BludgerTrack: 52.0-48.0 to Labor

This week’s BludgerTrack poll aggregate puts Labor well into absolute majority territory, marking their sixth consecutive improvement.

The latest weekly BludgerTrack update neatly reflects the results of the most recent Newspoll, ReachTEL and Nielsen polls in landing bang on 52-48 to Labor. The Labor primary vote has a four in front of it for the first time since BludgerTrack opened for business at the start of the year, albeit by the barest of margins, with a 1.4% gain this week coming off a drop for minor parties while the Coalition holds steady at 40.9%. The latest state-level data points have fuelled a blowout in the result for Queensland, and while there has certainly been some indication of softness for the Coalition there recently (notably the 11% swing which showed up in Nielsen), I’m pretty sure the present extent of it will prove to be aberration. The two weakest state swings for Labor happen to be where elections are due shortly, although you might argue that a Holden shutdown effect is yet to come through in South Australia.

This will probably be the last update for the year – certainly Essential Research will not be back until the middle of next month, and I imagine that’s it for Morgan as well. Newspoll has never been in the business of polling beyond early December, but hopefully The Australian will shortly offer state breakdowns from its accumulated post-election polling so a bit more ballast can be added to the BludgerTrack state dataset.

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.

3,089 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.0-48.0 to Labor”

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  2. Going for a ‘trickle down’ effect makes as much sense as watering the garden by washing your car or hosing your roof. It is nothing but self-interested cant promoted by those who have a lot and want a lot more.

  3. psyclaw

    People who have had (or are likely to have) their funding withdrawn seem far too prone to pulling back on criticism and trying to sound even-handed.

    Well done John Falzon.

  5. psyclaw

    The verdic is in on Reagan and his trickle down economics. It has been a disaster for the US. Of course for the chosen few, it has been manna from heaven

  6. Victoria 50 It actually sounded worse spoken. This was Tony going completely off-piste.

    Out in the burbs the punters who heard Abbott would have quietly and puzzlingly reflected, ‘How is losing your job ‘liberating”‘?

  7. Steve 777

    “Tricle down” by definition means that those from whom it is trckling will always be at the top of the chain, and in charge. The recipients lead their life in perpetual catch-up mode, ie 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards.

    Maybe they should just “get a job” as Tism says. Easy!

  8. Rossmore

    Of course it would be liberating if you happened to be the group of friends in Qld who had just won 70 million in this week’s lotto.

  12. Rosssmore – I fear out in the burbs the punters were clutching their OzLotto ticket in hope and soak up some sop-stories in the commercial TV news to keep them entertained. The perils the Sharks find themselves in would have exercised them a lot more than what some polly utters.

  15. And of course those directly under the hose of goodies that’s supposed to ‘trickle down’ will do their utmost to limit the amount of ‘trickling’ that does occur: through reducing the bargaining power of those they employ, paying them as little as they can get away with; and by minimising / avoiding / evading tax through complex corporate and trust structures to hide their income and assets. And much of the ‘tricking’ that does occur will be outside the country through the ‘offshoring’ of employment and profits.

  16. [I fear out in the burbs the punters were clutching their OzLotto ticket in hope and soak up some sop-stories in the commercial TV news to keep them entertained. The perils the Sharks find themselves in would have exercised them a lot more than what some polly utters.]

    This statement does tend to imply that you think “Howard’s Battlers” and those who voted for the Coalition in September are absolute morons.

  19. Brenda Loots 62 – perhaps, but I’d a suggest for a proportion, maybe a small proportion, the ‘liberating’ comment would have given them pause for thought for a moment. It would have added to a sense of ‘are this lot real?’.

    Abbott seems unable to help himself and strays from Credlin’s lines at every presser. At the moment he is the ALPs best assett, reminding the punters every time he appears that whilst the former mob were always arguing at least they got things done. This lot currently do everything with their foot in their mouth and next year will start inflicting pain on whole sections of the community.

    There was a note of repressed panic in Nikki Savva’s piece in the Oz today, WTTE that Abbott has stuffed up completely in the first 100 days. Particularly telling was her comment that Cabinet Ministers are thoroughly pissed off with the decision making process under Abbott. From one of the LNP’s staunchest journo allies this was a damning critique of the Gov. I think Savva recognises the LNP has exhausted all their new Gov political capital too very little effect and that it’s only going to get harder next year.

  21. Indonesia has a reputation for corruption.

    Indeed, one of the way in which the Abbott hacks ‘defended’ Abbott was by attacking Indonesia as being riddled with corruption.

    The logic seemed to be that spying was OK because Indonesians were crooks.

    Not at all reported in the Australian MSM is that there is a very active corruption-fighting body in Indonesia. The following case involves corruption relating to cattle import quotas:

    http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/kpk-detain-beef-importer-who-allegedly-bribed-luthfi/

    Meanwhile, stuck somewhere in the back pages of the Australian MSM, is a case involving the alledged fraudulent misappropriation of $26 million by something like seven Elder’s staff.

    What part of Elders? Why, the live cattle export trade section.

  22. There’s much to be said for the oft quoted lines that ‘events dear boy, events’ change political fortunes. But I think there is also mileage in political fortunes changing thru a slow accumulation of errors and gaffes. The LNP Gov have excelled in the latter in their first 100 days and in the absence of some dramatic event that changes their fortunes, I can only see more gaffes and errors to come.

  24. Brenda

    I think that Abbott’s liberating comment if it gets reported and actually SEEN by voters is very, very damaging. It is one of those comments that will last because it is “pub ready” and likely to get many a curse as the conversation wanes or beverage consumption increases on Xmas day.

  27. 70

    This is English, therefore you can verb almost anything (bath however is not a verb, bathe is the verb (and despite “th” being two letters, they are pronounced differently)). Intrigue has also been used for a long time, especially in phrases like “It intrigues me” but the infinitive form is little used.

    Use of third person singular verb conjugations in plural contexts is wrong and annoying. I believe the rot started with people stopping saying “The United States are”.

  28. It intrigues me” but the infinitive form is little used.

    While not claiming anything other than being confused by the grammars of several languages, might not that be the ‘intransitive’ form?

  30. Tom

    Not so sure about the United States. When discussing the United States as a single nation, singular is I think the CORRECT form.

    One would say the United States of America is still the dominant economic power but the united states of South America are emerging as a powerful economic block.

  31. JW

    He can be liberated, of course. It is notable that it took less than 100 days for him to generate leadershit.

    That noise you can hear in the background is the rattle of loose batons in backpacks, the sound of knives meeting grindstones and the grinding of teeth of disappointed rent seekers.

  32. Tom

    One would only use the plural when talking of of the USA when discussing actions that the individual states have collectively agreed upon. In most cases the USA acts as a single nation state entity, although I am sure there will be situations where the collective plural is appropriate.

  38. Rossmore@72


    I can only see more gaffes and errors to come.

    abbott has burnt a lot of political capital already but achieved little reform. Closing our car industry is not reform.

    The so called ‘audit of commission’ (COA) is due around March 2014 when standing in polls will be important with State elections, maybe still the Qld by election to come plus a rerun of WA Senate.

    So how in the hell is he going to sell the COA ‘recommendations’ of nasty spending cuts and increased taxes, including a GST increase / broadening to voters who already don’t like him or his Government.

    Plus business will be screaming for pork.

    The above is all without any further gaffs or ‘events dear boy’ coming into play.

    Get the monsoon out of the way, boats back in play, across the board government blackout on info likely to blow up at some stage and self imposed EOY deadline on the China FTA looming.

    He might sail through – but there is little evidence to suggest he will – based on his known handling of matters over many years, not just the few in power this time.

  39. “@danielhurstbne: “To be born in Australia is to win the lottery of life” – PM Abbott at beginning of speech about adoption laws.”

  40. Why is Abbott back to doing daily press conferences, and whatever happened to his post-election pledge that we’d only hear from him when he had something substantive to say?

  42. 80 & 82

    The idea of describing the United States or other nations with plural names (archipelagos(the Seychelles, etc), federation names that describe what they are made up of (United States, etc) and names containing and (Trinidad and Tobago)) as singular is a peculiar to English. Grammatically it should be plural. In French it is certainly plural and being French it is not only “States” that shows the plural but the adjective, United, and the the.

  47. @lenoretaylor: good question RT @oztop40: @JennyPescud @lenoretaylor @guardian is Direct Action Plan a form of corporate welfare or a business subsidy?

  48. Bloody mobile phones.

    Because I haven’t one, I had to personally visit the bank to verify a password on a new card.

    How would I know it was pension day today. The queue in the bank (which didn’t open till 9.30am, when did that happen?) was out the door and round the corner.

    Everyone trying to get things done before the heat.

    Had a lovely conversation, though, with a ‘New Australian’ who had emigrated from Croatia in 1967. He finds AS policy inexplicable,extreme and very cruel.

    Said the best part about coming to Australia was the 28-day sea voyage. The first holiday he’d had in his life, to that point. He grumbled, though, that he was allowed to bring $32 only (about $360 today) into the country. Economic migrant? Sure.

    ——

    Brenda Loots @ various

    You haven’t been blooded into PB until you’ve been kneecapped, kicked to death, shoved into a hessian bag, and otherwise eviscerated by the likes of a Frank Calabrese. 😆

    So, enjoy the rather lame initiation (by comparison) of troll tag questioning.

  49. [ “@danielhurstbne: “To be born in Australia is to win the lottery of life” – PM Abbott at beginning of speech about adoption laws.” ]

    Really? I can’t believe he said that – the guy has a bad case of the “Cecil Rhodes”!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes

    The actual quote is

    [“To be born in Englishman is to win the lottery of life” ]

    What a twat!

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