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).
@MB/2298
It will be a shocker (RE: Treasurer).
100 leeks is pretty impressive. When we moved to the suburbs we had to surrender quite a bit of the backyard to our dogs (two greyhounds), so can’t have quite as large a veggie patch as some. Still, a couple of tomato plants, beans and peas, a few pumpkins (all in pots), carrots, and lettuces (though the younger one has taken to the peculiar habit of voiding himself over them and the young sheoaks we planted as screening trees). We do also maintain a small orchard though as a sort of souvenir of where we’re from.
Finally an end to the US intervention in Syria ?..as the extreme islamists take over the rebel movement against Assad
—————-
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/putting-an-end-to-the-idea-of-arming-the-syrian-oppos
My wife is a member of a group of ladies who have known each other since our kids were pre-schoolers 35 years ago. They meet half a dozen times a year or more and have a Christmas gathering each year to which the husbands are invited.
The guys are all pretty much right wingers, small business types, who over the years I have known them have seldom had a good word to say about Labor.
Last Christmas it was all about Gillard the witch, Labor waste, Labor’s internecine warfare, sink the Illegals, etc etc.
We met again tonight.
Tonight it was all about Holden leaving, Australia going down the gurgler, Coalition clueless, Abbott a dud.
When I raised the secrecy, the lies re boat arrivals, the malicious destruction of sound Labor policies such as the NBN, the National disability Scheme, Gonski etc, they raised not a murmur of disagreement.
Some of them are in the know, and raised the prospect (in their minds the done deal) that Barnett was so much of the problem in WA that Grylls would join the Liberal Party shortly and there would be spill in which he would take over as Liberal Premier, there being no one else in the current Liberals competent to take over.
Interesting times.
3:12am 15/12 Nett_NEWS by Otiose94 – http://bit.ly/1aQcqOy
Rossmore; Deblonay
Cheers from Barcelona (there for a few days myself at present)
Great place. They are rather struggling with huge unemployment though (particularly young people) which they and Spain more generally did very little to create – resentment of wall st cretins is understandably high. A reminder of what Swan and Rudd saved us from and what fathead Hockey and cronies would have given us .
Excellent public transport – will we ever see such a thing in Sydney?
modlib
[IM BACK BABY, IM BACK!]
Only a rabbit govt would let you back in.
MM
Enjoy.
The first hint of the GFC was the collapse of real estate values in Spain.
[Group of 70 asylum seekers, including many children, arrive on Christmas Island]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-14/70-asylum-seekers-arrive-on-christmas-island/5157120
Poor Scotty (and Shorn).
New thread.