The New South Wales election together with the Easter break have left the big media polls out of the picture recently, with Newspoll taking an extra week off, Ipsos last being heard from in late February, and a full two months having passed since the last result from Galaxy. That means the BludgerTrack poll aggregate is heavily influenced at the moment by Morgan and Essential, together with last week’s result from ReachTEL. This week’s result from Morgan was the Coalition’s best since October, making a full 1.0% of difference on the two-party reading and giving the Coalition a four-seat boost on the seat projection. Newspoll’s quarterly state breakdowns have also been added to the model, which means there’s more movement than usual this week at state level. Labor’s rather excessive projected gains in Queensland have been moderated to the tune of three, and they’re also off one each in New South Wales and Tasmania, while gaining one in Western Australia. Nothing new this week on leadership ratings.
Added attractions:
• As I always do after Newspoll’s quarterly breakdowns are published, I now offer a full suite of state-level BludgerTrack breakdowns featuring primary vote details and trend charts.
• Seat of the Week is back in new-and-improved form, and will henceforth be published every Wednesday evening concurrently with BludgerTrack. Today’s entry is Corangamite.
• In addition to the state breakdowns highlighted here the other day, The Australian has also published quarterly Newspoll breakdowns by gender and age.
• The Age reports that ReachTEL conducted polling of four marginal seats for United Voice, including a survey of 707 respondents in Eden-Monaro that credited Labor with a lead of 57-43. There was also said to be a “swing to Labor” in Bonner (Queensland), Hindmarsh (South Australia) and Swan (Western Australia), though I’m unclear if that means they were in front. (UPDATE: The West Australian reports the Swan result gives Labor a 54.7-45.3 lead on respondent-allocated preferences, from primary votes of 40.1% Liberal, 37.2% Labor and 10.5% Greens – hat-tip to Leroy Lynch).
Morning Bludgers. I’ve had time to read the Guardian and see that Katherine Murphy is getting adventuresome in goading Abbott to come to the party on SSM. Love her digs at the business lobbies who crucified JG and also ‘old MSM’ losing power.
[Reform is hard. It’s always been hard, and in some respects it’s harder now. But politicians who speak wistfully about the current challenges of reform fatigue are really just trying to inoculate themselves against future failures. Sorry to be harsh, but it’s true.
Big business groups who drove their well-resourced trucks right through the carbon price and the mining tax because this was undesirable reform now bitch about the end of a productive parliamentary reform consensus, as if they played no part in stoking the prevailing culture of winner-takes-all politics. As if they are just innocent bystanders. Quite hilarious, really.
And the old stagers of the mainstream media – columnists who prided themselves on being players and influencers before the internet encroached uncomfortably on their overblown pretensions – now raise their fists at their loss of power. Quite frequently I read querulous outbursts about “the system” not working as it should, a contention dressed up as some kind of epic profundity. It could be funny if it wasn’t serious.]
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/09/same-sex-marriage-a-reform-that-would-put-the-icing-on-the-cake
[ With the approaching budget and Labor national conference, Labor’s response and decisions taken will be the first active moves on their part to start laying out the policies of the next Labor government. ]
Will be interesting to see the reaction in the polls if the ALP has a proper, blood on the floor National Conference. Media will spin it as “Shortens Leadership Weak” for certain, but i have a suspicion that whatever the outcome of the Conference the ALP will have a decent set of policies ready to roll whenever the Tories decide to go to an election.
And any froth and bubble over ALP “divisions” will distract from Abbotts leadership woes post budget which will keep him there for longer. 🙂
Budget in Reply speech is going to be a very significant one this year. Arguably more politically significant than the actual Budget in the current context.
briefly
I think Greece turning to Russia (and China) was fairly predictable (indeed I think I predicted it here).
It seems very likely Greece will withdraw from the EU.
Now a long time ago I read that Greece would gain from leaving the EU (or the Euro) because they rely heavily on tourism and with the Euro what was once an attractive cheap Greek holiday was no longer the case. No idea how significant this is, but there obviously is a case for weaker economies being damaged by high value of currency.
Worth noting that the last Roy Morgan Fed poll, like all their multimode Fed polls, was taken over two weekends including the weekend of the NSW election.
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6165-morgan-poll-federal-voting-intention-april-7-2015-201504070630
[This multi-mode Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention was conducted via face-to-face and SMS interviewing over the last two weekends, March 28/29 & April 3-6, 2015 with an Australia-wide cross-section of 3,063 Australian electors aged 18+, of all electors surveyed 2% did not name a party.]
Note the boost to the L/NP in NSW in this poll.
[…while in New South Wales: L-NP 50.5% leads the L- NP 49.5% – this is the first time the Federal L-NP has led in New South Wales since April 2014 – just before Treasurer Joe Hockey’s first Federal Budget.]
I suspect a bit of state noise in this poll. Anyway, we’ll have to wait & see with the next Morgan poll. However, the most recent post NSW election Reachtel (54-46) & Essential (53-47) polls are not especially favourable for the govt. I think there has been a bit of a drift back to the L/NP, but I don’t think we are close to 52-48.
Imacca
I’m not a fan of SHY but I hope she gets that enquiry up. On this issue Abbott, Morrison and now Dutton have stained Oz.
BH
Excellent piece by Murphy.
[We can see right now that the Abbott government is doing that long walk that fast bowlers do before rounding on their heel and coming back full tilt at the crease. Having failed to deliver the agenda of its first budget, the government is preparing for another run at structural reform, this time, sensibly, telegraphing some of the fine print in advance.
Don’t misunderstand me. If the government delivers on the current telegraphing, some of these reforms will be entirely worthy, and absolutely worth pursuing. But while this long process grinds on, the government is also steadfastly ignoring one potential landmark reform which is ready to roll, costs the budget not one cent, enhances personal freedom, and is actually popular with the public.]
[102
daretotread
It seems very likely Greece will withdraw from the EU.]
People are remarkably sanguine about this. No-one really knows what will ensue for Europe and the global financial system if Greece defaults. It’s easy to predict what will happen in Greece, however. Default will inevitably propel Greece out of the Eurozone and, almost certainly, from the EU as well. Greek GDP will contract by 30-40-50%. Unemployment, already very high, will soar, as will inflation.
Will it happen? No-one knows.
[ Will it happen? No-one knows. ]
Will be an interesting ride. A lot of uncertainty will be removed and the effect of that will be interesting, provided you aren’t Greek. For Greeks it will be complete crap.
Briefly
Now I do not pretend to have a detailed knowledge of Greek finances, but given the finance minister is about the best academically qualified finance minister around, I am hesitant to be so super arrogant about the real prospects. The guy’s CV is very impressive
[After training in mathematics and statistics, he received his PhD in economics in 1987 at the University of Essex. Before that he had already begun teaching economics and econometrics at the University of Essex and the University of East Anglia. In 1988, he spent a year as a Fellow at the University of Cambridge. From 1989 until 2000 he taught as Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Sydney. In 2000, he accepted the offer of Yannis Stournaras to become Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens.[6] In 2002, Varoufakis established The University of Athens Doctoral Program in Economics (UADPhilEcon), which he directed until 2008. From January 2013 he taught at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. ]
So while traditional free market types are biting their nails I prefer to simply reserve judgement. As I say if switching away from Euros to drachma or something else boosts tourism, then Greece gets a short and quick economic boost. I have no idea if it will be sufficient. I do not think Greece should EVER have been allowed into the EU (or Euro) their economy was just too different from France/Germany.
WA is really getting screwed on the GST now.
They have been subsidising the other states for years now and with the Iron Ore price going down the crapper, it’s certainly time their share gets boosted from the 37 cents they get back for every dollar they pay into the GST fund.
Who is abusing kids in detention? If its Guards or Australian workers then they should be jailed. If its boat people doing it them toss them on the next plane back to where they came from. How we can even think of accepting child abusers into this country is beyond me.
lizzie
I notice Katherine Murphy writes in better vein than she did in her Fairfax days.
I saw her in a Liberal Party forum session during 2010 election. It was telecast on Apac and she slipped up a couple of times by saying ‘we’ when speaking of Lib policies but she doesn’t appear to write in their favour so much now.
Is it the Guardian editorial policies or has she opened her eyes?
]”Abbott washing his hands of anything happening at Nauru.”]
Nauru and PNG processing agreements was setup by Gillard and Rudd.
Also what happens in the Nauru Detention Centre is a matter for the Nauru police and Government, has nothing to do with Australia.
Briefly
Look at it logically.
What is Greece’s main asset – islands and ports and strategic location. Selling to the highest bidder makes sense. Russian and or Chinese naval ports in exchange for money seems like a sensible plan. The Eurozone and or the USA need to match this in monetary terms.
[Is it the Guardian editorial policies or has she opened her eyes?]
Probably more likely to be Fairfax editorial policies and now she has more freedom.
FWIW Andrew Elder has always been particularly scathing of her. Along with Mark Kenny and Peter Hartcher…
zoomster@83
Zoom, it may be that things are happening in the background, using up your allocation.
To check what is going on, you need an app for your PC which lets you see how much bandwidth each program you are using (and many, I’ll bet, like me, you didn’t think you were using!)
You can use ‘little snitch’ to block any that you don’t want operating.
I use ‘little snitch’ on my mac, which was invaluable for getting rid of the bandwidth thieves. It also allows me to see (graphically) how a download or upload is progressing.
This is the URL for mac. I would never be without it:
https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
The closest equivalent for PC might be GlassWire which seems to be free.
Here is the GlassWire url:
https://www.glasswire.com/
WA getting screwed on GST because WA tried screwing the country when royalties were easy money. I have no sympathy for emperor Barnett having pissed away the boom times with boondongles. Spending money on a hole in the ground.
[“If its boat people doing it them toss them on the next plane back to where they came from.”]
After reading the report in it’s entirety rather than listening to the leftwing media spin one thing is very clear.
There is only ONE claim of rape which has any credibility. All other claims, none of the Asylum Seekers are willing to actively persue or put to the police for investigation. That raises questions of their legitimacy.
And the 1 single case of alleged rape which has had a formal police complaint put forward? It’s against a fellow asylum seeker.
Never let the facts get in the way of an anti-Government rant by the left though.
BH
Murphy has slowly made a transition from ‘everything Tony does is right’.
I think it’s the ‘editorial atmosphere’ of the Guardian, which the Lib trolls will tell you is a lefty-biased production. 😉
[“WA getting screwed on GST because WA tried screwing the country when royalties were easy money”]
So it’s about revenge for you is it?
I mean seriously grow up. You are right that they wanted a higher share when the royalties were pouring in… it was denied.
Now the royalties are drying up they certainly deserve more than the 37 cents in each dollar THEY pay to the GST slush fund.
adrian – I was sometimes scathing about her when she was with Fairfax. Hartcher – uggh! He goes with whichever pollie plays favourites with him.
Roger M – I’m pretty impressed with Daniel Andrews way of speaking to us through the media but also his Treasurer who was on RN this morning.
He gave WA a big serve about wasting their mining wealth and not budgetting properly recently. I can’t remember his name but he wasn’t impressed with Hockey wanting to hand over more GST moolah to WA.
113
I would think that Greek Islands are of more strategic value to the Russians than the Chinese. The Russians have a greater likelihood of wanting to block access to the Black Sea and it is much easier for the Russians to supply a Greek Island than it is for the Chinese.
Re: WA and GST
There does seem to be an issue of timeliness with respect to assessing the factors going into the equalization process.
If WA’s share of the GST is being assessed against 2013 iron ore prices then they have a legitimate grievance, and the equalization process needs to be made more responsive to changing circumstances.
Just had a look at John Madigan’s party application with the AEC. Hilariously, in its constitution his group is at one stage referred to as the “Nick Xenophon Group”. Ctrl+F, John! It’s the spaceship of the keyboard!
Unfortunately WA now needs more GST money because the coalition continue to piss money into a hole in the ground. What is even worse is that Labor lost to these patsies because they ran a campaign of Coalition Light.
[Also what happens in the Nauru Detention Centre is a matter for the Nauru police and Government, has nothing to do with Australia.]
The Australian government hand the prisoners over so there’s no escaping the government’s involvement in this matter.
re: Little Snitch
Excellent program, whose primary value is that it lets you know when an external party wants you to upload info to them, and block that if desired.
But be aware that when you first install it, it will drive you nuts for a few days asking for permission for everything in sight.
On the plus side of that, you will have your eyes widely opened to just how much info you had previously been handing out without knowing about it.
[I think it’s the ‘editorial atmosphere’ of the Guardian, which the Lib trolls will tell you is a lefty-biased production]
Haha. Like that dreadful ABC lefty bunch.
TBA
Has all the data?
Authoritative! Insider?
[TrueBlueAussie
Posted Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 12:33 pm | Permalink
WA is really getting screwed on the GST now.
They have been subsidising the other states for years now and with the Iron Ore price going down the crapper, it’s certainly time their share gets boosted from the 37 cents they get back for every dollar they pay into the GST fund.
]
Like Howard and Costello, they assumed the good times would last for ever and pissed the benefits against the wall.
They knew there would be a two year turn around in GST distributions and failed to plan for this, while at the same time were happy to take a larger cut of GST at the start of the cycle.
Bad management, bad planning, I have no sympathy for their incompetence.
[Now the royalties are drying up they certainly deserve more than the 37 cents in each dollar THEY pay to the GST slush fund.]
Give them a share of the billions of untaxed profit that Murdoch has taken out of the country in just the last 2 years. Oh, that’s gone and can’t be recovered. So let’s tax them from this time and ongoing before the money leaves the country. Once that arrangement is in place talk to me about any revenue shortfall.
Kristina Kenneally goes from strength to strength in her new life. She stands apart from the ex Labor male pollies who revel in opinionating against their own side to flaunt their stuff on Sky.
[Now that Abbott has declared victory on the budget – 50% of his work is already done, he says – what can we expect from the tax white paper?
Possibly very little. Joe Hockey says the tax white paper consultation – kicked off with the Re:think tax discussion paper – will culminate in a set of proposals that will shape policy settings for the 2016 election. Hands up everyone who thinks that timing will result in bold policy changes. (Actually, hands up everyone who thinks Hockey and Abbott will still be in a position to shape policy in 2016.)
That doesn’t mean these debates aren’t worth having. Tax policy and taxation settings have been managed in an underwhelming manner by all governments since the Hawke-Keating years. The Abbott government is correct when it says our 1950s tax system is not well designed for the 2050s. Given our now well-understood revenue problem it is necessary to consider how Australia’s tax system could better serve us.]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/09/the-coalitions-approach-to-tax-is-unfashionably-late-and-more-muddled-than-ever
[116
Roger Miller]
This misunderstands the financial dynamics. The arrangements agreed for “Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation” between the States mean that a large part of royalty receipts that have accrued to WA, NSW and QLD have been re-directed to the other States. The mechanism by which this occurs is in the annual allocation of GST revenue.
This means that all States have benefited from the boom in iron ore revenues. Since the boom is now receding, all States will find their income is ultimately affected. WA is asking for the re-allocation of royalty flows to be reflected in the current year rather than in 2-3 years time.
This really is attributable to the absolutely shonky deal imposed on the States by Howard. In the good old days, HFE was achieved by transfers from the Commonwealth rather than between the States. The division that will now open up between the States is a consequence of Howard’s determination to wreck public finance in this country.
Just Me@126
Yes, and you soon learn the advantage of, for a trusted program, ticking the ‘any connection’ and ‘forever’ radio buttons!
Edwina StJohn@39
I think this pattern is possibly noise rather than signal. There have been so few changes of government that all of them being arguably emphatic says nothing against the possibility of a close change of government at some time. Close changes of government occur routinely at state level in what is basically the same system.
Also whatever the yardstick the statement is arguable. 1949 was emphatic in seat terms but only 51:49 on 2PP. 1972 was fairly emphatic on 2PP but only a margin of nine seats.
The real danger is that 51:49 to Labor would possibly not be enough because of personal vote effects, as it was not enough in 1998.
By the way those United Voice ReachTELs had respondent preferences, at least the Swan one did.
113
daretotread
Briefly
Look at it logically.
What is Greece’s main asset – islands and ports and strategic location. Selling to the highest bidder makes sense.]
You think Greek sovereignty should be for sale? Would that be on an hourly rate? Or subject to annual tender?
[108
daretotread
Briefly
Now I do not pretend to have a detailed knowledge…]
There’s a first time for everything, I suppose.
lizzie@118
The problem the Libs and other right wing hangers on seem to have is they think TRUTH is left wing.
[Yes, and you soon learn the advantage of, for a trusted program, ticking the ‘any connection’ and ‘forever’ radio buttons!]
Well spotted, I forgot to mention that critical fact. 🙂
BH@120
Tim Pallas is the Vic Treasurer.
My biggest gripe with him is that he was TOO effective when he was roads minister and too much funding went that way at the expense of public transport.
Caving in to Barnett would be reward for the incompetent
The Libs inherited a budget in good shape and a triple A rating and have pissed it up against the wall.
It’s not like they were not warned and some of the budget numbers look to be like they were plucked out of the air just to balance the books. “What price do we need iron or at to get the Royalties we need? OK, write that down”
Barnett is reputed to have had a poor relationship with a couple of Under Treasurers who warned him WA was on a slippery slope and they moved on.
He once said he would never bring in a budget in deficit. Like he said his infrastructure projects were fully costed and fully funded.
I guess the Feds have three Labor states now to rip off to prop up the emperor in WA.
bemused
[The problem the Libs and other right wing hangers on seem to have is they think TRUTH is left wing.]
The situation in a nutshell.
lizzie@141
Good! No more comments required. William can close the blog. 😛
[My biggest gripe with him is that he was TOO effective when he was roads minister and too much funding went that way at the expense of public transport.]
bemused Thanks. Was Pallas elected in the Bracks or Brumby era? He was easy to listen to this morning – no waffles
Te Zionist lobby takes over the Republican Party in the US
_____________________________________________
In a scathng attack “The American Conervative” mag attacks those Repugs who have totally surrendered to Netanyahoo and the zionists who want nothing less than a total war on Iran…an the defeat of Obama’s recent agreement with IranThe ma is rfemarkable for the extent of the detae on the internal problems oif the Repug…it’s hard to imagine suchg a debate here in any of our major parties
The Amercon is especially critical of the way so many prominent Repubs have been absorbed into the Israeli propoganda machine…one said recently that the Iran crisis will end with a nucleur cloud over Tehran as Israel will need to use it weapons to “clean up the mess” that Obama has created
Even during the cold war no US senator spooke so approvingly of the uses of nucleur weapons against Russia
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/
134
The 1941 change of government was after a very close 1940 election.
Since at all the really close elections (since WWII (1954, 61, 74, 90, 98 and 2010)) the Government has managed to survive, it could be argued that a Commonwealth government has a greater capacity to survive a close election than a state government. This could be because oppositions winning close elections need lots of factors in their favour and that they are harder to align at Commonwealth level than state level because of the greater diversity of voters and electorates.
UK election polling for all parties has been static for ages. Almost no movement.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/04/08/john-lanchester/episode-five-flatliners/
[Episode Five: Flatliners
John Lanchester 8 April 2015
The BBC has a handy electoral poll tracker on its website. Here’s where we are:
….
I’ve never seen polls like that. The thing which really stands out is that nothing stands out. They are as flat as the flattest of flatnesses. Five months ago, on 7 October, Labour was on 34 per cent and the Tories on 32. In the latest polls, Labour are on 33 per cent and the Tories on 34. That small advantage is not stable, though. The parties are passing the tiny lead back and forth between them like dope-smokers conscientiously sharing a joint.
Most people don’t think much about party politics. To get their attention you need, in the language of the pros, to ‘cut through’. For all the noise and kerfuffle, this election hasn’t. It isn’t self-evident why, and no doubt this very fact will be the subject of study for some time to come, but there are a number of possible reasons. One of them might be that the parties and their leaders are so boring and so small, and arguing within such narrow margins of neoliberal consensus, that the electorate just can’t be bothered to think about them. The problem with that line of argument is that something very similar could have been said about many other elections, without there being this same picture of non-engagement and stasis.]
Also see this site, which is updated regularly
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk
[Jackol
Posted Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 12:50 pm | PERMALINK
Re: WA and GST
There does seem to be an issue of timeliness with respect to assessing the factors going into the equalization process.
If WA’s share of the GST is being assessed against 2013 iron ore prices then they have a legitimate grievance, and the equalization process needs to be made more responsive to changing circumstances.]
Swings and roundabouts. Whilst there is a lag between adjusting to changes to any states financial circumstances this isn’t new and works both ways. For many years as the mineral royalties went up the mining states such as WA and Qld were still getting larger shares of the GST distribution due to that lag. To talk about sending them more coin now with no acknowledgement of the bonuses they pocketed on the way up isn’t going to cut any ice with NSW, Vic, SA, or Tas.
[ Who is abusing kids in detention? ]
Rummel, from what i gather from the reporting so far the alleged “abusers” are in at least some cases, the guards at the detention centre. Some of the allegations around the sexualised behaviour of children in detention indicate they are using sexually graphic “local language” terms in their conversations. That’s fundamentally not a good sign. 🙁
It may well turn out that there are detainees who have been or are involved as well. I’m not defending such, but given the long term nature of the detention and the “hopelessness” involved in the application of current policy it would not surprise me.
[ There is only ONE claim of rape which has any credibility. All other claims, none of the Asylum Seekers are willing to actively persue or put to the police for investigation. That raises questions of their legitimacy. ]
Well TBA, good to see your on top of the spin. Something to be on top of other than your Goat huh?.
The fact that people may not have gone to the local police may have something to do with the fact that the abused are in this case forcibly confined WITH their abusers, at least some of who appear to be in officially defined “power” relationships relative to them in a place where secrecy and lack of independent oversight by officialdom is the norm.
Given the long term secrecy that the Govt has applied to ALL matters to do with detention of AS, the known “inaccuracies” in what the Govt has told people to date when issues have arisen, and the frantic distractions and deflections that the Govt has engaged in when credible people like Triggs have raised matters to date, the ONLY way to get to anything like the truth of these matters is an independent RC level investigation.
And in the meantime there can be no confidence that the abuse of children in the detention facility in Nauru is not continuing as we speak.
zoomster
If you have a Macand have updated OSX your data allowance could have been done because the new photo programme automatically uploads all your photos to Icloud.