BludgerTrack: 51.7-48.3 to Labor

Aggregation of poll results continues to record a slow improvement in the Coalition’s position on voting intention, and a much quicker one for Tony Abbott relative to Bill Shorten on leadership ratings.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate swings back to Labor this week, following an improved but still below par result from Newspoll, and softer results for them from Morgan and Essential Research. Together with the previous week’s strong result for Labor from ReachTEL washing out of the system, the result is a 0.7% move to the Coalition on two-party preferred and an improvement of three on the seat projection, including one seat each in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. With the further addition of Newspoll numbers to the leadership ratings, there’s still no let-up of the emphatic trend in favour of Tony Abbott relative to Bill Shorten since immediately after the Liberal Party spill vote at the beginning of February, with Abbott now being credited with the lead on preferred prime minister for the first time since October.

Electoral reform news:

• Heath Aston of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that “speculation is rising that the government will attempt to pass measures that would effectively sign the death warrant for micro parties immediately before calling the next election” (while further speculation reported by Laurie Oakes says that election may be rather soon). However, the task of achieving that is said to be complicated by splits in both Labor and the Greens. Among those in the Labor camp raising concerns are Penny Wong, Stephen Conroy, Sam Dastyari and “a number of unions”, who reportedly consider that micro-parties are mostly winning seats at the expense of the Coalition, and believe the proposal to abolish group voting tickets through a move to optional preferential voting would advantage the Greens (although Gary Gray and Alan Griffin, both Labor members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, stand by the committee’s recommendation to that effect). The Greens nonetheless appear divided on both the reform’s likely impact on their prospects, and whether that should be their primary objective in any case. It is said the reform could starve the Greens of preferences required to win seats in Queensland (understandably), South Australia (understandably only for as long as Nick Xenophon’s on the scene) and Western Australia (not understandably, as far as I can see). At the same time, there is concern about how the party membership would react if the party cut a deal with the Coalition, which might involve a compromise of maintaining group voting tickets but imposing a 4% primary vote threshold.

Daniel McCullogh of the Launceston Examiner reports that Labor in Tasmania is grumbling about the state’s quirky Legislative Council system, in which the chamber’s 15 electoral districts face election over a staggered six-year cycle. Labor complains the low-key campaigns result in depressed turnout and an unfair advantage to incumbents. Labor is also unhappy about the tight $15,000 spending caps for Legislative Council elections.

Preselection news:

Sharyn O’Neil of the Morning Bulletin reports that Peter Freeleagus, a Moranbah miner and former Belyando Shire mayor, will again seek Labor preselection in Capricornia, the central Queensland seat where he narrowly failed in a bid to succeed retiring party colleague Kirsten Livermore. The seat has since been held for the Liberal National Party by Michelle Landry, who won the seat by a margin of 0.8%. The report also says Rockhampton mayor Margaret Strelow had been planning to nominate, but is no longer.

Stephen Smiley from the ABC reports it is generally expected Christine Milne’s resignation as Greens leader yesterday is to be followed in the not too distant future by retirement from the Senate. The leading candidate to fill her vacancy would appear to be Nick McKim, who holds a state seat for Franklin and was the party’s state leader until after the March 2014 election. The best-placed Greens candidate to win McKim’s state seat from recounting of last year’s election looks to be Huon Valley councillor Rosalie Woodruff.

• Labor has preselected Mike Kelly to attempt to recover the seat of Eden-Monaro which he narrowly lost to Liberal candidate Peter Hendy by a margin of 4.8% in 2013, a result that retained the seat’s bellwether status going back to 1972.

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.

2,436 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.7-48.3 to Labor”

Comments Page 48 of 49
1 47 48 49
  1. [More ABC cuts tonight ?]

    Safe prediction that budget cuts will target anything that Abbott perceives as standing in his way to total control.

  2. [But what really has made me so angry is the framing.]

    Spot on, vc.

    [Double dipping]

    … is Sloppy’s approach to a plate of Smoked salmon, dill & lemon paté.

    [fraud]

    ..is being sold a gastric band and remaining bariatric.

    [rorting]

    where to start… how about his four investment properties?

    [All this said about mums who in the past few years were lucky enough to scrape together a few months of maternity leave.]

    Yeah, demonising mothers is going to prove a real vote winner.

    [Like its a crime!]

    Intervening in the labour market when they don’t like the outcome — oooh the cognitive dissonance hurts!

    [And it works. Just read the comments in lots of articles, why should I subsidise people’s lifestyle choices to rort? I never got anything when my kids were young etc.]

    The people it has pissed-off are too busy looking after kids.

    [Purely designed to get people turning against each other, stirring up envy and resentment.]

    ’tis the Tory way.

  3. [So much for the “referendum” that Abbott called it!
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/budget-keeps-eastwest-link-money-in-locked-box-20150511-ggyqf1.html ]

    As I wrote the other day: something stinks to high heaven about Abbott’s obsession with building the Eastlink motorway.

    He is too keen. He’s in Canberra and Sydney, too far away from Melbourne (and a local Liberal government in Victoria) to be as interested in this project as he is.

    Of course it wouldn’t have anything to do with Transurban being one of the largest donors to the Liberal Party, would it? ($180,000)

    http://greens.org.au/node/7033

  4. Bushfire Bill

    He does seem unusually keen on the idea. I wonder what promises were made ? The local libs seemed to be in a somewhat indecent haste to get it through.

  5. Bushfire

    Mandate/referendum my foot. The ‘narrative’ is that the E-W link will save seats in the 2016 election.

    I hope Andrews gets several other large infrastructure thingies up and running before then.

  6. [ Mr Abbott, who is adamant the Commonwealth will only fund road and not commuter rail projects, called last year’s state election a referendum on the East West Link, having handed over $1.5 billion for the eastern section and promised a further $1.5 billion for the western section. ]

    So why are they so opposed to rail? Done right i’d think that rail is a far more efficient way of getting people around.

  7. Someone above mentioned that extreme weather events are not allowed to be associated with Climate Change.

    Get with the program!

    The new meme on the Right is that Climate Change is real and catastrophic, and that “something must be done” about it.

    It’s just that this is a catastrophe that has no consequences.

    So they can win brownie points for not denying the reality of Climate Change, while denying absolutely that anything specific comes its effects.

    They have even climate scientists cowed into submission. It’s very hard to get even one of them to attribute anything at all – be it bushfires, cyclones, droughts or whatever – directly to Climate Change.

    The go-to person on this subject seems to be Dorothea MacKellar, who told us that “droughts and flooding rains” were no particular biggy. Barnaby Joyce referred to her peer-review paper on Climate Change, titled My Country (pub. The Spectator, London 5/9/1908) only yesterday in a radio interview.

    Although born in Point Piper, NSW, to wealthy parents, Ms. MacKellar was prodigious scientific researcher, publishing her magnum opus when she was only 19, setting the scene for a brilliant career in meteorology and climate science that she carried through her life living on a farm in Gunnedah.

    Federal electorates have been named after her, she received an OBE in 1968 and there is a poetry prize for schoolchildren, the “Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Award” set up in her name by Gunnedah resident Mikie Maas.

    If anyone doubts the influence and value of Ms. Mackellar’s scientific legacy just ask yourselves one question: did Tim Flannery ever get an OBE? Is there a statue in existence of Mr “It’ll never rain again” Tim, sitting on a horse in the main street of Gunnedah? Did he live in 1908 when droughts and flooding rains were the norm, and we didn’t have any of those wanky satellites and GPS systems that can tell the level of the oceans to the millimetre? What had Mr Flannery done by the time he was 19 except cheat in his exams at Uni?

    I thought not.

  8. lizzie@2298

    victoria

    I think I have said several times that Abbott’s aggression and obsession with war and death will lead us somewhere we don’t want to go.

    He wants to do the martyrdom thing and play out his version of the earn-your-place-in-heaven delusion, etc, using us plebs as the expendable cannon fodder.

    Just like every other psychotic atavist who can’t handle modernity.

  9. imacca

    [ So why are they so opposed to rail? Done right i’d think that rail is a far more efficient way of getting people around. ]

    It is – that’s precisely the problem if your party is backed by companies that have billions of barrels of various petrochemical products that they need to dump into the market before people finally cotton onto the reality of global warming.

  10. Josh Taylor ‏@joshgnosis 6m6 minutes ago

    OAIC tells me a lot of the decision on whether I get Brandis’ metadata will be based on the @bengrubb decision.

    Well there you go, political intervention for accessing metadata, no transparency at all.

  11. Abbott has wrapped himself in the flag so much this motion on the centenary of ANZAC had me thinking straight away its a polling boost attempt to soften the budget fall.

  12. BB at 2357:
    [The go-to person on this subject seems to be Dorothea MacKellar, who told us that “droughts and flooding rains” were no particular biggy. Barnaby Joyce referred to her peer-review paper on Climate Change, titled My Country (pub. The Spectator, London 5/9/1908) only yesterday in a radio interview.]

    Interesting interpretation. Hitherto I thought the attraction of Mackellar’s sentinel work for people like Barnaby was largely solipsistic, particularly with reference to the opening 6 syllables.

  13. Its amazing to me that having not only BACKFLIPPED on his own maternity leave idea, he’s now REVERSING the existing scheme for 1000s of Australian women.

    And they were there acting like it was somehow good news.

  14. Surely this offensive parental leave stuff will be the tipping point which sends the Libs back down into the hole they were in until recently?

    My impression is that the electorate got very sick of them, they had the leadership boilover, the electorate has indulged them with another chance, but this budget will remind people of the lies and broken promises and this time there will be no forgiveness.

    If Australia votes this lot back in then the punters truly deserve what they get.

  15. lefty
    I doubt this is of Abbott’s design. This is someone else’s poor judgement. Morrison’s? Or maybe it was constructed full well knowing what light Abbott would be cast in. Either way, Abbott was either too weak to contest it, or too dim to notice it.

  16. Zarking fardwarks, I just had a flick through the Adelaide Advertiser. The Tory propaganda machine is in full flight.

    The front page trumpets how the budget will give small business a big boost.

    The analysis of the budget mostly talks about money going to sporting clubs and Hockey’s need to balance the books.

    There is a tiny mention of the parental leave stuff, which picks up the phrase “double dipping” without any comment at all.

    It’s literally just propaganda. It’s very disturbing, particularly given it’s the only newspaper in SA.

  17. It isn’t just unions and parents who are opposed to the PPL changes, but businesses themselves:

    [About 45,000 mothers a year will now only get a part-payment from Canberra, while 34,000 will miss out. Business groups cautioned that ending double-dipping would have unintended consequences.

    “It would be surprising if any business chose to wholly foot the bill instead of restructuring their program in such a way that included contributions from the Government,” WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief Deidre Willmott said.]
    https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/27825160/unions-bosses-oppose-leave-cuts/

    Less than two days after it was hailed as a good reform, it’s now a stinker with just about everyone.

  18. Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, has the dropped delight. “More than 1.7m tradies, sole operators, partnerships and a range of other unincorporated small businesses will be given a 1.5% tax cut — or equivalent deductions”

    At face value this is a ridiculous plan. First of all, small companies are likely to have resident shareholders so the tax break makes no difference at all under the dividend imputation system. If they pay less company tax then the shareholders get less imputation credits to offset their individual income tax. The timing difference if they delay paying dividends is not enough to employ anybody.

    What are “equivalent deductions” for an unincorporated small businesses and how will it be calculated? If it is 1.5% of net business income then sole traders and partnerships are far better off than small companies.

    Comment on the ABC article.
    “As a small business owner I will be interested to see what the budget really delivers.

    This government kicked small business in the gut when they came to power – for example reducing the level where items could be expensed vs depreciated.

    They have continued to do little to nothing for this sector and national initiatives which would have provided great benefit such as the NBN have been scrapped and no alternatives from their big commercial mates provided as alternatives.

    A 1.5% tax break… yeah that is nice, but it isn’t going to help me employ more people, or help me be more efficient.”

  19. DisplayName @ 2370

    The thought of Abbott being out-bastarded by Morrison induces a disturbing mix of Schadenfreude and high anxiety in me.

  20. [ Either way, Abbott was either too weak to contest it, or too dim to notice it. ]

    Or his press office has a mole in it who has on obsession with gifting cartoonists with material. 🙂

    FFS, they announced their cuts to PPL on Mothers Day And they are letting “Hard MAn” Morrison do the running on this Budget which tells you all you need to know about the quality of the strategic advice the Libs are getting.

  21. Don’t the Libs have any tame bureaucrats who can test the new PPL against various scenarios? Or perhaps Morrison, for all his disguise as a pussycat, is not heeding their advice.

  22. Apologies for the long post, but this is another example of blundering to the detriment of industry. It seems that Macfarlane is the dumbcluck in this one.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-says-no-renewable-energy-deal-if-government-keeps-reviews-20150512-ggzkns.html

    [“The industry has made it clear that new building will not proceed if there is still a two-year review process that would lead to the review starting in as little as seven months’ time.”

    Mr Butler said the industry had been blindsided by the push to reinstate reviews after the government vowed to end inquiries into the scheme as a gesture to restore certainty.

    “Why this question was put back on the table on Friday, I don’t know,” he said.

    “It is clear from statements from the industry, the solar council and the Clean Energy Council that this deal means nothing if there are still two-yearly reviews.”

    The industry dislikes regular reviews because the prospect of further changes to the target undermines its ability to attract investment for new wind and solar farms.

    Managing director of Infigen Energy, Miles George, said the decision was “anti-business, a show of support for red tape” and did “nothing but undermine investor confidence”.

    The executive manager of external affairs at Pacific Hydro, Andrew Richards, said the government had made it clear a review last year by businessman Dick Warburton would be the last.

    “This was their promise to industry, a promise now broken,” Mr Richards said.

    Government sources said the push to retain regular reviews was driven by Mr Macfarlane, who did not raise the matter until late last Thursday.

    He had not previously discussed keeping the reviews with Environment Minister Greg Hunt, and both ministers had promised in several media conferences the reviews would stop.]

  23. [I doubt this is of Abbott’s design. This is someone else’s poor judgement. Morrison’s? Or maybe it was constructed full well knowing what light Abbott would be cast in. ]

    My thinking too.

    [Either way, Abbott was either too weak to contest it, or too dim to notice it.]

    Yep, both.

  24. How much ‘infrastructure’ do you get for $150,000? A footpath?

    [Every lower house federal MP in the country is to be allocated $150,000 for investment in local infrastructure projects under a new “Stronger Communities” fund to be unveiled in the federal budget.

    The new money – $45 million over two years – will be handed out in equal proportions and awarded to projects regarded as addressing the greatest local need and likely to provide the longest term benefit to the nearby community.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/federal-budget-2015-government-to-splash-45m-for-local-infrastructure-projects-20150511-ggz3y3.html

  25. lefty e@2367

    Its amazing to me that having not only BACKFLIPPED on his own maternity leave idea, he’s now REVERSING the existing scheme for 1000s of Australian women.

    And they were there acting like it was somehow good news.

    This is the one most ridiculous thing I feel about the backflop.

    For where there are now saying “double-dipping”, they were formerly trumpeting how working mums should be getting a proportional amount of PPL, up to an amount of $150k!

  26. [Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, has the dropped delight. “More than 1.7m tradies, sole operators, partnerships and a range of other unincorporated small businesses will be given a 1.5% tax cut — or equivalent deductions”]

    Tax cuts are going to stimulate the cash economy…

  27. [Or perhaps Morrison, for all his disguise as a pussycat, is not heeding their advice.]

    How bad would it look if for the second budget in a row they’ll have to about face on key budget items? I’m sure the Senate will want a more thorough assessment of how the proposed PPL changes would work in reality.

  28. [Patrick Bateman

    Posted Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 12:35 pm | Permalink

    It’s very disturbing, particularly given it’s the only newspaper in SA.
    ]

    You’re too kind, it’s a long time since I’ve seen the Advertiser referred to as a newspaper.

    I stopped reading it years before I started traveling and living abroad.

    The only other option was the Australian which wasn’t as incestuous and feral and had stories from outside SA and even outside Australia.

    Without the Crows and Power it would have died years ago with very little morning.

    But referring to it as a newspaper …

  29. [ Treasurer Joe Hockey will get rid of another unpleasant odour emanating from last year’s effort – the six month waiting period for young people wanting to receive unemployment benefits.

    When Mr Hockey was asked about the unpopular policy earlier this morning he said: “You’ll see a changed version of that.” ]

    Interesting. That will be a toning down of one of the really unsaleable nasties from 2014 if true and if they havent got a booby trap in the detail.

  30. LU

    [Either way, Abbott was either too weak to contest it, or too dim to notice it.]

    There seems to be lots of Lib ministers wanting to be interviewed on TV at the moment. People are positioning themselves for when Tones gets knocked over by the party room.

  31. imacca

    HoJo to copy this cunning plan from Belarus ?

    [MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Under a new measure in Belarus, people who work less than half the year will have to pay the government for their idleness.

    The parliament on Wednesday passed the proposal by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, which requires work-capable people who work less than 183 days a year to pay an annual fine of $250.]
    http://news.yahoo.com/belarus-requires-idle-pay-not-working-161431886.html

  32. [ lizzie

    Posted Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 12:50 pm | Permalink

    Don’t the Libs have any tame bureaucrats who can test the new PPL against various scenarios? Or perhaps Morrison, for all his disguise as a pussycat, is not heeding their advice.
    ]

    With all the sackings and redundancies I think a more pertinent question would be;

    [DO the Libs have any CAPABLE bureaucrats LEFT who can test the new PPL against various scenarios?]

  33. I think the reason why they did this is because they can’t get their PPL policy for the rich mates, so they decided that many other women cannot have it either.

    Targeted revenge attack.

  34. [There seems to be lots of Lib ministers wanting to be interviewed on TV at the moment. People are positioning themselves for when Tones gets knocked over by the party room.]

    Conspicuous by her absence is Julie Bishop.

    If it all goes pear shaped she can say “nothing to with me, all down to Tony, Joe and Scott”

  35. Zoid

    I’ll buy that theory.

    Under Howard and Costllo mothers were lifters, the people delivering for the nation.

    now they are leaners, on a par with the unemployed.

  36. Today’s Mumble:

    [Tonight Treasurer Joe Hockey will bring down his second and probably last budget. Two instalments isn’t many, but it’s two more than his predecessor Chris Bowen delivered.

    Before Bowen, Wayne Swan presided over six, Peter Costello 12, Ralph Willis and John Dawkins two each, John Kerin one, Paul Keating eight, John Howard five and … we’ll stop there.

    This assessment of Joe’s chances of still being Treasurer next May derives from a consideration of possible developments over the next 12 months.

    First, there remains a very good chance Tony Abbott will be toppled before then. The odds of him being dragged down are no longer greater than 50 per cent for one reason: the elevated possibility that he will spring an early election to head off such a development.]
    http://m.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/mumble-scott-morrison-may-have-eyes-on-leadership-prize/story-e6frg6zo-1227351567982?login=1

  37. [I think the reason why they did this is because they can’t get their PPL policy for the rich mates, so they decided that many other women cannot have it either.

    Targeted revenge attack.]

    It’s targeted at the public service, where workers over the years have foregone wage increases in lieu of other conditions, including maternity, and more recently paternity, leave.

    These conditions were negotiated between employers and labour, and have nothing to do with the Govt.

    That the Libs seem intent on interfering with the workings of the labour market by effectively taxing those workers who take maternity leave payments, as part of their existing work arrangements, is so zarking far from their stated free-market ideology as to make my eyes water.

    No, this is an attempt to get the PS unions riled. I reckon the aim is to incite industrial action in the lead-up to the next election, which the libs can point to as “another example of union chaos and the culture of entitlement,” or some other shite.

    Division is how the Tory’s roll.

  38. I think we should be calling papers like the Advertiser sportspapers not newspapers. Herald Sun springs to mind as another contender

  39. [ Conspicuous by her absence is Julie Bishop. ]

    She will be REALLY keen on avoiding questions about aid cuts.

    And she must be a bit at least upset at how her rival Scoot is getting all the profile opportunities in the run up to the Budget although staying “small target” is probably her best option at the moment.

    Best outcome i can see for her is that Scoot gets contaminated by a Budget that flops and she rides in as the great “fixer” and alternative to Mal after Tony and JoHo get put out to pasture.

    Morrison i think is actually playing a high risk strategy by positioning himself the way he is. It seems obvious that he is being positioned as the one to “git r dun” with this Budget. Much for this Govt depends on his ability to bully things through the Senate.

    Of course if he succeeds that means Abbott will continue as leader in the mid term, but Scoot then becomes the heir apparent consigning Bishop, Mal, and JoHo to has permanent has been, never was status. Would make any change in leadership late 2015 early 16 a much easier exercise, particularly if they can then get Abbott to stand aside peacefully.

  40. LU

    [It’s targeted at the public service, where workers over the years have foregone wage increases in lieu of other conditions, including maternity, and more recently paternity, leave.]

    Exactly right.

  41. imacca

    That’s what I meant the other day by Morison got sucked in. By selling the budget over the last week his name is associated with it.

    That means fallout from damage caused by the budget will damage him too. Great for Abbott trying to nobble a possible contender.

    That leaves the weaker options of Bishop and Turnbull. By weaker I mean as challengers to unseat Abbot with his existing power bloc of climate denies which is the point of the Maurice Newman article reminding all and sundry of who they are.

Comments Page 48 of 49
1 47 48 49

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *