BludgerTrack: 56.1-43.9 to Labor

This week’s poll aggregate records the government in an ongoing downward spiral in the days before Monday’s spill motion.

The flurry of pre-spill polling leaves BludgerTrack engorged with new data, offering a high-resolution picture of how things looked immediately before Monday’s Liberal party room meeting. The result isn’t quite matching Julia Gillard at her worst, but it comes awfully close – particularly on the seat projection, since the swing has bitten deepest in the especially sensitive state of Queensland. There has been a straight one-point shift from the Coalition to Labor on the primary vote to add to the two-point shift recorded last week, with other parties remaining stable. Labor is up four on the seat projection since last week, courtesy of gains in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.

The leadership ratings are if anything even more remarkable, with new numbers added this week from Newspoll and Essential Research. The collapse in Tony Abbott’s personal rating from an already low base is particularly something to see. It moves more sharply this week than preferred prime minister, since it had only one data point to react to last time rather than two, last fortnight’s Galaxy poll having provided on the latter. The y-axis on the net approval chart formerly ran from plus to minus 40%, but I’ve had to widen it to accommodate the depths presently being plumbed by Abbott. Bill Shorten’s rating softens a little, thanks to a somewhat off-trend result this week from Essential. Full results, as always, are on the sidebar.

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.

2,925 comments on “BludgerTrack: 56.1-43.9 to Labor”

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  1. The issue is that aged people in an averagely expensive home but with no income from savings will have to sell their home because they will not qualify for the pension. Obviously they will not immediately qualify for the pension then. Subsequently they may buy a cheaper home and may be able to live off the income from investing the money or they will spend down their savings until they do qualify for the pension. Thus many will effectively be selling their homes to eventually get the pension.

  2. Dog whistle sets the new Tone

    COLOUR me cynical, but has anyone else noticed just the tiniest correlation between Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s standing in the polls and him dialling up the rhetoric on national security to eleventy?

    Right now in the preferred prime minister stakes things could be going a bit better for Tony, with polls consistently ranking him between a fart in a lift and “somebody else” in the popularity stakes.

    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/tony-abbotts-national-security-rhetoric-is-cynical-dog-whistling-and-all-about-his-unpopularity/story-fnihsr9v-1227221694565

  3. The current social policy is to assist the elderly to stay in their own home (and familiar community) for as long as possible. This has many social and physical advantages.

  4. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKBN0LJ0SH20150216

    [Talks between Greece and euro zone finance ministers over the country’s debt crisis broke down on Monday when Athens rejected a proposal to request a six-month extension of its international bailout package as “unacceptable”.

    The unexpectedly rapid collapse raised doubts about Greece’s future in the single currency area after a new leftist-led government vowed to scrap the 240 billion euro bailout, reverse austerity policies and end cooperation with EU/IMF inspectors.

    Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chaired the meeting, said Athens had until Friday to request an extension, otherwise the bailout would expire at the end of the month. The Greek state and its banks would then face a looming cash crunch.]

  5. cog

    The problem is that it will take $350-$500,000 to buy into an aged care facility.

    If people have to sell their $900,000 home at age 67 to get the pension basically what they will do is sell up at age 65 or so, party hard for 10 or so years then try to buy a place in aged care when they are 80 or so.

    Trouble is there is a good chance they will have squandered most of the cash so they will end up in a fully government funded aged care home rather than in their own home.

    Those who can will sell their home to a family trust/company so they will be asset poor. Others will invest in gold, jewells or art works which are very hard to value.

    More to the point who would ANYONE aged 35 or so bother to buy a house at all. The main rationale for home ownership is security in old age. If this is no longer an asset but a liability your average couple would find their money is better spent on holidays cars and expensive rental properties. They may choose to purchase expensive furniture not likely to attract asset test problems because how do you value a 7 year old leather couch.

  6. Currently with basically no wealth tax or inheritance tax and big super subsidies we are subsidising the children and relatives of high asset people to get big essentially unearned benefits with generational transfers.

    Older people with large assets are perfectly able to arrange for loans against net assets so that they can continue to live in the same home. The effect is to reduce net assets for generational transfer.

    We actually should be subsidising people to move into more manageable homes and shared homes to provide better quality of life and less draw on public resources.

  7. 2758
    guytaur

    How can you know where any bias might arise? You are not in possession of any information other than the media reports. There may be reporting bias. There may be reader bias. What is not in question is the talks broke down early.

  8. [Vic Tony Windsor as always on the money

    @TonyHWindsor: Malcolm went backwards on QaA tonight. Talks the talk but doesn’t seem capable of walking #qanda
    ]

    Yep, admittedly I only saw the end, but Malcomb didn’t impress me. He likes the sound of his voice too much, comes across as a bit of a pompous ass, and I don’t think Jones does him any favors by letting him crap on so much.

    Having said that I do regard him as the best chance for the LNP, but not with quite the same amount of fear as some here on PB 🙂 He isn’t a political genius.

    I also agree with Guytuar that Shorten is being underestimated.

  9. briefly

    It was the same story. The one you posted from Reuters blamed Greece by implication while the BBC one did not.

    That is the bias.

  10. phoenix at #2753

    Is that a first?
    The first time a major media outlet has acknowledged that the ‘terror’ trick by the COALition is a dog whistle to divert attention from their unpopularity?

    Something that has been bleedin’ obvious for yonks – decades probably – is finally recognized?

  11. dtt@2732: “I take ISSUE with Meher saying factions in the ALP are not ideological. Sure it is not as strong as is used once to be but pretty much you can say still that: The left are greener, are more pro gay rights, more inclined to party democracy, more pro government industry policy and more opposed to privatisation than the right.”

    I might agree with some of that, but the idea that “the left are greener” is a total joke. The only leading left Labor person who has ever achieved any credibility on environmental issues is John Faulkner. On the Right, we have seen Barry Cohen, Graham Richardson, Tony Burke, Neville Wran, Bob Carr and on it goes. Even Peter Garrett was notionally a member of the Right faction.

    In Tasmania, where I live, the Left-dominated ALP has long been a sworn enemy of the environmental movement.

    The two most significant unions aligned to the Labor left, the AMWU and CFMEU (and their more fragmented predecessors) have always been either indifferent to, or hostile to, the environmental cause. The one bright spot in the history of these parts of the labor movement was the NSW Builders’ Labourers Federation under a Communist, Jack Mundey. His union was tragically swallowed up by the then pro-developer national union under the dodgy Norm Gallagher.

    Things are improving with the Labor left: for instance, Doug Cameron is not a favourite of mine, but he’s pretty sound on environmental issues, as are Mark Butler and Penny Wong from SA (although Penny still has a bit of a soft spot for the forestry industry). Even the CFMEU are getting a bit better on this front.

    But these are recent developments. Love em or hate em, it was the right faction, particularly the much-maligned NSW right, that has always been at the forefront of ALP environmental policy.

  12. Guytar

    Given the record of things being ruled in and out, I fully expect asset testing the family home for pension purposes is on the agenda now.

  13. I agree wholeheartedly with Wakefield.

    And I’m one of those that stands to gain substantially from my parents’ property. I don’t bring it up at family BBQs (any more), but it’s simply not right that they live in a multi-million dollar house while also drawing a part-pension, and they are not unique.

  14. Vic, I’m looking forward to Turnbull (or whoever) being PM. I’m getting a bit bored of watching Abbott wither. It seems so predictable I just want to hit the skip button 🙂

  15. When running PB in a desktop browser the Zip news add is re-appearing, so that is probably the cause of the problem, while it is in the add ‘rotation’ PB will be unstable in a IOS browser.

    The problem for Crikey is that the advertising is contracted out to a 3rd party and all they can do is to keep reporting these issues to them.

    Also the problem is not just with the ‘free’ pages like the Poll Bludger blog, but their premium – locked article pages.
    So this is a significant problem for Crikey and I am sure they are doing all they can to get it fixed (which unfortunately is probably not much more than what they are doing now).

  16. Re Liberal moderates: The Liberal Party has traditionally been a place where everyone is generally polite to one another. It hasn’t typically featured the sorts of factional brawls that Labor revels in, although this has changed in recent decades, particularly in NSW where Abbott himself and various other hard right types have injected a more combative element into things.

    So a lot of the internal debate about policies goes on behind closed doors. But you can be sure that everyone in the Liberal Party knows where each other stands on certain key issues: the environment, sexuality and abortion, the role of the public sector in the economy, sometimes foreign policy, etc. Someone like Pyne will always toe the line in private, but you would find that, in private, his views on a lot of issues would be closer to the prevailing attitudes on PB than many would expect. (I’m not sure about abortion, though, as he is a pretty staunch Catholic.)

    Even though the true small ‘l’ Liberals of the Dick Hamer, Ian McPhee or, more recently, Judi Moylan, type are becoming largely extinct in the modern Liberal Party, their view of the world still influences some of the younger generation, and Turnbull (who is arguably a one-man faction) is tuned into this.

    As to Victoria’s question about who will come out on top, I still think Turnbull is most likely to take over some time between the week after next and November. It all depends on the polls: a few more 57-43 results or worse will loosen the grip that the right faction holds over some backbenchers. But if the polls get a bit better, but not enough to save Abbott, maybe they’ll have a go with Morrison or even Robb.

  17. John Reidy@2774

    When running PB in a desktop browser the Zip news add is re-appearing, so that is probably the cause of the problem, while it is in the add ‘rotation’ PB will be unstable in a IOS browser.

    The problem for Crikey is that the advertising is contracted out to a 3rd party and all they can do is to keep reporting these issues to them.

    Also the problem is not just with the ‘free’ pages like the Poll Bludger blog, but their premium – locked article pages.
    So this is a significant problem for Crikey and I am sure they are doing all they can to get it fixed (which unfortunately is probably not much more than what they are doing now).

    All the crikey munchkins need to do is block the Zip News ad.

    That would be a few minutes work tops. Or tell the third party that the contract will be reviewed if they can’t provide non-wonky ads.

  18. Re Lizzie @2742: the situation is more complicated in Sydney, where you’d be hard pressed to find a hovel for $500,000. What would have been a modest family home in a working class suburb in years past (think inner West in the 1950s and 60s, or a terrace house in the less fashionable parts of the Eastern suburbs back then) can easily be worth $1,000,000 plus. There would be pensioners living in a home worth $1 million which they bought in, say, 1960, for £4,000.

    I heard the first part on Scott Morrison’s interview with Fran Kelly on Radio National while driving this morning. I arrived at my destination before the end, but he seemed to say straight out that including the family home in the asset test was not being considered. I am inclined to believe him this time. It would be ballot box poison and a gift to the Opposition.

  19. Turnbull not getting much love on the Guardian comments for the Chan puff piece on him. The punters aren’t fooled these days (slippery, sleazy). What the media tells us to believe and what we see as reality are different things. Interesting thing is the lack of Menzies House input in the comments to support Mal, as there would be for Tone. Imagine Turnbull will not get much foot-soldier support from the party base if he becomes leader. Maybe old Australian Democrats still like him.

  20. The best outcome for all this is that Tony goes kamikaze if he believes he has no chance of winning a spill and calls an early election, taking the whole party down for daring to vote against him.

  21. Vic @ 2768: “My view is that Turnbull is a wolf in sheeps clothing. Utegate is a case in point.”

    In Utegate, Malcolm was more of a turkey than a wolf. It was completely reasonable for Malcolm to pursue Utegate in every sense other than that it was a complete fabrication by an eccentric social outcast with serious health issues (but who, to what I am told was the bemusement of many in Canberra, was nevertheless able to get himself promoted to a pretty senior level in the public service).

    If true, Utegate would deservedly have brought down the PM. But it wasn’t true, and the weirdness of Grech should have raised serious doubts in Turnbull’s mind.

    But Turnbull didn’t get Grech, because Turnbull is not much of a people person. Low EQ, to use the term that was popular a while back. I think that will be his biggest problem if he becomes PM. A good leader needs to understand those around them: their motivations, their weaknesses, their sensitivities, etc. According to people I know who’ve worked with Turnbull, he isn’t even very good at remembering people’s names, let alone what they’re on about.

  22. Steve777

    I only grabbed $500k as a f’rinstance. I don’t think it would buy much in many parts of Melbourne nowadays – or even a decent apartment or a unit in a maintained elderly unit.

    It has been discussed before that the “Senior’s Card” which allows anyone over 60 (?) to claim medical concessions is the bigger ripoff. I’ve never had one and I didn’t realise it was available. Was that a Labor mistake?

  23. Steve

    It’s not only sydney. My mother still lives in the family home in a Perth inner suburb we moved to in 1958. It is her only asset and as a potential redevelopment site is probably worth a seven figure sum.
    She lives comfortably there and has no desire to move,
    Anyy pension means test involving the family home would undoubtedly be very complicated and as with all these things would provide winners and losers.
    After all if there are no losers there are no savings so what is the point.
    That’s not to say the Tories might not try.
    Best guide to their thinking woild be look for some IPA opinion on the matter

  24. [According to people I know who’ve worked with Turnbull, he isn’t even very good at remembering people’s names, let alone what they’re on about.]

    There was an anecdote a couple of weeks ago that one of the Liberal backbenchers had said hello to Turnbull at Parliament House one day and Turnbull looked at him as if he didn’t know who he was. Not great for someone supposedly aspiring to gather enough votes to become leader.

  25. Steve777

    [I am inclined to believe him this time. It would be ballot box poison and a gift to the Opposition.]

    Absolute poison. Back in 1980, Fraser managed to turn some ill-judged words of Peter Walsh re the family home into attack ads during the election saying that Labor planned to put a capital gains tax on the family home. Arguably it cost them the election. I think I heard Hewson boast that he came up with the strategy – in which case Keating’s attack on Hewson’s GST was karma.

    In any case, the family home represents the heart of Liberal ideology – people who have worked hard to pay off their home (or who have inherited the whole or half the deposit from their parents) are not the people that the Liberal Party politically or ideologically will whack in any way.

  26. Meher

    I think you are guided too much by Tasmania on Green issues.

    The left in NSW GREW on the back of anti uranium mining sentiment and was always very strong on Green issues. Albo, Tanya P, were very strong on Green issues – as was Lindsay Tanner of Victoria. Going back in time what of Moss Cass and Tom Uren, both left greenies.

    What is never said here by the Rudd haters is that in the 2009/10 Cabinet there was a strong left/right divide on the ETS with most of the left ministers pro ETS and most of the right opposed. Exceptions were of course Rudd and Garrett from the right who were pro ETS and the union section of the Victorian left who were concerned about the impact on the now deceased manufacturing industry. When the centre right AWU shifted to oppose the ETS, any chance of bringing it in disappeared.

    Richardson while a good environment minister was pragmatic not a “greenie.” Carr liked bushwalking. Did not see much else very green. Cophen is best not discussed.

  27. BRILLIANT work from David Pope – again!

    There’s plenty of deeper meaning into this. Not only is the TPP vague and may cause hidden risks. It’s passing might just encourage more of the problems we’ve seen with Hep A laden berries.

  28. sohar @ 2780

    [Tony goes kamikaze if he believes he has no chance of winning a spill and calls an early election]

    This was discussed before the spill. I am a little more inclined to think that Tones could be erratic enough to ask for an election, but if it is in the context of a move against his leadership, I am certain he won’t be granted one. The GG will only grant an election if the PM is in a legitimate political position to ask for one. And by ‘political position’, I mean that the PM has the numbers in the Party Room and the Party has the numbers on the floor of the house.

    Of course, whether his replacement goes for an early election is another thing. it would be granted but I strongly expect that none of the potential candidates would be so crazy. The public would see it, quite rightly, as desperation.

  29. That article by Paul Syvret linked by Phoenix @2753 really nails it.

    “There’s been the benefit of the doubt at our borders, the benefit of the doubt for residency, the benefit of the doubt for citizenship and the benefit of the doubt at Centrelink.

    “And in the courts, there has been bail, when clearly there should have been jail.”

    Did you get all that? You should as, in terms of less than subliminal messaging, it is no so much dog whistling as an amplified trumpet serenade.

    In two paragraphs we have managed to evoke goodies and baddies, domestic terrorism threats, and “leaners”, all conflated with asylum seekers and immigrants and, by implication, that most cardinal of sins, un-Australian-ness.

    I am surprised that the Queensland edition of the Daily Rupert ran it.

    That picture of Tony Abbott with the article really looks like someone you don’t want to be meeting in a dark alley.

  30. Meher

    Can you be more precise about the actual issues that distinguish the LNP moderates. Are they social issues eg gay rights or aboortion or are they economic issues eg privatisation or welfare?

  31. I thought last night’s Q&A was one of the best I have seen.

    All of the panelists were entertaining and able to discuss issues without putting anyone else down. Even Greg Sheridan was being pleasant.

    Malcolm will one day get to be PM I think and it is his style that will do it.

    Lisa Wilkinson and Catherine King were a joy to watch as they portrayed a sense of humor and fun and there was no “I am more clever than you” attitude.

    I enjoyed it immensely!

    The

    He has a sense of humour and there was no rancor

  32. <armchair-strategising-and-gratuitous-advising-mode>
    I’ve seen a few comments over the past weeks that everyone already knows Labor’s position, so nothing need be said. I think that’s wishful thinking. *We* may know, but other people need to be reminded of Labor’s destination and they need to be convinced Labor has a plan to get there.

    I hope Labor shift the battleground and stake out their position now while people distrust and won’t listen to Abbott and before this government decides to be sensible – though there is still a big *if* around that eventuality :P.

    That’s not to say they should throw caution to the winds, they need to be prepared to vigorously defend their position. Especially if they can find something for Abbott to attack that will only make him appear more out of touch.

    Without specifying exactly what they’ll take into government, they could publish a range of alternatives for the *current* government to consider that help out with its obvious blind spots, get feedback on them, and at the same time be seen as the party that actively involves the public in the conversation.

    The only response necessary when pressed on exactly what they would do in government is that these alternatives reflect the general philosophies/principles of looking out for the growth, jobs, health, education and welfare of Australians and the environment they live in and that Labor is currently engaging in discussions with the public – via the very person pressing for answers 🙂 – before settling on specific solutions.

    They can always take credit if the government does something sensible – assuming Labor made similar proposals beforehand – and point out this government’s history of grudgingly taking on Labor initiatives and then half-heartedly implementing them or worse, stalling or trying to ditch them at the first opportunity.
    </armchair-strategising-and-gratuitous-advising-mode>

  33. meher
    OK I let #2776 go cos because it was just superficial platitudes and because it followed #2770 which was thoughtful and informative.
    But blimey #2781 is well wide of the mark.

    [ It was completely reasonable for Malcolm to pursue Utegate in every sense …]

    No it wasn’t.
    It was a bullshit issue fabricated by Mal and the media.

    Julia Gillard hit the nail on the head when she was interviewed by Barry Cassidy on this topic.
    Cassidy tried to pre-empt the discussion in framing it as something shonky by Rudd and Swan but Julia didn’t play his silly game and simply pointed out that the ute had been declared and nothing Wayne nor Kev did was unusual and was well within the expected servicing of their constituents which is the core parish pump business of all politicians.

    That should have been the end of that line but the media had smelt blood, which they had liberally spread themselves, and continued to shamefully back Mal in his, and this is the key, totally unfounded baseless assertions.

    Mal was the perpetrator of smear and innuendo, the media spread such.

    Then of course the shit hit the fan and splattered his face.
    Even then he and Brandis and Lewis [? – the Murdoch hack complicit in all this] got off scot free despite shonky behaviour in Senate hearings, doctored documents on the front pages of the Murdoch rags and lying to the public.

    Only later did Mal lose his job.

    The whole episode was a disgrace – a media that took Mal at his word without any evidence and shouted out his confected accusations and decried everything Wayne and Kev said despite no evidence against them.
    A beat up of nothingness.

    If we had a decent media in this country it would never have been an issue and in the event it was manufactured as such Mal and Brandis the journo and the media should still be hanging their heads in shame.

  34. I posted 2791 before I finished my thought. It is easy enough to waffle on matters which are not T’s responsibility, and look concerned without actually doing anything.

  35. Abbott is a weirdo and self-confessed liar, and has proven this over and over since becoming PM. Strangely, however, Abbott strikes me as more trustworthy than Turnbull. Perhaps it is Abbott’s stupidity that make s him easier to work out.

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