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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  2. Oh, and another thing ….

    Re the Wallace bumf.
    This one is not entirely her fault, its generic to the press and even wider – dare I include us here at PB?

    Conflating this lousy government with just one man.

    OK Abbott may be the leader and a particularly horrible person but the whole Cabinet is cut from the same cloth that he wears – including the blue ties.
    By concentrating principally on the incompetent bumbling nastiness of one man the mob that hold him up and have pushed him forward for several years are escaping their fair share of the blame for the dismal state of politics in our country.
    Not just Pyne and Hockey and Brandis and Andrews and Bishop 1 and 2 et al but the media that give them their lines, the lobby groups like the IPA, the BCA et al again, Rupert and his cronies of course.

    We are being set up for the old pea and thimble trick.
    Get rid of the unpopular leader and lo and behold what do we have under the other thimble?
    A parliamentary mouth as acceptable to the IPA/BCA/media …et al .. as the previous bloke was before the public recognized him.

    Its the policies and the policy pushers who we should be blaming, Abbott is only the temporary puppet.

  6. lizzie

    All my kids attended fee paying schools, so I am unclear as to what general fees may be charged at state schools. I know in all secondary schools, every student has to provide their own textbooks and stationery which can amount to approximately $800. Recently there has been a change in many schools that require students to purchase an ipad and purchase “e books” rather than hard copy text books. That too is a costly impost.

  8. fredex

    I agree with that. In defence of PB posters the question is often asked who will replace him and what difference will it make if policies do not dramatically shift?

  9. CTar:

    Perth CBD is one area. Here, to trade on Sundays the local council has to vote in favour and permission has to be sought from the relevant minister. Usually permission is granted for long weekends and leading up to xmas.

  10. In Sydney, shops big and small, pubs, restaraunts and tourist facilities open on weekends. They wouldn’t if it wasn’t profitable. They don’t open at 3:00am, for example (outside Kings Cross anyway) because there isn’t enough business to justify it. Maybe the shop at 2GB believes all the crap spouted by that station. Or, more likely, it is in an area that is not frequented by tourists or those seeking entertainment on Sunday.

    Businesses open when they can make a profit. Proprietors want to abolish penalty rates so they can keep the money for themselves. Fair enough I suppose, but that’s all it is – a fight over how to divvy up receipts between owners and staff. Liberals will always favour owners.

  11. victoria

    School excursions (bus trips) were unaffordable when my kids were at Primary, and they were penalised by the teacher for not going.

  13. lizzie

    In addition to school fees, i always paid a levy which included the cost of excursions etc, so i do not even know what an individual excursion would cost. Save for the times my kids attended camps in primary school. These costs were advised separately.

  14. [In defence of PB posters the question is often asked who will replace him and what difference will it make if policies do not dramatically shift?]

    Yeah, PB is less gullible or complicit [a couple of exceptions] than the media and so on.
    And Abbott is so incompetent and nasty that we, me included, get caught up in the individuality of the example rather than his exemplifying the social class and its ideology.
    But I do wish, in vain obviously, that the [relatively] faceless men [mainly] copped their fair share of the shit so we could identify the real causes of the problems instead of watching them hide behind Abbott and tell us that she’ll be right when he gets replaced by a clone who continues on down Abbott’s path.

  15. Front page of the Herald sun today has the story of the New vic Agriculture minister Jaala Pulford whose 13 year old daughter died days after the vic election. Her daughter had only been diagnosed with cancer 12 weeks earlier. Very sad. 🙁

  19. vic,

    Cormann is probably comforted by the old saying that “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”.

    However, in politics, whatever doesn’t kill you, will probably try again.

  20. [Peter van Onselen @vanOnselenP · 15m 15 minutes ago
    I spoke to hotel PM stays at in Melb. One of its 3 restaurants isn’t open Sunday nights (it is open during the day). Not about penalty rates]

    Abbott telling porkies again.

  28. [Typical of Abbott he blames workers wages rather than the actions of government. He manages to combine dumb and dishonest in one sentence.]

    dumb and dishonest combine in almost all of his sentences

  30. [ lizzie
    Posted Saturday, January 24, 2015 at 9:14 am | Permalink

    I wonder how long it will take Mark Simkin to regret his new position. ]

    If abbott gets the boot, hopefully so will the sneerer.

  31. Re Victoria – true, Cormann is a bit like a bulldozer or a tank in interviews. He pushes on with his messages of the day, regardless of the questions he is actually asked: ‘the mess left by Labor’, ‘debt and deficit disaster’, blah blah blah.

    As for Abbott, he will just say whatever supports the point he is trying to make, often apparently making it up on the spot, completely regardless of logic, evidence, common sense or indeed any reltionship to objective reality.

  32. [I wonder how long it will take Mark Simkin to regret his new position.]

    I wonder how long it will take Mark Simkin to be looking for a new position.

  34. The problem with Abbott making comments that places are closed due to penalty rates, reinforces the view that he believes that penalty rates should go.

  35. victoria:

    I think a better argument from the govt would be looking at penalty rates for small business, rather than across the board.

  36. [if business owners are saying it costs them money to be open on a Sunday, then fair enough, don’t open on a Sunday]

    the real killer cost is rent and you pay that whether you open or not. it is simply looking ar the days take and staff costs and comparing to the normal days staff costs and wanting to pay staff less – that is all it is about

    unions should do the math to share the penalty rates (or just a bit more) evenly over the whole week make sure there is a guarantee you cant be forced to work previous penalty rates days (now there is nothing to be gained by working them you would expect to find supply reducing)

    but this govt would want penalty rates gone – no compensation in base rate and unfair dismissal protection as well so you can threaten staff with the sack if they don’t agree to work three one hour shifts 8 am 12 noon and 5 pm on a public holiday

  37. I’m sure the ABC will take back Mr Simkin, should he be left Tonyless soon, as he is still one of them. Liberal Party, ABC: all part of the same organisation.

  41. [What would define a “small business”]
    Regular attendance at local liberal and cci functions as well as generous donations to the libs

  43. victoria:

    Probably determined by income or turnover or whatever other measure is used to separate small from medium to large enterprises, I would imagine.

  44. vic,

    With petrol prices now around $1 a litre when is this significant reduction in transport distribution costs going to be reflected in prices for the goods we buy.

  45. Abbott seems to be banging on about penalty rates the way he used to about the ‘Carbon Tax’. From mid 2012 to mid 2014, any economic setback, any business closure and any mass retrenchments were caused by the carbon tax, in spite of the fact that the proprietors of the business concerned cited other factors (e.g. the then high Australian dollar) and might even have explicity denied that the carbon price had any role in their decision.

    Really, the message should go out: if you earn your living as an employee, especially in insecure and low paid work, Tony Abbott and his Government are your enemy. Same goes if you are unable to find work, are chronically ill or have to live on a pension.

  46. [Interviewed on Sydney radio on Friday, the prime minister said he thought the lower penalty rates would allow more businesses to open on weekends, providing more jobs.

    “If you don’t want to work on a weekend, fair enough don’t work on a weekend. But if you do want to work on a weekend, and lots of people, particularly students, particularly young people, want to work on a weekend, you want the places to be open to provide jobs,” he said, pointing out that the hotel he uses in Melbourne closed its restaurant on Sunday night because it couldn’t afford to pay penalty rates and that he had found it difficult to find a bottle shop open over Easter for the same reason.
    ]

    What a spoiled brat is TA. So his hotel doesn’t serve dinner on a Sunday. Perhaps he might like to try another of the many excellent Melbourne restaurants.

    He must make an interesting sight going from bottle shop to bottle shop at Easter with tongue hanging out, desperate for an alcoholic beverage.

    Two tips for TA (I’m not endorsing either of these suggestions):

    Stay at a Crown Casino hotel. His mate James Packer opens his restaurants for dinner on Sunday. Go to a bottle shop owned by one of the supermarket giants. They close only when required by liquor laws.

  47. [vic,

    With petrol prices now around $1 a litre when is this significant reduction in transport distribution costs going to be reflected in prices for the goods we buy.]

    when coles and woolies are faced with two or three genuine competitors

  49. I may have mentioned this in the past. My youngest who is almost 17 years old, has many friends who have part time jobs in the hospitality sector. They usually work evenings and weekends. She has been told that they all the got the jobs based on an initial trial where they all got paid an hourly cash rate below the award. Those that remained in these jobs continue to get paid in this way. No such thing as penalty rates. Reason why my daughter refuses to work in this industry

  50. Perhaps somebody in business can enlighten me.

    Surely when a hospitality business running a seven day operation works out its costing it takes into account that a pint and Parma on Sunday costs more to delivers that it does Monday to Friday.

    So it decides whether it is going to have a weekend surcharge, as some places do, or charge the same the whole time.

    On that basis I presume that the price of the pint I had yesterday makes the publican a little more profit than the pint I might have tomorrow but if he has done his numbers properly the end result is that he gets a return in line with his investment.

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