BludgerTrack: 51.1-48.9 to Labor

A closer look at the parties’ polling fortunes this term state-by-state, in lieu of much to go on in the way of new polling over Easter.

Easter has meant that only the regular weekly pollsters have reported this week, which means Essential Research and Morgan. The latter polls weekly but reports fortnightly, which I deal with by dividing each fortnightly result into two data points, each with half the published sample size. Neither Essential nor Morgan is radically off beam, so this week’s movements involve a correction after last week’s Greens outlier from Nielsen. This is not to say that Nielsen’s Greens surge was measuring nothing at all, the 17% result perhaps having been partly a reflection of it being the poll most proximate to the WA Senate election. In fact, both of the new results this week find the Greens at their highest level since at least the last election, and probably a good while earlier. Their 11% rating in Essential may not appear too spectacular, but it comes from what is the worst polling series for them by some distance – indeed, the only one the BludgerTrack model does not deem to be biased in their favour. Nonetheless, their rating in BludgerTrack this week comes off 1.8% on last week’s Nielsen-driven peak.

The dividend from the Greens’ loss has been divided between other parties in such a way as to produce essentially no change on two-party preferred. However, state relativities have changed in such a way as to cost Labor three seats and its projected majority, illustrating once again the sensitivity of Queensland, where a 0.8% shift has made two seats’ worth of difference. The New South Wales result has also shifted 0.6% to the Coalition, moving a third seat back into their column. Another change worth noting is a 2.4% move to Labor in Tasmania, which is down to a methodological change – namely the inclusion, for Tasmania only, of the state-level two-party preferred results that Morgan has taken to publishing. I had not been putting this data to use thus far, as the BludgerTrack model runs off primary votes and the figures in question are presumably respondent-allocated preferences besides. However, the paucity of data for Tasmania is such that I’ve decided it’s worth my while to extract modelled primary votes from Morgan’s figures, imperfect though they may be. The change has not made any difference to the seat projection, this week at least.

Finally, I’ve amused myself by producing primary vote and two-party preferred trendlines for each of the five mainland states, which you can see below. These suggest that not too much has separated New South Wales and Victoria in the changes recorded over the current term, leaving aside their very different starting points. However, whereas the Coalition has had a very gentle upward trend this year in Victoria and perhaps also New South Wales, their decline looks to have resumed lately in Queensland. Last week I noted that six successive data points I was aware of had Labor ahead on two-party preferred in Queensland, including five which are in the model and a Morgan result which is not. That’s now extended to eight with the availability of two further data points this week. The other eye-catching result in the charts below is of course from Western Australia, which clearly shows the effects of the Senate election with respect to both the Greens and Palmer United. The current gap between Labor and the Greens is such that the latter could well win lower house seats at Labor’s expense on these numbers – not that I recommend holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

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.

1,662 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.1-48.9 to Labor”

Comments Page 5 of 34
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  1. Bernard Keane in today’s Crikey has an article: ‘The lethal legacy of Brian Harradine: his long war on women’s rights’

    On or about the day of his death, I posted briefly on Harradine’s bastardry on this topic in Bludger.

    It is good to see that while the MSM have generally gilded the Harradine Lily, including a gutless presser with Howard – who attended Harradine’s funeral – it is left to niche media Crikey to point out the essential truth:

    The ‘avuncular’ Harradine was, if not quite a direct killer, nevertheless someone who, by manipulating his Senate BOP, generated much unnecessary death and suffering amongst his chosen targets: women seeking safe abortions.

    Howard, in cutting the relevant deals with Harradine, actively colluded with Harradine and must bear moral responsibility for this odious state of affairs.

  2. [ I have no idea about the numbers involved but personally I would like to see a Tobin tax. It would make the finance industry squeal like stuck pigs, but that’s a good thing in my book. ]

    Hadn’t heard of that one by that name before, but does sound reasonable. Wonder if it would cause the value of the dollar to drop a bit?? If it did it would make Glen Stevens a happy happy chappie.

  3. We can be absolutely sure that when Hockey says ‘we rather than me’ he does NOT mean:

    (1) the foreign owners of most of Australia’s mining industry
    (2) financial advisers
    (3) Liberal Party lobbiests
    (4) owners of privatised state functions including prisons, asylum concentration camps, childcare, aged care, labor force management, electricity, transport and various social security functions.
    (5) beneficiaries of state funding for private schools

    When Hockey says ‘we’ he really means ‘they’.

  4. Player One@190

    bemused@134

    Player One@51


    Yes, yes. We get it bemused. You believe violence against women only occurs in the presence of mental illness, becasue .. because … well, men just wouldn’t do that unless they were mentally ill and therefore not responsible for their actions, would they?



    You are now resorting to downright lies obnoxious grub.

    Mental illness is but one of a number of factors that can cause violent behaviour. Drugs and alcohol are two others.

    The importance of knowing underlying factors is so they can be addressed, in an appropriate manner, hopefully before tragedy occurs.

    Obviously a far too sophisticated idea for your tiny brain cell to process.

    In the case of the death of Luke Batty, mental illness was a factor as his mother has said.

    This is but one of many reports along similar lines. You, victoria and Puff should read it.

    Father who killed son, Luke Batty, at cricket ground had history of mental illness, says boy’s anguished mother


    You are the one trying to use the tragic death of an 11 year old boy to make the bizarre point that men who inflict domestic violence must be mentally ill, and presumably therefore not responsible for their actions.

    I think it is clear which of us is a “grub”.

    I did not raise that case so I am not ‘using’ it as you put it.

    I have not said at any stage that all men who inflict domestic violence must be mentally ill. Such an argument would be bizarre.

    Mentally ill people are held to account for their actions through the courts and can be detained indefinitely.

    The real point is that, had effective action been taken to address the mental illness Greg Anderson suffered from, his son, Luke Batty may still be alive and Rosie Batty spared terrible grief and suffering.

    But go on, keep making stuff up and display what an idiot you are. You clearly don’t believe in prevention where possible.

  5. Not that revenue is really a problem for our budget but if the COALition absolutely insists on smacking around sections of the public by increasing taxes [and what else is the $6 on medical costs, the impost on firms to transfer $$$s to the rich mums, just like the ALP/Greens carbon price but without any compensation to the public?] then here is an alternative Joe could, but won’t enact:

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-greens-model-millionaire-taxes-for-tony-abbott-and-his-rich-friends-20140423-zqy9f.html#ixzz2zlbhnjTk

    [Australian Greens model millionaire taxes for Tony Abbott and his rich friends ….Taxing trusts as if they were companies and applying a new top marginal tax rate on incomes of more than $1 million would raise billions of dollars for the Commonwealth budget and alleviate pressure to slash welfare programs for the genuinely needy, the Greens have said.]

    Lots of gain and bugger all pain except a pin prick to those that won’t notice it.

    Or he could cut subsidies to those [polluters] who don’t need it and save billions of $$$$s

    [the Australian Government plans to gift over $10 billion of taxpayer’s money to subsidise fossil fuel use, unless significant changes are made in the May Federal Budget……
    On the basis of this assessment Environment Victoria and Market Forces are recommending that the Federal Government prioritises action at the upcoming Budget to cut the following five subsidies which would save taxpayers $15 billion over the next three years”]
    From here:

    http://environmentvictoria.org.au/newsite/sites/default/files/useruploads/MF%20and%20EV%202013%20polluter%20handouts%20assessment%20FINAL-4.pdf

    Its the selection of who they wish to victimise, or not, that exposes the emptiness of the COALition and Joe’s ‘crisis’ claims and his ferocious class warfare.

  6. [more stable taxes should form the backbone]

    Gai won’t like that and the Waterhouses are in like Flynn with the Veterinarian Premier.

    So more stable taxes will not happen.

  11. [ So more stable taxes will not happen. ]

    I think we should take up a collection to pay for BW to have a sense of humour transplant. 🙁

  12. Harradine’s war on women
    —______________
    Harradine and his anti-women line would be typical of many ALP-DLP members even today..our new Senator for WA Bullock and people like Farrell in SA would be like Harradine on a host of issue
    He typified the Catholic Church’s ancient war against women having any say in their fertility…and he waged the war on women allied with a celibate male clergy
    ..ask Cardinal Pell for his views on woman…mysogony raised to a high rank

  19. “@BernardKeane: One should read nothing into the fact that Direct Action is being released on the afternoon before a long weekend.”

  23. Harradine was also responsible for adding additional, and, on going costs to businesses by exempting basic food from the GST. This meant that grocery businesses had to tag every item with the GST it attracted. For instance, pasta would be GST free, but pasta sauce would attract 10%. If the pasta and sauce were sold together in pack, then the tax department would have to determine the amount of GST (somewhere between 0 and 10%) depending on the value of the sauce and pasta in the item.

    Sales for each item would then need to be added together at the end of the month and the GST component remitted to the ATO*.

    He wanted basic food exempted to help poor people.

    It would have been so much easier if he had followed Costello lead. Costello wanted 10% across the board and then compensate the poor people with an increase in their dole/pension etc.

    If that had gone through, it would be a simple matter of remitting 10% of your total sales each month to the ATO*.

    * less of course input credits.

    Harradine was such a fool, because the extra compliance costs were added to the price of goods, so he harmed the very people he wanted to protect.

  24. I’m with bemused on this one.

    Some men (and some women) kill their children because they’re mentally ill.

    Some men (and some women) kill their children for other reasons, often to get back at their partner.

    Some men (and some women) kill their children because they’re mentally ill and for other reasons, often to get back at their partner.

    [The research showed women were almost as likely as men to commit filicide, with fathers responsible for the deaths of 140 children and women 127 children, over that 11-year period. (The remainder were killed by both parents).]

    […“In some cases the primary motive was their own suicide and they killed their child as a part of that,” Dr Kirkwood said.

    “They didn’t want to leave the child or children behind, or worried about the distress, or didn’t believe they would be as loved or cared for without them.

    “We found that sort of suicide was more commonly perpetrated by mothers, but not always.”]

    [..The death of children under the hand of their father often, but not always, had a markedly different motive, Dr Kirkwood said.

    “In other circumstances, the primary motive was to kill the child, as a way to get back at their ex-partner and we found that it was men who were more likely to kill their child or children for revenge. The primary motive was to get back at the mother,” she said.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/seeking-to-understand-the-inexplicable-20120224-1trvd.html#ixzz2zmKSwttx

    So yes, men are more likely to kill their children as an act of revenge, but it isn’t something confined to one gender.

  25. Is today the ultimate day for putting out political garbage Mr Hunt? What a load of tripe. 3 PM the day before ANZAC day says it all. Garbage Mike.

  28. The coalition continue to equate GHGEs reduction with some kind of community based clean up Australia day.

    It’s very dishonest.

  30. bemused@204

    Player One@190

    bemused@134

    I did not raise that case so I am not ‘using’ it as you put it.

    I have not said at any stage that all men who inflict domestic violence must be mentally ill. Such an argument would be bizarre.

    Mentally ill people are held to account for their actions through the courts and can be detained indefinitely.

    The real point is that, had effective action been taken to address the mental illness Greg Anderson suffered from, his son, Luke Batty may still be alive and Rosie Batty spared terrible grief and suffering.

    But go on, keep making stuff up and display what an idiot you are. You clearly don’t believe in prevention where possible.

    Try and at least keep your nonsense straight, bemused. As recently as last night you ridiculed the idea that there could be any explanation other than mental illness:

    [ What drives your persistent denial that he was mentally ill contrary to all the reporting at the time? What is your explanation of such behaviour? Possessed by demons perhaps? Just “bad” or “evil”? What? ]

    And here you are doing it again. It seems your attitude is so ingrained that don’t even realize you are doing it.

    You are again assuming that Luke Batty’s death must have been because of mental illness, and that intervention could have prevented it.

    But the problem is that there is no actual evidence that this is the case. None whatsoever. But you hold fast to your own assumptions because it suits your prejudices. I would suggest you go back to the ABC link you posted, and listen to it again. Start at the 5:10 mark and listen:

    [ It becomes sometimes a vendetta against the other parent and a revenge thing … the child gets used as a pawn … ]

    I know you will be thinking “well, isn’t that a sign of mental illness?”. But that simply isn’t true in many cases. It is just what some men do who believe that both women and children are possessions, or when the position of power they believe they are entitled to hold over their family is thwarted.

  31. It seems the $3 billion election claim for Indirect Inaction was just an aspiration, its actually $550 million less.

    Or do we have new measure, a Mike Hunt Billion?

  33. Jakol,

    Over complex or not, it was an additional cost that would have to borne by the consumer. I didn’t mention the cost of writing software to accommodate this clumsy handling, which was a one off, but was a considerable investment that had to recouped. And yes, it was the Democrats that finally did the deal with Howard.

  35. [Jackol
    Posted Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 3:04 pm | Permalink

    bw – lol. I’ll pay that.
    211
    imacca
    Posted Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 3:04 pm | Permalink

    So more stable taxes will not happen.

    I think we should take up a collection to pay for BW to have a sense of humour transplant. :(]

    You win some and you lose some.

  36. The Newman Govt used the ultimate putting out the political garbage day to say the Qld Electoral Commissioner had advocated the banning of HTV cards.

    When the report was tabled, he actually had not.

  37. @KarenMMiddleton: Former PM Kevin Rudd to be called before the Home Insulatino Royal Commission on May 14. Peter Garrett the day before – Budget day.

  40. confessions
    Posted Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 1:39 pm | PERMALINK
    rossmcg:

    Hockey has always been a waffler. Who can forget that appalling performance when he was responding to one of Swan’s budgets? Even under mild questioning from journalists, he just fell apart.

    The MSM???? :devil:

  41. The Royal Commisioner would determine who is called before it and when. The timing of Kevin Rudd’s appeaance should not be construed as political.

  43. SUrely Rudd and Garrett’s appearance before the RC has nothing to do with the govt, but is simply the RC determining when people get called up.

    I’ll be interested to see which swamps which in the news though.

  44. Posters might recall that there was a bit of a flame war in the last thread in which sundry Greens and Greens hangers on tried to persuade everyone that they intended to buy lots of jets and submarines and the lie. But the reality is, of course, that flame wars are not the only kind of war for which the Greens are disarmed.

    My general point was that not a single Greens representative has ever supported in public a single item of defence equipment expenditure, that all the Greens ever do is criticise publicy any expenditure and that there is no funding item available in the Greens policy statement for actual defence equipment. Further, that even if they had any sort of commitment to defence equipment it would have to be defensive in nature which cuts out your jet fighters, surface combants, submarines, tanks and the like.

    In short, the Greens are hiding the fact that they intend to gut the ADF of any useful war equipment, thereby pandering to, inter alia, to the likes of the TNI.

    After I quit the field of battle last night, and only after that, Astrobleme provided a fact check link which was supposed to demonstrate conclusively that I was wrong about the general commitment of the Greens to Australia’s defence. Here are some selected excerpts:

    ‘The statement by the Greens does not go into detail about what needs to be done to ensure that Australia has an ADF ‘adequate to Australia’s defence and peacekeeping needs’. Peacekeeping is emphasised in a way that is not the case with the defence platforms of the Coalition and Labor.’

    ‘In the case of the Greens, defence issues are covered in their policies on ‘Peace and Security’. Their approach encompasses newer understandings of security, such as human security: ‘Genuine security rests on cooperation, fair economic and social development, environmental sustainability, and respect for human rights, rather than on military capabilities.’ While the Greens support an ADF ‘adequate to Australia’s defence and peacekeeping needs’, these needs are not spelt out.’

    ‘Their approach suggests parallels with many aspects of the defence policy that has been developed by New Zealand.’

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI

    I rest my case.

  45. Rua

    Dunno, newman might be on to something with restricting HTV cards. When I see the circus at my local primary school on polling day With the signs and banners on the fences I can’t help thinking what a waste of money it all is.
    And when you get accosted, and I mean accosted, three times by representatives of the same party in the space of a 15m walk down the path it is more than slightly irritating.

  46. “@SenatorWong: Release of Direct Action White Paper the afternoon before Anzac Day long weekend. A vote of no confidence. Not even the govt believes in DA.”

  47. I’ve read Hunt’s White Paper and it all sounds fine in theory.

    But the key question to me is who or what (organisation) is going to participate in the auctions to seek funding for reducing emissions? What will motivate them?

    The Paper refers to the bidders as “proponents”.

    Here is a dictionary definition:

    Proponent:
    1) a person who puts forward a proposition or proposal.

    2) a person who argues in favor of something; an advocate.

    3) a personwho supports a cause or doctrine; adherent.

    4) a person who propounds a legal instrument, such as a will for probate.

    The 4th is NA here.

    Numbers 2 and 3 refers to those businesses that clearly understand AGW and wish to ensure that they contribute as minimally as possible. They are the “converted” and would presumably participate in auctions in their own interests and as good “citizens”. As to the number of them that exist, who knows ….. perhaps Hunt as info and is confident there are significant numbers of them.

    Number 1 would include those realists who are not committed either way but who know that Labor will be back eventually and that it is on the cards that unfettered emitting will eventually cost them, so hey, why not use the government $s on offer to bullet proof the bottom line for possible future emission reduction schemes. They are motivated by business acumen and fear of future imposts. But again the question is how many are there in this category.

    The great unwashed who could in no way be called “proponents” are those businesses / business leaders of the Maurice Newman ilk. The staunch deniers. I’m sure Newman is on the Boards of companies and if it was up to him, why would he bother to participate. This is all the more worrying if there are lots of them and if they are “big emitters”.

    In other words, there’s plenty of carrot here, but no stick for the recalcitrants.

  49. Player One@230

    bemused@204

    Stop verballing me – you are taking what I said about a particular case and saying I said that about all.

    I gave you a direct quote from Rosie Batty and the article it came from.

    Read what zoomster posted @224 to assist your understanding. The article she quotes accords with my understanding and is not really saying anything new.

  50. Boerwar

    “My general point was that not a single Greens representative has ever supported in public a single item of defence equipment expenditure, that all the Greens ever do is criticise publicy any expenditure and that there is no funding item available in the Greens policy statement for actual defence equipment. Further, that even if they had any sort of commitment to defence equipment it would have to be defensive in nature which cuts out your jet fighters, surface combants, submarines, tanks and the like.”

    Rubbish.

    You made this point after the Flame war started, and was nothing but a distraction.

    Your original claim was that The Greens wanted to disarm Australia. And that we were going to let Indonesia invade.

    MANY PEOPLE PROVED YOU WRONG, YET YOU STILL WON’T ADMIT IT.

    Then you have the gall to show up and carry on about how the Greens apparently don’t support the military even though their policy says they do. This carry on is simply a distraction. Something you decided was necessary. No one else was talking about it but you.

    You are shameless.

    I will make another point – absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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