Another Morgan SMS poll, a very current one conducted from Friday to today from a sample of 1173. While the level of support recorded for the Greens might cause one to harbour doubts about this series, the movements recorded in this poll are interesting: the Coalition is up no less than 4.5% on the last poll to 39.5%, with both Labor and the Greens down two points to 33.5% and 17.5%. On every measure, this is the best result for the Coalition out of the five such polls conducted since last September. Even so, Labor maintains a 52-48 lead on two-party preferred, down from 55-45. Denis Napthine has gained the lead as preferred premier, now 51.5-48.5 ahead after Daniel Andrews led 52.5-47.5 last time.
Tom
Westlink was a different project, the east-west link was in the Victorian Transport Plan.
[The ALP are locked into cancelling the link. If they do not, they could well be a one term government and/or the Greens getting about 20% because of the broken promise. They have said, including before the contracts were signed, they would not honour grubby side deals and this brings the option of legislating the compensation away]
If Labor do win, and do find a way to proceed with the project they will have an army of spin doctors to explain why. Labor’s opposition is (and the reason no doubt it was dropped in 2010) is all to do with the marginal Labor v Greens battle in inner Melbourne. As I said above, should Labor win with a comfortable margin, and lose some inner city seats, then all the better reason to build anyway.
Legislating away is politically not an option – it carries with it all the negative connotations of even a whiff of sovereign risk. Oppositions have whinged about similar arrangements before – and after they have won an election they have always come to pass.
Mexican @ 51
Westlink was the western end of what is now the East West Link. Brumby dropped the remainder for ‘improved public transport to Doncaster’. Hell will freeze over before a Labor government delivers that
.. and Hell will be extremely chilly before Liberal government delivers it!
blackburnpseph
Thanks for that, so it was in the Eddington report but not followed though, without revealing my sources I do find that interesting.
Mexican
Tom was quite right, Westlink was Labor policy in 2010 – but then of course they lost the election.
bbs @55
I was under the impression they lost the election from a combined factor of desal / myki / SE transport pressure.
Leroy Lynch
Speaking of “brown-washing” I saw the local Lib candidate Nihal Samara and Bernie Finn campaigning at the local shopping centre last Saturday. I’m disappointed to know that the Libs has only bothered putting in minorities in safe Labor seats which are virtually unwinnable for the Libs.
However, the votes coming from any Lib voters will definitely funnel to the upper house, in their hopes of electing more Lib MLCs.
Saw PUP ads for the first time this morning. Interesting way of putting it really and I find it creative even though I have no liking for the party.
Oh and I was robo-called yesterday morning. As I was at work and a bit occupied I was screening all my calls, but a quick google suggested that the number came from the Labor party or its affiliates.
I’ve saved it to my voicemail and reviewed a bit of it as a pre-recorded message coming from an Ambulance crew.
Does anyone know how the Lc ballots are assessed when someone numbers both a group ticket box and valid below the line? Which is used in Victoria?
@58
I was amused to see PUP explicitly advocate reinventing the wheel…
@60
Same as the Senate: BTL if that is formal, otherwise ATL (unless, of course that is also informal).
It’s in the Scrutineers’ Handbook.
Thanks to PB I knew exactly what my letter from the ALP today said before I opened it. What an age we live in.
I notice the ABC News’s FactCheck decided to “Fisk” Daniel Andrews last night over his statement that ambulances take longer to arrive than ever before. The grounds included references to 1883 and 1954 (sneer, sneer).
If FactCheck chose to know what it was doing, it would have pointed out that the Ambulance Service in its reports actually hides the data on which a quantitative judgment might be made, in particular the spread of response times at the end of what looks to everyone like a very fat tail.
That’s what’s important if you are in the market for an ambulance. If you’r unlucky, how long could it take? There have been numerous media reports of unfathomable delays, e.g. 30 minutes to get to… Preston! That’s what Andrews was talking about.
I’ll bet in 1883 the horse never took half an hour to get to Preston.
Is there any threat that the ALP will release their policy costings to Treasury before Christmas?
Mexicanbeemer @ 49 (et seq)
I am surprised that people have forgotten that the East-West Link was in the ALP’s 2010 Victorian Transport plan.
Assuming they have, so what?
The key point for this election is that the Coalition went to the 2010 election without promising any major road projects at all. Terry Mulder even made a point of emphasising that fact in August 2011, when he told a meeting of public transport users that they should give the Coalition credit for standing up to the road lobby and promising some major public transport initiatives as an alternative.
Now the only major project the Coalition government is actually building is the $8 billion plus East-West toll road – planned secretively and with the signing contracts deliberately rushed to be done before the election. The public has no idea what compensation clauses were demanded by the winning bidders in order to persuade them to sign up by the Coalition’s self-imposed deadline. The project is a dog.
The Public Transport Users Association has delivered its verdict on party policies going into the state election.
http://www.ptua.org.au/election2014/
The Greens scored an A, Labor B and the Coalition D.
[The Greens scored an A, for a good range of public transport upgrade policies, including relatively affordable tram extensions that will fill network gaps, and upgraded signalling for more trains, and a firm commitment to stop the East West Link.]
I think my post above goes a long way to explaining why the PTUA isn’t at all impressed with the Coalition’s transport priorities.
BBP
[Legislating away is politically not an option – it carries with it all the negative connotations of even a whiff of sovereign risk. Oppositions have whinged about similar arrangements before – and after they have won an election they have always come to pass.]
I regard it as high time that we reminded people that governments are sovereign and can’t be held to deals signed with previous regimes, especially if they are plainly contrary to the public interest or the kind of fairness that would attach to a normal contract.
FTR, this is not ‘sovereign’ risk but political risk.
52
Spin doctors are not likely to be able to placate voters upset at the ALP saying they will dump the link and then watching them build it.
The ALP not only faces the Greens winning in Melbourne, Richmond and Brunswick, with Northcote on a bigger margin, it faces the prospect of the ALP versus Green battle spreading around the inner suburbs. Prahran already has the Greens trying to overtake the ALP to take the seat of the Liberals. Footscray looks like making the switch from ALP versus Liberal to ALP versus Green (although the independent, who got 10% last time and about 15% in 2006, has preferenced the Liberal above the Green). The Greens coming second might also be also possible in Preston, Pascoe Vale and Williamstown. That is not an environment to be saying one thing to placate potential Green voters before an election, on a significant issue, and then turning on them once in power.
Also it is not just Greens voters, it is ALP voters as well who do not like the link. Spending more on PT, even if it means less road spending, has even higher support.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-11/vote-compass-results-show-voters-support-east-east-link/5880648
Well we shall see what does come to pass after the election.
69
It is Parliaments who are sovereign, not governments. It would be the Parliament changing contract law, which government has to obey, that stopped compensation.
There is a Sovereign risk element where a government signs a contract but then a few months later it is cancelled and legislatively nullified. When there has been an election and change of government in the interim, where it was a major campaign issue and the contract government has not got a mandate for it at the previous election, it is an entirely justified use of sovereign risk.
Fran @ 69
Vladimir Putin or Robert Mugabe would make similar arguments to yours. Enough said.
Gee, missed the Godwin by that much –><–
72
If Vladimir Putin or Robert Mugabe said the Earth was not flat, would you disagree with them?
blackburnpseph @ 72
Hitler. Enough said?
Vladimir Putin also brushes his teeth in the morning. Enough said?
Boy, I sure could use a large sample state wide poll right now. Too much to ask?
Did I see somewhere this morning that over 450,000 people have voted already?
Corio@78
Don’t know if any reliable information is published in the number of pre-poll.
I’ve already voted at a city booth which was doing a brisk trade.
Provided you define “brisk” as a slow moving queue.
I w]thought Ipsos would be out, but maybe they are all just coming out Friday. which sort of dilutes the impact of any of them – which after all is part of their raison d’etre.
“Students of hypocrisy” may end up with egg on their faces when a Labor government has to battle lunatics from Family First and the DLP that it has put on the upper house cross benches with its preferences. What fun it will be for the women of Victoria to endure another debate about abortion. Or maybe Labor are not hypocrites about this, which is even more worrying.
I was expecting Ipsos to be out early this week. Admittedly, I had no actual evidence for that – other than people seem to be expecting it too.
Watched kettles?
Corio, it was almost 350,000 after the first week, about 10% of voters.
https://twitter.com/electionsvic/status/536334784319193088
Thanks – so the VEC does keep a count.
Open Liberal tickets will definitely get Greens over the line in Melbourne and perhaps a few more, where as open Green tickets will have little affect on account of Green voters being more astute.
Ellen Sandell (Greens Candidate for Melbourne) used the figure 465,817 just a few minutes ago.
https://twitter.com/ellensandell/status/537101804954058753
57
Targeting minority communities will lead to a greater proportion of the membership in these regions being from those minorities and that will effect who get preselection for the Legislative Council, in the regions where it is happening, including in winnable positions.
87
Only if the Liberals distribute them.
well of course Tom
At current rates early voting could end up something like 40% (cf 24% last time), though it might be partly that the early voters are voting earlier than usual. I’ve seen a tweet from Elections Vic saying they won’t be counting those on the night. If it’s close, Saturday night could be quite an inconclusive experience.
92
Is early voting causing a decline in absentee voting?
Prahran may well be the most frustrating because it already had a high vote from other than election day in electorate polling booths and there is the three way contest, meaning the 2 candidate preferred on the night may well no be of any use.
Kevin Bonham@92
Only speculation, but the higher levels of pre-polls, in the context of the Federal Libs unraveling, is likely to be a positive for the ALP.
Oh dear!
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/victorian-election-2014-government-awards-grants-to-environment-groups-that-dont-exist-20141125-11ts1n.html
Maybe there’s an election night drinking game where you take a shot every time Anthony Green says WTTE “of course with the higher level of pre-polls this year we are going to have to wait….”
The Greens claim to have knocked on over 20,000 doors in the division of Prahran this election. Bandt’s people knocked 46,000 doors in his 2013 federal campaign across the entire federal electorate of Melbourne which encompasses several state seats, so this would represent a huge amount of Greens campaign effort and attention focussed on a relatively small area. I look forward to hearing the total Greens doorknock numbers, and how they divide between their target seats.
Greens candidate Sam Hibbins announces 20,000 doors knocked in Prahran:
https://twitter.com/Sam_Hibbins/status/537186486085365760
It seems to me that either they’re really piling in on Prahran like nothing before or their volunteer ranks have swelled even further since Bandt’s re-election.
Not bad to knock 20,000 doors in an electorate of 40,000 voters… Must be some doubling up or a lot of single-person households.
Tom the etc upthread a coupla dozen posts:
[ Footscray looks like making the switch from ALP versus Liberal to ALP versus Green (although the independent, who got 10% last time and about 15% in 2006, has preferenced the Liberal above the Green). ]
Keep an eye on that indie, Catherine Cumming. The Libs and Greens are both not going to win for the same reason: they both preference against each other. (If the Greens come second, they’ll win a margin about the size of Northcote’s. Labor will shrug.) Cumming gets #2 prefs from the Libs and that Voice for the West guy, and #3 ahead of both majors from the Greens (not that she’s returned the favour). If Labor’s vote flatlines and Cumming picks up votes from (a) the Libs, who are about to be dumped, and (b) the Greens, who have had all their trendiest areas swapped to Williamstown, she’s got a sweet preference ride. She probably won’t win, but she might give Labor an unexpected scare.
Also, the main effect of Cumming’s HTV (putting the Libs ahead of the Greens) eliminates the possibility of an ALP vs Grn margin (assuming her preferences get distributed), and therefore hands the seat to Labor. For a card that puts Labor 4th out of 5, it’s surprisingly Labor-friendly.
As for your comments on other seats: somebody somewhere (here or Tallyroom? I forget) mentioned the possibility of Melbourne crossing the Yarra next redistribution to take Southbank, which could pull Brunswick and then Pascoe Vale (presumably renamed Coburg) south with it. Then, that Coburg seat could be a chance for the Greens. Otherwise, forget it.
To those wondering about where the early vote numbers come from. They are updated daily around 9-10am on this handy dandy VEC spreadsheet which plots them against 2010 early vote numbers. We’re well on track to have over 1 million people vote before Saturday (there are 3.8 million enrolled electors)
https://twitter.com/electionsvic/status/534952681186807808