BludgerTrack: 50.0-50.0

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate records the Coalition level with Labor on two-party preferred, and with an absolute majority on the seat projection, for the first time since the budget – and also points to an ongoing recovery in Tony Abbott’s personal ratings.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate continues to trend the Coalition’s way, to the extent that it reaches two milestones this week: parity with Labor on two-party preferred, and an absolute majority on the seat projection, albeit by the barest of margins. Three new polls were added to the national figures, those being Galaxy, the regular weekly Essential Research, and the fortnightly Morgan (fortnightly in the sense of publication, although the poll is conducted on a weekly basis). Also out this week was the Newspoll quarterly aggregates, which have been factored into the state breakdowns, along with the regular state breakdowns from Morgan (published) and Essential (unpublished). The combined effect is to add seat each to the Coalition tally in New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia, while removing one in Victoria and Tasmania.

The quarterly Newspoll is a big deal for BludgerTrack, which is never better serviced for state data than it is immediately after being fed with three months’ worth of state-level Newspoll results. To this end, later today I will get around to publishing my own detailed quarterly state breakdowns for BludgerTrack, the previous instalment of which can be seen here.

BludgerTrack is still in the position of being slightly more favourable to the Coalition than any single published poll result, due to a variety of factors. Perhaps this could be best explained if I run through each of the pollsters:

Nielsen of course closed up shop a few months ago, which was significant in that BludgerTrack deemed it to be the most Coalition-friendly pollster, and the only one which adjusted for any substantial bias to that effect. Now that it’s gone, the model has a clear tendency to skew to the right of what a straight polling average would tell you.

Newspoll is rated as neutral by the model, but it hasn’t reported for a fortnight. When it did report, it gave Labor a 51-49 lead when the primary vote numbers looked a lot more like 50-50. It’s the primary votes that BludgerTrack goes off, so this was a 50-50 poll as far as the model was concerned. Clearly Labor got rounded up in the Newspoll result – it follows that they also got rounded down in BludgerTrack.

Galaxy is taken very seriously by BludgerTrack, and receives next to no bias adjustment at all. This week it gave Labor a lead of 51-49, although putting its rounded primary votes into the model produces a result of 50.6-49.4 going off 2013 preferences (as BludgerTrack does). If not for this poll, the Coalition would have moved into the lead.

ReachTEL’s last poll a fortnight ago had Labor leading 51-49, and BludgerTrack adjusts this pollster slightly in favour of the Coalition.

Morgan is reckoned to have the biggest bias in the game, that being in favour of Labor. Its result on respondent-allocated preferences this week was 51.5-48.5 in favour of Labor, but the more telling point so far as BludgerTrack is concerned is that it was the Coalition’s best result since February.

Essential is noted for being slow to respond to changes, and for this reason, BludgerTrack treats its bias in a unique way, by dynamically adjusting it according to how its deviates from the model over time. Since it’s stayed stuck with Labor on the cusp of leading 52-48 or 53-47, while the other pollsters have moved to the Coalition, a Labor bias adjustment is increasingly being factored into its results.

The other development in BludgerTrack this week is that Morgan published a set of phone poll numbers on leadership ratings, and they were relatively very rosy for Tony Abbott, who wasn’t too far off parity on net approval and had a pretty solid lead on preferred prime minister. This has a pretty sharp effect on the BludgerTrack leadership ratings, which aren’t exactly spoiled for data and are always pretty sensitive to the most recent result, even if the poll in question was from a rather small sample, as was the case here.

UPDATE: As promised, here are the detailed state-level breakdowns featuring primary vote numbers and charts tracking the progress of the primary and two-party votes in each state. Crikey subscribers may enjoy my analysis of these results in today’s email, assuming it gets published.

I also promised two weeks ago that I was going to start tracking betting odds in these mid-week BludgerTrack posts, then forgot about it last week. Now that I’ve remembered again, I can inform you that there has been movement to the Coalition over the part fortnight in Centrebet’s federal election odds, with the Coalition in from $1.50 to $1.45 and Labor out from $2.55 to $2.70. Centrebet’s price on Campbell Newman being re-elected in Queensland has also shortened from $1.36 to $1.28, with Labor out from $3.15 to $3.65. There has been a very slight move to Labor for the Victorian election, with Labor in from $1.23 to $1.22 and the Coalition out from $4.00 and $4.10 – which sounds a bit generous to Labor for mine. The Betfair market evidently thinks so, as it has the Coalition in from $4.10 to $3.40 and Labor out from $1.48 to $1.59.

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.

1,009 comments on “BludgerTrack: 50.0-50.0”

Comments Page 17 of 21
1 … 16 17 18 … 21

  1. Zoomster

    [I once said to Joan Kirner that at heart I’m an anarchist – I’d like to start everything again from scratch.]

    In theory, so would I, but in practice societies are living organisms. You can’t start from scratch without killing the organism. Metaphorically, the dictum about using a lever to move the Earth reminds us that we also need ‘a firm place to stand’ before we can do any moving.

    Every person who manages to make the world a better place does so by persuading others to abandon what is for what might be. It’s hardly surprising that people are often reluctant to change things. By definition, you’re asking them to give up a knowable thing for an unknowable thing, and as soon as someone reflects on that they are reminded of the comfort they take in their certainties, and how much their sense of being in control of their lives relies on these certainties. Those of us who have learned to ice skate will recall the disconcerting feeling of trading the security of the wall for the freedom of the centre of the rink, and the first time you learned how to lift one foot over the other and cross over. Scary stuff it is, because there’s an excellent chance you will wind up flat on your face and humiliated. Understanding how basic stuff works, and having to relearn all that is daunting.

    I recall Anatole France saying:

    [All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.]

    So whenever I become frustrated at the pace of change in the directions I’d prefer I remind myself that the arrangements we have that are of longstanding, for good or ill did not arise as a result of some anomaly but are rooted in all that human communities have learned, or think they have learned. Asking people to let go of substantial parts of what defines them, in favour if something relatively untested is no trivial thing, and it is hardly surprising that most are reluctant. Until an old way of doing things becomes palpably untenable, most people will tolerate it if not actively embrace it. To return to my ice rink analogy, while the wall is there, people will try hanging onto it. It’s not until the wall is removed that most people will start tentatively making their way about like toddlers learning how to walk again — and that because they have nogoid alternative.

  2. Briefly, Guytaur, Zoomster

    I think the time HAS come to rid the ALP of its delegate approach which was the bees knees in 1890, but is now no longer especially relevant or appropriate.

    There are several competing issues in any democracy: 1.Maximising the voice of the people/members, preferably with equality 2. ensuring a voice for minority positions and 3.ensuring a level of stability ie not having short term populist policies/leaders dominating.

    Whatever system is in place needs to meet three objectives. I see no reason for not having complete rank and file pre-selections provided there is a reasonable number of voters (a rank and file vote amongst 20 is worse than central pre-selections. I am not especially enthused by the community pre-selection – better to make membership cheap and widespread.

    I can see no reason why policy positions are by delegation. The internet is set up to allow easy mass voting. You would need rules to decide who is eligible to vote and perhaps weighting on time of membership to prevent distortion by some mass campaigns. Not quite sure but perhaps in the ALP you get a vote for every year of membership up to ten or twenty. The younger people might complain but if an issue is sufficiently important it will not matter because there will be a big enough ground swell.

    I would like to see PARLIAMENT very much expanded. I see no reason why our future is decided by just 226 people. I am not even sure that the current full time commitment is necessary or desirable. It would be easy enough (and constitutional) to greatly expand the parliament at LOW COST. Parties might nominate 10% of successful candidates to receive full time salaries and staff just as now, with say 20% on part time, the balance getting paid for the time actually spend in parliament or on committees etc.

    Boring procedural stuff could be managed in parliament as now with a small number of the full timers but real debate on major policy issues could be held for say two – four weeks annually – more like an annual or biannual conference.

    This way with almost no extra cost you could have 2000 people in parliament.

  7. dtt

    One of the problems with having part time politicians is that they’d have to be part time something elses as well.

    We sort of had that 150 years ago, when political positions weren’t salaried, and thus (by definition) anyone in political positions had to have a day job as well.

    We ended up with politicians who made decisions purely on self interest (many of Victoria’s railway woes date back to this period).

    A politician who is part time an MP and part time a union official, for example, is more beholden to a union than a politician who USED TO BE a union official.

  8. Go Bill…
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/carbon-price-on-bill-shortens-agenda-as-he-goes-to-electorate-20141010-1148xe.html

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/greens-moves-to-head-off-jihad-20141010-114crm.html

    Ross Gittins
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/finding-better-indicators-to-read-the-health-of-the-economy-20141010-1143tx.html

    Did we need an analysis to know this
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/analysis-finds-it-is-no-accident-that-federal-budget-makes-the-poor-pay-the-most-20141010-114cyt.html

  10. [802
    daretotread

    I see no reason for not having complete rank and file pre-selections provided there is a reasonable number of voters (a rank and file vote amongst 20 is worse than central pre-selections. I am not especially enthused by the community pre-selection – better to make membership cheap and widespread.]

    Cost is hardly a barrier to membership as it is. The point is that people don’t “join” parties in the way that’s contemplated in party constitutions. This has been conclusively decided by public behaviour over many decades in relation to all parties.

    Really, why would the public join parties? “Membering” is another way of “spending”, in many possible senses. So what’s the deal from the viewpoint of a possible member? Whatever the deal is, very few see enough value in it to take it up.

    It’s worth asking who wins/loses from the current set up? Non-members presumably think they are in front. They can “spend” their time, money and other resources elsewhere and rely on others to mind their “public business”. This seems to work for the vast non-membering public. They get a cheap ride. (Apathy is its own reward, perhaps.)

    Existing power-holders also win. They encounter less competition and are more easily able to secure for themselves some of the advantages that go with minding “public business”. The current set-up almost by definition is one where their attributes and knowledge can be readily applied and where they are personally relevant and rewarded. Successful institutional change could make them obsolete.

    So there’s a lot of inertia.

    Who loses? Let’s not count our losses today…

  12. [806
    Fran Barlow

    Briefly

    the nogoid alternative

    Gosh I wish there were an edit function!]

    Nooo!

    Imagine the typo as a source of imaginative provocation. It’s a gorgeous title for The Next Chapter. 🙂

  13. 802

    I am not opposed to expansion of Parliament. If we have a population to lower house MP ratio similar to Canada (a similarly governed federal system) then we would have more like 200 or 220 MHRs.

    Having low paid MPs has some concerns. Non-paid and part-paid elected representatives have a tenancy to hold higher income jobs where they have the power over their hours to allow them to also be elected representatives. This is not something I agree with encouraging.

    I also do not like the idea of parties controlling who gets paid.

  14. [813
    Tom the first and best

    Having low paid MPs has some concerns]

    It’s an open invitation to vote-selling. Since even politicians must eat occasionally (when not making a meal of their own words), it’s a lot better for them to be paid in the public interest than the private.

  15. Zoomster

    I do not see that it makes much difference if someone is a current or former employee of a union if they are an MP. This is what happens now.

    You are thinking 1860 world. Times have changed. Once upon a time travel to Canberra (or Melbourne) took 2-5 days and it was difficult to combine full time employment with parliamentary duties. 12 weeks sitting and 2 weeks travel made it very hard. Postal deliveries and time frames made communication difficult and to be an effective MP you needed to be in the same room as your colleagues for long periods of time.

    However times have changed and you can get to Canberra in two hours (not WA). You can communicate on line instantly. Combining MP duties with others has never been impossible (Doctors, lawyers, mothers, retailers, business executives etc) have all (and do) operate now together with parliamentary duties. These days it is much, much, much easier.

    I am thinking we could have a small full time parliament that works just as now (there are rarely more than 15 of them in the house) and all the tedious procedural stuff would carry on as now.

    Big debates like the budget, social welfare, asset sales would be at single two week full sittings. This is easily combined with other careers.

    Electoral offices would continue to function as now. There might still be 200 or so offices in electorates just as now. However rather than having just one MP in each, you might have the full timers plus 3 others operating out of the office.

  18. Briefly

    Once again old fashioned thinking. A politician who was NOT one of the full timers would still be eligible for welfare payments etc, even if they did not hhave another job. Eating is not the issue.

    Vote buying IS an issue which is why the idea only works if you have a very large number of parliamentarians. The USA system is utterly corrupt because they are not paid well and there are very very few of them in a very large economy. Easy to buy 51 US senators for a vote. However if there are 1000 votes buying 5001 is more difficult.

  19. [815
    daretotread

    You are thinking 1860 world.]]

    The MP model is probably a good deal older than that – maybe going back to Walpole, when MP’s really were part-time, laws were very few and ill-made and constituents were all related to each other. On its face, the idea that an MP can be well acquainted with the legislative task alone is ridiculous; to that they have to add electoral responsibilities and every other duty. MP’s are clearly really badly under-resourced. Rather than create new tiers of MP’s with neither the time nor the capacity to do an excellent job, we should more fully empower the ones we have.

  20. dtt

    [I do not see that it makes much difference if someone is a current or former employee of a union if they are an MP. This is what happens now.]

    It does make a difference. Just as whether or not you’re a FORMER business owner or a present one does.

    Someone currently employed by a union will NOT vote against their interests in any circumstances. Someone who USED to be employed by a union at least might.

    [You are thinking 1860 world.]

    Ironically, what you’re proposing is far more like what was in place in the 1860s then anything I’ve said.

    [Prior to 1870 only Ministers and Office holders were provided with a salary. This in effect meant that members had to be wealthy enough to support themselves before seeking election to Parliament.]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Victoria

    [Combining MP duties with others has never been impossible (Doctors, lawyers, mothers, retailers, business executives etc) have all (and do) operate now together with parliamentary duties.]

    Vanishingly small numbers of any of these have or do. I can’t think of a practicising lawyer, retailer or business executive in Federal parliament. Even the mothers outsource.

    Geoff Shaw in Victoria is an excellent example of the problems of trying to combine being an MP and running a business. Jeff Kennett before him had similar problems.

    The point is, if you ARE a practising doctor, your decisions will be made through that prism. You will be highly unlikely to advocate for or support any policy which disadvantages practising doctors.

    At least, if you have abandoned your practice, there is a CHANCE you will.

    [I am thinking we could have a small full time parliament that works just as now (there are rarely more than 15 of them in the house) ]

    Oh dear. This is the kind of thinking that goes “X newsreader is only on my TV for one hour a day. Cushy job, only working one hour a day.”

    As a former electorate officer who accompanied my MP to Parliament, I can assure you that there were so many other meetings going on that not only was she occupied full time outside of the times she was seated in the House but I was, too.

    Your model is an 1860s model. It was abandoned for good reason.

  21. [zoomster
    Posted Saturday, October 11, 2014 at 1:11 pm | Permalink

    Former Senator Louise Pratt has had a baby boy.]

    So, who’s a pratty boy?

  22. briefly

    Australians share your concerns about how well our democracy is working.

    [The tenth annual Lowy Institute Poll, released today, finds that only 60% of Australians, and just 42% of young Australians 18-29 years of age, believe that ‘democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’.]

    I think we should have longer Federal terms, say 4 years, and they should be fixed. That would be a start.

  23. At first I had a bit of a nogoid morning. The birds stopped moving and singing as I arrived with my camera gear. But then things picked up – found four nests to record and some individuals posed with obvious care for their best sides and lighting issues.

    So a nogoid morning turned into a sogoid morning.

  24. Talk about political errors..here is a beauty:

    [Prime Minister
    16 April 1763- 13 July 1765
    The Right Honourable
    George Grenville
    MP for Buckingham

    First Lord of the Treasury
    Chancellor of the Exchequer
    Leader of the House of Commons

    Briefly lowered domestic tax at the expense of the colonies, though this was rapidly repealed; introduced the unenforceable Stamp Act 1765 (which is popularly cited as one of the causes of the American Revolution). His repealing of the taxes he rolled out were for all except that on tea, which was used as a reason for the Boston Tea Party.]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom

  25. Socrates @ 774 from your link:

    [Iran is complaining about the West hanging the Kurds out to dry.]

    Sure, sure.

    Iran could always agree to allow its Kurds to join the Northern Iraqi Kurds in forming a Kurdish state.

  27. Has anyone come across the “Factuality” polling group before?

    We are in favour of airstrikes but 50/50 on ground troops, which is surprisingly high.

    [More than half of 1,000 Australians surveyed online in the past week said they supported the Abbott government’s decision to begin air strikes against Islamic state targets in Iraq, with one-quarter saying they opposed the decision.

    Committing ground troops at America’s request was less favoured, with around 40% and the same proportion against. One in five said they weren’t sure, the poll, conducted by Factuality, said.]

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/11/poll-australian-action-in-iraq

  28. The lack of exact numbers and not telling us the wording of the questions is a bit of a PITA, making it hard to know how reliable the poll is.

  31. Dio

    I am with you on the fixed terms. I would add a Federal ICAC and public funding no private donations including individual ones.

    The points I have been making are not to throw out the good but to use new technology to make what we have better.

    Another example for MP’s generally. Where possible a virtual meeting with constituents via teleconferencing when parliament is sitting so MP’s remain in touch with their electorates. The obvious problem I see is maintaining confidentiality of any such discussions that is preventing it now.

  32. [825
    Boerwar

    Socrates @ 774 from your link:

    Iran is complaining about the West hanging the Kurds out to dry.

    Sure, sure.

    Iran could always agree to allow its Kurds to join the Northern Iraqi Kurds in forming a Kurdish state.]

    The Persians and the Turks fought each other many times over hundreds of years for control of parts of Anatolia, the Caucasus and Mesopotamia. They will each be very wary as the current conflicts develop, knowing there is potential for much greater struggles to unfold, both internally and in relation to each other.

    It’s always been obvious that the American “strategy” – really, this is not the world for it – in Iraq would provoke communal violence and, most likely, lead to the dissolution of the Iraqi State. That this is now occurring can hardly be a surprise to anyone in the region.

    This is bad enough for all those harmed by it. But the greater issue is the possibility of war between Turkey and Iran, and the prospect that that Russia, in recent decades an ally of Iran, may become also become involved.

    The Persians would doubtless like to do more to help Assad, but, as long as Turkey stays out the war, can see that discretion is the better part of valour. So far they hold back. So much the better.

    The apparent policy of the West, which is to encourage Turkish boots to march into Mesopotamia, is extremely risky, even by the reckless standards the West usually apply to the consequences of their war-making.

  34. DTT

    I am against part time politicians. They never stop thinking about the career or field they are working in outside parliament. They have to be successful.

    We have a good example of why this is bad with our part time MP Clive Palmer

  38. [834
    guytaur

    DTT

    I am against part time politicians. They never stop thinking about the career or field they are working in outside parliament. They have to be successful.]

    …worse, they see opportunities to use Parliamentary connections to further the ambitions of their private supporters…casual politicians will soon enough be corrupted.

  41. [828
    Diogenes

    The lack of exact numbers and not telling us the wording of the questions is a bit of a PITA, making it hard to know how reliable the poll is.]

    Yer actual commitment of forces by Abbott and Co is also a PITA, especially as we have no idea what questions (if any) they’ve asked themselves or what answers they elicited.

    So far, A&Co are just playing at soldiering. But they may get to thinking they’re good at it and, well, succumb to the belief that it would be helpful to take things further. So far, it’s working for them. Punters across the land have forgotten the budget. The campaign against “Entitlements” (things punters need/want) has been replaced by delivering ordnance to “installations” (things punters fear).

    It’s the triumph of fear over reason….

  44. Fairfax had good article re Budget today
    _____________________________
    This AM the Age looks at the way the budget effects lower income familes and those electorates where it falls hardest on wage earners….and how the richest escape most cuts in inc ome ….as we knew would be case with Hockey…..greatstuff…and bad news for Napthine too as many will want to” wack a Liberal” soon

  46. Do the Americans every get anything right in the Middle East
    one disaster after another….but due to the rise in US oil production,there has been no rise in oil/petrol prices,unlike ther such crisis times

  49. caf

    As I said, try that sort of thing with regional internet services.

    Last time I tried that kind of link up, I had to drive an hour to find a suitable venue.

  50. Seems march for the babies is some kind of abortion law protest. Which means that Monckton is anti choice for women as well as being an AGW denialist.

Comments Page 17 of 21
1 … 16 17 18 … 21

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *