BludgerTrack: 52.7-47.3 to Labor

Despite all the fuss over Newspoll, this week’s reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate finds only incremental improvement for a government that continues to rise slowly from the canvas.

Another week in which the BludgerTrack aggregate has essentially shrugged its shoulders in response to a headline-grabbing opinion poll surprise, in this case the narrow 51-49 lead recorded for Labor by Newspoll. With Roy Morgan and Essential Research both going fairly solidly the other way, the Coalition records a gain of only 0.3% on two-party preferred, yielding a dividend of one seat in Western Australia on the seat projection. The Coalition and Labor are both up on the primary vote at the expense of the minor parties, with Palmer United notably hitting a record low in the wake of Glenn Lazarus’s resignation. Interestingly enough, both Labor’s two-party vote and seat projection are exactly as they were at the 2007 election.

Newspoll provided a new set of numbers for the leadership ratings, and as usual the trend reading is highly responsive to the latest seat of results. That means another improvement for Tony Abbott’s net approval rating, which is now back to what had previously been his career-worst result before the Prince Philip knighthood. Bill Shorten is down too, and it’s now clear that the change in dynamics after the Liberal leadership spill vote has taken a bite out of his approval rating. On preferred prime minister, Tony Abbott is now rating very slightly better than he was prior to Australia Day. Full results on the sidebar, further down from the very similar looking display for the New South Wales state election.

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.

2,514 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.7-47.3 to Labor”

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  1. We move to the New Zealand system of a top tax rate of 33%

    This will encourage growth in this country as it did in NZ, they are now also in surplus over there.

    They also charge a GP Co-Payment and have a GST of 15%

    We can learn a lot from our brothers across the ditch

  2. The fact Gordon’s wife went to the Libs doesn’t improve her credibility. The only people she seems not to have reported the alleged abuse to is the police.

  3. [2496
    meher baba

    A final post from me on the taxation system generally.]

    The Commonwealth spends about 23% of GDP on its own programs (that is, not including the GST transfer to the States). It should not be beyond us to run a tax system that harnesses this share of the economy.

    Inevitably, the system will be partially re-distributive. This is so if only because a result of fiscal balance is to transfer savings (excess disposable income) from private accounts to the public accounts (these two are inversely related). Since low-middle income earners have disproportionately low potential savings (excess disposable income), a disproportionately high share of revenue must come from high income earners. If this breaks down, the budget will never balance at full employment.

  4. Lefty

    Yeah, I saw Vicki Thomson, CEO of the Uni Gang of 8 on ABC 24 this morning.

    She was pretty verbose and obtuse about it and went round in circles for 5 minutes, reluctant to say explicitly in direct terms just what she meant, but eventually it all came out.

    Pyne has fixed it so well that as far as the Gang is concerned, it’s now a bucket of shite having been compromised to death as a result of Pyne courting the cross bench.

    She / they now want a full review of the matter without a political partisan component ie no more amended bills, no more putting any bill before parliament until wide societal agreement is reached about the need for and nature of reform.

    My summary of her input ……. Pyne has totally watered it down and farked it to the point of it being now not recognisable as the original….. it’ll have to be reworked by all.stakeholders before any future attempt to legislate it.

    Just as 2014 was a great year for the government, according to Abbott a couple of weeks back, no doubt he’ll laud this as good work by Pyne …… truly fixed up!

  5. Dio @ 2502

    As far as I can work out the ex-Partner went to everyone she could think of. It was the LNP who smelt the political advantage.

  6. [“The fact Gordon’s wife went to the Libs doesn’t improve her credibility. The only people she seems not to have reported the alleged abuse to is the police.”]

    How do you figure that one?

    Do the Police do national press conferences on Domestic Violence cases now?

    She did the right thing by telling anyone and everyone who would listen after this guy was elected to Parliament.

  7. I also saw Sloppy on ABC 24 (replay of a videoed radio I/V I think, on about tax reform.

    At one point he was asked about how most very wealthy people use various (legal) tricks and perks to drastically reduce their tax. Huffing and puffing he argued about the use of “most” …. a small few might do this.

    When asked about family trusts he argued that trusts and beneficiaries of distributions from trusts pay tax. He was silent about the fact that the trusts are a perk to pay less tax, and about how distributions can be managed across time and family members in a scheming manner.

    On the issue of people paying their due tax, small businesses should be in the spotlight too.

    Neighbourhood small business people (tradies) and some small business rels brag about how much of their living expenses can be paid by the business, and of course how the family tax bill is reduced by having their wives / partners on the payroll despite the fact that they do no actual work.

  8. Another from last thread:

    I also saw Sloppy on ABC 24 (replay of a videoed radio I/V I think, on about tax reform.

    At one point he was asked about how most very wealthy people use various (legal) tricks and perks to drastically reduce their tax. Huffing and puffing he argued about the use of “most” …. a small few might do this.

    When asked about family trusts he argued that trusts and beneficiaries of distributions from trusts pay tax. He was silent about the fact that the trusts are a perk to pay less tax, and about how distributions can be managed across time and family members in a scheming manner.

    On the issue of people paying their due tax, small businesses should be in the spotlight too.

    Neighbourhood small business people (tradies) and some small business rels brag about how much of their living expenses can be paid by the business, and of course how the family tax bill is reduced by having their wives / partners on the payroll despite the fact that they do no actual work.

  9. [Diogenes

    Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 3:02 pm | Permalink

    What a farce. Three years of headlines, getting kicked out of the finals, suspensions and court cases and it’s not guilty.

    Essendon should take the AFL to the cleaners in compensation or ASADA should appeal. Absolute joke.
    ]

    Dio,

    you’re confusing the situation.

    Essendon and its officials were penalised for bringing the game into disrepute.

    The club had no mechanism to control and record what players were being given.

    This is separate to whether what was given was legal or illegal.

    Todays decision was about the players and whether they had received performance enhancing drugs.

    The tribunal found,
    [In a statement, the Tribunal said it was “not comfortably satisfied” that the players had been administered Thymosin Beta-4 or that they had violated the AFL’s anti-doping code.]

    So the tribunal is not saying that the players didn’t use Thymosin Beta-4, they are saying on the evidence presented and without the cooperation of Dank and other key witnesses, if it was used and if so, who it was used on.

  10. @TBA/2501

    Its funny you guys praising A NAT goverment in New Zealand but not a Tory goverment in UK – in 2014 New Zealand gov debt under Key was $68 Billion.

    It was $18 billion when they were first elected.

  11. Meher baba @2458:

    A sensible suggestion, although I think you’re being even more cynical than I am about what’s likely to get fronted as “reform”. And that’s saying something!

    I must admit, I hadn’t considered the “rushing to save money before retiring” angle – which was pretty silly of me, since that’s precisely what my grandfather did before company politics forced him to retire three years earlier (and much poorer) than he had planned.

    By all means, moving to an absolute cap on assets in the fund if you want tax deductibility (as opposed to annual limits on tax deductibility) makes sense.

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