BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Labor

Public relaxation over summer, the quirks of a shallow pool of poll results, actual improvement in the government’s standing – whatever the cause, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate has again recorded movement in favour of the Coalition.

Week two of BludgerTrack for 2015 adds only the latest Essential Research result to last week’s numbers from Essential and Roy Morgan. This is pretty thin gruel so far as poll aggregation goes, but nonetheless, let it be noted that BludgerTrack finds the latest result to be a lot more like the Morgan poll than Essential’s strong result for Labor last week, and thus shifts a little further the Coalition’s way. The 0.4% move on two-party preferred translates into three gains for the Coalition on the seat projection, namely one seat each in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. Nothing new this week on leadership ratings.

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.

2,676 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Labor”

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  1. Steve777

    [In polities that use a variant of proportional representation or mixed member proportional, what we call a ‘hung parliament’ is situation normal. This includes most European countries and NZ. ]

    In cases of PR type houses, it becomes hung when parties can’t form a government due to an ideological block (rather than any other practical reasons). However, Germany seems to be one of the exceptions as the major parties are willing to form grand coalitions across the centre. There may be exception to this rule if more of the extremist parties are able to gather more seats though.

  2. Meher – what do you think Joe Hockey is going to do while Turnbull is given the Treasury slot? Sit back and smile. It would be open warfare (and he has more supporters in the party than Lord Buffering of Fraudband Manor (Wentworth))

  3. 2648 – Bishop may not want Abbott to have the chance to completely screw up another budget. If she waits till after the Budget she’ll only have less than one year to actually lead. I don’t think that’s enough time to fully realise the benefits of incumbency.

    It’s not like the Gillard to Rudd transition where Rudd didn’t need any time in power to consolidate his reputation, it was already known from his previous stint.

  4. “@sarahinthesen8: . @rupertmurdoch How come the fact Tony Abbott is a goose is Peta Credlin’s fault? Dumping his Chief of Staff won’t fix his tin ear”

  5. “@ABCNews24: Wong: Labor’s very supportive of any measures that we can take together to further combat domestic violence and we welcome the renewed focus”

  6. “@AustralianLabor: This PM, he just doesnt listen and he just doesn’t learn. This is a bloke who keeps saying one thing and doing another- @senatorwong #auspol”

  7. Bishop’s only quality is that she had a non-domestic portfolio at a time when this govt was screwing up a myriad of domestic issues. Further, please don’t forget that being FM is the easiest job in Canberra. Even Downer survived in the job for a decade.

  8. Listening to Abbott’s presser earlier he made it pretty clear I thought that he did NOT consult Credlin on Sir Philip.
    That to me means her position must be close to untenable and she will be resigning shortly.

  9. @2660 – Abbott was protecting Credlin from further blame. If he wanted to throw her under the bus, he could have used very fluffy language to suggest that he consulted “usual suspects”, he actively avoided blaming her.

  10. A few more thoughts re Abbott/Bishop/Turnbull/Morrison/Hockey et al

    Let’s consider a bit of history. Turnbull should have become leader in 2007: the only reason he didn’t was that a parliamentary party vote was held before all the results were in, and several anti-Turnbull members who ultimately lost their seats were allowed to vote. Turnbull, quite reasonably IMO, took this as placing him under no obligation whatsoever to be loyal to Nelson, and he deposed him as soon as he felt able to do so.

    Turnbull was deposed in 2009 in a coup staged by the right wing of the party: Abbott, Abetz, Minchin, Mirabella, Andrews, etc. with unexpected support from the generally more pragmatic Robb. In the first vote, Abbott reportedly got 35 votes while Turnbull narrowly beat Hockey in the race for second place. In the run-off, Abbott won by one vote, with one member simply writing “no” on the ballot paper (I’ve always wondered if this was Hockey) and one Turnbull stalwart, Fran Bailey, not present.

    So we can see that Turnbull almost hung on, and that it is possible that, if Turnbull hadn’t won, Hockey would have beaten Abbott (Hockey certainly believes so.) Hockey, while being a broady similar sort of small “l” free market liberal to Turnbull, wasn’t as hot as Turnbull on matters that get up the nose of the right wing: climate change, homosexuals, support for the ABC and the arts, etc.

    The hard core of Abbott supporters in 2009 were not expecting him to lead them to victory in 2010 or perhaps even 2013. They voted him because they did not like some of the policy positions that Turnbull had adopted, especially in relation to emissions trading. I also believe that some more pragmatic members voted for Abbott on the basis of a longer-term strategy of giving him – and his right wing backers – a chance to run the party for a while and then fail: thinking that there wasn’t another credible leader likely to emerge from the right for a while, so that the next PM would be someone more small “l” liberal/pragmatic.

    Abbott becoming PM was a major and unexpected bonus for the right wing group: in 2009, they didn’t know that Rudd, who was riding high in the polls, was about to crash and burn.

    The right group is still strong in the parliamentary party, perhaps slightly stronger than in 2009. Perhaps they comprise slightly more than 1/3 of the party room votes. None of the conceivable alternative leaders – Bishop, Hockey, Turnbull, Morrison or Pyne (who is barely conceivable as leader) – belong to this group.

    If the current hero of this right wing group is going to be deposed, it will probably need to be by someone who not only appeals to the pragmatists, but who can build a bridge to the disgruntled right. If we were closer to the next election, maybe this wouldn’t matter so much, and Turnbull would represent a defensible last throw of the dice to try to win/limit the electoral damage. Who knows, the party room might consider themselves to be in enough trouble to make that roll of the dice now.

    But if they don’t feel that desperate, then Bishop will fit the bill much better. While being relatively progressive in her views, she has always been on good terms with the WA Right: indeed, she seems to get along pretty well with everybody. With Bishop using her diplomatic skills to make everyone in the party feel included and valued, Turnbull as her deputy and Treasurer could focus on swinging voters.

    Morrison would be the second best option, but surely Bishop wouldn’t be prepared to be deputy yet again, so they’d have to find another deputy who does not come from NSW (especially with Barnaby being likely to lead the Nats sooner rather than later), and that would most likely mean Pyne. I don’t sense that Morrison is beloved by his parliamentary colleagues (some of whom seem to think he is a bit too big for his boots), but he doesn’t carry the unacceptable policy baggage of Turnbull. But I also think his popularity with the uncommitted voters is uncertain: he got brownie points for stopping the boats, but he also came across as rather aggro and highhanded.

    Hockey seems to me to have reached the high water mark of his political career and, if Abbott goes, I can’t believe that he would become PM, or even remain as Treasurer.

    Pyne is surely never going to become PM (but, then, I would once have said the same about Abbott).

  11. “@ABCNews24: #Breaking: The High Court finds the Govt acted lawfully and a group of 157 asylum seekers was not entitled to damages.”

  12. MB

    Only Turnbull can change the policies enough to make changing a leader worthwhile for the Liberals.

    They have to abandon Tea Party politics. Turnbull will give them the legitimacy and belief to do that.

    All the other contenders are from the Tea Party style of policy and will just dig the Liberals deeper in the whole.

  13. K17@2653: if Hockey is deposed as Treasurer – or Abbott as PM for that matter – I would expect them to leave politics in a dignified way.

    Your hero was one of a kind in Australian politics, thank goodness.

  14. [My call has been a Bishop/Morrison ticket until the election (which would have to be called by the end of the year).]

    This year? It’d have to be a House only election or simultaneous dissolution of both houses then (aka not going to happen).

  15. meher – the best analogy is Wayne Swan. If he hadn’t changed sides it would have been very difficult for JG to get up. Unless Hockey is offered Treasury under JB he will stoutly defend Abbott. They all will.

  16. @2670 – I don’t think the Government will be able to justify not going to an election after a leadership and likely, significant policy changes.

  17. [K17@2653: if Hockey is deposed as Treasurer – or Abbott as PM for that matter – I would expect them to leave politics in a dignified way.
    Your hero was one of a kind in Australian politics, thank goodness.]

    Surely the libs are smarter than Labor and Tony would resign without a challenge.

    If Labor had been smarter Rudd would have been forced to resign gracefully. There was no possible dignified exit for Rudd after that night of madness. I find it amazing that in one mind so many are perfectly happy with what was done to Rudd and outraged by him hanging around hoping to return the favour. Absurd.

  18. [ And therein lies the problem for the Libs. It doesn’t matter who they choose, everyone else in the field is still a contender and will do their best to get the fight re-run on their terms. ]

    And wont the MSM just LOVE that feeding frenzy! Lots of easy column inches for them regardless of the outcome, which is kind of satisfying given their appalling behaviour during the Rudd/Gillard era.

    The difference now being that during Rudd/Gillard the Govt had a policy program that was largely seen as positive running in the background (which the media chose to mainly ignore in favour of easy leadersh$t reporting) and was managing to routinely pass legislation even though they had to negotiate on everything.

    This lot don’t have that and any whinging they do about Senate obstruction just highlights how fwarking incompetent they are at actually governing regardless of anything else going on.

  19. rossmg @ 2593

    [There are none so blind as those who could not see long before Australia Day that Abbott was not a fit person to be prime minister.]

    I politely wrote to the then leader of the opposition prior to the election to tell him just that. Of course I didn’t get a reply.

    To anyone – re the tweets from Murdoch. Is anyone tweeting (twittering?) back to tell him to go and do something of a sexual nature which is physically impossible, even for him? I don’t know how to use the new fangled technology like Twitter (in my day that was something birds did in the trees, along with chirruping).

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