The BludgerTrack pendulum swings back to Labor this week following moves away from the Coalition in both Newspoll and Essential Research – although not Roy Morgan, which was little changed on what for it was an unusually strong result for the Coalition a fortnight ago. Newspoll in particular was a surprise packet, but it should be noted that Labor once again appeared to get the better of rounding on its two-party result. If a simple application of 2013 election flows is made to Newspoll’s rounded primary vote numbers, the result that comes out is 52-48 rather than 53-47. Even so, Newspoll has driven a shift of 1.0% on the BludgerTrack two-party preferred and caused six seats to flip on the seat projection – two in New South Wales, and one each in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.
I say “moves away from the Coalition” rather than “moves towards Labor” advisedly, because this particular crop of polling actually found a degree of softness for both major parties. Both are down on the primary vote, the balance being absorbed by the Greens and especially “others”. The “others” result from Essential this week was at an equal high since it began reporting Palmer United separately last November. Newspoll’s didn’t change, but it was high in absolute terms – something it’s been making a habit of lately, as Kevin Bonham explains.
The other manifestation of collective major party weakness came from Newspoll’s leadership ratings, which have caused fairly substantial shifts to the relevant BludgerTrack readings. The uptick to Tony Abbott that was showing up in recent weeks has well and truly been blunted, and a weak result for Bill Shorten has also caused his upward trend towards parity on net approval to disappear. With both leaders down on net satisfaction to about the same degree compared with last week, there is little change this week on preferred prime minister.
shellbell
Spurr’s action is counter-intuitive.
The cat is out of the bag for Spurr.
But Spurr’s action may be an attempt to protect his intended recipients hy pre-empting New Matilda from publishing their names.
Nicholas
Sorry, but I don’t WANT the kind of democracy the Greens have. It’s quite possible that the majority of ALP party members think the same way I do.
The ALP deciding, democratically, that it wants some reform but not reforms advocated by other parties is still making a democratic decision which should be respected.
There are huge dangers in a rank and file elected leadership. Arguably, it was this that led to the demise of The Democrats. There are also huge dangers in a purely rank and file preselection and policy determination process. There are also dangers in a plebescite of supporters approach to pre selection (which is being trialled in some electorates).
Labor reforming but not in the way you like may be something you simply have to get used to. It is also not a sign that the party is in decline, or corrupt, or whatever other label you want to throw around.
Labor members have a democratic right to decide on the reforms they want, in the context of a century plus experience in politics.
A relatively new minor party trying to dictate to an very old, successful major party what they should be doing is as impertinent as a media which is losing readership at a great rate lecturing political parties on what they need to do to stay relevant.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-23/cabinet-split-over-australia-response-to-deadly-ebola-threat/5834680
Morrison reckons that stories about him trying to take over the Ebola response are ‘complete and utter rubbish’.
So:
(1) it must be something else that Morrision is trying to take over
(2) the Liberals who are spreading the stories about Morrison being a megalomaniac are spouting complete and utter rubbish
(3) Morrison is spouting complete and utter rubbish.
Whatever. There is complete and utter rubbish in there somewhere.
@Simon_Cullen: Foreign Affairs officials have confirmed the US and UK have both asked Australia to send medical support personnel to west Africa.
[When you said that Labor has done more party reform than the Greens recently, that is like saying that South Sudan had real GDP growth of 240 percent last year, whereas Australia only had 2.5 percent, therefore South Sudan did better. ]
What a stupid analogy.
In this context, South Sudan would be the Greens – a developing country, trying to establish order – and Labor would be Australia – a developed country where life is good for the majority of people.
As I’ve argued, it is the newer party which should be trying out and testing different ways of approaching things; the major party has already done this and already knows what works and what doesn’t.
[meher baba
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2014 at 10:27 am | Permalink
All of those Labor types on here who despise the Greens should be hoping that Ludlam or Bandt replace Milne as leader sooner rather than later. The more the Greens embrace far left positions, the more they will ultimately get marginalized.
BTW, Ludlam is ok but not as great as some of you think. It’s amazing how good looks can impress people.]
Yeah. He is not as good as that other Greens Party leader, Gough Whitlam.
[guytaur
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2014 at 10:48 am | Permalink
@Simon_Cullen: Foreign Affairs officials have confirmed the US and UK have both asked Australia to send medical support personnel to west Africa.]
Yeah but there is some sort of problem with the courage side of things.
Ebola is one thing Abbott can’t rant in shock jock land about how you are going to shirtfront it.
In relation to the Greens’ democracy, eveyone knows that Trots only do democracy when they have no power.
“@PeterPhelpsMLC: Fred Nile announces he is supporting the passage of the Historical Homosexual Offences Bill! Wow.”
The people who hold the reins of the Labor Party don’t want reform.
They’ve got what they want. A party that will provide power and jobs for their ambitious members.
Diog
[The people who hold the reins of the Labor Party don’t want reform. ]
granted, but it’s happening anyway. Even some of the nastier things that have occured in the past year are because they recognise that reform’s inevitable, so they’re making sure they’ve got some things in place before it happens.
An interesting fact emerging from the 2 Canadian radicalised IS supporters is that both had had their passports confiscated by authorities, to prevent them going to the Middle East.
I have heard it argued that is better to let them go, and then not let them back. Otherwise they ferment locally.
Diogenes@110
Unlike the Greens, who by all available evidence seems to exist only to provide power and jobs for their mediocre members.
Anyhoo, I’ll accept being in an imperfect party where (if you’re willing to do the hard yards) you can actually achieve something, rather than a perfect party sitting on the crossbenches.
P1
The Greens don’t have much power at all. They’re pretty irrelevant and the moment.
If we had proportional representation then Labor and Greens would be partners whether they wanted to be or not, rather like the Liberals and Nationals. Might that be a model of how to go? I think Nicholas @1216 on the previous thread has some interesting ideas, even if ‘kissing the ground the Greens walk on’ is a bit over the top: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2014/10/20/newspoll-53-47-to-labor-4/?comment_page=25/#comment-2068434
When the Nationals arose as a force to be reckoned with in the early 1920s, the conservatives changed the electoral system ( preferential voting) to accomodate them without electoral damage (except to the other side). After nearly a century, the Nationals now seem to be on the way out, for demographic reasons and the Liberals slowly moving in on their turf.
Other possible models from the Dark Side are LNP-DLP from 1955 to 1975 – great for the Liberals though not for the DLP, who laboured dourly on behalf of their erstwhile foes for little reward. They slowly withered and were swept away in the tumult of the Whitlam years. The Greens are much smarter than that.
More recently we have LNP-One Nation. When One Nation started to falter the LNP sic’d their attack dog (Tony Abbott) onto them and absorbed their constituency (in Murdoch-speak ‘allayed their concerns’). Apart from ethics, that won’t work. One Nation was run by idiots. The Greens aren’t.
Zoomster
It is quite simple. Labor needs to modernise or die. The ancient “delegate” practice was the bees knees in 1900 but is now outdated. travel and the Internet mean it has had its day.
Labor MUST attract more young people and not just opportunists looking for a career boost. Now to attract young people you need to be a bit radical. That is the nature of the beast. Young people are never attracted to dull. The only way to give labor some spark is to be very democratic and involve young people. Give them a real say using electronic media.
The Greens’ faceless men are about to tear down their first female leader.
Milne’s mistake must have been getting the Greens to 14% in this week’s Newspoll®!
What did they want from her? 20%?!
Many here had warned that the Greens were at a crossroads and that they needed to do a good deal of soul-searching to be viable in an Abbott world, but changing leaders was not one of our suggestions, I don’t think.
Be it on their head if this fails. Labor might finally scoop up its votes back!
Darren
it was a fake tweet!!!!!!
zoomster
I agree with your idea of rank and file pre-selections for all candidacies with a review panel which can overturn a result provided that 1. the panel is constitutionally limited to overturning the result in clearly defined exceptional circumstances; 2. this panel is itself elected entirely by the rank and file; 3. the panel is required to order a new rank and vote unless there is absolutely no time to do this, in which case the panel can choose a replacement candidate; and 4. voting is done via a secure online system, like the kind the banks use where they text a time limited password to your mobile phone, to reduce the time needed for a pre-selection, and thereby reduce the incidence of review panels choosing the replacement.
I agree that choosing a parliamentary leader entirely by rank and file, like the Democrats did, would be a mistake. I like the 50 percent rank and file, 50 percent parliamentary party procedure adopted by federal Labor in 2013. I favour that model for selecting the federal Greens leader. The current system is that the parliamentary team has a secret ballot.
[If we had proportional representation then Labor and Greens would be partners whether they wanted to be or not, rather like the Liberals and Nationals. Might that be a model of how to go? I think Nicholas @1216 on the previous thread has some interesting ideas, even if ‘kissing the ground the Greens walk on’ is a bit over the top: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2014/10/20/newspoll-53-47-to-labor-4/?comment_page=25/#comment-2068434
When the Nationals arose as a force to be reckoned with in the early 1920s, the conservatives changed the electoral system ( preferential voting) to accomodate them without electoral damage (except to the other side). After nearly a century, the Nationals now seem to be on the way out, for demographic reasons and the Liberals slowly moving in on their turf.
Other possible models from the Dark Side are LNP-DLP from 1955 to 1975 – great for the Liberals though not for the DLP, who laboured dourly on behalf of their erstwhile foes for little reward. They slowly withered and were swept away in the tumult of the Whitlam years. The Greens are much smarter than that.
More recently we have LNP-One Nation. When One Nation started to falter the LNP sic’d their attack dog (Tony Abbott) onto them and absorbed their constituency (in Murdoch-speak ‘allayed their concerns’). Apart from ethics, that won’t work. One Nation was run by idiots. The Greens aren’t.]
Well yes, if Labor wanted to Abbott the Greens like he did to One Nation, they would have had Milne or Brown jailed by now!
dtt
as should be apparent from everything I’ve written, I agree.
Diogenes@115
Yes, fair point.
Diog I would never advocate anyone listening to or taking advice from the greens but I agree completely with you those with a lock on power in the ALP have zero interest in losing any power and while they’d love to trick people into thinking reform was happening with little irrelevant changes they will fight to end to protect the ridiculous system we have now.
I have always liked Louise Pratt but it is telling that she never mentioned the obvious problems until they had bitten her. You can’t speak out honestly or even challenge the power structure through its own ‘democratic’ process without being punished severely.
Like those nice men who raised concerns about the CFMEU through the CFMEU – weren’t they well received.
[Darren
it was a fake tweet!!!!!!]
Are you sure? PB’s Greens spokesperson, Nicholas, even supported the challenge here only a page back or so!
Very embarrassing for the Greens either way, methinks.
[“@PeterPhelpsMLC: Fred Nile announces he is supporting the passage of the Historical Homosexual Offences Bill! Wow.”]
Guytaur — is this like your hoax tweet about Ludlam’s leadership challenge?
You should take more care with your twitter feed being dumped into here. You have been warned about it before.
Morrison wouldn’t be involved in a cover-up would he?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-23/govt-accused-of-covering-up-asylum-seeker-rape-claim/5835060
DL
You smear. I made an error and admitted it quickly. Stop trying to be the moderator
Is Driscoll looking at doing a stretch of porridge?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-23/driscoll-in-court-on-fraud-charges/5835426
[DL
You smear. I made an error and admitted it quickly. Stop trying to be the moderator]
I am not trying to moderate this blog, just moderate the flow of your twitter feed here, which spews unintelligible nonsense and/or red herrings.
DL
The flow or lack of it is up to William not you.
v
That is good. About time. Two years on and the players are finally saying, ‘Let’s test the evidence’.
If someone or other is ‘comfortably satisfied’ and further appeals fail, they face up to two years out of the game.
If the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny then they can get on with the footie.
Patrick Smith in today’s ‘The Australian’ has an article in which he criticises Abbott for playing politics with ASADA.
This runs counter to most of The Australian’s articles which have been playing politics, on Abbott’s behalf, with ASADA.
Wiser heads in the sports associations know that if the Abbott Government wrecks ASADA instead of strengthening it in line with WADA requirements, then international competition, whether at home or abroad, becomes a dead duck.
[I made an error and admitted it quickly.]
Hardly quick enough.
Many posters, including Greens’ spokesperson, Nicholas, issued (now very embarrassing) comments of support for the move. We even had respected Tasmanian-based PB analyst, meha baba, drawn into commentary on the “challenge”.
BK
Would Morrison would ever let a rape victim stand between him and ultimate ascension to the prime ministership?
DL
Go try bully someone else
Darren Laver
ah, the Greens — perfect one minute, embracing change the next…
Boerwar
I think not.
It was a fake tweet, but it might spell the end for Milne, all the same.
BK
Some would argue that, in their opinions, he was looking for it…
Is Milne preferred prime minister yet?
[BK
Would Morrison would ever let a rape victim stand between him and ultimate ascension to the prime ministership?]
I am not sure it is fair to say that.
But let’s be frank, Morrison is rightly seeking expanded responsibilities to broaden his experience and appeal. He is no longer interested in Defence, but would welcome expanded domestic and border-related work.
Of course, given Hockey’s implosion, Bishop’s genitals and Turnbull’s isolation, he is probably now the only realistic alternative to Abbott as leader.
Yes, Australia’s “open for business”!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-23/wind-turbine-producer-axes-100-jobs-after-ret-changes/5835516
[Darren Laver
ah, the Greens — perfect one minute, embracing change the next…]
Yes, it was quite amusing to see the party’s perfect democratic structure being espoused one minute, and one fake twitter tweet was all it took for the Greens to be turfing their “perfectly democratically elected” leader!
The perfect structure collaposed like a house of cards.
Milne’s days are indeed numbered if their supporters were so ready to bury her.
[Darren Laver
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2014 at 11:21 am | Permalink
BK
Would Morrison would ever let a rape victim stand between him and ultimate ascension to the prime ministership?
I am not sure it is fair to say that.
But let’s be frank, Morrison is rightly seeking expanded responsibilities to broaden his experience and appeal. He is no longer interested in Defence, but would welcome expanded domestic and border-related work.
Of course, given Hockey’s implosion, Bishop’s genitals and Turnbull’s isolation, he is probably now the only realistic alternative to Abbott as leader.]
I was applying the Morrison Special Universal Fairness Test.
It goes like this:
(1) If it assists in Morrison getting the prime ministership, it is fair.
(2) If it does not assist in Morrison getting the prime ministership it becomes an on-water operational matter, a special pleading matter, a matter for the truth helping people smugglers, a matter where it is someone else’s fault, or, more generally, simply unfair.
(3) If individuals suffer it is their own fault because they have brought it on themselves and it has absolutely nothing to do with Morrison.
BK
Australia is open for fossil businesses. Don’t forget, CO2 is going to go up, and up, and up!
On the measure of internal democracy, the Greens are Australia and the ALP is South Sudan.
Being old can sometimes correlate not with the wisdom gained from careful trial and error but with stale ideas and ossified practices. That is clearly the case with Labor processes. The NSW Labor cesspool didn’t work, and people like John Faulkner were saying so for a very long time. And even now, after all the electoral devastation which NSW Labor suffered, and the millions of voters let down by NSW Labor, there is still strong resistance to improvement. This is what John Faulkner said in a speech on the seventh of October:
http://media.crikey.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/JF-Reform-Speech-Media.pdf
Nimble, adaptive, democratic from the get go – that’s the Greens. They didn’t start with factional power bases so they don’t have any to break down now.
“@PennySharpemlc: Love is not a crime – NSW Parliament passes the Historical Homosexual Offences bill – unanimously. Thanks to all who made it happen, #nswpol”
I do favour a change to Scott Ludlam as leader for the reasons I outlined above. I also think it would be a good move to change the election process for the parliamentary leader so that the members get 50 percent of the say and the parliamentary team gets 50 percent. At present the leadership is 100 percent decided by a secret ballot of the parliamentary team.
Christine Milne is excellent on policy but the party’s leader needs exceptionally good communication skills as well. I think the Greens would benefit from a change to Scott Ludlam and the ALP from a change to Tanya Plibersek.
Nobody seriously wanting to replace the Federal Greens leader would do so via a tweet.
That would not go down at all well with the membership and probably exclude that person forever. Few of us tolerate self-seekers.
I’m surprised anyone fell for it.
Also, I follow Scott’s feed, so if he had been so unwise as to act this way, I’d have known.
[Nimble, adaptive, democratic from the get go – that’s the Greens. They didn’t start with factional power bases so they don’t have any to break down now.]
I wouldn’t be so sanctimonious about it. The same list applied to the Australian Democrats, and it didn’t do them any favours.
Besides, the Greens do have factions – everyone knows it. They’re just not declared.