals would be jumping all over Labor for and with far worse comments than something fishy
Sean Tisme@1647
Ah yes, the bomb proof BMW, as recommended by 9 out of 10 Tin Pot, Third World, Dictators every where.
[I’m not defending Bligh’s comments.]
I will. I think they were exaggerated, and politically damaging to her, but his behaviour in office has been atrocious. He may have committed no crimes and he may never go to jail but he is dangerously unconcerned with doing the right thing.
zoomster@1700
Oh I see. When I was making excuses for you.
You yourself mentioned it on several occasions.
guytaur:
If you want to question the probity of the tender process then do it without reference to Bridget Abbott. Until we have clear evidence to the contrary, the two issues are completely unrelated, no matter how many twitter users are trying to connect the two.
bemused
No you are ignoring like others that the subject is rules in government. Obeid ignored procurement rules as ICAC has found.
MTBW@1701
Not quite.
Turns out he was not the father.
confessions
I posted some tweets being clever about the procurement process. You decided that focusing on Abbott’s daughter was the important thing.
[Welldone with your red herrings a good try at diverting from the point of Tony Abbott not following rules.]
Um, it was you not me who introduced Bridget Abbott to this. Not once, but 3 or 4 times now.
And it was you not me who introduced Eddie Obeid. Not once, but twice.
Neither of these people have anything to do with Abbott’s vehicle.
Some arguments are not so important you need to win them :P.
[You decided that focusing on Abbott’s daughter was the important thing.]
No, I decided it was important to correct your absurd accusations.
confessions@1710
10 out of 10 today confessions!
I will have to revise my opinion about you being usually wrong. You are 100% right today. 😉
bemused, if you want to praise someone, you don’t need to mention all the other times you thought they were wrong :P.
zoomster@1713
WRONG.
There was a final collapse of the Labor vote from its already disastrous level.
The tactics of desperation backfired badly.
bemused
My mistake but he must have at least breached the vow of celibacy to have even been mentioned.
confessions
The relation between the two is Tony Abbott and is a clever way of pointing out the procurement thing. The most anyone has said is something fishy. A good hook to get people to think.
However somehow in PB land that was made into an attack on the integrity of the daughter. No such thing ever happened.
That is why the Obeid comparison is apt. Its such thinking that let him get in.
Think first of the integrity of government process. If you had you would have seen that there was no attack on Abbott’s daughter and that direct job or indirect was not the point. The point was BMW and Abbott.
In other news the preselection for the seat of Griffith is on tomorrow apparently 450 eligible voters.
Anyways, I’m hitting the shops before the cricket starts.
guytaur@1721
I haven’t a clue how this relates to the current discussion and I have been consistently calling for Obeid and his scummy lot to be (metaphorically) put to the sword for longer than just about anyone else.
The US President gets a US made car
The British PM gets a British made car
Abbott tells Aussie car makers to go to buggery
Arguing about who asked who to the races is soooooo much more important than understanding what is going on with the TPP. Obviously. Because the damn 2012 Sydney racing carnival is the hot topic here today. Sigh…..
DN
Labor can disown the backbiting and still taut the policies.
I really think Labor should work on the idea the voters never really wanted Abbott and now they know why.
DisplayName@1728
😆
Oops, should be tout not taut.
MTBW@1730
Well he certainly “did the deed”! 😛
zoomster
Sometimes there is just so much rubbish talked you just have to call it as it is.
Oh dear.
Here, argue about this –
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/14/is-selling-medibank-a-good-idea-it-remains-to-be-seen
@randlight: Claims Holden’s lost government vehicle contract was part of a ‘vendetta’ http://t.co/XErpGB7ReB via @smh Hmmmm
MTBW,
[My son’s mate was just saying how kind Margie Abbott was to them – is that a sin now or is it covered in any rule book?
Middle of winter sitting in a car all night and someone brings you something to eat – shame on them!]
I can see a few breaches of protocol there.
First, if it really was Margie, why wasn’t she safely indoors doing the ironing as Tones would have it?
And second, how did the protection guys know it really was Margie? She could have been an Indonesian foreign agent look-a-like, who laced their lammies with cyanide.
Those security men make Maxwell Smart look like James Bond.
IF 28% of the population will not being get the National Broadband Network then how can that be a INFRASTRUCTUE for the NATION?
Acerbic Conehead
[I can see a few breaches of protocol there.
First, if it really was Margie, why wasn’t she safely indoors doing the ironing as Tones would have it?
And second, how did the protection guys know it really was Margie? She could have been an Indonesian foreign agent look-a-like, who laced their lammies with cyanide.
Those security men make Maxwell Smart look like James Bond.]
You nailed it and lets put them gaol!
Dio, it sounds like one of those too clever messages with all these nice, logical theories about how it will be received where instead listeners just take away what they will :P.
Off to pay for my new 4WD.
First time I have ever been able to afford a brand new car, and I can pay cash…..
feeling very chuffed with myself
Diogs,
RE Hird:
Essendon have won nothing. It cost $1.5mill to buy out Matthew Knights contract when he came on board, they have copped a fine of $2.5 mill, they have lost draft picks so will be uncompetitive. Now Hird has been paid another $1mill by Essendon to sit on the sidelines for 12 months.
BTW, rumours are that Essendon’s Membership is about half of what would normally be expected at this time of year so there goes another few million dollars of revenue.
Of course, as John Fahey has announced that Essendon are on the cusp of players and officials being charged with drug cheating charges.
Any more victories and they’ll be shipped off to Indonesia and become the Bali Bombers.