BludgerTrack: 51.2-48.8 to Labor

The only poll this week was Labor’s best result from Essential Research in nearly four years, but it hasn’t made much difference to the weekly poll aggregate.

Easter followed by the Anzac Day long weekend has resulted in a lean period for polling, with Newspoll very unusually having gone three weeks without. In an off week for Morgan’s fortnightly publication schedule, that just leaves Essential Research for this week, which I have so far neglected to cover. The poll has Labor’s lead up from 51-49 to 52-48, which is Labor’s best result from Essential since two weeks out from the 2010 election. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down a point to 40% and Labor up one to 38%, while the Greens are on 10%, losing the point that brought them to a temporary peak last week. Palmer United is steady on 5%, which is two points higher than four weeks ago. Other questions in this week’s Essential survey were to do with political party membership (26% say Bill Shorten’s proposed Labor membership rules would make them more likely to vote for the party versus 6% less likely and 59% make no difference; 72% say they would never consider joining a party versus 15% who say they would; 60% won’t confess to having ever engaged in party political activity), the fighter jets purchase (30% approve, 52% disapprove), republicanism (33% for and 42% against, compared with 39% and 35% in June 2012; 46% think a republic likely one day versus 37% for unlikely; 54% approve of the idea of Prince William being King of Australia versus only 26% who don’t).

As for BludgerTrack, Essential Research has had next to no effect on two-party preferred, and none at all on the seat projection, either nationally or any particular state. However, there is movement on the primary vote as the effects of Nielsen’s Greens outlier of three weeks ago fade off. That still leaves the Greens at an historically high 12.0%, but it still remains to be seen if they are trending back to the 9% territory they have tended to occupy for the past few years, or if they find a new equilibrium at a higher level. The Coalition is also down on the primary vote, which is beginning to look like a trend (it is only by the grace of rounding that its score still has a four in front of it). This cancels out the effect of the Greens’ drop on the two-party preferred vote for Labor, whose primary vote has little changed. Palmer United’s slight gain to 4.6% puts them at their highest level so far this year. There haven’t been any new leadership ratings since Nielsen, so the results displayed are as they were a fortnight ago.

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.

2,311 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.2-48.8 to Labor”

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  1. [briefly
    Posted Thursday, May 1, 2014 at 7:59 am | PERMALINK
    We’ve had two years of declining real per capita disposable income. We’re about to have some more:

    http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/05/daily-iron-ore-price-update-dream-is-over/

    http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/05/us-gdp-crashes-fed-tapers-aussie-roars/

    This means the budget will remain under stress even if there is no PPL, even if the carbon tax is not repealed, even if we don’t hike defence spending.

    Not only that, if iron ore royalties stop growing (the price is falling but the volume may still increase), there will be less money available to the States, worsening the effects of very slow growth in GST revenues.

    The LNP are going to have to increase taxes simply to stop the deficit growing, let alone bring it into balance.

    In the meantime, declining real per capita disposable income means we should expect to see weak demand for labour and further rises in unemployment.

    This is all looking too hard for the Tories.]

    Does my heart good to hear that briefly, notwithstanding the hurt it is going to cause. If it severely damages the Liberal brand and explodes the false perception that they are the better economic managers, when clearly they are not, that can only be a good thing for the country in the long run IMO.

  5. “Cut hard, cut deep and cut early” is hardly a novel policy.

    The sugar will come around about this time two years from now.

    And no, I suspect Labor would not win two extra seats in WA, but one more should not be beyond Labor in most normal times.

    The Federal elections are rarely if ever won and lost on what happens in WA, as I think our esteemed host has mentioned in the past, that WA tends to mirror – in terms of voting directions – what happens in the east.

    However, Labor stocks are not strong at the moment and the Bullock affair certainly did not help.

    If/when the bottom falls out of the ‘boom’ it might well be another matter.

    Interestingly, there is another Federal election due before the next State one and who can say what the mood of the electorate will be?

    I am prepared to venture that neither Troy or Colin will be Premier after 2017.

  6. William

    Just in case you have missed it:

    Today’s Fin has an article by Phil Coorey in which he draws extensively on a poll done by UMR in NSW. Sample: 2000+.

    It is not good news for the Coalition.

  7. What is amazing about the libs’ budget schemozzle is the dog that isn’t barking at all: Superannuation. It would be so easy, and so logical, to hit rich superannuants ripping off the system. But not on your nelly. Why? The retail super industry obviously has its hooks into this govt like you wouldn’t believe. Wait and see, in a few years, how many of this govt end up in the first-class carriage of the finance industry gravy train.

  8. [101….Darn]

    Labor will be able to point to a record of relative stability and prosperity.

    As ALWAYS happens when the LNP win office, they increase taxes, increase spending, cut services and social incomes, hurt median incomes and trash jobs. Fraser and Howard are cases in point. Fraser completely lost control of things and was thrown out. Howard got lucky and had the benefit of Keating’s reforms to help him along before the booms in household credit and iron ore kicked in.

    The boom times are not about to return. Whoever is in office will have to reform super as well as the rest of the tax system. Eventually they will have to get around to fixing investment, infrastructure, labour supply and housing as well.

  9. In ascending order of demerits:

    (1) Hanrahan shambles = fear of shambles but no real shambles necessary.

    (2) shambles = Coalition policy making process

    (3) omnishambles = the immediate consequences of Coalition’s managment style and policy development process

    (4) mother of all shambles = fukt, but with style, as in ‘Abbott is the mother of all shambles’.

    (5) gotterdammerung shambles = twilight of our democracy, society and environment.

    (6) Coalition shambles = even the spivs, freeloaders and filthy rich go down with the ship.

  10. I think the ICAC inquiry is proving, once again, that there are no boof-heads quite like young liberal boof-heads. They truly stand out from the rest.

  14. Young Libs Black Opps squad…

    For those that can bother, I found a contemporary review of Fight Club… Says everything there is to say about Young Libs from Sydney Uni …

    A yuppie comes under the influence of an enigmatic stranger who encourages him to shed the trappings of modern consumerist life and begin an underground bare knuckle boxing club to rediscover his manhood. The 90s created a whole generation of nihilistic smart asses who found their standard bearer in Tyler Durden. Fight Club was a bit of a phenomenon upon its release and it seemed to speak to the the disenfranchised youth of Generation X in a way that nothing had before and being one such example, I hailed it as a masterpiece as did many others. Looking back, it’s really far more a smug indie comedy than serious drama and I can’t quite believe that anyone really took it seriously. It was for all intents and purposes the death knell of said generation even though we didn’t really see it at the time, Palahniuk was showing us the ultimate futility of that way of thinking. It’s amusing how a charismatic self styled guru can create such a cult of personality (which is no doubt how many forms of organised extremism find their way into existence) and Brad Pitt cuts a very imposing and frankly hilarious figure as Durden. In fact the whole thing smacks of the kind of creativity in all areas that we rarely see in mainstream cinema and as such is still well worth seeing. But I can’t help feeling that Fight Club was the logical extension of Project Mayhem itself; a practical joke that people took way too seriously

  17. Young Libs…. Genetically predisposed to believe in Libertarianism.
    Educated to believe in their own self importance & inflated capacity

    Destined to finish up like Abbott

  18. “@political_alert: ACTU President Ged Kearney will respond to the Commission of Audit Report, 3pm, Melbourne #auspol”

  20. I’d bet London to a brick it’s the other careerist weathervane, Malcolm Turnbull, that is the chief leaker to the MSM.

  21. [109….Boerwar]

    This is a mini-series. We are just at the sham stage now. Soon there will be shampoo. Then the daytime soaps, sham-plus and non-plus. Later there will be an episode of “Shame”, then there will be “Stumbles – the prequel” followed by “Shambles – Reality Government” where “Murder in the Dark” and the TV amusement concept will be applied to the Cabinet.

  24. Kouk’s analysis is sound – up to a point.

    [It will be an oft-repeated catch phrase from the Coalition between May 2015 and whenever the election is held in the latter part of 2016 that “we got the budget back in the black and that the long hard task of paying off Labor’s debt has begun”, or words to that effect.]

    To hark back to the Victorian example – the speed in which the budget crisis disappeared said to the ordinary voter that the crisis hadn’t been as bad as they’d been told, and sowed a niggling suspicion that a slower return to surplus would have seen less damage done to government services.

    Kennett at least had something like four years (over one term, although he seems to have forgotten himself that four year terms were introduced after his time) of cutting before he declared that the problem was fixed.

    Kennett could still have held on to power, if he’d been willing to loosen the purse strings again once the ‘problem’ had been ‘fixed’.

    If Hockey declares the budget emergency over in 2015, he will create the perception that there really wasn’t one, or that – if there was one – that a more gradual approach could have been taken.

    If he declares the budget emergency over in 2015 WITHOUT reversing some of the measures taken (or introducing new ones which are equally attractive), then his cuts will be seen as ideological rather than necessary.

    Kennett’s big error was to announce that the budget crisis was over without then showing the electorate that the pain had been worth it.

  29. Where did they get $66 billion from for supporting DSP?

    It was $15 billion per year, how did they make up the other $51 billion?

  30. The botched execution story is a bit of a beat up.

    Basically the IV drip wasn’t sitting in the vein so the drugs extravasated. They just need to flush the drip before using it to make sure its in the right spot.

  31. Alan Kohler’s Drum article

    [The Coalition is a near certainty to win the 2016 election]

    How the f**k would he know.

  32. There is very simple narrative for Labor to explore.
    Over simplified for clarity.

    If you reduce Taxes you reduce services & benefits to society, this displacement is taken up by the Private Sector, which then has a monopoly to charge what it likes over time.
    Given the impossibly high cost to duplicate the assets / services sold off you end up paying through the nose till the end of time.

    If you reduce expenditure / services see above ….

    Look no further than the debacle that is Sydney Airport… With fantastic contract that guarantees SAC first option on Badgerys Creek & flow government compensation under Howard’s Age of Entitlement

  36. [113…mikehilliard]

    Mike, The Kouk is a hyper-bull. He takes as his starting point the MYEFO forecast for 2016/17 a deficit of about 1% of GDP and argues all the cutting and taxing are superfluous – simply a way of massaging the budget in time for the next election.

    He could be right.

    But the MYEFO forecast for the budget this year is a deficit of 2.7% of GDP and 1.9% next year.

    http://www.budget.gov.au/2013-14/content/myefo/html/03_part_3.htm

    I think we should look at the terms of trade, which are falling; the end of the mining investment boom, which will hit jobs; the very high ratio of private debt to private income; likely deceleration in housing under the weight of vry high prices; the secular trend in labour demand (hours worked has barely grown for about three years, participation is falling); very weak growth in nominal wages.

    We will get the latest reading on GDP in early June and this will tell us whether the economy is lifting or decelerating again.

    In spite of the Kouk’s optimism, as long as real net per capita incomes are declining – a consequence of the falling terms of trade, contraction in mining-led (foreign) investment and weak domestic growth, fiscal collections will stagnate. To this we can add the LNP’s own policies, such as the abolition of the Carbon Tax and planned increases in Defence spending. In the absence of other measures, the deficit will trend out towards 4 or 5% of GDP.

    If the LNP’s policies repress domestic demand and cause a sharp rise in unemployment then the deficit could easily go much higher than that. I think they are playing a very reckless game.

  41. [I think the ICAC inquiry is proving, once again, that there are no boof-heads quite like young liberal boof-heads. They truly stand out from the rest.]

    yes – probably more “Black Shirts” rather than “Black Ops”. abbott as a student was a prototype for these sorts of agro dickheads and he’s never taken time to mature – the comb over, hair die, botox and face sculpting all say he’s someone unprepared to grow up.

  42. “@NeilChenoweth: ICAC & the missing $4k cheques: After 2011 state election John Caputo made chairman of fundraising of Tony Abbott’s Warringah branch. Bravo!”

  44. [
    Then again, it seems inconceivable, at least at the moment, that his government will win a second term.
    ]

    I don’t think it is inconceivable at all. History would suggest it is more than likely they will get a second term. Hell, Labor dumped their own PM in their first term and still managed to hang on for a second. Maybe the Libs will finally break the run and get chucked after one term, but I wouldn’t say it is inconceivable that they will win a second term.

  45. [142
    guytaur

    “@NeilChenoweth: ICAC & the missing $4k cheques: After 2011 state election John Caputo made chairman of fundraising of Tony Abbott’s Warringah branch. Bravo!”]

    Getting more and more smelly.

  48. [147
    guytaur

    briefly

    Given NSW is the Liberal power base its a surprise there is not more connection to the federal liberals]

    Well, Sinodinos is a goner. Abbott and the others must be in range. We’ll soon see I guess.

  49. guytaur

    My anti virus won’t let me open the link to Fraser’s comments on John Faulkner can you please send me the text?

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