BludgerTrack: 52.2-47.8 to Labor

Very little doing on the polling front in the week before the budget, except for one further piece of evidence that Tony Abbott’s personal standing is on the mend.

This week’s reading of BludgerTrack comes in 0.4% higher for Labor on two-party preferred than last weeks, but 0.3% of that shift is down to an overdue recalibration of pollster bias adjustments based on observation of recent state election results, which I’ll hopefully find time to discuss in more detail next week. The column on the sidebar showing change on last week reflects the result of the model as recalibrated, and not what was actually published. As such, it provides an accurate reflection of the impact of the one poll to be published in this week’s pre-budget lull, namely a result from Essential Research that was very slightly better for Labor than it looked. The seat projection has Labor two higher than the published result from last week, accounting for one seat in Queensland and one in South Australia. The recalibration has no bearing on the leadership results, for which Essential Research this week provided some extra data. This confirmed Tony Abbott’s very narrow lead as preferred prime minister, while perhaps suggesting a levelling off in the recent decline in Bill Shorten’s net approval rating.

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.

371 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.2-47.8 to Labor”

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  2. [“Note, forgone tax revenue….”]

    Tony Jones also incorrectly stated that the Government was “giving” these people money when clearly that isn’t the case.

    BTW if this is the best the left can do to attack the budget… support double dipper mums on $150K getting taxpayer PPL cherry on the top and that small businesses are getting too much tax reductions to invest in their business… well Shortens goose is cooked.

    Best budget based on real numbers since the last Costello budget I reckon.

  4. When True Breivik Aussie pulls the Get Shorten card, and goes ad hominem on Jones and the Traitorous Socialist Running Dogs Criticising Dear Leader Rupert’s Thoughts BC, within minutes of each other, at least we know that the IPA Junior Lackey Club members are worried about their entitlements.

  5. Victoria

    I’ve been wanting to see the Sales/Hockey encounter from last night. Do you know if it has been linked here?

  7. [ TrueBlueAussie
    Posted Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 9:09 am | Permalink

    BTW if this is the best the left can do to attack the budget ]

    Try Kohler then in detail –

    [The budget’s dirty little secret

    Yesterday’s budget was pretty lame, that’s for sure, dealing with neither the weak economy nor the structural deficit, mainly shuffling a few billion dollars from one set of welfare recipients to another.

    The Government seems to have been paralysed by the impossibility of tackling both the structural deficit and the weak economy.

    Best to do nothing at all and leave both jobs to the Reserve Bank. That is, assume that monetary policy fixes the economy and that brings down the deficit.

    Big assumption, and anyway you can do both. This morning’s column explains how.

    First, a look at the problem.

    The 2014 budget contained a discussion of the structural budget balance that contained a graph from Treasury. This year, it was tastefully removed, perhaps because it has got worse.

    The only reference to the word “structural” in the 2015 budget is that: “The 2015 IGR shows that structural savings measures already implemented by the Government are projected to make a significant contribution towards achieving fiscal sustainability over the longer term.”

    Yes, except that much of the savings are stuck in the Senate and there is no sign that they will become unstuck, including measures that the Government has not yet quietly strangled, such as the cuts to Family Tax Benefit B and the higher education reforms.

    And remember the $80 billion in cuts in payments to the states over 10 years? They’re still there – totally unmentioned this year, but counted.

    In his budget speech last night, Treasurer Joe Hockey said:

    “…over the same period (the four year forward estimates) we are reducing the size of government as a share of the economy.”
    No they’re not. Well, OK, it will be down from 25.9 to 25.3 per cent of GDP.

    By the way, those figures are not necessarily bad — in fact Australia’s government sector is among the smallest as a share of GDP in the world.

    It’s just that tax receipts are insufficient to pay for it, resulting in the structural deficit (not mentioned this year).

    Joe Hockey also said in his budget speech last night: “But we cannot tax our way to prosperity”.

    Well, actually, tax receipts are up to 24 per cent of GDP in this budget, compared to an average of 22.4 per cent during the Labor Government.

    The dirty little secret of this budget is fiscal drag — where wage inflation moves taxpayers into higher brackets. That’s why the deficit is falling — not because of spending cuts.

    Australia also has an infrastructure deficit, as well as a weak domestic economy, partly caused by the poor state of the nation’s infrastructure.

    ….In his election policy in 2013, Tony Abbott said: “If elected, I want to be known as an infrastructure prime minister. But I won’t be all talk and no action like Kevin Rudd.”

    Yes you will. The Abbott Government’s efforts on infrastructure have been truly pathetic, especially with the 10-year bond rate at 3 per cent, which means the payback on any public infrastructure that is paid for by Government borrowing, is the shortest it has ever been.

    …. There is a table on page 3-25 of the budget papers, which is there every year, that reconciles the “underlying cash balance” — that’s the $35.1bn number that the Government has announced as next year’s deficit — with what’s called the “headline cash balance”.

    The headline cash balance for 2015-16 is $44.76bn, $11.6bn more than the underlying cash balance]

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/5/13/federal-budget/budgets-dirty-little-secret

  12. [victoria
    Posted Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 8:53 am | PERMALINK
    fess

    No doubt this govt is now attempting to stimulate the economy. This is the same mob who said that the GFC didnt even occur. I really dislike this mob]

    Yes. In that respect the $20000 handout to small business is very similar to Rudd’s $900 cheques that the Liberals are still criticising to this day. They are a hypocritical bunch of arseholes.

  14. The instant tax write off is a loan to small business, not a gift. A zero interest loan, but still a loan. They would have still been able to claim the costs as a tax deduction, but as depreciation over subsequent years. Off coarse there will be some businesses that go bust and never pay tax again.

  15. Darn

    And we dont even have a GFC now. So what is their bloody excuse considering they have been banging in about debt and deficit for years and ending the age of entitlement, you really cannot take them seriously. They are a complete and utter joke and need to be kicked out on their ears

  17. Roger Miller

    My understanding is that business can spend $20,000 now and claim the lot at tax time in July. It will be a quick turnaround which is quite unprecedented. You have to ask why? Obvious answer is that the retail sector is dying on its bum at the moment and it needs stimulating

  18. Pedant alert

    [appropriate to be reigning (sic) in the costs] from The Guardian.

    This is about the fifth time I have seen this mistake printed, in various papers, over the last few days.
    You rein in a horse, you don’t reign it in.

  19. [“The instant tax write off is a loan to small business, not a gift. “]

    No it isn’t.

    A loan is something you have to pay back to the lender.

    And it’s not a gift either, a small business must spend their own money to purchase the Asset.

    It is a way however of reducing your tax for investing into your own business. This will help stimulate the economy.

    Personally I’m rushing out and buying a new car to help dent my tax payable for the year.

  20. Listening to Joe Hockey on ABC radio this morning it struck me that the nation is like a battered wife under their government.

    I heard apologies for getting the last Budget wrong, but at the same time I heard that, if we were honest, we’s have to admit we deserved it.

    I heard Hockey blame everyone but himself. There was Labor, there were rorting mothers, old people, dodgy figures from an allegedly fellow-travelling Treasury, and evil foreign companies who dodged their tax. But mostly Labor. You got the idea that it was almost inevitable that we had to be disciplined.

    Michael Brissenden didn’t ask Joe why, if they got last year’s Budget so wrong, they were bragging all throughout their period in opposition that they were ready to govern at a heartbeat’s notice. These were the grownups, according to themselves, yet they buggered the first 18 months so badly they are now admitting they were learning on the job.

    Joe was back to his usual cocksure self, blithely lying about everything, explaining away the waste and mismanagement of the economy as if it was all part of some master plan he had thought up himself. The idea of “Bait and Switch” crossed my mind. Gee, we dodged a bullet when we ducked the last Budget. We’d better cop this one sweet or things will go badly for us.

    Gerry Harvey is pretty happy. He reckons this Budget could have been written by a committee of retailers. There’s probably more truth in that than Gerry is prepared to concede. And I don’t mind stimulus action in a crisis of confidence. God knows we need some optimism.

    But why did Hockey himself pooh-pooh stimulus so comprehensively when we had a real crisis on our hands, the GFC, back in 2008-2009? He knew that if the government panicked and told the unvarnished truth about how close we were to the edge, that would have been enough to take us over it.

    Instead Labor worked as quietly as they could, within reason, shoring up the banks, getting cash into the hands of consumers (it didn’t really matter whether it went on smokes, booze and pokies, or batts or school halls later… as long as it got out there). The key was to look like there was a plan, and that the government was sure the plan would work. And speed. They had to do it quickly before the nation had a chance to contemplate just how bad things were. There were no grave announcements that the country was broke, or about to go into recession from Labor. Why should they bother? Joe and his pals, always looking for trash to talk, performed that function.

    Now that “Have-a-go” Joe is doing it himself, splurging money on tradies and small businesses at least, profligacy and debt is suddenly a Good Thing. Sure, he’s borrowing the money the do it, but he can blame Labor for that. And isn’t it lucky that the debt ceiling – long the boogey-man inside Joe’s head while Labor was in power, was changed to “unlimited”, so he could spend the dollars he borrowed on baubles?

    You get tired of journos not asking the right questions. They don’t have to be a Leigh Sales-style rant, or a shouting match. Just a few quiet questions outside the formula envelope of government spin would be nice. Brissenden tried a few tame, routine gotchas, but gotchas never corner Joe Hockey. He just lies his way out of any trouble with that insouciant tone of voice he puts on. And if you keep giving him trouble, he has that nasty smile in reserve. The Tories really DO shoot prisoners, and journos know it.

    So the battered wife, Australia, has to knuckle down and keep up with the ironing, while the government uses the nation as an experimental laboratory for its wacky ideas. It expects its dinner on the table every night at 6pm. It expects forgiveness and forgetfulness. And it reserves the right to turn nasty again if we don’t comply with instructions. Worst of all, it expects thanks that they didn’t go in as hard as they could have if they really wanted to do some harm. The cycle is endless, and relentless.

    The calibre-rich women of six months ago are now pariahs, double-dipping and rorting to their heart’s content. The herded 2GB obsessed pensioners who voted for Joe et al are too old. That’ll have to stop. Industry… manufacturing… who needs them? Alternative Energy is just a Lefty vehicle for world government. Even wind farms are ugly and dangerous, according to Joe. Education is a privilege, not a right. Schools and universities are only there for networking, aren’t they? Learning is for losers. As for the rest… whatever Rupert and the IPA said. They’re practically the same thing anyway.

    The box of chocolates Joe has brought home to the little lady, to soothe the bruises and the fear, will last about 6 months. Tradies can only buy so many sets of mag wheels for their souped-up utes, after all. Meanwhile we can put up with a sub-standard internet, a contraction in education and health spending, the death of the alternative energy industry, and tightening pensions.

    Joe’s fake contrition and easy denials should be enough to get us over the election hump.

    Then they can start f*cking us again, and it’ll be just like old times.

  21. TBA

    [support double dipper mums on $150K…]

    Sigh. We corrected you on this last night.

    It was the Liberal party who designed their PPL around mothers on $150k, which you were perfectly happy to defend at the time.

    The present policy penalises any mother who earns just above the minimum wage (and there are relatively few people who are paid that).

    Apparently most mothers who claim employer benefits (ones they get as the result of negotiated workplace agreements, something the Liberals supposedly support) earn less than $75k, so half of your claim.

    You are mixing up Liberal and Labor policies, and whilst it’s refreshing to see you (by implication) criticising the Libs for a change, you shouldn’t keep repeating errors once they’ve been pointed out.

  22. [The length of the delay in my treatment was conditioned by the state of hospital funding and staffing and ultimately the priority that governments give to health. At this moment, our government would rather spend our taxes on locking up refugees, prisons and policing, stupendously expensive “defence” equipment, celebrating wars and special grants for people who argue that climate change is not a big deal.

    Their fundamental purpose is ensuring that healthy profits can be made by business. Hence their priority of not upsetting the wealthy or corporations by taxing them too much or, in some cases, at all. So public spending on lower priorities, like health have to be “kept under control”.]

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/13/reflections-on-budget-cuts-to-australias-health-system-from-my-hospital-bed

  23. I see Brandis’ big contribution to the Arts portfolio is to reduce its arms length transparency and accountability, and allow him to hand out personal favours.

  24. [And isn’t it lucky that the debt ceiling – long the boogey-man inside Joe’s head while Labor was in power, was changed to “unlimited”, so he could spend the dollars he borrowed on baubles?]

    Yes. We can thank the greens for that (and I say that as someone who has some regard for the greens). That ceiling would have been very handy right now to expose this mob for the economic wreckers and hypocrites they really are.

    I still don’t understand why the greens would have done that.

  25. [ Apparently most mothers who claim employer benefits (ones they get as the result of negotiated workplace agreements, something the Liberals supposedly support) earn less than $75k, so half of your claim. ]

    Modestly paid Bank employees is one example.

  26. According to Guardian commentary, Joe is in an irritable mood this morning. Perhaps he’s upset because the serfs aren’t grateful for his generosity?

  27. Regarding the ModLib is a troll discussion last night ….

    1) She says she is a medical doctor, therefore she is presumably very intelligent.

    2) It follows that she can read and write and listen etc with good skill and ability.

    3) She said Frydenberg did a great interview with Jones.

    4) Many here this morning, (including some who told ModLib that she wasn’t a troll last night) have described Frydenberg’s interview as very poor indeed. The link by Victoria certainly shows that F talked much crap.

    5) In the face of F’s performance, especially the interchange about the maths of it all, what word would best describe an intelligent someone who claims against all objective evidence that F did very well?

    I think the word begins with “t”.

  33. the whole PPL shift is probably typical of politicians today.

    When they are not cocooned in Canberra they are back in their electorates where most of their contact probably is with like minded people, who would never tell them that the latest idea was just plain dumb

    Do they ever venture out and meet real people. Young women who are wrestling with the idea if starting a family and wondering if it can be afforded.

    Not grown up young Liberals or the sons and daughters of branch members and party donors who have never known the joy of looking at the bills and wondering which one to pay first and which one can be stalled for a week or two.

    Real working people who might be lucky and have a PPL scheme in their employment agreement only to be told that if they claim that as well as the Government money they are some sort of cheat.

    The Tories do have a problem with women. First they were told to stay in the kitchen and keep on with the ironing. Now that are being told to get back to work and by the way they are criminals for accessing legally provided benefits.

  38. [69
    TrueBlueAussie

    “The instant tax write off is a loan to small business, not a gift. ”

    No it isn’t.]

    Capital expenditure is already fully deductible, but not in one year. The give-away simply brings forward the deductions, telescoping a series of deductions into one year. It changes their timing but not the final amount. This may influence businesses to bring their spending forward and that would be a good thing if it improves productivity.

    Anything that improves the capital or labour productivity of firms is a good thing, and we sure lack investment in the economy. However, the amount involved in this concession is trivial in the scheme of things and is not likely to make enough of a difference to incomes, employment and GDP to even register in the national accounts. There has been much more than $1 trillion spent in resources in the last decade. This is all receding very rapidly now. The amount earmarked for this concession – $5.5 billion over two years – will not even begin to make up the decline in engineering, construction and manufacturing investment. Considering the LNP trashed the auto industry to avoid spending $500 million it’s obvious they have no coherent investment policy at all.

    For mine, the $20k is likely to turn out to be simply gesture economics and yet another example of how to waste taxpayer dollars. It makes spending on Pink Batts positively brilliant.

    There are much smarter and more effective ways to use the tax system to drive new concentrations of capital in sectors that will generate high future returns and new jobs.

  41. [The instant tax write off is a loan to small business, not a gift. A zero interest loan, but still a loan.]

    That’s spot on, Roger.

    You get the full deduction on your spend this year (the principle) and pay back the instalments in subsequent years by not claiming a deduction then.

    It will bring some purchases forward, and maybe goad some others into purchasing when they otherwise wouldn’t have at all.

    More broadly, I’m smelling fear. I reckon the Govt have been given warning from the RBA and Treasury that an almighty crunch is coming, and that they should have the pump primed and ready, or wear double-digit unemployment and a technical recession.

    The PPL bullshit is only about maintaining the tough-guy facade.

  43. Suddenly Barnaby is talking sensibly. Johnny Depp’s dogs should not have been smuggled into Oz with no quarantine clearance. Stupid media report them as poodles and present a pic of a silky terrier.

  44. Shorten is giving some group a good idea of what his budget in reply speech will be about. He will be saying plenty by the look of it.

  45. LU

    I suspect the tactical geniuses in the government thought that in the hype around Morrisons you-beaut child care package, launched with great fanfare in the Murdoch press on Sunday, the changes to PPL would slip under the radar.

    Not even a good try.

    Has anybody talked about Morrisons grand plan at all in the last two days?

  46. Methinks the Libs think that domestic violence is a passing fad. Watch here as Turnbull, skilfully articulates the problem and implores everyone to get on board towards changing attitudes.

    The problem is the Government is not walking the talk as to providing funding. As the commentator notes at the end “We (as in the media) have the megaphone. You (the Government) have the money”.

    http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/waleed-aly-confronts-malcolm-turnbull-over-domestic-violence-on-the-project-20150514-gh16qz.html

  47. [70
    Bushfire Bill

    But why did Hockey himself pooh-pooh stimulus so comprehensively when we had a real crisis on our hands, the GFC, back in 2008-2009? He knew that if the government panicked and told the unvarnished truth about how close we were to the edge, that would have been enough to take us over it.]

    We do have a crisis – a long, slow, intractable crisis.

    There is just about no income growth in this economy in real per capita terms. Just sfa. In the domestic economy, it’s been this way more than decade. This is directly attributable to persistent, endemic, self-defeating under-investment over many years, stretching right back to the defeat of the Keating Government.

    Even as domestic income growth has stagnated, system-wide debts have continued to accumulate. While interest rates have fallen to all-time lows, debt service demands in both the private and public sectors have been gradually rising and are now, once again, at levels consistent with recessionary conditions.

    This reflects a completely destructive national obsession with land speculation. By turn, endless cycles of speculation in land values have retarded productivity gains, real disposable income growth, job growth and real investment, which feeds further stagnation in income, employment and investment…and so on.

    There are only two ways this can end. If the debt service burden becomes too great (as debt swells or monetary conditions tighten or both) then repression in the real economy will ensue. This is by far the most likely outcome. Or we can re-boot investment in the new economy, lift income growth, expand employment and lift national savings all at the same time, and then begin to reduce the share of the economy required to service our LNP-generated debt burden. The chances of this happening are less than one-in-ten.

    On the subject of monetary conditions, the AUD is on a tear again. The revaluation has effectively nullified the effects of the last two rate cuts by the RBA on competitiveness in the domestic economy. This is bad for jobs and for investment and for future income growth.

  48. Budget.. so… confusing.. I think I finally understand though:

    * Small business tax write-off. Coalition opposed when Labor introduced $6500 measure. Coalition scraps $6500 measure when in Government. Coalition introduces $20,000 measure when in Government.

    * PPL: Coalition opposed when Labor introduces $11,000 measure. Coalition promises $75,000 measure when in opposition. Coalition promises $75,000 measure when in Government. Coalition reduces promise to $50,000 later when in Government. Coalition subsequently scraps $50,000 measure, cuts eligibility for $11,000 measure.

    * FBT exemptions: Coalition opposes Labor reductions to FBT exemptions for private car purchases. Coalition scraps FBT changes when in Government. Government instead reduces FBT exemptions for employees of charities.

    * Deficit: $18Bn deficit under Labor is a “Budget Emergency”. $35bn deficit under Coalition is “credible path to surplus” and “beating market expectations”.

    The Coalition budget narrative has more twists than a box-set of M Night Shyamalan movies.

  49. rossmcg,

    The “Morrison Titanic” has hit an iceberg and sinking fast. In a bizarre twist on the history, only the women and children are being left behind to go down with the ship.

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