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).
[The Government is gearing up to use next Tuesday’s MYEFO to distract from all of their current difficulties. ]
True, BW, but what gets me is that the punters seem to fall for it EVERY SINGLE TIME.
GG
I should add I have no time for Hird. He should never be allowed into an AFL game again. He got off incredibly lightly.
Diogs,
Demetriou lost what?
Essendon forked out another mill to cover the never ending James Hird protection racket.
Essendon lost, as did their supporters.
Demetriou lost face and authority. Essendon snubbed their nose at him and he gave in.
I agree the club is also losing as it becomes inseparable from Hird’s future, which I hope is bleak and grim.
BB
Fortunately the Abbott Government’s street cred is already at a low ebb.
[MTBW, I think you said earlier the Griffith pre-selection is on Sunday. It is actually today from 9:00am – 1:00pm.]
The electoral college started voting on Thursday, looks like Labor Unity members have broken ranks from their leadership and are voting with the left. Which should give the left “candidadte” >50% of the EC vote.
Seems Terri Butler will win on both counts.
Dio
[Demetriou lost face and authority. Essendon snubbed their nose at him and he gave in.
I agree the club is also losing as it becomes inseparable from Hird’s future, which I hope is bleak and grim.]
Essendon management has ensured that ASADA has nothing to lose either.
How groupthinklichkeit.
It does rather seem if Demetriou is sitting back now and saying to himself, ‘I tried, I really did.’
Over to ASADA.
And is ASADA pulls it punches, AWADA will wade.
Diogs,
Your problem is that you believe everything you read in the Murdoch media.
Demetriou would just fart in Hird’s general direction.
I doubt Hird will coach again. Demetriou will continue unchallenged as head of the AFL until he gets pre-selection for Wills in about two years.
What is evens for a first innings? The field is lightning fast so I was thinking maybe something like 500.
But what do I know.
ruawake@1806
Sigh… just what we need, another lawyer in Parliament.
They are like an infestation of cockroaches.
I am sure she will be OK as both a candidate and MP, but I do wish we could widen the base from which we select candidates. We could do with a few Engineers, Scientists and other professionals and occupations in our parliamentary ranks.
Bw
[What is evens for a first innings? The field is lightning fast so I was thinking maybe something like 500.]
What I expecting is long strings of ads interspersed with inane commentary and an occasional view of cricket pitch.
My! How the once mighty can fall.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-14/armstrong-27bought27-million-dollar-race3a-report/5156916
GG
I read what Demetriou said. He caved in.
He will go for international sports administration rather than becoming an MP. The pay cut would be huge if he went into politics.
Andrew D for Wills, the biggest winner with that will be the Greens as there are many Essendon fans in Pascoe Vale, Coburg and up into Glenroy.
The ALP would be better off with Eddie in Wills as he is a northern suburbs boy made good.
The AFL have made a complete hash, no where in the agreement between Hird and the AFL does it say he can’t be paid.
I suspect there are some here who are favoring Andrew D due more to his political leanings rather than on performance.
He appears to have either lied about the payments or is clueless as many people in the AFL community were aware that Hird was going to be kept on the books.
And yes John Fahey repeated what he has said many times before, maybe its time for Fahey to start putting timelines on when these big punishments are coming.
If this continued much longer and a player is suspended for two years will he have to serve it in full or is it backdated to 2012 or the commencement of the investigation.
I should add that there also many Carlton fans in Wills and they hate him just as much.
Mexicanbeemer
I dont know what Demetriou’s political leanings and i dont care. Hird and Essendon treated their players with a blatant disregard, and they should accept responsibilty and stfu
I must admit that I do not follow the ballerina but don’t you think that the AFL administration must shoulder MORE of the blame for not adequately enforcing drug testing controls and procedures?
It’s a professional sport. Winning is the name of the game. Many teams push the boundaries to gain an edge.
Sure, I do not support what Essendon have done, it should be a level playing field BUT the greatest blame ends with the administration.
Centre
You dont have a clue as fo how the AFL is administered. Cos if you did, you would know that it is streets ahead of the NRL and has been enormously successful
Nah, the blame lies with Junkie James Hird and his team of merry Drug Cheats, Centre.
Victoria
If they did and i should point out that there has been no Worksafe or FWA investigations into player management at Essendon and if the allegations are proven surely they should be investigation as this is their workplace.
The only people that matter in this issue is the playing group as they are the ones who put their bodies on the line.
Andrew D has overall been a highly successful head of the AFL and the AFL is the best administrated sport in Australia and one of the best run in the world.
One could ponder if Andrew D has maybe overstayed in the job.
Victoria @ 1820
That’s a stupid post and disappointing to read coming from you.
Settle down, I’m not having a go at your code of footy.
No, as I have stated I really don’t follow the Ballerina but where does that disprove my point of view:- the administration should possibly shoulder MORE of the blame.
Also let me tell you something, the ARL here is back in control of Rugby League where it belongs. The mens division are out to acclaim the number 1 ranking again 😉
Diogenes,
[I read what Demetriou said. He caved in.
He will go for international sports administration rather than becoming an MP. The pay cut would be huge if he went into politics.]
Not if he joins Tones on the Pollie Pedal.
HAHAHA Andrew Demetriou is not the sort of bloke to be seen riding a bike.
More like a long lunch
mexicanbeemer
Ziggy was commissioned by the EFC to conducf a review into the governance and practices of the club. The AFL ran a parallel review and ASADA are doing their own investigation.
The findings were damning. Why is the AFL at fault for the failures of Team Hird?
Centre
I am merely agreeing with your comments that you dont follow the AFL, so therefore it stands to reason you are not familiar with how it is being administered
Victoria
Ziggy’s report surprised me as i have been pretty critical of Ziggy’s performance at Telstra and as head of the Nuclear lobby.
But that report was very good in terms of the scope and detail.
It identified several major issues some of which were just incompetent or sloppy rather than illegal although the illegal part does need to be tested.
m
[If this continued much longer and a player is suspended for two years will he have to serve it in full or is it backdated to 2012 or the commencement of the investigation.]
If a player is innocent of trying to cheat the time it takes is immaterial. If cheats want to get it over with they can go to ASADA, fess up, and start their time.
YB
But what effect did these performance enhancing substances comprise?
How much did Essendon benefit, I can’t recall them making any grand final?
I don’t condone their actions but the administration must shoulder I believe just as much of the blame at least.
mexicanbeemer
For me it is real simple. If Hird had any real integrity, he would have voluntarily resigned at the beginning of season 2013
Yeah. Demetriou made a couple of dozen Essendon players take 4,000 needles of lots of different sorts of stuff.
Boerwar
And since the list for 2014 is basically finalised that means any cheaters have a spot in the side whilst someone else misses out on a spot.
mexicanbeemer
[Boerwar
And since the list for 2014 is basically finalised that means any cheaters have a spot in the side whilst someone else misses out on a spot.]
True. But if cheats had been thinking about the interests of their fans, their team mates and the game, they might not have been cheats in the first place.
I am not sure what happens if someone gets banned for two years. Are teams allowed to elevate someone from the rookie list?
Hmmmm…. 500 looks less likely.
Johnson gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooorn.
Boerwar
On that bases we don’t need FWA and Unions as the employees (players) can just second guess what the employer (Essendon) is doing.
These are young men who are following the instructions from a player who is widely recongised as a champion of the ALP and the Essendon Football Club.
Worksafe and FWA have made no public effort to investigate what occurred.
Boerwar
[Yeah. Demetriou made a couple of dozen Essendon players take 4,000 needles of lots of different sorts of stuff.]
Demetriou should have given Hird an award for his special contribution to the AFL. 😀
ALP = AFL
Surely if proper drug testing procedures and protocols had been implemented maybe this problem would never have arisen?
I will stand by the same principles with Rugby League 😛
mexicanbeemer
EFC participate as a member of the AFL and therefore needs to abide by the AFL code of conduct. They failed to do so.
Centre
AFL Players are regularly tested, the issue here is what the heck was Dank/The Weapon/Hirdy administrating to the playing group.
Victoria
Which is what Essendon have admitted too and have paid a $2 million dollar fine for.
mb
Yep and that is why Hird should have stfu
Steve Bracks:
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/abbott-couldve-saved-holden-he-must-hang-on-to-toyota-20131213-2zcq2.html
Preston Towers @prestontowers
Follow
Forget Coalition stuff ups – Badgery’s is on the front page of today’s Tele – http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/airport-is-start-of-a-western-boost-pm/story-fni0cx12-1226782875531 … – my take – http://ausopinion.com/2013/12/03/badgeringnomore/ …
Essendon could really be farked if ASADA / WADA charge a number of their players.
[AFL Players are regularly tested,]
Well, how did their activities escalate to such proportions?
This is a professional sport, teams will try to gain an advantage – you are kidding if you think they will forever abide by the good spirit of the game.
lizzie
[These matters were seriously analysed in Detroit and understandably taken into account in assessing the Australian government’s likely policy. And GM’s assessment was that if the Australian government wasn’t committed why should it bother, given those additional ”perfect storm” issues. What a tragedy!]
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/abbott-couldve-saved-holden-he-must-hang-on-to-toyota-20131213-2zcq2.html#ixzz2nPihVlcX
It is indeed a tragedy. The coalition should be punished for this alone. Although I fear the electorate dont care enough