BludgerTrack: 51.7-48.3 to Labor

This week’s opinion poll projections have Tony Abbott leading as preferred prime minister for the first time since April, and the Coalition maintaining the slow drift in its favour on voting intention.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week continues its steady drift back to the Coalition, with new figures from Newspoll, Morgan and Essential contributing to a 0.4% shift on two-party preferred. Labor now barely maintains overall majority status on the seat projection following a further loss of two seats, one in New South Wales and one in Victoria. Tony Abbott has also recovered the lead as preferred prime minister on the back of new figures from Newspoll and Essential Research. His net approval rating also continues to get less bad in the wake of MH17, although the rate of improvement has slowed and he is still well into the negative. Bill Shorten’s loss of the preferred prime minister mantle is not on account of his own rating, which has been steady since March outside of a brief spike in the wake of the budget. Full details as always on the sidebar.

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.

1,050 thoughts on “BludgerTrack: 51.7-48.3 to Labor”

Comments Page 3 of 21
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  3. BW, that only really works for you so long as someone else is on hand to do the heavy lifting against the Nazis. Swiss saying during WW2: “For six days a week we work for the Germans, and on the seventh we pray for the Allies.”

  5. Diogenes
    Posted Thursday, August 14, 2014 at 5:19 pm | Permalink

    BW

    I’m always amused when warmongers like Bolt etc lecture the US on the war. They don’t seem to see a significant downside to 100,000 American troops having to live permanently in another country for no reason other than to pretend the war was a success.

    I read most of ‘The Australian’ today. It had various articles, editorials, features etc on both the forces posture agreement and the ME, including Iraq.

    The truly frightening thing about the whole lot was that there did not seem to be a scintella of understanding that the West’s activities in the ME are, in any way shape or form, coming home to roost.

    This is not to claim that everything that is happening there is a consequence of western actions. Clearly, there are plenty of ME players who are players and who have, are, and will have a bearing and an impact.

    But wiping the West out of ME history completely (bar blaming Obama for Iraq) is a staggering feat of intellectual dishonesty.

  7. Bw

    It really doesn’t matter if the Swiss had developed nothing.

    They’re good a losing stuff as well. Who else could accidentally let the Israeli’s copy every design drawing and specification for the Mirage III?

  8. The Swiss also had a pretty good line of tax evasion and hiding of wealth going until the US Government threatened to economically destroy them.

    UBC and the other Banks wagged their tails, paid huge fines and handed over lists of US citizens with Swiss Bank accounts.

    No doubt things still being under the radar though.

    Apparently Marcos of the Philippines had truckloads of loot there as well which ‘the family’ had trouble getting back. But not too sure who or what to believe about that.

  11. The Swedish were also neutral during WWII (although they did allow German troops to go to and from Norway).

    Denmark, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands were neutral but it did them little good.

    The Spanish were also neutral (except against the USSR from the invasion of the USSR until it was clear the Germans were on the loosing side).

    The Portuguese were also neutral.

  12. William

    BW, that only really works for you so long as someone else is on hand to do the heavy lifting against the Nazis. Swiss saying during WW2: “For six days a week we work for the Germans, and on the seventh we pray for the Allies.”

    The Swiss could have declared war against the germans and the italians and fought for perhaps a month or two, had their country completely trashed, suffered numerous deaths and wounded, and had their population traumatised. Switzerland might well have disappeared altogether, with the german speaking parts added to Germany, the Italian-speaking parts to Italy and the french speaking parts to whoever or whatever.

    Alternatively, the Swiss could have declared war against the Soviet Union. The latter, after all, was hardly a bastion of democracy and humanitarianism.

    The actual net result would have been that the european ground war might just have lasted an extra day or so.

    In practical terms the european war was a three cornered contest involving two crazed dictatorships. Given their geo-political situation, the very likely result at the start of WW2 of joining WW2 was being over-run by the germans or the russians.

    The Swiss were not to know that the Japanese would trigger US entry into the european war.

    All that said, I take your point about the ethics of war profiteering.

    This issue has hardly come up for Australia because we join every war going and the only profiteering that has occurred has been domestic profiteering which may be a lesser evil than profiteering from someone else’s war.

  13. CTar1
    Posted Thursday, August 14, 2014 at 5:33 pm | Permalink

    Bw

    It really doesn’t matter if the Swiss had developed nothing.

    They’re good a losing stuff as well. Who else could accidentally let the Israeli’s copy every design drawing and specification for the Mirage III?

    Yeah. I gather that the Swiss couldn’t give a flying Kfir about the drawings.

  16. The police should fine all those drivers riding on the wrong side of the road with US licence plates

    Did Sloppy’s comments make it to the USA? 😆

  19. Good advice from John Hewson, plus he gets to call Abbott stupid.

    One of my classics was to suggest that “you can always tell the rented house on the street”, made towards the end of a very long speech to the Housing Industry Association in 1992. The line, originally written by my then press secretary, Tony Abbott, was moved in and out of the speech by various advisers before being finally reinstated and was only noticed by one journalist at the time. But that was enough. The media bushfire was ignited. I was very soon flat out back-pedalling.
    In my experience, the best response to such acts of stupidity is to immediately and openly admit the mistake and set about rectifying it. To try to defend the indefensible breaches the first “law of digging holes” – namely, once you reach the bottom, you should stop digging.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/tonedeaf-treasurer-joe-hockey-the-budgets-worst-enemy-20140814-1042pt.html#ixzz3ALpe2ah3

  20. Hewson’s “dumb” statement, written by his press secretary, guess who? 😆 Very much a comment by the privileged.

    Don’t get me wrong, it is unnervingly easy to make dumb statements in politics. Often attempts to make points with the best of intentions fail to strike the desired chord – indeed, they can easily offend.

    One of my classics was to suggest that “you can always tell the rented house on the street”, made towards the end of a very long speech to the Housing Industry Association in 1992. The line, originally written by my then press secretary, Tony Abbott, was moved in and out of the speech by various advisers before being finally reinstated and was only noticed by one journalist at the time. But that was enough. The media bushfire was ignited. I was very soon flat out back-pedalling.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/tonedeaf-treasurer-joe-hockey-the-budgets-worst-enemy-20140814-1042pt.html#ixzz3ALqtCWLU

  25. DN

    we comment on unimportant things that nobody cares about all the time.

    Thanks. I must have forgotten momentarily the reason why William put this site up and why we comment on his exquisite postings (around the rate of 1 comment in a 1,000, I think).

  27. CHANNEL 7
    mark riley just put the boots in joho

    footage in shopping centre hojo goes to shake a ladies hand and she pulls away ( no thanks )

  28. Just been watching ABC-24 re. The Mountain in Iraq where all the people are supposed to be needing rescue.

    Not that I shout at the screen all that often, but I couldn’t help yelling, “There’s no-one f**king THERE!!!” at the telly.

    ABC-24 is still pursuing the outdated meme that thousands are in dire risk of being decapitated by the Islamic State, when the second item on the news tells us… they’re mostly all gone.

    NO NEED TO RESCUE THEM BOYS. THEY’RE ALRIGHT. THEY’RE SAVED. GET IT?

    Jesus wept.

    If ever there was an indictment against mainstream media, where stories take hours to put together earlier in the day, and are then replayed over and over again, without regard to the actual, y’know, FACTS ON THE GROUND, this is it.

    They are still playing interviews from ABC Breakfast, for God’s sake, saying that the prospect of genocide is real and imminent.

    Since then we’ve found out that the bombing worked, and ISIS has retreated.

    There’s no-one to rescue.

    She-it!

  29. Reith and Hewson are both wRONg about Hockey in their articles.

    Hockey’s problem is that he is saying what he truly believes – the middle class and the poor should get far less welfare and pay more tax – the opposite of what he said in opposition.

    He believes the wealthy are paying too much tax and get next to nothing for it – while “so called” dole bludgers and others like people going to doctors get the “benefit” of taxes upon the rich.

    His budget, policies announced and those he is trying to get passed provide the so called “overarching narrative” supporting this.

    But the jug is up when voters realise it.

    Never mind abbott is back soon and will explain it to everyone.

  30. Bw

    The Mirage III was a total disaster financially for Dassault.

    Not only did the Israeli’s rip them off but their guy who negotiated the Logistic Support contract with us thought the Australian Pound was tied to Sterling.

    We really should still have some flying – we’d be still coming out ahead at Dassaults expense.

  32. We better hope hotheads are not in charge on either side of the fence.

    Ukraine crisis: Russian ‘aid’ convoy heads straight for rebels in Luhansk as fears intensify of ‘direct invasion’

    Moscow orders more than 260 trucks to head straight for rebel-held border – after stopping off at a military base in southern Russia

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-russian-aid-convoy-heads-straight-for-rebels-in-luhansk-as-fears-intensify-of-direct-invasion-9667836.html

  33. We really should still have some flying – we’d be still coming out ahead at Dassaults expense.

    Dozens of Australian built Mirage IIIs are still flying

  34. Bushfire Bill

    They have to keep running those stories else Abbott’s present “operation humanitarian aid” would be exposed as being pointless.

  36. thorn – In my younger days, as a journo, I once followed Hawkie through a shopping centre. People just flocked to him. Then I followed Peacock and it was fascinating how he targeted shoppers with heavy bags and bailed them up against shopfronts. Staff behind counters were also easy prey because they couldn’t escape.

  37. Fran Barlow@97

    bemused

    I rather like Greentards myself.


    there’s no requirement to respect our politics, but I find it regrettable that you use an aphetic of a word now deprecated as abusive to the cognitively disabled to take a cheap shot.

    Affixing ‘tard to political names is one of the least pleasant Americanisms one sees around the web these days. I call upon you to apologise and to drop this practice.

    I hereby do humbly apologise to anyone who was offended at the thought I might be likening them to Greens. 😀

  38. paaptsef

    Dozens of Australian built Mirage IIIs are still flying

    But not operationally by the RAAF – that’s where the support ‘standing order’ bit.

  39. bemused

    hereby do humbly apologise to anyone who was offended

    Try ‘Greenturds’ next time.

    It’s much more socially acceptable.

  40. 131

    There is a six word limit for registered party names in Australia (and as far as I am aware all its states and territories) and just too long to be sensible.

    A double negative is also probably something to be avoided.

    Targeting a relatively insignificant minor party, that is far smaller that the Greens, is also likely to be contrary to rules of persuasive success.

  41. Iraq on 24: ‘The tracer fire caused a grass fire that raged all afternoon”.

    Not to worry. ISIL could help out with this if needed.

    Blowing up the Mosul Dam would put this fire and any other fire in the south of Iraq.

  42. FFS – Do the abbott’s ever pay for anything themselves –

    Tony Abbott received discounted legal advice in relation to a complaint brought in the Fair Work Commission by a design institute academic who was investigated by his former employer over a story about the prime minister’s daughter Frances.

    “I am receiving legal services on a reduced fee basis from Seyfarth Shaw Australia Pty Ltd in an action made pursuant to part 3-1 of the Fair Work Act 2009,” Abbott declared in an update to his pecuniary interest register dated 11 August.

    The declaration came shortly after the academic brought action against his former employer, the Whitehouse Institute, in the Fair Work Commission and named Abbott as one of a number of respondents. Government sources confirmed that the discounted legal advice related to this case.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/tony-abbott-gets-discounted-legal-advice-in-frances-abbott-scholarship-dispute

  44. CTar1

    So we could have blackmailed the French by saying “Stop testing in Mururoa or we’ll fly even more of your planes for another 30 years” ?

  45. Oh Dear

    Apparently Turkey has been quietly allowing the ISIS lads a bit of RnR in a Turkish town just across the border from Syria. After all, the ISIS lads are sunnis, just like the Turks, and were engaged in trying to destroy Assad and all his works; just like the Turks.

    But now that the ISIS lads have upset the applecart big time and are setting themselves up as COMPETITION with Turkey, the Turks have decided that the enemy of my enemy line of thinking had backfired.

    So, no more R’n’R for the ISIS lads in Turkey.

    The ISIS lads have apparently responded by letting off a few car bombs by way of reply.

  47. Emerging in the aftermath of its successful handling of the MH17 tragedy…

    Hewson obviously has a propensity for dumb statements.

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