BludgerTrack: 52.6-47.4 to Labor

The latest weekly poll aggregate points to a continuing deflation of the post-budget Labor poll blowout, and reallocates a chunk of the Labor swing from New South Wales to Victoria.

Two new poll results this week from Nielsen and Essential Research have contributed to a continuation of the moderating trend of Labor’s post-budget poll lead, which sees the two-party preferred result in BludgerTrack come in at 52.6-47.4, down from 53.5-46.5 last week. The peak reading of 55.0-45.0 was recorded four weeks ago, a fortnight after the May 13 budget. The Coalition also has the lead on the primary vote for the first time in six weeks. Labor retains a reasonably comfortable majority on the seat projection, although the numbers once again illustrate how difficult the model considers the electoral terrain to be for Labor, as the present projection of 79 seats is four fewer than Labor managed with an almost identical two-party preferred vote when Kevin Rudd led it to victory in 2007.

There were some striking results in the state breakdowns in Nielsen this week, and BludgerTrack reflects this in having the swing in New South Wales moderate considerably, cutting their projected seat gain from 11 to seven, while in Victoria the gain is up from four to seven. Further shifts beneath the surface find Labor up a seat in Queensland, but down one in both Western Australia and South Australia. The Nielsen poll also furnishes us with a new set of leadership ratings, which after accounting for the model’s standardisation procedure are almost identical to last week’s results from Newspoll. The movements on last week are accordingly very minor.

Last week I offered a closer look at Palmer United’s polling trend, so this week I thought we’d home in on the Greens. After watching their vote fall from 11.8% at the 2010 election to 8.6% in 2013, polling has shown the party on a steady upward trend, with a short-lived spike occurring in April. While this was partly driven by one outlier result from Nielsen, all of the other polling conducted at that time has them clustered around the high level of 12%. All of these results were conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Western Australian Senate election, at which the party’s vote was up from 9.5% to 15.6%. The party’s polling in Western Australia has remained strong, the present BludgerTrack reading of its primary vote being 15.8%. Coincidentally or otherwise, the downward trend that followed the WA election spike coincided exactly with the federal budget.

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.

1,028 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.6-47.4 to Labor”

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  2. Victoria, Much preferred Willy in the old days – no traffic, more people rode bikes than drove cars as very flat. Great-grandparents built a hotel there in 1852.

  8. 82 markjs

    [Remember when Clive promised to block repeal of Carbon Pricing ..unless Abbott re-instated benefit to orphans of war veterans?

    No mention of that last night…]

    Wasn’t that the Mining Tax?

  9. [{Palmer’s} comments come as climate groups warn that Australia may be left with no plan to tackle climate change if the Senate votes to repeal the carbon tax but rejects the Coalition’s direct action policy.]

    What ARE the ramifications of the blocking of Direct Action?

    Would Abbott feel constrained to whinge that his government was being stopped from acting on Climate Change? Would he be forced to advocate for such action (wealk as it would have been)?

    Would he present the bill multiple times?

    Would he realize that Australia was effectively dealt out of the Climate Game? Could this affect our trade?

    Or would he drop DA willingly and thus show himself up as not being serious about Climate Change at all?

    How about the Work For The Dole aspect of the Green Army? Where would the dole bludgers get work if not on Abbott’s Superclean Up Australia scheme?

    Would they have to be insured against workplace accidents etc. (as they are NOT under the Green Army)?

    Abbott is staring down the barrel of Australia being the only country in the world to completely wind back any action on Climate Change to nothing at all. Will he really want this stigma as El Nino approaches?

  10. Victoria,
    You can’t get a parking spot in Williamstown at weekends these days because of the attractions there (cafes, etc.). But Willy is a peninsula so has no through traffic, unlike everywhere else in Melbourne. We used to kick a football in the main street on Sunday afternoon. The first traffic light and pedestrian crossing arrived in the 1980s – changed very quickly after that.

  11. My confused reading of the Palmer/Gore thing is that Carbon Pricing goes & there’ll be a few sops to the “Warmists” in the shape of some legislation that’ll never be acted on plus a few organisations that can be starved to death. Including the always risible Direct Action. Turnbull said this was designed to be dropped. Abbott won’t lose a single vote from that. Sabra Lane visibly brightening last night as she was able to tell us Greg Hunt didn’t look too fussed.
    Labor should tread very carefully here.
    All of which means that Australia’s now on track to do absolutely nothing about climate change, the rest of the world might have an opinion on that but it should play well here. That’s if it’s noticed.

  12. [ David ‏@davidjoepat 1m
    Sickening hypocritical lying speeches frm Torys in HOR this morn praising Palmer for agreeing with Abotts no carbon pricing & craping on ALP]

  13. [Sabra Lane ‏@SabraLane 53s
    Up now: @DennisJensenMP on Al Gore and CPalmer… says Gore is “a hypocrite extraordinarie” .. “Gore will take money for anything”.]

  14. [“And I’m frankly quite surprised that climate champion Al Gore has signed up to a non-plan that would see Australia do nothing on climate change.”]

    I’m not.

  15. lizzie

    Doesnt matter what the tories say in the HOR. Newsbreaks on radio have Palmer quoted as saying that Abbott is receptive to considering dumping DA for an ETS!

  16. Talking about Fiona Scott having reading difficulties when “speech making” ie speech effing reading!), I have seen a couple of JBishop speeches recently.

    IMHO she is a pretty poor speech presenter. She reads most of her speeches from a script and makes few and poor attempts to add any spontaneous additions or comments.

    And her voice is not persuasive or convincing.

    Her speaking skills are commensurate with her lightweightedness as a politician and perhaps as a human person too.

  18. [Strange that the reportage on radio indicates that Palmer backs repeal of carbon tax, and wants an ETS in its place.]

    Vic, that is what I heard him say last night.

  22. The smart move from the Greens and the ALP would be to argue that Palmer’s amendments should be to amend the carbon price legislation to end the carbon price and move to an ETS, linked to the EU … which was Rudd’s policy.

    Basically put the pressure on … the detail on Clive’s ETS plan is being largely ignored, so they should capitalise on it. Talk about a grand coalition to act on climate or some such bullshit.

  24. Xenophon was ranting on today about the great uncertainty to the business and investment worlds that Palmer’s current activities bring, vis a vis climate change and its management.

    I think that is a total nonsense.

    Any CEO/Board who is not certain that AGW exists, not certain that it will need to be managed, and not certain that it will be managed when Labor returns to power or when the Liberal party is returned to moderate leadership, is a dud.

    I hope none of my investments are in companies with such dud CEOs and Boards.

    Any competent, progressive CEO or Board should be anticipating two things with certainty:

    1) Carbon emissions will be managed sooner or later.

    2) Alternatives to fossil energy present an attractive option for investment.

  25. I think “whistleblower” is a kind term

    [CONTROVERSIAL whistleblower Kathy Jackson spent thousands of dollars of union funds on personal expenses including children’s tutors, camping gear and laser therapy, bank documents show. ]

  26. Lets not forget that Tony Abbott has filled his commissions with old dinosaurs whose business acumen has been demonstrated to lose value for the companies they once ran

    Tony Shepherd
    Maurice Newman
    Ziggy Switowski

  27. [Any CEO/Board who is not certain that AGW exists, not certain that it will need to be managed, and not certain that it will be managed when Labor returns to power or when the Liberal party is returned to moderate leadership, is a dud.]

    The $64,000 question is when Labor will return to power, and if they stay in long enough not to have their changes wound back.

  28. No surprise the Government seems set to go with Palmer’s offer.

    [
    The federal government is likely to embrace Clive Palmer’s offer to repeal the carbon tax, safe in the knowledge its abolition does not hinge on the government agreeing to establish an emissions trading scheme.

    Mr Palmer’s call for a globally-linked ETS is not assured of success, with Labor and the Greens deriding it as nothing more than a stunt.
    ]

    http://www.afr.com/p/national/clive_palmer_plan_gives_coalition_ZABZZryPEJc6Vw0XI2s2HP

  29. The simple facts are:

    1. Abbott’s repeal-a-thon of all the Clean Energy package of bills is in tatters.
    2. Palmer has Abbott by the short and curlies, whereby Palmers’s bargaining position is infinity strengthened.
    3. Direct Action is D.O.A. Abbott’s fig leaf has blown away, and he has nothing left but CC Denialism, or blaming everyone else for his failure.
    4. The Abbott government stability has been rocked, and as we know from the previous governments, this chaotic loss of control wil play into the other negatives.
    5. Palmer hates Murdoch and his organs with a vengeance, as he does Campbell Newman. There may he left field developments in this area.

    So I wouldn’t overly stress whether the CT/ETS is retained, frozen or temporarily lost.

    The main game for now is to cut down the Lying Friar and his backers so their starting position for the next election is diminished.

  30. [CONTROVERSIAL whistleblower Kathy Jackson spent thousands of dollars of union funds on personal expenses including children’s tutors, camping gear and laser therapy, bank documents show.]

    Now that she has served her purpose, the government and the MSM (especially Murdoch) are unconcerned if she is hung out to dry.

  31. The value of Palmer’s approach is that it opens the possibility of cooperation by committing to a conditional course of action (to reduce carbon pollution), rather that just a hard ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to cooperation.

    Using this type of strategy sends a signal to other nations that Australia is committed to reducing carbon emissions. At the same time, it does not bind us to a (possibly, but arguably not very) disadvantageous unilateral price on carbon pollution, which is the Tory line of attack on the ETS.

    SO, if the five trading partners Clive lists agree to the same terms, then cooperation on pricing carbon emissions will ensue.

    It’s clever, and it will draw out Abbott’s CC denialism because he and a majority in the LNP don’t want to price carbon pollution in any case, international agreements or not.

  32. There is also the possibility that, by embracing Al Gore’s position, the Coalition may be falling into a bigger trap down the track.

    The next thing Al Gore says about Climate Change action may not be so comforting for the government.

  34. And the Obama Factor has not been fully considered. Does Obama have anything to do with Gore’s sudden presence on the Australian political scene?

  35. Sprocket

    Spot on comment. And your 2 conclusions are also accurate IMHO.

    With your indulgence I’d like to suggest a modification:

    2. Palmer has Abbott by the short and curlies and is toying with him, whereby Palmers’s bargaining position is infinitely strengthened.

  37. Remember how we commented on The Guardian using “Icac” instead of “ICAC”. I’ve noticed they also use “Fifa” instead of “FIFA”.

  38. BB

    As i mentioned earlier, Fran Kelly sfafed fhis morning that Clive was a very good friend of fhe Democrats and has an ongojng relationship with them

  44. What Al Gore was doing in Australia for ACF.

    [Train with Al Gore and become a climate leader

    At this defining moment on climate change, we need a community of inspiring and connected people to champion lasting solutions.

    On 25-27 June in Melbourne, Climate Reality Chairman and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, will train a select group of leaders from across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. ]
    http://www.acfonline.org.au/be-informed/climate-change/climate-reality-project

  45. BB
    [Does Obama have anything to do with Gore’s sudden presence on the Australian political scene?]

    Al Gore was scheduled to come to Australia for some time.

    http://www.acfonline.org.au/be-informed/climate-change/climate-reality-project

    [On 25-27 June in Melbourne, Climate Reality Chairman and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, will train a select group of leaders from across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.]

    A friend told me a month ago she had been selected for this training.

  46. guytaur

    So it’s a deliberate policy?

    BTW Centre and the Greens haters must have choked on their Weeties when they looked at William’s graph of Greens polling.

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