BludgerTrack: 51.8-48.2 to Labor

The weekly poll aggregate has Newspoll eliminating Labor’s modest gains over the early new year period, when it had only Essential, Morgan and ReachTEL to go on.

The first Newspoll of the year has caused Labor to take a knock on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, helped along a little by a softer result from Morgan. Newspoll has also driven up the Greens, whose breakthrough into double figures softens a shift from Labor to Coalition on the primary vote to a 0.8% movement on two-party preferred. That translates into a solid six-point change on the seat projection, which is now back to hung parliament territory. Taking into account Labor’s still solid lead on the two-party result, this demonstrates the height of the bar the BludgerTrack model sets for Labor in making it to an absolute majority, mostly on account of sophomore surge effects in the decisive marginal seats. On the state breakdowns, the Coalition recovers one seat each in Victoria and Tasmania and four in Queensland. The latter is down to the publication of a Galaxy poll of federal voting intention in Queensland from yesterday’s Courier-Mail, which I have thus far failed to comment on. The poll of 800 respondents showed the Coalition with a 52-48 lead – a swing of 5% to Labor from the election, and 4% on the previous such poll in November – from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition (down five on the November poll), 33% for Labor (up three), 7% for the Greens (steady), 4% for Katter’s Australian Party (up one) and 11% for the Palmer United Party (up three). It was evident that BludgerTrack had wandered off the reservation for a while there so far as its Queensland projection was concerned, and the addition of this substantial new data point from a high-quality pollster has returned it to where it probably should have been all along.

There are also two new results to feed into the leadership ratings, one being the regular findings from Newspoll and the other the monthly result from Essential Research. Both have landed in exactly the same place after bias adjustments were added, and the effect has been to maintain the downward momentum for Bill Shorten that emerged when the last numbers were added from Essential Research a month ago. Tony Abbott on the other hand has been in a gentler pattern of decline after the steep fall that followed the Coalition’s polling slip in November, and has a stable lead of slightly below double figures as preferred prime minister. Some good analysis of the leadership ratings is available at the bottom of this post by Kevin Bonham, who previously noted that Shorten’s early ratings were on the mediocre side for a leader new to the job, and now finds similarities with Brendan Nelson and Simon Crean at comparable stages of the game.

As always, full results on the sidebar.

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.

1,740 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.8-48.2 to Labor”

Comments Page 1 of 35
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  1. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
    I can’t believe it! It’s raining here.

    Just look at this crap served up to us by the SMH.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/pm-shows-the-meaning-of-fair-go-20140212-32i5g.html
    Almost makes it a “great big new tax”.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ama-fears-medibank-sale-will-force-up-prices-of-premiums-20140212-32ie8.html
    With a protective, partisan Speaker and a supportive, compliant Murdochracy the liar will get away with it.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/hockey-stands-firm-on-toyota-comment-though-car-maker-denies-blaming-union-20140212-32ieo.html
    The oft-used phrase “level playing field” is inappropriate. More appropriate would be “equal playing field”.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australias-car-tariffs-among-worlds-lowest-20140212-32iem.html
    There is a bit of a political death smell about this.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/fiona-nash-chief-of-staff-alastair-furnival-under-pressure-to-resign-over-food-ratings-website-20140212-32i4n.html
    Kim Carr demanding some very interesting information in the Senate.
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/12/asylum-towbacks-senate-demands-details-on-lifeboat-costs-and-numbers
    Culture wars recommence at the Museum of Australian Democracy.
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/postcolonial/2014/feb/12/coalition-follows-election-win-with-cultural-coup-to-set-all-to-the-right
    Isn’t this the project that Abbott so warmly endorsed without there being a cost/benefit study?
    http://www.theage.com.au/national/eastwest-link-would-not-return-state-costs-20140212-32ihr.html
    Aren’t the outlaw bikies such wonderful people!
    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/woman-sexually-assaulted-during-100-bandidos-debt-retrieval-court-told-20140213-32j0j.html

  2. Section 2 . . .

    David Rowe has Hockey as an airbag.
    http://www.afr.com/p/national/cartoon_gallery_david_rowe_1g8WHy9urgOIQrWQ0IrkdO
    Alan Moir sums up the subjugated Nationals.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/fiona-nash-chief-of-staff-alastair-furnival-under-pressure-to-resign-over-food-ratings-website-20140212-32i4n.html
    MUST SEE! David Pope infers that Abbott’s “Closing the Gap” speech yesterday was disingenuous.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/david-pope-20120214-1t3j0.html
    John Spooner’s view of Toyota’s statement of refutation.
    http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/john-spooner-20090716-dmsv.html

  3. George Christensen on ABC24 badmouthing the auto industry. Looks like he’n been to a style consultant for a makeover.
    Now he’s wearing a Frank Nitti suit, has short hair and a close cut beard.
    You’ve wasted your money, George.

  4. Morning

    BK

    I am up and about early today. Glad it is raining in your neck of the woods. No such luck here. The air is filled with smoke and it hasnt rained in ages. Would love to get some of your rain

  5. And from the Land of the Free –

    Congressional oversight! What a partisan joke!
    http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/02/12/biggest-stinker-congress/
    Ann Coulter – an unmitigated shocker!
    http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/02/11/ann-coulter-accuses-obama-taking-retard-pills/
    Speaking of shockers, here’s Rush Limbaugh at his “best”.
    http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/rush-limbaugh-attacks-gay-nfl-prospect
    Florida cops eating their own.
    http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/cop-who-arrested-cop-going-120-mph-alleges
    Is this guy mentally fit to be a Congressman?
    http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/huelskamp-fights-lgbt-rights-god-third
    Hmm. Dirty tricks inside Congress.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/12/1277051/-House-Republicans-getting-strange-email-threats-and-they-re-coming-from-inside-the-building

  12. Christiensens comments are disgraceful.

    It’s not enough for the Libs that they murdered the auto manufacturing industry. They are so proud of their handiwork that they want to be in the picture dancing on the jobs grave they have created.

    I ask George how many jobs did he actualy create over the last 65 years?

  14. GG

    There is no doubt that the coalition have achieved their goal of destroying the car indusfry in this country.
    They dont even know how to hide their pride in doing so. Listening to Hockey durinv QT yesterday was an absolute disgrace. These people need to be sacked

  15. Morning all. Regarding the Minister for Lying for the Food Industry, Fiona Nash, the ABC report proves she broke the ministerial code of conduct not once but twice:
    [The Front-of-Pack Labelling policy was discussed at an Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council meeting in December, at which Senator Nash and Mr Furnival were present.

    The minutes from that meeting show he did not declare a conflict of interest.

    Mr Furnival’s wife, Tracey Cain, is listed on the Federal Register of Lobbyists as the owner of APA.]
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-12/fiona-nash-backtracks-chief-of-staff-lobby-group/5255878

    So one lie in parliament and one failure to declare at the Council meeting. Even worse, most of the big food companies Nash is clearly in the pocket of are foreign owned.

  16. Socrates

    [Health Department official in charge of food-labelling policy reassigned

    PM also obtained an email showing the Health Department bureaucrat who was leading the development of the food-labelling policy has had it taken from her control.

    In an email update to stakeholders on Wednesday, assistant secretary Kathy Dennis wrote that there has been a “restructure” in the department.

    She says she will no longer lead the Front-of-Pack Labelling Secretariat after two years in the role.

    The secretariat is being made a separate unit from her Healthy Living and Food Policy Branch, and will be led by first assistant secretary Nathan Smyth.]

    ru mentioned last night that a little bird told him to expect leaks as a result of Kathy Dennis being “reassigned”

  17. The quesfion fhat has not been satisfactorily answered, is why was fhe food website pulled down. So far the reasons given seem quite ridiculous

  18. Morning all,

    One thing that I don’t understand about the car industry debate is that every Liberal & economist dry nearly always makes the claim that the main reason for Holden & Toyota pulling up stumps is that people just don’t want to buy their product, Well that & the carbon take & the unions but we all know that’s a load of BS.

    Anyhow here are the sales figures from 2012, sorry I don’t time to set up columns. Toyota is top followed by Holden:

    Top 10 manufacturers (by sales volume):

    Rank Brand 2012 2011 % diff
    1. Toyota 218,176 181,624 20.1
    2. Holden 114,665 126,095 -9.1
    3. Mazda 103,886 88,333 17.6
    4. Hyundai 91,536 87,008 5.2
    5. Ford 90,408 91,243 -0.9
    6. Nissan 79,747 67,926 17.4
    7. Mitsubishi 58,868 61,108 -3.7
    8. Volkswagen 54,835 44,740 22.6
    9. Subaru 40,189 34,011 18.2
    10. Honda 35,812 30,107 18.9

    http://www.fcai.com.au/news/news/all/all/321/new-record-set-in-2012-new-motor-vehicle-sales

    Toyota saw a 20% increase in sales whilst Holden lost 9.1% which is probably not a good thing.

    So am I missing something here?

  23. Victoria

    Thanks. It will also be interesting to see which food companies may have donated money to the coalition. This sort of attack is rarely don for free.

    Have a good day all.

  24. London to a brick that Napthine will tip in the money to save SPC and Tony will give the Vics the money in a brown paper bag.
    Clowns.

  28. lizzie@22

    ‘Mooching’ car makers should pay back government subsidies: MP


    “Mooching off” isn’t a use I’ve ever heard before. I would have used “bludging off”.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-13/mp-christensen-calls-for-car-makers-to-pay-back-subsidies/5255944

    I’ve only used it in the sense of loitering around in a listless sort of way, but apparently mooching is also used in the sense of bludging.

    I vaguely remember an old song about a “moocher”.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mq4UT4VnbE&feature=kp

    I found it! “Minnie the moocher”, a great clip, worth watching.

    [mooch
    mo͞oCH/Submit
    verbinformal
    gerund or present participle: mooching
    1.
    ask for or obtain (something) without paying for it.
    “a bunch of your friends will show up, mooching food”
    synonyms: beg, ask for money, borrow; More
    2.
    loiter in a bored or listless manner.
    “he didn’t want them mooching around all day”]

  30. Am seriously considering giving the SMH the boot and sticking to the guardian australia. It’s not as if I’ll miss anything (except Peter Reith, Paul Sheehan, etc etc).

  31. What sort of person removes $15 million for a hospital neo-natal unit but gives $10 million to his local rugby league club?

    Abbott the Inept

  34. Don and Kevin17

    Thanks, but I prefer the Oxford dictionary 🙂

    Mooching: 1. British – an instance of loitering in a bored or listless manner.

    2 North American a beggar or scrounger.

  35. Good Morning

    @774melbourne: Are Australian workers lazy? Economist @timharcourt “The evidence doesn’t say so.. we haven’t been uncompetitive since (1989)” #Faine

  37. [The Australian dollar is too high …]

    Yikes!

    We have seen some pretty good examples recently of the split in right wing ranks between subsets of their ideology.
    Fracking for example, the inherent conflict between the farmers and the gas miners.
    Similarly over letting nasty forenners such as the Chinese buy farm land. We won’t do it but we did.
    Industry subsidies where wets and dries have each had success and failure, one mob winning with Cadbury, then the other with SPC, and again with vehicles and another example whose detail escapes me.
    Little internal squabbles within the spectrum of ideology of the COALition right managers.

    Ah but not so with the $.

    There the exporters [miners and farmers acting together this time] have had it just about entirely their way.

    High $ bad, low $ good.

    I’m typing this on a computer – obviously.
    Its imported, we don’t have a computer manufacturing industry in Oz. Assembly yes, manufacture no.

    So a 10% decline in the value of the Oz $ will mean a roughly 10% increase in computer costs.
    And all imports.
    That’s my point.
    All the machinery and stuff we import not just consumer stuff like TVs etc but also the life blood of industry and business.
    Like heavy machinery, medical techno gear, all the stuff small and big businesses use daily.
    Inbound tourist operators will be happy as forenners add Oz to the list cheap 3rd world destinations, outbound operators will be less happy but hey they are used to losing to miners as the Barrier Reef schemozzle shows.

    The cost of business, farming included, will increase.
    That’s partly OK after all they can write it off as costs and deduct it from tax and pass the increases on directly and indirectly to — guess who?
    Us.

  38. FREDEX – Very interesting. And, of course, if the dollar drops 10 cents our carmakers should be very competitive. Oops, we lost them.

  40. JP Morgan Australia chief economist Stephen Walters also said employment growth remained weak
    =======================================

    But unemployment growth is strong.

    The Abbott Govt is out the to copy the Howard trifecta of double digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates.

  42. lizzie

    [Mooching off” isn’t a use I’ve ever heard before. I would have used “bludging off”.]
    It is a fave term of Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged and all that.

    [All government assistance is depicted as creating “moochers” by allowing poor people to “leech” the hard earned wealth of the rich and powerful]
    .
    [“Moochers” are Rand’s depiction of those who have no ability or work ethic whatsoever and are thus unable to produce value themselves]
    .
    [Rand’s heroes must continually fight against “parasites”, “looters”, and “moochers” who demand the benefits of the heroes’ labor]

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

  45. Morning all.

    This is unfrickinbelievable!

    [Federal government frontbencher Christopher Pyne has lambasted Labor for disrupting parliament with “undergraduate” and “ungentlemanly” behaviour.

    Labor repeatedly disrupted proceedings in the House of Representatives on Wednesday night, after the coalition earlier used its numbers to gag Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/national/a/21434958/pyne-slams-labor-over-parliamentary-games/ ]

    Pyne is such a hypocrite after his and his colleagues’ behaviour in the last term!

    Labor should still keep it up though. Make the govt look as chaotic as they can.

  47. WE have floods in the north, drought in the farming areas and pestilence in Canberra in the form of this inept Abbott Govt.

    A trifecta straight from the bible

  48. confessions

    “@denniallen: Disrespectful? Disrespectful? Does Pyne actually hear the BS that comes out his mouth? Surpised but welcome Uhlmann’s challenge of that BS”

    Even Uhlmann could not let that go unchallenged

  50. guytaur@35

    Good Morning

    @774melbourne: Are Australian workers lazy? Economist @timharcourt “The evidence doesn’t say so.. we haven’t been uncompetitive since (1989)” #Faine

    This is the real answer to what we are seeing –

    [Gottliebsen –

    ……But we have a majority in cabinet that believe, with a passion, that 2016 is just the time to hit the economy, that Australia needs to be taught a lesson and the labour force requires a good cleansing.

    So as a deliberate policy they are determined to abandon the previous government’s deal to save the motor industry at least until 2022.

    But clearly the more cavalier cabinet members can see the chance to shut down the industry and do not care about the timing or any other consequences.

    …Australia has never before seen a prime minister act this way towards employment. ]

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