A solid move on BludgerTrack this week, as the Labor primary vote spikes 0.9% at the expense of the Coalition and “others”. This translates to a 0.7% lift on two-party preferred and a gain of three on the seat projection, including one each from New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, counterbalanced by a loss in Queensland (NOTE: This post originally gave Labor an extra 0.4% two-party preferred as well as an extra seat; this was based on an error which has now been fixed). Picking that apart:
• The model does not presently grant any weight to Ipsos, except in calculating the state totals and the leadership ratings, as it’s only with the publication of a second result that the model will have something to benchmark it against. This has the unfortunate effect of depriving the current BludgerTrack reading of what’s probably a strong result for the Coalition, perhaps causing it to lean a little more Labor than it should. That’s unless a Coalition lean proves to be a consistent feature of Ipsos, in which case it will be bias-adjusted accordingly. However, this certainly wasn’t evident in its Victorian state poll.
• Poll watchers have been looking askance at Newspoll’s two-party numbers recently, which have consistently been putting Labor a percentage point ahead of what the primary vote numbers would lead you to expect. Since BludgerTrack dispenses with pollsters’ two-party preferred calculations and determines its own after generating the primary vote numbers, Labor’s strong Newspoll showing has been making a less of an impression than some might expect.
• Morgan reverted to type in its latest fortnightly result after successive polls showed the Coalition in its strongest position since February, producing strong Coalition data points after the bias adjustment was applied. This time out, it’s back in the middle somewhere. A re-evaluation of Morgan’s performance this term caused me to very slightly amend its bias adjustment about 0.2% to Labor’s advantage.
• Essential Research has been a little counter-cyclical, nudging Labor downwards slightly where elsewhere they have edged up. Its bias adjustments, which had been factoring in a lean to Labor, are progressively moderating to accommodate the trend.
Ipsos provides a welcome new addition to the leadership ratings game, and early indications are that it has inherited Nielsen’s peculiarly low uncommitted ratings. The BludgerTrack aggregates eliminate such distinctions, and Ipsos combined with the Newspoll result causes Tony Abbott’s preferred prime minister lead to all but disappear, down from 3.1% to 0.7%. Abbott is also down 1.8% on net approval to minus 12.2%, while Bill Shorten is unchanged at minus 4.7%.
Jimmy Doyle
Ah yes, Michael Wooldridge. As pure as the driven snow!
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s60596.htm
The trouble with Abbott’s ‘shirt front’ comment is to figure out whether:
*He didn’t mean it but said it.
*Said it, but meant something else.
*Said it: meant it.
*Just shot his mouth off.
I am inclined to the last though none of the choices reflect what might be described as mature leadership – rather something from the dressing shed in rugby.
However, the Red Necks seem to like it.
Given that Russians cold bloodedly shot in the head some thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals in WW2, Abbott should think twice about messing with the current descendants of the Stalin regime.
I notice the Poles are not fooled by Russia and are strengthening their East side.
[ The change didn’t come from within.]
It in fact did. The call for members to have a vote for leaders was first put up in Qld by Dick Williams many years before Rudd adopted it.
BK – A Kingdom for a federal ICAC!
JimmyDoyle@194
Pure coincidence I’m sure. 😐
Nicholas
if you want to change Labor, join the party.
[
WeWantPaul
Posted Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 5:07 pm | Permalink
But fundamentally we all have the power to change our systems and change our parties.
I do not think that is true on either the party or system level. How is Labor party reform going? It isn’t.
]
It is probable a safe bet that you haven’t got off your backside and become active with an aim of helping the process along.
Zoomster @ 206 – exactly the sentiment that drove this former Green to the Labor Party – it’s the only party worth changing because it’s the only that achieves change.
zoomster@206
Be careful what you wish for… 😮
Nicholas
I’d also point out that the party hasn’t been standing still for 125 years.
Any party should be in a state of almost constant review and change.
Even in my (bemused would say, short) time in the party, I’ve seen many changes – for example, at the last Vic State Conference, Central branch members were given a range of priviledges previously restricted to branch members only.
That’s actually quite a big reform. It made it a lot easier, for example, for me to get a preselection form filled out – I didn’t have to check whether every person who signed it had the requisite type and length of party membership. In a regional area, where party members are few and far between, that made the process a lot easier.
From the outside looking in I think the change to leadership voting has been a good thing for Labor.
Labor is united and despite apparently different policy issues from time to time in the Labor leadership team it has not blown up into leadership.
Before that change by now the media would have been running with divided Labor stories and Abbott would be looking safe for a second term.
So I think Rudd whatever his motives at the time has done the party a service with that. Also remembering others in the part had to agree as well. Its one of the things I credit Mr Rudd with. That is how it looks to me from the outside anyway
bemused
one branch meeting would sort him out…
Nicholas,
The ALP has survived quite comfortably without your gratuitous advice. I’m sure we will survive and thrive without you in the future.
If you want to make a difference, join and get your hands dirty in actual policy development and implementation. You’ll find it’s not just a simple game of logic or rationalist academic argument as you seem to think.
The ALP is not perfect and will never achieve perfection. This is partly driven because it’s made up of people with varying interests and causes.
It’s important to know, that just when you think you have the answers they always change the question.
z,
As you said so well recently, the disappearance of the now Greens from the ALP mix has been a bonus. We still get all their votes at the ballot but don’t have to spend any time paying lip service to their crazy agendas.
zoomster@210
Hahaha… just kidding zoomster. 😆
zoomster@212
I would like to come and watch. 😉
From Wiki
Re Wooldridge.
[The Australian Securities and Investment Commission is currently seeking from the court pecuniary penalties as well as orders banning Wooldridge and the fellow directors from managing companies.]
Actually there is a whole stack of ‘interesting’ info re MW at Wiki.
Nice man.
I notice that his sister Mary has been touted as a future Lib leader.
Re. shirt-fronting…
[However, the Red Necks seem to like it.]
As evidenced by what? The Polls?
lizzie@218
The one that couldn’t win a pre-selection? 😀
bemused
I think the seat was abolished, or something, wasn’t it? So as she’s so ‘valuable’, they’re trying to get her into the upper house.
218
Not till she gets back in the Legislative Assembly as she is a candidate for the Legislative Council and, because of the redistribution, the position she is in is losable.
lizzie@221
She went for pre-selection for Baillieu’s old seat and was beaten by some Young Lib type from the right faction. In Liberal terms, she was too ‘liberal’ or left wing.
Plan B was to put her into an Upper House seat, but of course that means she cannot be leader.
OTOH, the charming Mr Guy is moving from the Upper House into a Lower House seat that she could have gone for pre-selection in and may have had a chance as it includes part of her old seat I think.
bemused
Mr Guy must know where all the bodies are buried.
citizen
Re ‘shirt front’ Abbott. Last I heard a spokesman for Putin said that they had received no formal request for a meeting with Abbott. That was a week or so ago.
[It is probable a safe bet that you haven’t got off your backside and become active with an aim of helping the process along.]
Well how much do you want to bet pal?
[“Yes,” remembers Margolyes, “and, sadly, just after I became an Australian – one of the happiest and proudest moments of my life – blow me but it’s all changed round and now we’ve got that awful man in Lycra!” She sighs audibly. “It’s greatly saddened me. I don’t like Tony Abbott or anything he stands for.”]
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/nov/06/miriam-margolyes-i-do-say-things-possibly-other-people-dont-say
William
Bludgertrack sidebar still reads ALP 52.4 LNP 47.6
I was a member of the Labor Party back when Geoff Gallop was state Leader. After losing an election he made all the right ‘noise’…”back to our roots, listen to the members…policy built on the input of members.”
Naively I took him at his word. The result was a level of harassment, including calls to my employer, that resulted I my resignation.
Do I trust this so-called ‘back to the roots’ style Labor…NO
docantk
Posted Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 7:12 pm | Permalink
William
Bludgertrack sidebar still reads ALP 52.4 LNP 47.6
perhaps you need to refresh the page…shows 52-48 on mine
bemused@223
A friend is PS in Victoria commented that Wooldridge was one of the most competent and engaged ministers they had worked with. “Almost like a Labor Minister”
All sorted.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2014/11/praise-gough/
A must read, especially the last bit.
The Greens are the party best positioned to deal with the great crises which beset the world: resource depletion, climate change, extreme inequality of wealth, and the need to adjust to low or zero growth economies. When those crises are advanced enough to be noticed by everyone, both major parties will be flat-footed because their policies assume that the volume of credit can be expanded indefinitely, and that resources can be extracted or substituted indefinitely and on a scale which matches the peak of the fossil fuel age. There’s compelling evidence that we are about to enter a period of deflation in which we will have to fundamentally re-organize the way we meet our needs for water, food, and energy.
I think that people who assume that the Greens will decline as a political force or never rise above third place in the primary vote underestimate the scale of the problems we face. I doubt the nimbleness of the major parties to discard their economic assumptions and manage the transition to a credit and resource-constrained economy. In the near future the times will suit the Greens, and the Greens will prove their mettle.
Any system I’d propose would include a fallback to what we have now by allowing people to delegate. The primary mechanism would be the elections we hold now, with the default position being delegation on all issues. A secondary mechanism would allow people to complicate their vote. Referenda might still be used on votes where delegation is not desired as a default position.
Complicating might mean, for example, allowing people to withdraw delegation and directly vote when they choose to, or assign different delegates for different issues, or any other number of complications one could dream up, as long as they make sense.
It wouldn’t be too hard to keep track of all the complication’s in a person’s vote and the entire distributed decision making process using modern technology.
This would probably necessitate/complement a split between advocating and implementation. Given most people would probably choose to delegate, most of the time the government would implement those policies it advocates, however sometimes they would be obliged to implement some other policy – and perhaps assign administrators from the parties advocating that policy.
They wouldn’t like that, but I bet they don’t like being out of power every downswing in a political cycle either ;).
[I was a member of the Labor Party back when Geoff Gallop was state Leader. After losing an election he made all the right ‘noise’…”back to our roots, listen to the members…policy built on the input of members.”
]
I quite liked GG – but couldn’t stand carpenter, how he became premier or how he ran the party.
AussieA
That sounds dreadful. 🙁
[The Greens are the party best positioned to deal with the great crises which beset the world: resource depletion, climate change, extreme inequality of wealth, and the need to adjust to low or zero growth ]
I would have thought based on their track record in Australia all but a small tithe have rightly concluded they would be the worst.
Nicholas needs to poop or get off the pot.
If he wants to reform Labor, then join it and fight for changes.
The Greens are an irrelevancy and the only few times they make a differnece, they have done serious damage to causes they supposedly believe in like climate change and boatism (siding with the Liberals to block Labor Govt reforms in these areas).
In the ACT, they are on the verge of destroying a progressive ALP government and sending public support for public transport back to the stone age.
They are electoral poison to progressive causes. Give them a wide berth!
[They are electoral poison to progressive causes. Give them a wide berth!]
The greens were such a success in Tasmania and wasn’t giving Gillard something that looked a lot like a tax a master stroke of genius!
[The greens were such a success in Tasmania and wasn’t giving Gillard something that looked a lot like a tax a master stroke of genius!]
Exactly. Block CPRS but saddle Gillard Labor with what looked like a broken promise.
With friends like the Greens, Labor enemies like Abbott, Murdoch and Rudd merely had to “finish her off”, as it were.
Shameful.
At Labor’s glacial pace of internal reform, it will most likely be superseded by another party long before it embraces democracy.
A decade from now both of today’s major parties will be viewed by the public as unfit to deal with economies of low or zero growth and severe resource and credit constraints. The people will be facing problems which the Greens have been highlighting for decades. They will turn to the Greens for solutions, not to the parties who exacerbated the problems.
It is naïve to assume that the political system is static and that the LNP and Labor are destined to be the two major parties for decades to come. Radical changes to how we live and how we organize our economies will be forced upon us soon. The political landscape will look very different a decade from now and I believe the Greens will be a major party then. Their arguments will be seen by the voters as prescient.
Nicholas
[At Labor’s glacial pace of internal reform, it will most likely be superseded by another party long before it embraces democracy.]
Labor is a democratic party. It employs the kinds of checks and balances to democracy as exists throughout our political system.
[A decade from now both of today’s major parties will be viewed by the public as unfit to deal with economies of low or zero growth and severe resource and credit constraints. ]
This sort of assumes that both major parties are static in their approach to policy. That is, of course, incorrect.
It wasn’t so long ago that the Greens themselves saw Tasmanian forests as more important than climate change. They changed their focus, just as the majors have and will.
[The political landscape will look very different a decade from now…]
It may. In which case the major parties will also look different.
[Their arguments will be seen by the voters as prescient.]
I’d settle for consistent. So far, it appears that whenever one of the majors comes up with a proposal to actually implement a Greens policy, the Greens run a million miles away from it.
If any party needs to undergo major change to survive at present, it’s the Liberal party. It will be very interesting to see what happens to it once all the moderates have been driven out – as has happened at Federal level and appears to be happening at State level.
Hopefully we see something like what appears to be happening in the Republican party, where the Tea Party types are (apparently) being sidelined in favour of more moderate stances.
“Only the greens can” FFS…. and ” paying lip service to their crazy agendas.” [by Labor]. Idealism does not work, it does will achieve lasting positive results. Pragmatism and optimising within the current constraints does. That is what the best leaders and governments achieve. I say it again the Greens are a team who only score own goals and aid the neocon/ abbott/rupert cause because of the absolute stupidity of the no compromise stance. Thanks for that ideologues. Look forward to the next one.
[say it again the Greens are a team who only score own goals and aid the neocon/ abbott/rupert cause because of the absolute stupidity of the no compromise stance]
Exactly
Work To Rule@231
A friend is PS in Victoria commented that Wooldridge was one of the most competent and engaged ministers they had worked with. “Almost like a Labor Minister”
Yes, she has that reputation and it is widespread enough to suggest it is genuine.
Nicholas@234
Dream on.
I wouldn’t trust the Greens to organise a piss-up in a brewery.
[At Labor’s glacial pace of internal reform, it will most likely be superseded by another party long before it embraces democracy.
]
Labor won’t be replaced by anyone so long as they have union and corporate funding – the biggest impediment to a sensible centre left party isn’t the labor party and is the greens (who aren’t near to sensible) it is millions and millions of dollars so as to attract good candidates and then substantial public and corporate funding
Truth is it is the Greens that need reforming or they will be replaced.
Projection on their part.
BB@219
One of the polls, Essential was it?, noted that Abbott’s strong stance against Putin – viz “standing up to him” appealed to a good slab of those out in voter land.
This hairy-chested approach appeals to some it appears.