BludgerTrack: 53.5-46.5 to Labor

In lieu of any substantial shifts on voting intention to report this week, a closer look at Palmer United’s recent dip in the polls.

The latest batch of polling from Newspoll, Morgan and Essential has had the effect of confirming the shift recorded in last week’s BludgerTrack result, in which a Morgan phone poll drove a slight weakening in Labor’s post-budget lead. Consequently, there are only very slight shifts in this week’s primary vote and two-party preferred totals, with the latter moving to the Coalition by 0.3%. On the seat projection, the Coalition gains one seat each in Queensland (which has swung implausibly heavily over recent weeks) and Western Australia, but drops one in Tasmania off a particularly bad showing in this week’s Morgan breakdowns. Newspoll has furnished the leadership ratings with a new set of data, resulting in both leaders copping substantial hits on net approval. Bill Shorten is back to where he was prior to a post-budget bounce, and there is also a substantial move in Tony Abbott’s favour on preferred prime minister, although this largely represents a correction after the post-budget results caused the trend line to overshoot the individual data points.

The biggest of last week’s shifts to have been confirmed by the latest result is a two-point drop for Palmer United, which had risen from a base of around 4% before the Western Australian Senate election to over 7% in the upheaval following the budget. It would have dropped still further if I had included the 3% rating the party recorded in this week’s Newspoll, according to The Australian’s report. However, Palmer United results are not featured in Newspoll’s reporting, and taking advantage of sporadic information that appears in newspaper reports runs the risk of introducing a bias, in that the numbers are more likely to be provided in some circumstances than others. I have thus maintained my usual practice of deriving a Palmer United result from Newspoll by calculating a trend result of the party’s share of the total “others” vote from all other pollsters, and applying that share to Newspoll’s “others” result. So far as this week’s Newspoll result is concerned, this has the unfortunate effect of giving Palmer United a vote share over double that reported by The Australian.

There are other reasons why Palmer United’s recent form is of interest, so I provide below a close-up of the party’s polling trend with the most recent Newspoll excluded. While the trend line commences its descent in the middle of May, observation of the individual data points clearly indicates that the party was still at its record peak until the very end of June, but that it slipped substantially thereafter. Mike Willesee’s report on the party for the Seven Network’s Sunday Night, which aired on June 8, may have had something to do with this.

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.

1,296 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.5-46.5 to Labor”

Comments Page 18 of 26
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  1. There’s a Paul Austin who is/was a Liberal Party hack for the Melbourne Age at state level. I saw no evidence that he could write, however.

  2. Why are we assuming many Australians are left or right? I thought swing voters only go by what they perceive to be the better of the top two party du jure? Centre-rightist or centre-leftists (interchangeable for most) who on a regular day doesn’t really like to think too much about politics.

  5. [citizen
    Posted Friday, June 20, 2014 at 1:48 pm | PERMALINK
    Malcolm Farr chronicles the shambles created by the government in trying to explain Brandis’ intrusion into JBishop’s portfolio]

    Julie Bishop had already strayed into this territory last year, or early this year, when she said that Israeli settlements in occupied territories were not necessarily illegal.

    http://nsnbc.me/2014/01/17/australias-fm-julie-bishop-encourages-illegal-israeli-settlements/

    This is just the latest instalment of the appeasement of Zionism because, I would argue, at the furore over s18 of the RDA.

    Pffffffffft!!

  8. Neither Abbott nor Bishop has a clue about the status of East Jerusalem or the Palestinian Territories generally. (Nor do most people of course, but they’re not government ministers.) I could explain their position ten times better than they’ve managed to do.

  9. kezza2

    [I’d have thought that was self-evident.]

    I would too but its been strongly argued against.

    Regarding sports, I found as a teenager that sport outside of schools was a common space that children and teenagers could share regardless of affluence or where you went to school etc. You played for your town, or suburb, not your school. But when a child schools and plays sport with the same social group, for me that is troubling (sport is an example that I am familiar with, there are many others – music eg).

    And with university deregulation I see more segregation coming and all the problems that creates (eg cronyism over meritocracy).

  10. RaaRaa

    [I thought swing voters only go by what they perceive to be the better of the top two party du jure? {jour?}]

    cf: de jure (legally, by law) du jour (of the day)

    More by which seems less unpalatable, IMO.

  13. Raaraa – defining all Australians as “left” or “right” at the moment is something the “right” in Australia does in an attempt to make itself more relevant. It copied Limbaugh but can’t use the term “liberals” the way its used in the US so instead they use the word “left” or “leftist”.

    Its to do with the Us and Them thing that is fundamental to today’s “conservative” strategies. Their ideas are useless and they can’t deal with actual 21st century problems or issues so they need something to make them relevant. There’s also the problem with their agenda being set by the mega rich. the reality of politics today is that one group has the idea that wealth consolidation in a few hands is a good thing, and one of their members is the most powerful media baron in the west, so the robber barons are on the move again.

    Everyone thats a threat to them getting more of other peoples money is “of the left” in Australia or a liberal in the US. Even the term “of the left” is deliberately made up to give the impression the left is a thing instead of a relative description of someones politics.

    re Saigon revisited – The War Nerd got it wrong about Iraq and ISIL/S. A huge chunk of the middle east is a power vacuum right now. If all ISIS is good at is filling vacuums then it’ll have a fine time in the near future.

  15. @862

    [Amusement and entertainment posted the strongest growth.]

    Anything but the reality of living under this sh*t guvmint.

  16. Fran 860

    I am just glad you can not use red colour to make your corrections on PB 😉

    I still have nightmares of getting back my year 12 English essays.

  18. Simon Katich
    [I would too but its been strongly argued against.]

    Oooh, spare me. How could it possibly be argued against. That’s not to say I wouldn’t listen, but I think rhetoric has had its day.

    Reminds me of the particular stupidity of debating societies, where arguing a particular point of view is awarded superiority because of underhand devices rather than merit.

    Regarding sport: I think you’re referring to prestigious private schools rather than the norm.

    Not all private schools are the same. Sport and its corollary, physical health, was promoted in the schools I attended, as well as academic excellence.]

    Then again, I was a product of rural existence and our school teams readily amalgamated with the local social scene.

    Maybe it was different in the suburbs where it was more difficult to encourage a community spirit. And I suppose it was probably easier to use a school team in a competition rather than do the hard yakka trying to get disparate groups together to form a coherent whole.

    I’m not making excuses, just suggesting a reason.

    I agree with you about university deregulation. For all the complaints about “leftist” elitism, it smacks to me of the establishment wanting to re-establish the monetary class divide. Stinks.

  19. [mikehilliard
    Posted Friday, June 20, 2014 at 2:57 pm | PERMALINK
    @862

    Amusement and entertainment posted the strongest growth.

    Anything but the reality of living under this sh*t guvmint.]

    There seem to be an increasing number of cafes and fast food places in shopping centres at the expense of retailers. Maybe people just want to get away from the cares of life for a while – including the stresses imposed by what the government is doing to many people.

  20. Psephos uttered: Neither Abbott nor Bishop has a clue about the status of East Jerusalem or the Palestinian Territories generally. (Nor do most people of course, but they’re not government ministers.) I could explain their position ten times better than they’ve managed to do.

    These maps are pretty good for an overview:

    http://www.vox.com/a/maps-explain-the-middle-east

  21. Kezza2

    [Then again, I was a product of rural existence and our school teams readily amalgamated with the local social scene.]

    Me too. I was shocked to see how separate is was in the city. I am also shocked to have found out some of the elite schools no longer accept children without alumni relationships. So it doesnt matter how much money you have or how smart your child is – if your parents didnt go there, you cant.

    A monetary class divide? It feels like its moving to a straight and simple class divide.

  23. @860 FB

    Thanks for correcting me. I was thinking “du jour”, but typed “du jure” for some odd reason. I really should enunciate my words more better.

    @863 jules

    Lumping people into absolute groups is the mistake many commentators seems to make. Suddenly, they make assumptions of these people on every piece of opinion.

    “Bob from Finance seems to disagree with me on the stance of asylum seekers. He must be from the left. I bet he loves the Carbon Tax too. He’d give the aboriginals more money too, that idiot. Hmmm. Isn’t he from Sydney’s West? They must be all like that!”

    For all you know Bob from Finance is a rifle-range going environmentalist who loves to sip his latte every other day or so while reading up on the stock market to improve his portfolio.

    RE Saigon. I don’t presume to know more about Iraq than what I read in the media and Wikipedia (which you can deduce that my knowledge on Iraq is crap), but I just thought it might be a better idea to keep the diplomatic staff in a southern city or somewhere away from the action. Again, I don’t really know what I’m talking about here.

  26. Simon Katich

    [A monetary class divide? It feels like its moving to a straight and simple class divide.]

    Yes, of course, but without money you can’t move in exalted circles. So, to me, they’re one and the same.

    Now, getting back to your cultural argument.

    I wonder if your experience was similar to mine.

    I went to a small rural Catholic primary school, starting at age 5. I think the total population of that school through prep to Grade 6 varied from 70-90 students.

    During those formative years, we learned that poor Catholics were white trash. And the ‘poor’ were those who did not own property, despite the banks.

    Therefore, when it was time for the sacraments, some of the kids from our local town came to our school for religious instruction. We hated them because they brought down the ‘tone’.

    On the other hand, not far from us was a settlement of Co-operative Catholics – Maryknoll. They, too, were poor but were having a go, but we were encouraged to look down on them – because they were poor.

    After primary school I was sent to the oxymoronic-labelled Our Lady of Sion Colleg where we were taught to be sympathetic to the Jews who’d killed Jesus!

    We condescended to everyone then.

    I remember vividly a girl arriving at boarding school. Her family had fallen on hard times. She was from a prestigious Catholic school. Boy did we give her merry hell.

    So to cut a long story short, in the end, it was all about money.

  27. Raaraa I dunno if its a mistake, or a deliberate strategy.

    Where I live there is an amazing variety of people with an incredible range of views. No one ever uses the terms “left” or “right”. There are gun toting greenies with stock portfolios believe it or not, (plenty of gun toting rednecks too)and people have arguments based on issues and their specifics most of the time. Often they resolve themselves with some recognition of the other sides POV. (It seems the only one that doesn’t is sticking refugees in concentration camps…)
    So real lefties and righties can have an argument that becomes a discussion that recognises the other persons pov frequently.

    That sort of communication makes shock jock and opinion column trolls less relevant and makes it harder for their bosses to fleece the rest of us.

  28. @870

    Loads of info there.

    Map 20 is interesting. Indonesia doesn’t recognise the state of Israel. Does Brandis know?

  29. jules

    My late brother-in-law was a gun lover. We had arguments galore over “green issues.”

    He was forever getting on my goat, until one day I found a way to appease him.

    It was another duck-hunting season. And he wanted to bait me. You know the old story, if it wasn’t for duck hunters then grain farmers wouldn’t be able to make a quid.

    I decided to deflame the debate by congratulating duck-hunters for desisting in their use of lead bullets (didn’t mention the fact that greenies had brought this about) in their annual carnage, and by doing so they were being ‘conservationists’ for our waterways.

    The change in his attitude to me was remarkable. Suddenly I was flavour of the month for supporting the duck hunters.

    Whatever floats your boat.

  30. Sir Pajama Pudding of Lake Disappointment

    Nice maps…. but I think they missed the Timurid Dynasty in the 1400’s. Perhaps because Timur didnt wage war on the areas now known as Palestine and Lebanon.

  31. Bruce Hawker gets a bollocking

    [The chaotic and disjointed style of Kevin Rudd and his close circle during the 2013 election led to ”one of the most disappointing” campaigns in Labor’s long history, an internal review has found.
    The 25-page post mortem has identified ”serious difficulties” in lines of communication between Mr Rudd’s travelling party, headed by political adviser and confidant Bruce Hawker, and campaign headquarters in Melbourne, led by campaign director and ALP national secretary George Wright.
    The review, conducted by Victorian MP Jane Garrett and former ALP Queensland boss Milton Dick, has urged that in future campaigns the campaign director be given the final say on all messaging and strategy.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labors-2013-election-loss-selfinflicted-internal-review-finds-20140620-3aizl.html#ixzz359jS95uL

  32. [These maps are pretty good for an overview:]

    Very interesting maps, but of course they can’t address the question of the legal status of the various bits of land that were once Mandate Palestine.

  33. @SkyNewsAust: #BREAKING: High Court has ruled that putting a freeze on issuing protection visas for asylum seekers is invalid. @lipporocks on Ch 601

  38. “@ABCNews24: More next on @ABCNews24: RT @KJBar High Court rules Immigration Minister @ScottMorrisonMP can’t set number of temporary protection visas.”

  39. Interesting – no prize for guessing their target market

    [ The missing floors in Sydney’s tallest tower

    Sydney’s tallest residential tower will have a level 82, but there will really only be 66 floors.

    The developer of Greenland Centre, China’s state-owned Greenland Group, has carefully avoided any reference to the number four, because “four” and “death” have a similar look and pronounciation in Mandarin Chinese.

    So there’s no level four, 14, 24 or 34. An entire 10 floors between level 39 and 49 don’t exist. And of course no level 54, 64 or 74.

    …However, rooftop gardens in Chinese towers are apparently to be avoided because they could represent a green hat. “Wearing a green hat” is a term that Chinese use when a woman cheats on her husband.]

    http://smh.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/the-missing-floors-in-sydneys-tallest-tower-20140620-zsazc.html

  40. Psephos said: Very interesting maps, but of course they can’t address the question of the legal status of the various bits of land that were once Mandate Palestine.

    Understood. The maps (and text) provide an overview and a bit of context, which is very useful for non-historians like me who get lost in the complexities.

  41. 877 jules

    Where is this place where duopoly doesn’t have a monopoly on everything? I’m happy with the crowd, it’s the media that doesn’t seem to be able to count beyond 2, and the people who quote from them like the bible. It’s either this or that. You’re with us or against us, that sort of thing.

  45. Retweeted by Greens
    UN Refugee Agency ‏@Refugees 10m

    New report: 50% of the worldwide refugee population in 2013 were children – the most in a decade http://rfg.ee/yfm0T

    How can this be “economic refuges”?

  46. guytaur

    😆

    Of course, refers to her slipping in & out of the back doors of Universities to avoid the protestors.

  47. [Psephos
    Posted Friday, June 20, 2014 at 3:53 pm | Permalink

    These maps are pretty good for an overview:

    Very interesting maps, but of course they can’t address the question of the legal status of the various bits of land that were once Mandate Palestine.
    ]
    Of cause they can, they show it has changed hands many times and any one who claims ownership based on claims thousands of year old is full of shit.

  48. “@InsidersABC: On the #insiders panel this week: @latingle @jonathanvswan & Gerard Henderson. @frankellyabc interviews @JulieBishopMP. 9am Sunday!”

    Its a Swan song for Jonathan as he is going to be living in Washington. Should be entertaining with Henderson trying to defend the Government 🙂

  50. guytaur

    [#BREAKING: High Court has ruled that putting a freeze on issuing protection visas for asylum seekers is invalid. @lipporocks on Ch 601]

    Bad news for bloody Scott Morrison!

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