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 33 of 35
1 32 33 34 35
  1. connie

    Yes, it is the worst in its first six months of government of all time;

    – Unemplotment up,
    – Car manufacturing industry destroyed,
    – Belligerence to trading partners,
    – etc…etc…etc…

  2. ruawake @1589

    Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

    (Unless oure in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment (1st Armoured Regiment joke!))

  3. rua

    I hope the orange boats have got big enough fuel tanks.

    It would be the biggest scream ever if they attempted to get here with our boats.

    Hilarious!

  4. [Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.]

    It is if it costs $3,000,000,000 and it does nothing.

    Did any arm of Defence actually ask for them, or is it another Abbott/Morrison brain fart.

  5. Centre:

    Apparently the last time unemployment was this high Abbott was employment minister. Even compared with the GFC!

    That fact alone is a damning indictment on the performance of this govt. Even during the GFC when many other countries went into recession, the then Labor govt was able to keep people in employment.

    But not this mob.

  6. [“This is a unique, cooperative effort between China and the United States and we have hopes that it will help to set an example for global leadership and global seriousness on the issue of next year’s climate negotiation,” Kerry told reporters before departing for Jakarta.]

    [“China and the United States will put an extra effort into exchanging information and discussing policies that will help both of us to be able to develop and lead on the standards that need to be announced next year for the global climate change agreement,” Kerry said.]

  7. It’s not just $3 billion wasted on Drones for continued spying (aka after Abbott’s idiot speech that he will no longer spy).

    It’s also $50k per AS Boat + Logistics that will cost that could have been spent in Australia, not elsewhere.

  8. Centre @1593 – Chicoms sent a three boat group for a Cruise to the Sunda Straights. No big deal – they can’t actually do any force projection at the moment. just flag waving exercise really – nice of themto give our RAAF and Navy something to really play with for a change.

  9. connie

    Abbott made promises from day 1 that he could instil confidence and grow our economy.

    When is Abbott going to create the jobs he promised?

    We are going backwards.

  10. zoidy @1611 you missed out the hundreds of thousands, if not millions saved by not having a boat land at Christmas Island – those lifeboats are saving us millions – great value for money.

  11. ruawake

    [It is if it costs $3,000,000,000 and it does nothing. ]

    Allowing for inflation about par for the course. Abbotts dad blew a lazy $1,000,000,000 on a helicopter that never arrived. The same one that NZ got on time and on budget.

  12. Unemployment hits ALP forecast and it’s:

    a. bad

    b. the LNP fault.

    Something very strange about that – so if the ALP was still in Governemnt would there be opprobrium too?

  13. BTW did you know that the increasing regularity of extreme weather events over the last 30 years had cost the US economy $1.15 trillion. There’s another good reason not to put climate change on the back burner.

  14. Crank @ 1617

    That is absurd!

    Abbott and Morrison have spent billions trying to stop the boats.

    If they don’t stop or we have a conflict with Indonesia, they must be booted out of office.

    Crank @ 1621 read post 1613.

    Abbott is FAILING!

  15. Confessions
    [There goes the denialists’ trope that the US and China aren’t acting on AGW.]

    Exactly!

    Though, China already has numerous ETS pilot schemes covering a fifth of their economy, admittedly low cost per tonnage atm but projected to rise sharply in 2015.

    So it beggars belief that many use the argument that China is doing nothing.

    They are pouring billions into climate research and innovation.

    The stumbling block has been the US.

  16. [Unemployment hits ALP forecast and it’s:]

    Cranky did you miss Tony going to an election promising to create a million jobs, he actually said he would reduce the unemployment rate, yet when it doesn’t happen he and twits like you, say oooo the ALP said it was going to happen all along.

    (So ignore everything I stated in the election campaign, I was lying as usual, is Abbott’s only defence, he made the connection so he and you by following it are stating that lying is OK).

  17. Super Seasprite project was approved and started by the keating Government. LNP could never make it work. Set up for failure form the start.

  18. [Unemployment hits ALP forecast and it’s:

    a. bad

    b. the LNP fault.]

    Yep. I’m only taking Tone at his word. He promised to create 1m jobs, yet so far he’s going backwards, not forwards on that front.

  19. [1576
    Dee

    And what do you need to justify dramatically increased defence spending???]

    And dramatically reduced civil liberties, democratic processes, legal protections, etc, etc, etc,….

  20. CC –

    [ LNP could never make it work. Set up for failure form the start. ]

    tories had carriage of it, had charge of the purse.

    Yet again failure to accept responsibility.

  21. Dee:

    Plus the fact that parts of China and the US have adopted domestic ETS, in some instances years ago.

    It was always bullshit that Australia was acting unilaterally on reducing GHGEs. But that never stopped the denialists from claiming otherwise.

    I imagine this latest initiative won’t mean anything to them either.

  22. Mike

    US/National Security lists climate change as the greatest threat,(No. 1) to world security.

    Vested interests firmly embedded in congress should be publicly whipped. 😀

  23. Cranky

    [In 1997, the Australian Government signed a A$667 million contract with Kaman to purchase 11 upgraded Super Seasprites.]

    Who was PM in 1997, a hint His first name started with John and his surname was Howard. So stop lying as usual. 😛

  24. Apparently Abbott is going to spend a fortune buying a time machine to go back in the past and honour his election promise to spend his first week in government with Indigenous Australians.

    Oh after all, he is the Minister for Aborigines.

    Those poor people, aren’t they disadvantaged enough?

  25. Crank let’s see?

    Promised one million jobs in his first term.

    Divided by 6 for the first six months in government = 167,000 jobs.

    33,000 jobs lost in the last s months.

    Abbott is going OK, he’s already 200,000 jobs under par 😆

  26. [ OUT! G-O-N-E! It takes just two balls for Johnson to strike! Johnson angles it fuller on middle and leg, Smith looks to work it to the leg side. Doolan at short leg reacts brilliantly to it and takes an absolute stunner! ]

  27. A knowledgeable source tells me that the Navy breached Indonesian territory on 5 occasions, confirming other tallies of these incidents.

    Three of them were deliberate, with the local commander acting on “initiative”, “law of the sea”,”comradeship among seafarers” etc. etc. (whatever you want to call it) in order to take returned boat people closer to shore and see them back to land safely.

    The other two, I am told, were “accidental”, in that they were due to poor Indonesian maps provided by Indonesia at 1 million-to-1 scale, and thus did not sufficiently (literally) outline the coastal zone of Indonesia.

    These mistakes were detected when ships’ GPS logs were run through on-shore computers as a check.

    Apparently, more recent and more detailed maps have now been programmed into Navy ships in the last couple of weeks.

    Next time it happens it can only be deliberate.

    Also confirmed was that the RAN loathes Scott Morrison. He is a standing joke, with several nicknames already doing the rounds.

    The “inspection” he is going to conduct next week has roused genuine anger both in the Navy and in certain sections of the Cabinet.

    That is all. It’s just a source, but claims to be reliable and “in the loop”.

Comments Page 33 of 35
1 32 33 34 35

Leave a Reply

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