With pollsters generally preferring to hold their fire until after the budget, this has been a fairly quiet week for polling, with only a pre-budget ReachTEL poll for Fairfax joining the regular weekly Essential Research. The BludgerTrack poll aggregate maintains its trend of four weeks in having Labor and Palmer United up, and the Coalition and the Greens down. Labor’s gain of 0.8% to 37.8% puts it 3.7% higher than where it was four weeks ago, while the Coalition’s 38.8% represents a descent over the same period from 42.0%. The Greens continue to cool down after the boost which followed the WA Senate election and the aberrant Nielsen result that immediately followed, while the Coalition decline has been reflected by a steady rise for Palmer United, from 4.3% to 6.2%.
On two-party preferred, Labor makes a slight 0.2% gain this week to 52.6%, its equal best headline result from BludgerTrack in its nearly 18 months of existence. In New South Wales the gain for Labor is 0.6%, giving it an extra gain there on the otherwise unchanged seat projection. The Essential Research poll also provides a new set of data for leadership ratings, which sees the trendlines continue in the directions established by Newspoll last week: Bill Shorten pulling out of the summer slump that followed his early honeymoon ratings, Tony Abbott down sharply on his mediocre early year figures, and a linear trend on preferred prime minister getting ever nearer to parity.
Methodological note: It has been noted that ReachTEL has been leaning slightly to Labor relative to other polls recently, something that was not evident in the pre-election polling on which its BludgerTrack bias measures had hiterto been based. Consequently, I am now applying to ReachTEL the same bias adjustment procedure I use for Morgan, the upshot of which is that its deviance over time from the voting intention results modelled by BludgerTrack is measured and controlled for. This adjustment has caused Labor’s gain this week to be slightly less than it would have been otherwise.
Kezza2, good summation.
Jackol at 1496:
Interesting research. I agree with you that Abbott would have been popular to listen to last year since his budget reply was seen to be the expression of priorities of the in-coming government. That Shorten achieved such high numbers in absolute terms shows punters are prepared to listen to him. Also, he was competing with Coll v Ade on Ch 7 and I doubt there was such compelling alternative viewing on TV when Abbott gave his reply last year.
In short I think the numbers listening to Shorten suggest people wanted to hear what he has to say, particularly in response to a Budget that was as threatening as it was deceitful. I also suspect they liked what they heard but we will have to await the polls for that.
MTBW – yes I saw Pyne directing the poor old girl to get to her feet. I felt she was basking in the applause, herself being in a bit of a stupor.
J Bishop still looks unwell. Maybe she’s worrying about how to displace Abbott?
I can’t believe the Libs would go with a woman though, after their crap attacks on PMJG.
Maybe Abbott is using the DD as the sword over their heads to prevent them tossing him aside. A lot of them would now be very scared.
New polls may make their fear even worse.
“@AP: BREAKING: Congress party concedes defeat in India election, spokesman says nation voted ‘against us’”
ausdavo
Speaking of unwell, a talkback caller on ABC radio today said wtte that she believed Abbott had a mental disorder and he was probably a psychopath, Jon faine the host sort of laughed it off but she insisted she was being serious and was very concerned
Ausdavo, my thoughts exactly re the DD stuff – more directed at his own troops.
At last Abbott seems to have united Uni Students against him. Well done Tone. 🙂
I should add, i wondered if she was a PBludger, cos we have discussed the possibility countless times
MTBW at 1545:
[just on the Pink Batts issue:
When all the “grubs” who fought for contracts they were employing people with no skills or very few.]
I really do not approve of the use of such sexist language that attempts to degrade all wome . . . oh . . . grubs . . . my mistake. I thought you wrote . . . oh well, doesn’t matter.
ausdavo
I agree with you on the new polls – the LIbs were stunned last night and Labor in such high spirits.
I don’t think they would go with a woman either. One in the speakers chair is enough but that aside the looks on the faces of the front bench showed to me that they are very very worried.
kezza2@1526
Agree with almost all of that.
Except with Gillard, it was a case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire.’. 🙁
The university fee changes are quite offensive.
Tony Jones interviewed the ANU VC (head of the Go8) – of course he was mildly enthusiastic about the changes – the elite unis are clearly keen on charging top dollar for their elite courses and emphasize their rightful place at the top of the stratification of Australian education.
Even so, the moves as presented are so clearly designed as another incremental assault on affordable university degrees. HECS with a commercial interest rate? Students paying more than half of the cost of the degrees? It’s very close to not being a publicly funded egalitarian system at all.
Of course there has been a lot of stress on the higher education system as the number of students has vastly increased, and there are valid concerns about the quality of the institutions and their courses as this has occurred.
This switch to encouraging elitism through course costs doesn’t strike me as the right way to approach tackling those issues.
But what would I know.
Plus, of course, a 20% cut to funding for university places.
Oh how the higher education sector moaned when the ALP delayed some of their planned increases in funding…
Kezza
Hear me whisper in your ear, “plus one”.
JHockey will be the sole guest on qanda taking questions. I wonder if the audience will be made up of 100% coalition voters
I believe Abbott thinks that by the time the next election comes around people will have spent their outrage and be ready for the sugar hit.
I dunno about that.
I can’t see any situation where Abbott is replaced prior to the next election except illness.
If I am wrong and Abbott is replaced it will also be because of illness. His party was sick of him. 😆
sceptic@1536
Easy peasy… just sack another batch to cover those costs. 😐
Windhover
🙂
In the USA the Republicans are worrried that their opposition to Age Benfits will cost them their ,major support group ….the oldies
Somewhat like the reaction of the Aged here to Abbott/Hockley Budget
chttp://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/the-republican-advantage-among-older-voters-won
[Adam Bandt @AdamBandt 51s
Good! RT@Colvinius: Senior gov figures believe Abbott’s Double Dissolution threats are completely serious: @latingle http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/don_dismiss_the_double_dissolution_I7PlDmDYRL2CekQ ]
I had always thought that threats of a DD were like the breathless ranting of a hoarse voiced professional wrestler – designed to convince your opponent and others that you would trounce them.
In most cases the DD has never eventuated.
However if a seasoned commentator like Laura Tingle thinks Abbott might actually try to carry out his threat, we are in for ‘interesting times’.
[[poroti
Posted Friday, May 16, 2014 at 3:47 pm | PERMALINK
kezza2
After this you’d think he would have taken extra extra care.]
Exactly. This guy had already had a near-death experience because of his gung-ho approach to OH&S.
And you seriously can’t fault young people from thinking they’re invincible.
They’ve been taught that by their peers, at least, and that their parents are too cautious. And they like to think that their parents have just come down in the last shower.
And that’s the fault of parents, actually. Because children believe the demand “do as I say, not as I do” and they’ve witnessed all the hair-brained short-cuts of their parents, and so they tend to dismiss any advice about safety.
These are lazy parents. The parents who can’t be bothered talking to their kids on a serious basis. Who can’t be bothered treating their children as intellectual beings, who in any other circumstance would listen.
I witnessed this stuff over and over again in my own family. And when I had kids, I made sure I paid attention to their questions, and answered them as seriously and as informatively as I could.
But all kids are different. My youngest was an inveterate risk-taker. He would climb to the top of the highest tree before he 3 years old. He would cut wires when I wasn’t looking. He demanded a lot of attention. And I gave it to him. Attention, that is.
But I don’t doubt for a moment that he wouldn’t still cut corners even now, despite all of my goodwill.
And I certainly wouldn’t blame his death, should it occur, on a government program.
I worry for him, a lot.
Hockey may cancel Q&A and send Pyne instead!
Tony they Aborigines’ bestie at work.
[Cash for jails: Tony Abbott’s budget for Indigenous Australia
With its budget, the Abbott government has made clear what it means by Indigenous ‘advancement’: fewer services, and more funding for lockups]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/16/cash-for-gaols-tony-abbotts-budget-for-indigenous-australia
Bevan Shields @bevanshields85 · 13m
Unbelievable footage of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop being shoved around in a protest at Sydney Uni today http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eiTnFbleaDU … #auspol
Jackol 1562
The quality of a university degree is determined by what standard passes or fails the course, not the quality of student that enters the course. That being the case, deregulation of fees is more likely to reduce the quality of those degrees than the current, demand-driven model did. Here’s an article along similar lines that I have seen before:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/the-history-of-college-grade-inflation/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1
[However if a seasoned commentator like Laura Tingle thinks Abbott might actually try to carry out his threat, we are in for ‘interesting times’.]
Rabbott won’t be too eager to go to a DD unless he has something up his sleeve to damage Shorten.
For Abbott to be replaced the polls would need to read 56-57/43-44 against him for 6 months in a row and for him to crack.
In the meantime, he is quite safe with the protection of Rupe.
For the NRL fans, there are two good things over the weekend. They better win, the bookies are starting to get their money back 😯
Good Things:
– Roosters
– Bulldogs
Worth Taking:
– Dragons
– Titans
😎
Abbott…go to a DD on that budget LOL 😆
Off goes the Euro Gas supply
___________________
The Business Times today report the threat by what it calls “neo-fascists”in Ukraine to bomb the pipelines that carry gas to major Euro states,like German,from Russia
The Kiev regime seems unable to control the neo-fascist
The cutting off the pipelines would be a msjor crises of a critical kind in Europe where industry and domestic consumers will be the major victims of such attacks on the pipelines which carry Russian gas
It also shows the feeble hold that the Kiev regime has on the situation
The Business Times looks at this problem
Business on Gas problem in Ukraine
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-neo-fascist-leader-dmitry-yarosh-vows-destroy-russias-gas-pipelines-stop-world-war-1440620
@1578
Centre, he made the claim, he should back it up, have some balls if he’s got any.
Dee@1572
Is this a regular Monday Q&A or a special one?
Young people have been among the hardest hit in this budget. Labor needs to try to get as many of them on the electoral roles as possible. One quarter of 18-24 yeaars olds are not registered to vote: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-10/half-a-million-young-australians-not-enrolled-to-vote/4809100
Kezza
All my kids are risk junkies in one way or another. And were as youngsters. It is a blessing and a curse. It allowed my eldest daughter at 21 years old to board a plane to England with 100 real dollars in her pocket and her name on a savings account with all my hard saved couple thousand in it not to be used unless life or death. She had no family and a couple of friends over there. My next daughter went over at 19 years old to be with her sister. Both prospered. My hair went grey early.
My sons ar still adrenaline junkies. The best I can do is insist on the best equipment. motorbike armour, shark-repellers for the divers, epirbs for the sailors, etc etc.
Watching my son wash car parts in petrol frightened the life out of me. If he got burned it would not be because he didn’t read a sticker. It would have been because he tends not to learn lessons until the result is catastrophic. Which I duly pointed out to him.
But I do not blame the government. I blame him for being a dick.
zoid
Monkey serious for a DD???
There’s my twenty – up forty 😎
http://www.cqnews.com.au/news/who-would-you-vote-if-there-was-double-dissolution/2260525/
There is a poll here too.
zoidlord
Goodness me JBishop certainly got pushed around
[Bemused
Is this a regular Monday Q&A or a special one?]
It was being promoted as a ‘special’.
The Australian Right is a dumping ground for failed USA ideas___________
______________________
John Quiggan in a great article looks at the above idea,and sees the Tea Party ideas infecting the Libs,who as he says haven’t had a new idea in the past 30 years
Having spent a good deal of time in the USA I dread the idea that the kinds of social inequality so common there will soonn be seen here ”’an army of beggars,perhaos “food stamps” as the only social benefit for the poor.
I have seen queus blocks long ion N York for the reissue of such basic food supplies
Those with stars in their eyes for the USA should go there for a time
read Quiggan for his view
http://johnquiggin.com/
Kiev doesn’t have control of anything they are a government in name only I’m circumstances that would encourage every strongly nationalistic group from the far left to the far right it be up in arms or arming up or both.
It is a crazy dangerous situation and if you consider all the dumb Russia good US bad and dumb US good Russia all evil stuff we see here can you image the rubbish you’d see on Ukraine’s own pollbludger which would probably need to be called pollhijacker.
Victoria
What have they done to JBishop with her new hair do?
It’s like she has ben reprogrammed like in that movie The Stepford Wives with Nicole Kidman.
She just smiles and says yes to everything 😆
Centre
Well students at Sydney uni ruffled her feathers!
ausdavo:
[Maybe Abbott is using the DD as the sword over their heads to prevent them tossing him aside. A lot of them would now be very scared.]
The G-G doesn’t have to accept the advice of a PM who no longer has the confidence of the House – if the Libs resolved to dump him and he raced to Yarralumla to ask for a double dissolution, the G-G would almost certainly send him back to test his confidence on the floor of the House before granting it.
victoria@1592
😆
Re Centr @1578: Abbott…go to a DD on that budget LOL
I don’t think Abbott will go, but he just might, especially if the polls improve for him.
If he did he’ll have the Murdochracy campaigning for him day in day out on the front page of all its tabloids. He would also have pretty much all of the elites that count in the power and influence stakes – those with money, not the intellectual and cultural ones – on his side. No doubt the Coalition’s dirt unit is on overdrive already. If they don’t find anything on senior Labor figures they can beat up they’ll make something up.
Labor needs to plan for this eventuality – a fight against the Government backed by pretty much all moneyed interests.
I ventured over to Sky news channel and paul Murray is hosting the contrarians. Good grief what a right wing fest . What a sickening bunch
Centre
Have you checked the Titans injury suspension list?
Now, I may not like what JBishop and her mob stand for but sheesh, I found that footage of her being pushed around very disturbing.
Bishop obviously didn’t get the queue about what Happened with the Uni cuts John Howard did.
Dee
Agreed. Goes to show how angry young people are with what this govt wants to do with higher education.