BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor

Only slight movement on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week, but it’s enough to put Labor back into majority government territory on the seat projection.

Later than usual on this one because the only pollster to report this week, Essential Research, moved its schedule back a day because of the public holiday. Essential’s voting intention numbers, which you can see detailed below, are characteristically stable, and the movements in the leadership ratings are almost perfectly on trend. As such, the only movement to report is a 0.3% shift to Labor on two-party preferred. However, this has had more impact on the seat projection than you might have thought, since several states are currently on the precipice of one result or another. Labor is accordingly up a seat in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, returning it to majority government territory.

Also:

• The aforesaid Essential Research poll showed Labor leading 52-48 for the fifth successive week. Primary votes were 41% for the Coalition (steady), 40% for Labor (steady), 9% for the Greens (down one) and 1% for Palmer United (steady). Also featured were Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, providing yet another improvement for Tony Abbott with approval up three to 39% and disapproval down four to 50%, while Bill Shorten was respectively steady on 32% and up four to 45%. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister was 38-33, up from 35-32 a month ago.

• The poll also found remarkably strong support for revoking citizenship on grounds of terrorism, although this is clearly a case where question design has a lot to do with the response that is elicited. The headline findings of 81% approval and 9% disapproval in the case of dual nationals, and 73% approval and 13% disapproval in the case of sole nationals, presupposed that the suspect was guilty as charged. A follow-up question allowed respondents to choose between a court of law and a government minister in making the determination, with 54% favouring the former and 24% favouring the latter.

• The Mercury had a Tasmanian state ReachTEL poll on the weekend, which I didn’t write up because it was barely a week since the EMRS poll. It was a strong result for the Hodgman government, putting the Liberals on 48.5%, Labor on 29.9% and the Greens on 15.8%, compared with March 2014 election results of 51.2%, 27.3% and 13.8%. ReachTEL’s result helpfully features breakdowns by electorate. The poll was conducted last Thursday from a big sample of 2646.

• Heath Aston of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that former NSW Premier Morris Iemma has “told Labor Party players in south-west Sydney that he will contest preselection for Barton”, and that “his name is also in the mix for the neighbouring seat of Banks”. Both seats were lost by Labor at the 2013 federal election, and there were suggestions Iemma might run in Barton as early as 2011. Others named as contenders for Barton are Rockdale mayor Shane O’Brien, Electrical Trades Union organiser Mark Buttigieg and Hurstville councillor Brent Thomas. Thomas is also named as a possible starter in Banks, together with Jason Yat-Sen Li, a high-profile figure in the Chinese community who ran for Labor in Bennelong in 2013 and as the lead Senate candidate of the Unity party in 1998.

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.

2,419 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor”

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  2. [Presumably the ACL couple will not cite irreconcilable differences as the reason for divorce]

    Except maybe with intelligence and logic.

  4. Re Bill Shorten having ‘questions to answer’: after 15 months of the Trade Union Witchhunt and tens of millions of dollars, this is the worst they could find? Vague allegations that someone in the same union as Bill Shorten might or might not have illegally done something illegal? Surely a colossal waste in a time of ‘Budget Emergency’. Imagine the uproar if a Labor Government did this?

  6. Sailing to be outlawed as Tony Abbott maintains his fevered opposition to wind power.

    Rumours flying that the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race to become a Coal Barge Race instead.

  7. 102

    They could possibly argue that they have an irreconcilable difference with the institution of legislatively endorsed marriage, but they will probably have to wait a year of separation before they can be married.

    They could also try a section 116 challenge to not being allowed to divorce on religious grounds.

  8. Julie Bishop, redefining ‘humanitarian aid’.

    [Australia will begin to count the costs of its military and police deployments in humanitarian disasters and UN peacekeeping operations as part of its overseas aid spend, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says.

    The new reporting system will be modelled on the United States’ “green book”, which tallies all forms of US assistance given to other countries, including economic aid and “military assistance”.

    “It’s vital in foreign policy terms that Australia receives appropriate credit for our support to other nations and that the true extent of our contribution is understood at home and abroad,” Ms Bishop said in a speech at the Lowy Institute on Thursday.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/foreign-minister-julie-bishop-military-deployments-and-peacekeeping-to-count-as-foreign-aid-20150611-ghl8xs

  9. [85
    BK

    Why do the MSM give these obvious nutters oxygen?]

    The nutters at least get to choose whether to marry or not. No-one is going to compel them or refuse them either way.

  11. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/11/rosie-batty-calls-for-royal-commission-into-family-courts-treatment-of-domestic-violence-survivors

    [She spoke of survivors being treated badly and the need for specialised training within the family law court system.

    “There is a total disregard or a total ignorance of family violence being an issue,” she said. “You’re viewed in court as likely to be lying to manipulate the system.”

    She said there is a view with the court system that women victims particularly “coach” their children into “greater fear and anxiety”.]

  21. mikehilliard
    [I find Abbott in lycra far more visually offensive than a wind farm.]

    Fixed

    I find Abbott in lycra visually offensive .

  23. mike h

    He’s not ill-informed. He just runs all facts through a CC-denier sieve, mixes in some anti-Labor powder, and throws it over everyone. He’s another one who likes to hold the floor.

  25. When we see the cartoonists portray Abbott in rainbow coloured budgie smugglers, you know the swing to SSM is on!

  28. lizzie @ 105

    I turned the Drum off as soon as I heard that !@#$%#@$@$@$ was on. My life is too short to have my brain assaulted by someone trying to prove what a complete and utter dickhead you can be and still have a pulse.

  32. Union fees deducted from a worker’s pay is a completely different issue to a Company paying the, fees directly, with no deduction from an employee’s wages and employees not being asked if they want to be members or even know they are supposedly members.

    The second scenario is clearly a form of corruption – both buying off the Union and increasing Union numbers which positively inflates Union membership numbers that gives the Union more votes in ALP politics.

  33. Why didn’t someone ask Christopher Pyne to list the questions that Bill Shorten ‘needs to answer’.

    Pathetic effort from Leigh Sales and the 7:30 team on this occasion.

  35. I put Rowan Dean in the same boat as Bolt, Jones, Hadley, Akerman, Divine & all the RWNJ, I simply turn of the tv/radio etc if they appear.

    Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a left wing shock jock?

  36. GG – I work for a Global Construction Company. Not sure they’d give a tinker’s cuss what you want me to tell them.

  38. A simple, straight forward question for Bill Shorten – did he ever negotiate and agree,net where a company paid Union Fees directly with out them being deducted from employee wages?

  41. cc,

    Labor eat Global Construction Companies for dessert.

    Please tell your other masters of the LNP to take Labor on over IR. We’re waiting and all our lines are open.

  42. Abbott’s silly remarks about wind farms have drawn ridicule and disdain, and deservedly so.

    He really shouldn’t go on 2GB. Playing to his base just alienates the mainstream voters.

  43. CE:

    Jon Faine
    Most ABC/SBS & JJJ Opinion/Announcers
    Adams
    Most of Fairfax
    Van Badham and the Fright Bata
    I could go on but I’d be here all night.

  44. Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a left wing shock jock?

    The only identifiably ‘left’ figure on radio that I can think of is Phillip Adams, but he is far too urbane and soft-spoken to be a ‘shock jock’. Bob Ellis might be a left wing shock jock if he were to be given a shift on radio.

  45. Rex,

    Your attempt at humour is as funny as getting an open fracture of the fingers from slamming fingers in a car door.

    No – not happy, Jan – but that’s the hand dealt by the imbeciles in the Senate Cross Benches.

  46. Fess

    I watched the Project tonight and this was funny

    [Cameron Wheatley
    Cameron Wheatley – ‏@Cam_Wheatley

    Massive LOLs. Gretel Killeen on #TheProjectTV “Is a child-hood mini golf incident the reason Abbott hates wind turbines so much?” #Auspol
    2:10 AM – 11 Jun 2015
    17 RETWEETS30 FAVORITES]

  47. GG – can’t say I’ve talked to anyone in the LNP apart from incidental socialisation for at least three years – and like they’d give a tinker’s cuss what you think.

  48. Crank

    Did Abbott ever give a straight answer to his daughter getting that scholarship?

    Did he ever answer all those not so insignificant issues to do with claiming perks for various charity runs/peddles?

    Did he knock someone up & dump them?

    Did he punch walls!

    I could go on but I’d be here all night.

  49. Despite the fact that there is actually a ROYAL COMMISSION (under the hand of a retired High Court Judge, no less) Leigh Sell-out demanded to know why Bill Shorten and Mark Butler were not going to provide a running commentary.

    Meanwhile, Captain Chaos and his merry band of clown shoes can say ‘I’m not going to provide a running commentary’ on every political issue they are embarrassed about (until they work out what to say or are being fed their lines by Alan Jones or Ray Hadley) and every supposedly legitimate journalist says “Oh, sorry Prime Minister. Nobody told me that question about economic management or housing affordability or the framing of Peter Slipper was out of bounds. Please don’t cut me out of the information feed from your spin merchants. Please.”

    Every day my opinion of the profession that passes as journalism gets lower and lower. At the moment it is about equal to Nigerian fraudsters.

  50. Steve777

    PA the nearest I could think of but ‘shock jock’ and PA in the same sentence will never fly. I’m a poddy and before that a gladdie by the way.

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