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 19 of 26
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  1. just been told on twitter that News Ld paywalls have been taken off is that true or not, can’t be botherd clicking to find out

  2. [just been told on twitter that News Ld paywalls have been taken off is that true or not, can’t be botherd clicking to find out]

    No its not true, just like News Ltd news.

  3. Chevalier PJ de la Lac du Deception

    Merci beaucoup.

    The particularly striking thing to me was the staying power of ethnic identities, religions and languages even when small groups are widely dispersed.

    I do hope you send a copy to Obama before he learns to regret sending 300 US military trainers into Iraq.

    I seem to recall that it was more or less the same first step for Australian involvement in Vietnam.

    We can see why the Republicans are absurdly happy with Obama’s decision.

    It gets them off history’s hook and creates a petard for Obama.

  5. Ummmmm……………

    Any news at all about asylum seekers is good news for Morrison.

    Just as any news about Australian jihadis and ISIS doing nasty things is good news for Abbott.

    They merged rather nicely (for the Coalition) when Abbott started wanking on about ‘border protection’ in the context of ISIS.

    I wonder whether Abbott knows whether Indonesians are mostly Sunni or Shia?

    Bet you he does not.

  7. [dave
    Posted Friday, June 20, 2014 at 4:00 pm | PERMALINK
    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.]

    To many Chinese, 4 is unlucky and 8 is lucky. However Chinese buildings and railways don’t seem to go to the extreme lengths of the owners of this Sydney tower. There might be a missing 4th floor but not much else.

    Phone numbers are interesting – the more ‘8s’ the better and it is said that mobile numbers with ‘4s’ are cheaper. The Hong Kong Octopus card for public transport is apparently so named because an octopus has eight legs.

  9. The New York Times
    says that Obama has” declined to endorse” PM Maliki,which sounds very like the final statement for Maliki
    One can imagine he will be soon despatched… we must wait to see how …but the Iraq1 Paliament and the voters won’t have any say in the matter
    Washington will be making the decisions that’s for sure

    vhttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/world/middleeast/maliki-iraq.html?_r=1

  10. I’ve just been reading the Labor campaign review.

    This is of note:

    [It is a matter of record that had the Greens Party acted in the interests of the environment, rather than their own political advancement, they would have supported the groundbreaking CPRS in the Senate and it would have passed. Australia would have transitioned to a carbon pricing scheme years ago, and with a supportive Australian public.]

    My recollection is that the Greens didn’t have the numbers to deliver the Senate (requiring all Independents including Fielding to vote with them and the Government).

    Is this correct?

  11. With respect to the rumour [?] that the Greens supported the Green Army Bill in the Senate yesterday.

    They did NOT support the bill.

    The bill was passed on the sound of the voices – the ‘ayes’ – which did NOT include the voices of the Greens.

    The bill was supported by the COALition and the ALP – NOT the Greens.

  12. [Is this correct?]

    Yes and No, two Liberal crossed the floor to vote for the CPRS. If the Greens had voted for it, it would have passed.

    But and its a big butt, would the Libs have crossed the floor if the Greens had voted for the CPRS.

  14. [
    Musrum
    Posted Friday, June 20, 2014 at 4:48 pm | Permalink
    …

    Is this correct?
    ]
    It was the end of my support for the Greens, when Labor needed there help they most to get environmental legislation across the line they didn’t step up to the plate and it was about more than voting.

  15. What a pedantic load of twaddle. Same excuse Pyne used on Fair Work.

    [They did NOT support the bill.

    The bill was passed on the sound of the voices – the ‘ayes’ – which did NOT include the voices of the Greens.]

    The Greens did not oppose the bill. 😛

  17. Musrum

    [Is this correct?]

    You can sort it out for yourself. It is easy. There are four infallible Greens rules that apply:

    (1) If it is all good, the Greens did it by themselves.

    (2) If it is half good and half bad, the Greens did the good bit and everyone else did the bad bit.

    (3) If it is bad, the Greens did not do it.

    (4) If it is bad, but the Greens were in the vicinity while bad was being done, then it is somebody else’s fault for doing the bad thing and for making the Greens feel soiled because they were in the vicinity.

  20. Musrum

    Unless you want to re-start WWIII, why bother with the Greens and Labor from prior to 2010?

    WTF has that to do with an analysis of the 2010 election campaign?

    Just another salve to Rudd’s deliberate attempt to sideline the Greens while dancing with the devil, and then to blame the Greens when everything went pear-shaped.

    Rudd and his side-kick Hawker, or Bruce Hawker and his sidekick Rudd, are solely to blame for the grotesque carryings-on within Labor during 2010-2013.

    About time they stepped up to the mark and accepted responsibility for their filthy undermining of a once-great party.

    I stood in windy conditions for hours and hours last September 7 to hand out HTV cards for Labor in the most disorganised campaign I’ve ever been involved in.

    Rudd and Hawker were responsible. They weren’t content with white-anting Julia Gillard, they destroyed the campaign.

    As I’ve said before, I won’t ever donate nor waste my time again.

  21. Yup, Coalition Party are really Tories from the UK:

    http://www.popsci.com.au/science/uk-bans-creationism-while-us-still-fights-loch-ness-monsterism,388604

    “Last week, the UK updated their requirements for all state-funded schools and academies (click “Church of England and Catholic single academy model supplemental agreement”) to clearly prohibit the teaching of creationism as science. It’s not exactly a groundbreaking change, since future schools and acadamies were already barred from teaching creationism, but the new language puts the requirements on existing schools and acadamies as well. For those who are unfamiliar with the UK system, this language refers to what in the US are called private schools, such as those run by religious institutions.”

  22. ruawake@912

    Is this correct?


    Yes and No, two Liberal crossed the floor to vote for the CPRS. If the Greens had voted for it, it would have passed.

    But and its a big butt, would the Libs have crossed the floor if the Greens had voted for the CPRS.

    Yeah that’s right. There is a big difference between a protest vote and a protest vote that passes legislation.

    frednk@914

    Musrum
    Posted Friday, June 20, 2014 at 4:48 pm | Permalink
    …

    Is this correct?


    It was the end of my support for the Greens, when Labor needed there help they most to get environmental legislation across the line they didn’t step up to the plate and it was about more than voting.

    But this came after an extended period of been frozen out of the negotiation process (because frankly they were irrelevant). I would have liked them to back-flip at the 11th hour, but you could hardly expect that of them.

    Especially given the risk that the cross-voters would just flip back themselves and so they would not even get the flawed(according to the Greens) bill through.

  23. Rua
    [The Greens did not oppose the bill]

    Exactly.

    What’s your problem?
    Was it you that started the rumour that they did?
    When they did NOT.

  24. Musrum

    re my 920

    “WTF has that to do with an analysis of the 2010 election campaign?” should read:

    [WTF has that to do with an analysis of the 2013 election campaign?]

  26. kezza2@920

    Musrum

    Unless you want to re-start WWIII, why bother with the Greens and Labor from prior to 2010?

    WTF has that to do with an analysis of the 2010 election campaign?

    I just read the quoted piece from the 2013 Campaign Review hot of the presses.

    If this myth is still being perpetuated then it’s relevant today. It makes me mistrust the rest of the document and therefore I have a little bit less faith that they will be able to kick this mob out.

  27. kezza2@924

    Musrum

    re my 920

    “WTF has that to do with an analysis of the 2010 election campaign?” should read:

    WTF has that to do with an analysis of the 2013 election campaign?

    Yeah, I guess you should ask the Authors of that document.

  28. Musrum

    [If this myth is still being perpetuated then it’s relevant today. It makes me mistrust the rest of the document and therefore I have a little bit less faith that they will be able to kick this mob out]

    Agree entirely.

    And I hope you caught up with my correction of the “analysis of the 2010 campaign” when I meant the “2013 campaign”.

  31. Why would CPRS not pass if both Labor and the Coalition supported it (bar the few who crossed the floor)? Together, their numbers were overwhelmingly large.

    The Greens did not support it simply because it gave the polluters too many exceptions that it’s overall impact on reducing carbon emissions would not meet the RET. The same reason why the mining tax failed to raise revenue close to what was forecast (due to the breaks given).

  34. It is great to see the Liberals doing the honourable thing and crossing the floor when they see fit to do so.

    ….just a pity that there is a lack of this honour in other parties.

  35. [hese 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.]

    Israel is and always has been the homeland of the Jewish people, ever since the Jewish people existed (c 1500 BC). However, the Zionist movement did not claim “ownership” of Israel. It claimed the right of Jews to live there. That right was formally recognised by the terms of the League of Nations Mandate given to Britain at the San Remo Conference, which required Britain to develop a Jewish National Home (but not a state) in the Palestine Mandate. It was only in the late 1920s, when it became apparent that the Arab leadership would not tolerate any Jewish presence in Palestine, that the question of a sovereign Jewish state arose: the Peel Report of 1931 recommended partition, and so did UNSCOP in 1947. That led to the UN Partition Plan, which would have created an Arab state next to Israel. The Arabs rejected that, and chose to go to war. That caused the end of both the Mandate and the Partition Plan. Israel then declared its independence, with de facto control of the land west of the 1949 ceasefire line. (But it never gave up its de jure claim to the rest of the Mandate, which belonged to no other state and still does not: hence the argument about whether it is “occupied” or not.) Israel’s legal status today rests on its de facto control of its territory and its recognition by the UN and by other states.

  37. fredex

    so I assume the Greens called for a division, which is what parties do when they want their opposition noted?

    …if they don’t, it is assumed they support the decision.

  38. [Another thing that should be noted is that KJackson partner, Michael Lawler second in charge at the FWA, is also very good friends with Abbott]

    Yes they are, also…..

    [The whistleblower who led to his demise is Kathy Jackson. She was lauded in glowing terms by Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne for her courage. Coincidentally, her partner, Michael Lawler, was appointed Vice President of Fair Work Australia on a salary of $400,000 a year by Tony Abbott when he was Employment and Workplace Relations Minister.]

  39. Back about the time of BK’s Dawn Patrol someone noted an absence of Richard Ackland. From Crikey newsletter

    [The editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald has hit back at claims that he sacked respected legal columnist Richard Ackland after Ackland wrote a piece for The Saturday Paper, saying Ackland gave him no choice.

    “I did not sack him. He has made his own decision,” Darren Goodsir said in an email to staff yesterday afternoon.

    It follows a tweet by Ackland from earlier today in which the columnist, who’d been writing for the SMH for two decades, said he had been sacked for writing a piece in The Saturday Paper …]

  40. Re the CPRS

    When night after night Chainsaw came out of negotiations with Labor, and nominated Penny Wong as a really “smart cookie” I saw straight away that the operative word was “cookie” rather than ‘smart.’

    This was in the wake of Rudd’s hubris over the Oceanic Viking.

    The writing was well and truly on the wall. And I don’t blame the Greens for not supporting the legislation. The Coalition had totally screwed Labor’s position.

    As far as that goes, Penny Wong took a long swan-dive in my estimation. In fact, I was surprised that such a hard-head had allowed her head to be turned by such superficial flattering. Shades of Cheryl Kernot.

    In my book, Wong has a lot to answer for.

  41. My suspicions about the Greens position. Note guesswork only.

    The Green Army is a poor expensive project that does little to combat climate change.

    However the Greens opposing it would give the LNP wonderful propaganda lines. So if it was passing anyway best just to be as invisible as possible.

    Thus that meant not making a fuss which meant by default not going on record opposing it.

    Thats my guess as to why the Greens did not oppose,

  42. [was appointed Vice President of Fair Work Australia on a salary of $400,000 a year by Tony Abbott when he was Employment and Workplace Relations Minister.]

    FWA didn’t exist when Abbott was minister.

  43. How much impact does the Green Army have on the budget?

    Was the landcare funding going to be shafted regardless of whether this act was passed or not?

  44. Every MP and every Senator should vote exactly the way they believe their conscience tells them to vote.

    In matters where they do not have a strong conscience determination one way or the other, they should go with their party.

    The ALP policy to expel anyone who votes against the collective is as ridiculous as the Borg on Star Trek, and I think it is probably illegal/unconstitutional to compel a parliamentarian how to vote with threats (but happy for legal advice on this from one of the legal eagles here).

  45. Japan has same problem, as we do regarding youth unemployment:
    http://online.wsj.com/articles/warsh-and-druckenmiller-the-asset-rich-income-poor-economy-1403220446

    “Those without jobs, especially in the younger cohorts without a post-high school education, do not attach to the workforce, thus never gaining the entry-level skills and discipline to build a career. The malaise in the labor markets—and muted business investment—help explain why productivity measures are a full percentage point below historical norms.”

  46. Dee

    Can a Royal Commission offer immunity?

    The most perplexing bit about this is the fact that none of the HSU witnesses are cross-examined, and won’t be unless Commissioner Heydon decides otherwise.

    Why, then, were the AWU witnesses allowed to be cross-examined, such as they pathetically were? And not the HSU folk?

    This Royal Commission is already extremely compromised.

  48. Raaraa

    Landcare apparently to have a lazy half a billion gutted from it. So net benefit for the environment el zilcho.

  49. [It is great to see the Liberals doing the honourable thing and crossing the floor when they see fit to do so.

    ….just a pity that there is a lack of this honour in other parties.]

    Actually, the Liberals spend a lot of time talking about how they are a ‘broad church’ and how their members are free to vote however they choose. It is also interesting to note, however, that it never happens when a vote could be lost in a way that causes embarrassment for the Liberal leadership.

    On a number of occasions during the hung parliament, Judi Moylan threatened to cross the floor. The only times she came close to actually doing this she was paired.

    The fact is these “renegade” Liberals only do their own thing when they have permission to do their own thing, which is when it doesn’t matter. The minute the numbers are tight, they are pulled into line.

  50. [In matters where they do not have a strong conscience determination one way or the other, they should go with their party.]

    Disraeli to Tory MP: “Damn your principles, sir – stick by your party.”

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