BludgerTrack: 52.0-48.0 to Labor

The Track is back – but with only two new poll results to go on, and no sign so far of any change since before the break.

With the return of Morgan and Essential Research, the weekly BludgerTrack poll aggregate is also back in business, albeit that it’s on a fairly shaky footing at present given the shallow pool of new data. However, since both polls show little change on the situation as they were recording it before the break, there’s nothing in national figures that should arouse any controversy. Both major parties and the Palmer United Party are down slightly on the primary vote, with the slack taken up by the Greens and others, and there is no change at all on two-party preferred. The seat projection nonetheless ticks a point in the Coalition’s favour owing to the vagaries of the latest state-level data. Full details, as always, on the sidebar (to those wondering why there are three data points after the break rather than two, the Morgan poll has been broken down into two results to account for it having been conducted over two weekends).

The monthly personal ratings from Essential Research also allow for an update to the leadership ratings, but this should be treated with even greater caution given that there’s only one result available from the past month. So while it may be that the air is indeed going out of Bill Shorten’s honeymoon, you would want to see more than one data point from Essential Research before jumping to such a conclusion, which is essentially all the model is reacting to at present. This points to a broader difficulty with the BludgerTrack leadership rating methodology which I aim to address in due course, namely the lack of any adjustment for each pollsters’ idiosyncrasies. There will thus be a tendency for the numbers to move around based purely on which particular pollster happens to have reported most recently. When enough data is available, I will start tracking each pollsters’ variation from the aggregated trend and applying “bias” adjustments accordingly.

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.

2,049 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.0-48.0 to Labor”

Comments Page 41 of 41
1 40 41
  1. [Sean is not the only Liberal here, but he is the only one willing to run any kind of serious defense of this government which is a far harder task than one could otherwise have expected.]

    It is a hard task to run defense of this government. But it should have been just as hard to defend the previous one. But the atmosphere here made it easy. So easy that most of you became borderline delusional.

    [I suspect the Greens supporters might have a few things to say and even amongst ALP supporters there can be slanging matches from time to time.]

    The greens supporters who weren’t driven off have buckled under and conformed to mainstream bludger norms. A new person wouldn’t even know that guytaur was a green at all. And even Fran Barlow has moderated from the way she used to be in the beginning (when everyone hated her).

  2. LSL

    Glen liked Hunt, Bilson and Turnbull. He didn’t like Abbott but still wanted him to win, just like many ordinary Liberal voters.

    He was against same sex marriage.

    As for Bolt and racism, you’d have to ask him yourself?

  3. Rossmore
    [Pure speculation, but is it possible a RAN vessel disobeyed an order to release the lifeboat at the 12 mile border and chose instead to escort the lifeboat closer to shore for fear the refugees could be at risk. The refugees claim their lifeboat was released 3k from shore. Why would they lie about that detail? Surprised the journos aren’t asking that question. Perhaps the biggest story out of this whole affair is yet to emerge…?]
    Very interesting theory

    Also, at 3km, there is no question of failure of equipment or minor incursion. You could see the land from 3km!

  4. [Glen liked Hunt, Bilson and Turnbull.]

    Well he was a different sort of fish than the likes of Sean Tisme then.

    Supporting mainstream LNP policy and values is more than just policy positions. It is an attitude and an outlook which is completely toxic to the sort of people who congregate here. You will never accept it in a person unless they show you clear signs of not really believing in it.

  5. LSL

    No, I would say Glen was more representative of the ordinary Liberal voter than Tisme.

    Glen nearly always supported LNP values and policy.

    I think you are wrong. I have given my reasons for Tisme’s unpopularity in the prior page.

    *night all, me crash

  6. LSL

    I would question the current set of Liberal Party policies as even being true to the Liberal Party core values.

    The Liberal Party has drifted away from its progressive cosmopolitan roots to a more astare and fundamentalism which as more in common with the views of the American Tea Party than the British Conservatives who the Liberals traditionally modeled themselves on.

    There was a time Liberals believed in a role for the state and believed in many policies which today are owned by the ALP as the Liberals have drifted away.

  7. [I would question the current set of Liberal Party policies as even being true to the Liberal Party core values.

    The Liberal Party has drifted away from its progressive cosmopolitan roots to a more astare and fundamentalism]

    And the Labor party has drifted away from its white Australia working man’s roots to whatever sort of socially permissive, elitist progressive abomination it is today.

    These things happen.

  8. Leisure Suit Larry@2001

    A new person wouldn’t even know that guytaur was a green at all. And even Fran Barlow has moderated from the way she used to be in the beginning (when everyone hated her).

    You cannot have been observing closely or you would know guytaur is not a green. He is merely indistinguishable from a green.

    As for Fran, well she is a much loved PB institution and adds heaps to the blog even for those who frequently disagree with her.

  9. LSL – Yes there is a clear labor bias here, but … well what are conventional LNP views?

    If they’re what we’ve seen since Howard got elected a big part of them involves being anti science and racist, being a bully and a bigot. Regardless of the economics and social left or rightedness of your worldview that sort of thing is bad for a society. Especially one like Australia where we are successfully multicultural.

    Quite frankly at this moment in time the LNP stands for so much crap – from the TPP to ignoring AGW to indulging the worst sides of humanity especially wrt boat people. What actual sane policies do they have? There is nothing the LNP can say in a rational debate. The worst elements of that political hemisphere have driven our cultural Overton Window so far from the centre where rational thought informs public policy that there is very little rational argument to be had. Instead its non stop ad hominem, labelling and rabid visciousness. (The ALP mis not a leftist party for example. it might have been once but it isn’t right now, yet anyone who doesn’t agree with someone like Bolt is a “leftist” – wtf?)

    Thats hardly a healthy place for a society to be.

    If you want to support a narrow minded inability to deal with the world as it is now in 2014 and into the future fine, but don’t expect people to tolerate it when the consequences of being like that are so dire for everyone else.

    As for Bolt – he’s never apologised for sounding like Anders Breivek’s propaganda minister for the first half of 2011. he lied about what happens in Norway right up until that massacre. if he was publishing in norway he’d be known for inciting right wing terrorism. If he’s the LNP mouthpiece circa 2014 then no wonder they’re seen as stupid, brutal and scummy by anyone with a heart.

    Anyway I’m going to bed.

  10. [As for Fran, well she is a much loved PB institution and adds heaps to the blog even for those who frequently disagree with her.]

    She is a communist still, and has views much more dangerous than Tony Abbott’s.

  11. Leisure Suit Larry@2012

    As for Fran, well she is a much loved PB institution and adds heaps to the blog even for those who frequently disagree with her.


    She is a communist still, and has views much more dangerous than Tony Abbott’s.

    Bollocks!
    You must have been watching too much of Persons of Interest on SBS and believing all the ASIO bullshit.

  12. Sure the ALP have drifted or better put the ALP has matured.

    Many of things which the ALP now support were once solid Liberal turf and in many cases are still well supported by sections of the Liberal Party.

    Things like the Arts, Universities, Science, Public Infrastructure.

    Things like the NDIS, NBN and Gonski are sound policies which a generation or so ago would have been well backed by the Liberals but today the Liberals have moved on.

    The Liberals have lost direction needing to focus on Boats, when you look at the calible of people this government has hired to advise it, its mostly gone for the voices of the Howard era, where are the new Conservative thinkers.

    Is Maurice Newman the face of the future of business, or is David Murray in touch with a young yearly 30 year old financier.

    I could go on and sure the ALP has its issues but at least the ALP is open to debating it and is open to evolving whilst the Liberal Party find it easier to dismiss critics as Lefties.

    Sean has been asked by MTBW to outline what is a Leftie, a few days on and after several repeated times the question is still unanswered.

    The reason is simple the Liberal Party today has been come too narrow disregarding its traditional policy areas.

    Now all it can do is complain about cost and deficit and boats.

  13. [If they’re what we’ve seen since Howard got elected a big part of them involves being anti science and racist, being a bully and a bigot. Regardless of the economics and social left or rightedness of your worldview that sort of thing is bad for a society. Especially one like Australia where we are successfully multicultural.]

    All of the above is purely your opinion, yet progressives state it as though it were some kind of fact. No evidence required.

    Well some people disagree with your opinion, and that doesn’t mean that they are arguing that the sun revolves around the earth. I know this may be hard to accept, but there is a chance that you may actually be wrong.

  14. @MB/2008

    I’d add elements of Church of Scientology to the liberals due to past articles on Church of Scientology on Climate Change debate.

  15. [Now all it can do is complain about cost and deficit and boats.]

    Surely good things to complain about though?

    Say what you will about the LNP, but I believe that Australia was governed better during the Howard years than during the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years, and I think it is too early to say what history will make of the Abbott years.

  16. Re Fran Barlow and others and Leisure Suit Larry
    _________________________
    as a labor man turned Green I have always enjoyed her posts and like Mex Beem I have long detected in many Libs..and some here…that curious trend to be like the right wing Repubs..the .Tea Party in a few words
    oddly just as it makes the Repubs unelectedable in the USA
    …..a part that not only apposes Abortion,but now argues abour Birth Control)(as I’m sure would Bernardi et al…given the chance)

    This will in the end be very dangerous for the Libs…a fact I welcome…as it will cripple them electorally…because the whole basis of Australian society and culture is to expect the State/Govt.. to exercise a certain role which is unlike that in the US,…which I have come to know well in recent years’in personal; terms

    Yet some in the LNP find the fascination of the US Right a great attactionn….it would have shocked Menzies or Casey or Hamer and even Bolte…and it certainly shocks and repels Malcolm Fraser who has cut all ties with the party

    As to the statement that Fran is still a communist what are we to make of that rather McCarthyist statement
    Many I suspect here…like me…know and respect the great insight into the workings of apitalism as showm in the writing of Marx
    \His description of same in The Communist Manifesto read today is amazingly apat to the way capitalism destroys ancient social structures(Marx didn’t oppose that,but thought it was the road to socialism and that capitalism opened that road )…and perhaps he was right there too…we shall have to wait and see what happens in the future
    ..there is a lot of history still to come,and the wisdom of Marx tells us what the futurer might be like..capitalism though dominant is in a fact a rather tender growth,as we are seeing ..and the long dominance of the West is over after 500 years of history

  17. In the business world it is well known that one of the first sign of real trouble is a sole focus on cost.

    Once cost and deficit becomes the sole focus, the business will start to stagflat and start to lose its competitive edge.

    The Federal Government appears to lack new ideas and new direction with its sight set back to Howard.

    That approach is wrong headed as the issues facing the country are different and while one can learn from History but living in the past will not guarantee that similar results will be obtained.

    Was Howard successful, between 1996-2001 he could be classed as having been a success but after 2001 he clearly was going though the motions of being in government for the so purpose of being there.

    Howard may have done some good things but overall he was an average PM only a 4/10.

    The Rudd-Gillard governments were better than Howard on several levels in particular their social policies were far ahead of Howard. Overall a 6.5/10

  18. [This will in the end be very dangerous for the Libs…a fact I welcome…as it will cripple them electorally…because the whole basis of Australian society and culture is to expect the State/Govt.. to exercise a certain role which is unlike that in the US]

    It is true that the LNP has many unpopular elements to its agenda, but these are mostly never fully implemented (even with control of the senate after 2004 Howard barely touched anything in any serious way).

    And to balance out the unpopular things in the LNP agenda they have many populist policies which have broad support and where Labor’s progressive elitism make it vulnerable. I would not expect to see the LNP out of office for longer than it is in office over the next few decades.

  19. “Howard barely touched anything in a serious way”
    _________________________..Where were you LSL when Howard after 2004 introduced Work Choices…so unpopular as to bring about his defeat…as I said…a US -type labour law that angered so many

    So I welcome the Tea-Part-elements in the conservatives ranks……bring them on…the work choiches debate shows how easy thay are to defeat in the Australian context

  20. All political parties have elements which would make them unelectable to the majority but that isn’t necessarily an issue in itself but in the Liberal Party case its rejection of things classed as elite risk breaking with its traditional progressive world-view leaving it open to becoming the party of Cory and co.

    The ALP at least by maintaining its relationship with the union movement has a foundation to fall back upon at times of renewal.

  21. Work Choices was nothing. If a rightwing government ever implemented workplace laws of the type the purists want you would really know about it.

  22. Workchoices was a badly written act which was a lawyers picnic.

    It was overly complicated for business and employees alike, it was shabby and un-australian and no real conservative could support an act which was a shocker and yes i did read the whole act.

    It read worst than any union could make it out too be

  23. [in the Liberal Party case its rejection of things classed as elite risk breaking with its traditional progressive world-view leaving it open to becoming the party of Cory and co.]

    Is being the party of Cory and co really viewed by most Australians as that bad? Is it not the case that all the outrage about Cory and co is centred in a small progressive elite who every year move further and further away from sharing the values of ordinary Australians, and that the only way they can make the outrage spread even a small amount outside their cabal is to distort and sensationalize it so it no longer bears much relation to reality at all?

  24. I would think that so called elite population is actually growing as Australia becomes a more educated, higher earning and more worldly.

    The Liberal Party historically has been more politically successful when it has been more to the left.

  25. [yet progressives state it as though it were some kind of fact. No evidence required.]

    Evidence? Well as far as anti-science Abbott’s attitude to Climate Change is pretty well documented. He thinks the Science is crap and is prepared to say so when he thinks he is among fellow travelers.

    [“The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.”]

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/politics/the-town-that-turned-up-the-temperature/story-e6frgczf-1225809567009

    Racist? Well, considering one of their number one legislative priorities (so they claim) is to change the law so that their mate Bolta be as incompetently racist as he likes is a pretty good indicator there.

    There is actually objective evidence that the LNP is run by nasty incompetent morons that lie a lot whenever it suits them. And you are obviously talking out of your bottom Larry. 🙂

    And if the above isn’t good enough for you, you twit, just consider their efforts in the diplomatic arena. Or have a squizz at tax policy? Big business to do their own assessments? Oh and there is the bit about repealing the regs that require financial advisers to act in their clients interests? Good policy for the spivs and shysters that wot??

    FFS, they are led by someone who has actually told the nation that what he says cant be trusted.

    If you want to argue policy fine, but to generalize about lack of evidence is just LNP style one eyed stupidity.

  26. [Evidence? Well as far as anti-science Abbott’s attitude to Climate Change is pretty well documented.]

    Tony Abbott no doubt believes that “climatology” is little more than a pseudoscience which relies on grossly inadequate modeling to make untestable predictions and unfalsifiable hypothesises. Quite intelligent of him, if I must say.

    [Racist? Well, considering one of their number one legislative priorities (so they claim) is to change the law so that their mate Bolta be as incompetently racist as he likes is a pretty good indicator there.]

    Yes, well no doubt the LNP thinks that what is considered by progressives to be “racist” and therefore grounds for a person’s life and career to be destroyed has moved too far in the (insane) progressive direction and they think it should be moved back to a more reasonable place. Once again quite sensible I think.

    [FFS, they are led by someone who has actually told the nation that what he says cant be trusted.]

    Surely such honesty is refreshing?

  27. [Surely such honesty is refreshing?]

    Nope. Admitting to a vice does not make it a virtue.

    And he is inconsistent anyway.

    Abbott chooses to align himself with the idiot Grumpy True Disbeliever demographic. The kind of morons who consider that their opinion about climate science is worth more than actually looking at the data. Yet he hedges and claims that he and the LNP “accept the science”.

    On the evidence (policy incompetence, diplomatic skill set, lying, shuddering brainlock under pressure ) he is simply not fit to hold any responsible office.

  28. [On the evidence (policy incompetence, diplomatic skill set, lying, shuddering brainlock under pressure ) he is simply not fit to hold any responsible office.]

    Oh he leaves a lot to be desired. But the last Labor Prime Minister was regarded even by his own colleagues as a psychopath, so what are you going to do.

  29. But there is a simple reason why he hedges his bets on CC and that is he knows many Liberals particularly the cosmopolitan ones will be most displeased.

  30. [But there is a simple reason why he hedges his bets on CC and that is he knows many Liberals particularly the cosmopolitan ones will be most displeased.]

    I think the LNP feared that the ridicule they would face from the elites if they went for full on climate “denialism” would be of such potency that it could taint them even amongst ordinarily intelligent voters.

    I’m not sure if they were right, but they played it safe and devised their BS direct action policy which allowed them to play both sides of the issue.

  31. [But the last Labor Prime Minister was regarded even by his own colleagues as a psychopath, so what are you going to do.]

    Vote for the relatively competent psychopath who would have headed up a front bench with extensive skills and experience in positive policy implementation rather than the incompetent moron with no actual policies heading up a front bench of has been and never were wastes of space.

  32. [extensive skills and experience in positive policy implementation]

    This is such a lovely example of modern day progressive political language. But believe it or not there are some of us who don’t care much for your positive policy implementation.

    We’d rather have Tony Abbott. And I have a feeling that despite all of the hurdles, come the next election Australians will vote to have him again.

  33. Sure it is possible that the Liberals could win in 2016 and history would suggest that they will obtain a second term but the ALP are in better shape today than they were in 1996.

    If the economy preforms as poorly as forecast then its quite possible that come 2016 with a unified ALP with at least three solid policies (NDIS,NBN & Gonski) the ALP could well win the next poll.

    A next six months will set the narrative for this government so time will tell.

  34. [We’d rather have Tony Abbott.]

    Yup, there are obviously a significant number of rather stupid people out there who hold that opinion. Still, from recent polling it would appear there are fewer now than in Sept 13.

  35. [Yes the elites, many of whom are Liberal supporters or at least live in plum Liberal seats.]

    It is very difficult to be wealthy and maintain unfashionable social views these days. Fortunately for the LNP though, it is also still very difficult to be wealthy and to knowingly vote your wealth away to a party of the fiscally irresponsible and ideologically redistributionist.

  36. [1941
    Rossmore

    Centre 1937 no argument from me on that, but in a difficult tense operational sphere where you are under orders to “tow back” and abandon a vessel, the lesser of two evils may well be to cross the border and release the vessel closer to shore. I believe our front line armed forces are highly professional and may well have made that call on safety grounds. It would have been an honorable decision IMHO.]

    There may well also be a quiet nod-and-a-wink understanding developing between the frontline Oz and Indonesian border forces. I doubt either side has any great desire to be cannon fodder in Abbott’s mindless he-man fantasy.

  37. Which makes Shorten more dangerous for the Liberals than most ALP leaders as he went to Xavs which gives him an insight and connection with those wealthy ones.

  38. [I doubt either side has any great desire to be cannon fodder in Abbott’s mindless he-man fantasy.]

    Do you really think that Tony Abbott is a he-man fantasist? Personally I am not sure. Does he lie awake fantasizing about leading the nation in time of war and bombing the Indonesians back to the stone age?

    I haven’t really got that vibe from him to be honest. I don’t think anyone in the Coalition wants a war as such, although I don’t think they will climb down over the boats issue either.

  39. [Which makes Shorten more dangerous for the Liberals than most ALP leaders as he went to Xavs which gives him an insight and connection with those wealthy ones.]

    I don’t view Shorten as dangerous to anyone, and I doubt the Liberals do either.

  40. I have long found Adams a genial chap to listen to in short bursts, but what I did find annoying was his tendency to talk over the often very interesting guests and to put words into their mouths, often when they were coming to the point he inserted over their commentary or else when they were about to go somewhere more interesting to me.

    I’m not sure whether this was Adams showing he knew stuff or whether he really was just over enthusiastic about the guest’s particular corpus of expertise, but in a short show it was really annoying.

  41. LSL

    [In many ways he was the opponent you bludgers deserved. Your conservative mirror. He only attracted so much attention because there was only one of him and so many more of you.]

    I don’t agree that ST was a conservative. The persona was simply a reactionary megaphone. No item of LNP nonsense was so palpable that ST would decline to utter it in tones of high dudgeon and culture war and then make not even a modest attempt to defend it.

    Most who post here lean to the right or here and there cautiously and ever so slightly to the small-l liberal left, depending on the issue. IMO that makes this place on the whole conservative. Few propose radical change in favour of the socially marginalised. Most favour substantial action on climate change but the idea that some effort to protect the balance of ecosystem services that enabled humanity to live as well as we do is a conservative idea rather than a radical one. Favouring renewables is not culturally radical either, as one can do this out of a preference for localism or a cleaner biosphere or energy independence or the desire for profitable business.

    Most here are sympathetic to same sex marriage, but there are conservative arguments for this as well as those founded in social justice or respect for the humanity of others. Marriage is a conservative concept in the mind of most leftists.

    ST was boorish. He (?) brought a foul odour rather than fresh air to discussion and wouldn’t even discuss why he was directing his malodorous venting here. I suspect that as with RT the author(s) decided it was time to retire the character and this motivated the imprecation to others to top themselves. I expect the next iteration to have the initials TT but I suppose we’ll see.

  42. LSL @ 2018

    Saying “thats just my opinion” and offering nothing else in the way of .. well anything is exactly my point. And just sayinmg “your opinion” without offering anything to counter that opinion kind of supports my opinion in this context. The LNP stands for nothing besides bigotry and self interest at the cost of our national interest.

    Anti science – the LNPs reaction to climate change is evidence enough. The lack of a science minister, despite the fact that science is the future – thats the obvious thing. Its a general anti knowledge attitude the party has these days.

    Bigotry and racism – well thats obvious, of course the ALP has its share of bigots too but the ALP moved on from its white Australia roots years ago.The LNP was the party responsible for implementing the referendum on indigenous recognition, Harold Holt ended the White Australia Policy, Fraser followed up with Land Rights legislation (tho it was a bipartisan thing at the time,) and enabled a humane response to a boat people driven refugee crisis.

    WTF happened? These days we have actual persecution of refugees Muslims and non traditional families as the new Jews and the great nephew of an SS-Brigadeführer dictating industrial policy while the Qld LNP actively undermines democracy with stupid legislation banning associations they don’t like, parties or get togethers that don’t have state approval and, with a strict reading of the legislation, beer and chocolate.

    Once upon a time the LNP offered support to small business and farmers for example – not anymore. These days its all multinational business and CSG over farmlands every time.

    etc etc

    And still you can’t produce a coherent reasonable comment about what the current LNP actually stands for other than naked self interest and power for its own sake.

Comments Page 41 of 41
1 40 41

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *