BludgerTrack: 54.2-45.8 to Labor

As you may have guessed in advance, this week’s poll aggregate finds the pace of Labor’s recent breakthrough quickening after a disastrous reception to the government’s first budget, as Bill Shorten surges to a handy lead as preferred prime minister.

Post-budget polling has emphatically confirmed a second major shift in public opinion since the election, the first being a strikingly early dip in the new government’s fortunes in November, leaving the opposition with a narrow lead when the dust had settled. With every pollster but ReachTEL having produced results in the wake of last Tuesday’s budget, the latest landslip looks even bigger than the first, and it sends the Coalition into territory that was all too familiar to Labor during its tumultuous second term in office. The damage was done by Newspoll, Nielsen and Morgan, with a small amount of the edge taken off by more moderate results from Galaxy and Essential Research. Even so, Labor now has a lead on the primary vote for the first time since BludgerTrack opened for business in late 2012, even taking into account that the Greens have retained a healthy share of the vote, perhaps finding a new equilibrium with their head just above double figures. Also continuing to make hay out of the exodus from the Coalition is the Palmer United Party, which this week reaches a new high of 7.0%.

No less spectacular is the latest update on leadership ratings, for which near-identical sets of data have emerged this week courtesy of Newspoll and Nielsen. The slump in Tony Abbott’s standing which had become evident over the previous fortnight has continued apace, to the extent that I have had to increase the range of the y-axis on the net satisfaction chart to accommodate it. This puts Abbott at a level Julia Gillard would only have known in a particularly bad week. Even more encouragingly for Labor, Bill Shorten’s ratings are on an upward swing, putting him back into net positive territory after three months below par. What had previously been a steady narrowing trend in Tony Abbott’s lead on preferred prime minister has sharply accelerated, to the extent of putting Shorten substantially ahead – an uncommon achievement for an Opposition Leader.

The state projections this week see the distinction in state swings even out, most notably in the case of Queensland where the swing to Labor got out of hand for a few weeks there. A considerable influence here was the latest Nielsen breakdown, which provided the first presentable set of figures I had seen for the Coalition in Queensland for some time. This may suggest that the budget backlash in that state was muted by the fact that Labor had less slack to take up, although there is no doubt also a large element of the statistical noise to which state breakdowns are inevitably prone. The upshot is that the Coalition’s position on the Queensland seat projection actually improves by four seats this week, testament in part to the state’s super-abundance of marginal seats. Offsetting this are bumper gains for Labor in other states – four seats in New South Wales, putting Bennelong, Gilmore and Macquarie on the table in addition to all the seats lost in September; three in marginals-starved Victoria, adding Casey and Dunkley to the more familiar targets of Corangamite, Deakin and La Trobe; and one each in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

In other BludgerTrack news, you now have the chance to put Labor’s poll surge in somewhat broader perspective thanks to the retrospective poll tracking displayed on the sidebar, which at present encompasses the previous three terms, with plans to go back to the start of the Howard era in due course. For this you can think the sleuth work of Kevin Bonham, who has provided me with Nielsen data going back to 1996. Taking into account the more readily accessible archives of Newspoll and Morgan, this should eventually give me three pollsters to play with over the totality of the intended period. For the time being, the display encompasses the familiar poll aggregate from the previous term; the first term of the Rudd-Gillard government, which also includes Essential Research and a smattering of Galaxy to supplement the three aforementioned pollsters; and the Howard government’s final term in office.

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.

1,618 comments on “BludgerTrack: 54.2-45.8 to Labor”

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  1. @GC/1247

    I believe Chris Bowen spoken about the Government’s immaturity today, so Sky News is abit late with that.

  2. Interesting from Laura Tingle in the AFR this morning. I’ve been accusing Tony of being out on his bike during budget discussions. No, he sat in on the budget review committee was very “decisive” when it came to the budget nasties. What a pr…

  3. JUST ME – Don’t forget he only got a “Desmond” at Oxford. That is, a 2.2 (Tutu).
    Amazing how, since that came out, people have stopped telling us that he must be bright because he’s an Oxford man.

  4. [1226
    Libertarian Unionist

    We are being ruled by a winkocracy.

    …where people only please themselves…]

    Abbott, the ickycrat.

  5. So Abbott supports the use of price signals to ensure the long-term sustainability of our system, even if that means increased cost of living for ordinary families?

  6. Given a soapbox to stand on, this morning I felt invited to just let ‘er rip …

    http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/05/media-turns-on-budget-whingers/

    [briefly
    May 23, 2014 at 10:53 am

    None of the cuts to services, increases in fees or taxes, nor any of the cuts to social incomes and still less the denial of income support to the unemployed are about the budget. None of them. I’ll repeat so there can be no misunderstanding: none of it is about the budget.

    They are ALL about ideology and about destroying those things created by the enemies of the LNP in the decades since WW2.

    In a very narrow fiscal sense, the budget measures are about a financial deception – about the unstated cost of financing repeal of the Carbon Pricing Mechanism. But even this is only barely budgetary. The intended measures constitute a profoundly, aggressively political assault on the well-being, opportunity, rewards and dignity of working people, and nothing else.

    Cynically, the LNP are attempting to do what they invariably do when they win a return to office, which is to increase spending, increase taxation and cut social spending, all the while setting up the budgetary and political dynamics so that they can offer token, palliative tax cuts at the following election.

    But they have failed this time. Partly they’ve failed because we’ve seen it all before. Partly they’ve failed because the public know the budget is not about the deficit. They’ve failed as well because we all know there is no fiscal problem that cannot be easily fixed by closing a few loopholes.

    But above all, the LNP have also failed because they have fundamentally misread the economy. The primary force acting on households, on businesses and on the fiscal position is the weakness in disposable incomes, which has been manifesting in weak labour demand, weak demand for credit, weak per capita consumption, declining rates of deposit growth at banks, and in turn sapping both the profits and the investment of domestically-facing firms.

    Nor is the utterly ideological assault by the LNP – an ambush on the good faith of the electorate – offered as a temporary measure. On the contrary, it is heralded as just the beginning of years of cuts to the incomes of the lower three income quintiles. Everyone who can read or watch TV has taken the message: the LNP are promising to drive down the disposable incomes of the 60% of households who already have the least to play with.

    But income cuts are nothing new to these households, who rely on the labour market for their primary welfare. This is true of almost all households that include adults of working age, even those whose main engagement in the workforce is part-time or casual.

    The ebbing of absolute labour demand (expressed as hours worked) is well-entrenched in this economy. Absolute labour demand has been falling continuously since peaking in July last year and by April just passed had fallen 0.7%. Absolute labour demand in April was barely changed from the level of July 2011.

    When considered against the increase in the workforce over the period (3.8%), declines in the participation rate and a fall in the employment-population ratio, per capita labour demand is now almost 5% below the levels of mid 2011.

    This correlates with published declines in real wages – declines which in any case understate the effects of the rise in housing costs.

    The Government was elected at least in part because voters believed the LNP would restore job growth and help retrieve disposable income growth. The LNP has just disclosed for all to see that they really do not care at all about the effective incomes and underlying security of most households. Rather, the LNP is willing to trash, re-trash and then trash again into the indefinite future the incomes of ordinary households in pursuit of their rabid ideological fixations.

    It is absolutely no surprise that people are angry. And it will be even less surprising when they respond by cutting their own spending, when labour demand, business sales, profits and investment succumb and the fiscal position takes another tumble.

    Finally, I must add a word about the promotion of indirect taxes. These taxes reduce real wages in three ways. First, they drive up the prices of goods and services across the economy. Because of this, demand for them will fall, so that those involved in their supply will experience both lower volumes of output (there will be less work available) and lower sales, profits and wages will result.

    The idea that indirect taxes are “efficient” is widely assumed to be true, but cannot be proven and is most likely completely wrong.

    To impose new or higher indirect taxes at the same time that real wages are already falling is only asking to compound the same problems we now have – that is, to restate, they will propel further declines in per capita labour demand, sales, profits and investment, and, in turn add to the recession in fiscal collections.

    There are many ways to fix the fiscal revenue/spending balance. The two things the LNP want to do – cut social incomes and increase indirect taxes – will unquestionably be self-defeating in economic terms, not to mention be completely unacceptable in political and ethical terms.]

  7. [Crazy story in Crikey about journos at The Oz trying to do a hatchet job on @Wendy_Bacon’s kids because she reported on Frances Abbott story]

    Just the way that Murdoch’s UK businesses work. I guess they’ll be looking to hack her mobile phone.

  8. New Fraudband details emerged:

    http://jxeeno.com/blog:nbn:details-of-fttn-pilot-emerge

    “NBN Co will be conducting main deployment trials, one using a spare copper pair (known as the “Second Line Pilot”) as well as a selected “Single Line Pilot” which will use the existing copper phone line to the home. In a Single Line Pilot, traditional voice services will continue to be delivered from the exchange with the use of a combiner to “inject” VDSL signals into the existing line.”

    “Unlike NBN Co’s FTTN discussion paper as reported by CommsDay, NBN Co will be responsible for a free installation process of both pilots where the new copper pair is terminated a new wall plate for “Second Line Pilot Premises”, or where a splitter is installed for the purposes of a “Single Line Pilot Premises”.”

    Yeah let’s continue to waste time on getting Fraudband speed.

  9. [Some foreign affairs staff are annoyed Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s daughter Louise is working at Australia’s embassy in Geneva which is headed by former Coalition staffer Peter Woolcott.
    But a spokesman for the Department of Foreign of Affairs and Trade says the job helping represent Australia to the United Nations was awarded on the basis of merit.
    Jealousy over plum jobs in overseas locations is a staple of workplace life at DFAT, but departmental insiders say there are concerns over Ms Abbott being hired in Geneva, given the political connections of the mission’s boss.
    Mr Woolcott was chief of staff to foreign minister Alexander Downer from 2002 to 2004 while on secondment from the department.]

    this stinks. ‘On merit’ is shorthand for ‘PM’s daughter’ – then again, abbott got to Oxford ‘on merit’ of having the right Tory, sporting and elite institution contacts. he was an ordinary student both before and after, and obviously only did economics because he was too dumb to getting into anything higher despite going to one of the most elite schools in australia (it was the C-grade/plodder students from my very non-elite catholic boys school that did economics). he went on to do law as well, but I think his entry to uni was via economics – he drew out his FREE university education (8 years, then 3 years in a seminary) in order to play student politics – can someone please tot up what his HECS debt would be today and the number of hours he eventually spent using these degrees? (none? – he became seminarian, a bulletin writer and lib hack). As far as I see, he cost the taxpayer $100,000 and had over a decade without a real job and without ever using his law and arts degrees – who’s the bludger in this situation?)

    let’s keep track of abbott’s tax-payer funded visits to geneva/Switzerland in the near future (& which business persons’ ski lodges he stays at when there?)

  10. with typos corrected:

    this stinks. ‘On merit’ is shorthand for ‘PM’s daughter’ – then again, abbott got to Oxford ‘on merit’ of having the right Tory, sporting and elite institution contacts. he was an ordinary student both before and after, and obviously only did economics because he was too dumb to get in into anything higher despite going to one of the most elite schools in Australia (it was the C-grade/plodder students from my very non-elite catholic boys school that did economics). he went on to do law as well, but I think his entry to uni was via economics – he drew out his FREE university education (8 years, then 3 years in a seminary) in order to play student politics – can someone please tot up what his HECS debt would be today and the number of hours he eventually spent using these degrees? (none? – he became seminarian, a bulletin writer and lib hack). As far as I see, he cost the taxpayer $100,000s (& probably closer to $1 million at today’s fees for law-economics at Sydney) and had over a decade without a real job and without ever using his law and arts degrees – who’s the bludger in this situation?)

  11. [Chris Davis resigns as Queensland MP for Stafford]

    The ALP has an excellent shot at picking up this seat. They held Stafford for 10 years, up until the last Qld election.

  12. Retweeted by sortius
    Tim Senior ‏@timsenior 19m

    Here’s an idea for next year’s budget. The government could give every student a famous dad.

    Oh dear.

  13. abbott’s bio always makes something of this:

    [For a time he worked as a plant manager for Pioneer Concrete ]

    but I understand this was a holiday job organised through family friends and was measured in weeks and months rather than years.

    as far as I can tell, it is the only ‘honest’ (non student, trainee priest or lib hack) work he did in his life. he always mentions it as though he was once a working man. not a great return to the taxpayer for the 100,000s spent on his FREE university education.

  14. Received the following in a news letter from a property manager:

    Affordable housing scheme axed

    The housing industry is less than impressed with the Federal Government’s axing of the final round of the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS).

    Since it was established, NRAS has delivered 14,000 affordable homes, with a further 24,000 homes in the pipeline across the country. However, round five of the scheme will not proceed as a result of the 2014 Budget – withdrawing $235.2 million from the program over three years.

    Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA’s) Chief Executive Romilly Madew expressed disappointment at the decision.

    “The Abbott Government is making a short-term decision – saving $235.2 million over three years – at the expense of long-term affordability for people on the lowest incomes.”

    “NRAS has been a driver of affordable housing projects across Australia, and many NRAS projects have met Green Star benchmarks for sustainable design and construction.

    “These projects have fundamentally changed the low-cost housing market for the better.
    Affordable housing projects are now routinely integrating energy and water efficiency measures to achieve more sustainable, affordable outcomes for the people who can least afford big utility bills,” Ms Madew said.

    “Scraping NRAS funding will make it harder for urban, regional and rural areas to provide affordable housing.”

    “In the ‘Age of Opportunity’, as the Treasurer calls it, we need to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for affordable, sustainable, liveable housing”, Ms Madew added.

    “That is how we will build a stronger, more sustainable future for everyone”, she concluded.

  15. Whoever released the personal details of Gloria on 2GB should have his/her private address released over social networking.

    What is good for the goose must be good for the gander

    Come on someone must know.

  16. Re liberal fundraisers

    [The Age claims the mafia figure, who can not be identified…]

    Why can’t he be identified? Is he a secret witness in crime commissions, threat of defamation, etc?

  17. One day it will be revealed what a compromised news organisation the ABC really is, as someone said earlier, basically laundering hard right views for general consumption, while engaging in faux balance to keep the elites at bay.

    They have been running scared for the last 10+ years, and look where it’s got them.

  18. George Christenson is blaming Shorten for a death threat that he alleges that he received. Since Shorten did not send the alleged threat, Shorten should sue Christenson into the poor house

  19. wow! conservative and LDP wipewout, but with big swing to the fascists. no chance of this happening here – the LNP subsumed one nation and took their xenophobic policies and rhetoric further to the right. Hitler horribly did several generations a service in showing where populist, corporatist and nationalist government can lead to, but we are forgetting the lessons of history.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2014/may/22/local-election-results-2014-live?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

  20. Every week it seems we are heading towards more of a militaristic country, than a Tourism, Highly educated, high-wealth country.

    New Jets, New Aircraft, cuts to social programs, comparing us to Asia (i.e. Thailand).

  21. The analysis of Frances Abbott’s scholarship through the prism of wealth is too narrow.

    It is just a probable instance of political patronage of a kind which sees political mates get plum ambassadorships the cost of which (or the reward) is an order of magnitude greater than Frances Abbott’s benefit.

  22. Poroti

    If you are around I am on the island of Lopud it is truly beautiful some R&R Not impressed by the men they just watched as I struggled off th ferry with my suitcase and backpack on , was not easy on the little gang plank

  23. The NRAS was pumping money into universities to construct housing for overseas students, not achieving its stated goal of supplying cheap housing to the general population. IIRC, the flaw in its construction was that the rebate was payable regardless of the size of the dwelling constructed, so that the most profitable thing to do was produce dog-boxes, suitable only for students. Thus, it did almost nothing to supply housing for families or even couples.

    Far from saying that money shouldn’t be available for housing, I’m only saying that this particular scheme didn’t spend the money allocated to it well.

  24. briefly

    Nice comment! its been clear for sometime that the economy was slowing, not to be confused with going into recession but neverless it has been slowing since 2011 which is really when the budget bottom line weakened.

    I agree with the Sam de Brito article in the Age, I am not sure what people expected this government to do.

    It was always going to set out to restructure government to its liking, even though before the election Liberals refused to discuss it.

    Louise Abbott

    I am not really that concerned about that as something like 70% of jobs are filled by networking, this is part of the reason why new University graduates take a bit longer to find employment and the long-term unemployed struggle to find employment.

    Sure it is frustrating to be overlooked for promotion but sadly most workplaces promote people based on cultural fit as much as work performance.

    I am more concerned about the waived course fees to Francis Abbott than the job given to Louise, in some ways she will be under greater pressure to perform.

  25. @MB/1286

    In the work place, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know these days, that is why the cultural fit/work performance has little to do with it.

  26. [shellbell
    Posted Friday, May 23, 2014 at 2:27 pm | Permalink

    Re liberal fundraisers

    The Age claims the mafia figure, who can not be identified…

    Why can’t he be identified? Is he a secret witness in crime commissions, threat of defamation, etc?]

    The Age article uses ‘alleged’ in this article. So the defamation angle might have something to do with it.

    OTOH, part of the colour of the article is that this alleged mafia kingpin person is an alleged hitman who is alleged to have killed two people.

    So the editor might just have exercised horse’s head discretion.

  27. So to summarise:

    The Lib/Nat Abbott Coalition Govy is a Winkocracy that publicly encourages self help, have been shown to be enthusiastic in helping close friends who will then help them in return, but when all is not recalled are really about pleasing themselves.

  28. Zoidy

    I think you mis-read it, Cultural fit has everything to do with it, cultural fit is the nice way of saying do we like you or will we get along.

    Hiring has always been about networking but in today’s ever increasingly connected world networking is becoming ever more important.

  29. I nearly choked on my rolled oats when I saw the Abbott wants to put 12 JSFs on to the HLSs.

    Here is why it is a crap idea:

    (1) It is going to cost a motsa to convert the HLS to ALS.

    (2) We would have yet another one-of-a-kind ship.

    (3) We would have 46 standard JSF and 12 STOL JSF

    (3) We would have four different fighter craft in our inventory: FA-18, Growlers, JSF and JSF STOL creating a skills, maintenance and logistics nightmare.

    (4) Defence and DMO have an atrocious record when faced with the challenge of turning one military object into another military object.

    (5) In a real war the two HLS would each disapper in a puff of conventionally-tipped ICMB in the first couple of minutes.

    (6) This is a classic case of the equipment tail wagging the strategic do.

    (7) It would be much better value for money putting the money into another couple of submarines.

  30. @MB/1290

    Nope, I didn’t miss read it.

    We need to change the way that employers look at prospective employees, but that has nothing to do with cultural fit, but rather favoritism.

    Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many people on welfare.

  31. I see that our second largest national sheltered industry has got what it wants: two supply ships are to be built in Australia in order to bridge the ship building gap between the completion of the air warfare destroyers and beginning of the submarine build.

    This means that the supply ships will be around 30%-50% more expensive than exactly the same ships built o/s.

  32. [So to summarise:

    The Lib/Nat Abbott Coalition Govy is a Winkocracy that publicly encourages self help, have been shown to be enthusiastic in helping close friends who will then help them in return, but when all is not recalled are really about pleasing themselves.]

    Yep.

    They just like to pull together.

  33. Zoidy

    That will never happen, its human nature to want to be around people with similar values, in a political sense this is why the ALP will never be factional free.

    It is true that organisations which are open to a more wide ranging recruitment process will overtime outperform perform organisations which focus on internal recruitment which does tend to promote more on favoritism than ability.

  34. [shellbell
    Posted Friday, May 23, 2014 at 2:44 pm | Permalink

    The analysis of Frances Abbott’s scholarship through the prism of wealth is too narrow.

    It is just a probable instance of political patronage of a kind which sees political mates get plum ambassadorships the cost of which (or the reward) is an order of magnitude greater than Frances Abbott’s benefit.]

    …except that institutions of the type that gave a $60,000 freebie to the prime minister’s family collected around $802 million dollars by way of Abbott’s first budget.

  35. Heard both Tony Shepherd and Bill Shorten on Jon Faines program this morning and both delivered woeful performances.

    Shepherd portrayed his inner tea party self completely out of touch with how the not-so-privileged lives.

    Shorten was most disappointing and came across as weak and opportunistic.

    Listener reaction to both was not complimentary.

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