BludgerTrack: 53.4-46.6 to Labor

The latest weekly poll aggregate reading all but wipes out the Coalition’s gains over New Year, for which the Prince Philip debacle can offer only a partial explanation.

The New Year polling drought has come to an end with three new results this week, and the promise at least of Ipsos returning in the next weekly cycle. This of course comes at a particularly interesting time, in view of the Prince Philip idiocy and subsequent ramping up of leadership speculation. However, this week’s batch of polls when taken together offer only a partial account of the impact of an announcement that was made on Monday. To deal with them in chronological order:

Essential Research surveyed from Friday to Monday, but even without much scope for the Prince Philip issue to affect the result, its fortnightly rolling average produced what by its standards was significant movement to Labor. After moving a point to the Coalition last week, Labor’s two-party lead was back to 54-46, from primary votes of 41% for Labor, 39% for the Coalition and 9% for the Greens. As always, half of this result comes from the previous week.

Roy Morgan deviated somewhat from its usual practice in providing a poll of 2057 respondents in which the field work was conducted from Friday to Tuesday, in contrast to its usual practice of combining two weeks of results and surveying only on the weekend. In other words, a substantial part of the survey period came after the Prince Philip disaster. Compared with the poll that covered the first two weekends of the year, Labor gained a point on the primary vote directly at the Coalition’s expense, leaving them at 37.5% and 39.5% respectively, while the Greens were up from 9.5% to 12%. That left Labor with formidable two-party leads of 56.5-43.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, up from 54.5-45.5, and 55.5-44.5 on previous election preferences, up from 53-47 to 55.5-44.5.

• The Seven Network sent ReachTEL into the field on Tuesday evening to gauge the impact of Sir Prince Philip, and all things considered the result could have been worse for the Coalition, who trailed 54-46 from primary votes of 40.1% for Labor, 39.7% for the Coalition and 11.3% for the Greens. Things got uglier with questions on Tony Abbott’s leadership, which you can read about at the link.

When all that’s plugged into BludgerTrack, the model’s reaction is to move the two-party preferred result 0.9% in favour of Labor, translating into gains on the seat projection of two in New South Wales and one each in Queensland and Western Australia. One suspects there will be more where that came from over the next week or two. However, as you can see from the trendlines on the sidebar, the model does not read this as movement to Labor over the past week, but has rather retrospectively determined that the movements being recorded over New Year (Coalition up, Greens down) hadn’t happened after all.

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.

793 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.4-46.6 to Labor”

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  1. A welcome return by Laura Tingle

    [Within the government – and the broader Coalition family – there has long been a deep unease about Peta Credlin’s role because she was seen as the centre of an obsessive and inappropriate insistence on control over everything.

    But that really isn’t what has really been at issue this week in the debacle over the knighthood offered to Prince Phillip.

    Tony Abbott’s decision has left all his leadership flaws on show in a way that cannot be rationalised away by even his staunchest supporters. Even before this, some of those who have described themselves for years as close allies and long-standing friends of the prime minister spent Christmas expressing their deep disappointment and confusion at his prime ministership.]

    http://m.afr.com/p/opinion/bad_week_ends_with_no_love_lost_363ABhdoDOICYVHQgFvXmM

  2. I’m suspect of this whole Sir Prince issue as well. It’s so stupid it’s obviously a ploy to distract the public from the real horrors of the Liberals whilst they tuck Tony away in an assylum & slip some other loon in as PM.

  3. Those SYRIZA/Greens fiscal wizards!

    Greek banks have lost 5% of their deposits in less than two months.

    And that was mostly before SYRIZA unilaterally abrogated Greek Government agreements.

  4. The only thing worse than not learning from history is learning the wrong things from history. I’m glad to see that the libs seem hung up about Rudd’s removal, because I don’t think it has many lessons at all for the present situation.

  5. But MB insists she is an ‘innocent bystander’.

    [ Within the government – and the broader Coalition family – there has long been a deep unease about Peta Credlin’s role because she was seen as the centre of an obsessive and inappropriate insistence on control over everything. ]

    ….and she is unelected, paid help.

    That said abbott is still the one responsible for SirPhilGate.

  6. Watched Nick Kaldas just now, remarkable allegations against the Nsw government for unleashing an Ombudsman investigation into him. The original matters go back 10 years, but the 2012 and 2014 allegations are very current.

    In short, a whistleblower savaged by those on who he blew the whistle, aided and abetted by the O’Farrell government.

    No wonder current NSW AG Brad Hazzard tried to allegedly induce the Shooters and Fishers MP to can the parliamentary inquiry.

  7. Oh and Nick Kaldas is no numpty.

    He is Deputy Commissioner of Police and has a distinguished international policing record.

  8. Boerwar
    Not sure why you have it in for the Greeks, but Mark Carney doesn’t seem to share your view.
    He even hints that wealth redistribution night be required, ie debt right off.

    The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, has launched a strong attack on austerity in the eurozone as he warned that he single-currency area was caught in a debt trap that could cost it a second lost decade.

    Speaking in Dublin, Carney said the eurozone needed to ease its hardline budgetary policies and make rapid progress towards a fiscal union that would transfer resources from rich to poor countries.

    “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, if the eurozone were a country, fiscal policy would be substantially more supportive,” the governor said. “However, it is tighter than in the UK, even though Europe still lacks other effective risk-sharing mechanisms and is relatively inflexible.”

  9. I have been watching this playout on my own charts for sometime – ie Central Bank jawboning which see markets rally off down moves – see chart in link below.

    Yellen ‘helped’ again last night with the short upward move on Wall Street –

    [ Stocks started to squeeze after Europe closed (as usual) and then Janet Yellen struck with hints to Senate Democrats that its time to BTFD! *

    Ramped back to unchanged from yesterday’s FOMC but could not hold it!! ]

    BTFD* = Buy the Fcuking Dip

    Good video clip in the link –

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/janet-yellen-saves-day-stocks-soar-after-fed-chairman-tells-democrats-btfd

    Kohler also noted last night the Australian 10 year Bond yield has just gone inverted to the RBA Cash rate – you get paid more (just) for an overnight deposit then for holding a Government Bond for 10 years.

    Inverted Bond yeilds can be a leading indicator to a recession – normally by about 6 months.

    But who knows this time ?? Does jawboning interfere with it all ?

  10. Dave

    Thanks to the way GDP recognises new exports of iron ore (namely by volume, not value) the GDP is very unlikely to show a recession in coming quarters because the volumes are on track to increase.

    However, that’s only the technical way to measure a recession. Other ways, like the change in national income, already show Australia in recession.

  11. shellbell

    Good to see you back. How are the legal fraternity coping in the New Year, especially with all the Martin Place stuff being gone through in excrutiating detail in the inquiry?

  12. Christ, do we have to have another day of Greek ravings from everyone? Surely there’s enough going on at home this week to talk about?

  13. shellbell – the question I have about those consent laws is, how do they apply in situations where both parties are blotto? This would account for a large percentage of Australian sexual encounters, particularly for people in their 20s.

    I.e. it’s pretty straightforward if the man is sober(ish) and the woman is paralytic. But frequently, both will be off their tits and probably neither capable of making any kind of good decisions.

    I guess I mean – consent is a very important issue, but the law needs to be careful not to turn morning after regrets into rape allegations.

  14. Police whinging about being spied upon is moderately hilarious given that they lead the charge towards invading the privacy of the rest of us around Australia, and around the world.

    Maybe they could put two and two together and realise that everyone deserves privacy and that there must be strict controls and strong oversight of any surveillance of anyone.

  15. [A NEW Premier, a new look Cabinet and possibly even a new party in government all now appear possibilities with a day to go to the 2015 Queensland election. .

    There is also increasing speculation that a bad day for the LNP may trigger, as early as next week, a Liberal Party move against Tony Abbott.

    Latest polling released by Essential have turned the contest on its head, suggesting Labor has a 51%-49% lead over the LNP on a two-party preferred basis.]

    http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/pm-may-face-a-spill-as-polls-hint-huge-upset/2528110/

  16. From this article by Michael Janda:
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-30/australian-dollar-plunges-as-rate-cut-bets-rise-commodity-price/6057052

    [The other major factor behind the Aussie dollar’s rapid decline has been an article from Herald Sun economics columnist Terry McCrann saying that a Reserve Bank rate cut next week is all but certain].

    Really? Is there anyone who takes that arseclown seriously, let alone seriously enough to trade down the $?

  17. TPOF

    [TBA, whether you are lurking, this is what intergenerational theft really looks like:]

    Boy, am I sick of this “intergenerational theft” thing propagated by the government and it’s lackeys. It’s a Tea Party meme, which only works for the economically illiterate.

  18. A friend of mine who works in Mental Health tells me there are vacancies right now at Manly Hospital’s In-Patient clinic. Tony should consider taking advantage of one of them.

    There’s a good political angle, too, as it would also be a much-needed boost for local Warringah businesses.

  19. Opening sentences from today’s Daily Telegraph columnists.

    Simon Benson :

    “The Abbott government has descended into madness”.

    Piers Ackerman :

    “Tony Abbott will deliver a make-or-break address to the National Press Club on Monday”.

    Ray Hadley :

    “I don’t understand the rage against the PM’s chief of staff Peta Credlin”.

    Murdoch has placed the writing on the wall for Tones.

    Mene, mene, tekel, upharsim

    You have been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting.

  20. 15,000 coal jobs

    And 14,000 public service.

    But over-investment in coal was pretty clear and plenty of people were suggesting that perhaps diversifying into renewables was sensible…

  21. We’ll really know that Tony has got the message if he decides to wear a non-blue tie at that coming NPC speech.

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