BludgerTrack: 52.2-47.8 to Labor

Souring attitudes towards both major parties and their leaders result in Labor maintaining its lead in the zero-sum game of two-party preferred.

It’s been an interesting week in opinion polling on a number of fronts, with the Galaxy-conducted Newspoll series making its debut in The Australian, and big shifts emerging in the first leadership ratings to have emerged in three weeks. What there hasn’t been is any particular movement in headline two-party preferred numbers, although that’s of interest in its own right given misplaced press gallery expectations that things were about to turn in favour of the Coalition. So far as the BludgerTrack aggregate is concerned, Labor’s two-party rating has increased by 0.2% compared with last week’s reading, which is not enough to have made any change on the seat projection, with a Labor gain in Queensland having been cancelled out by a loss in South Australia.

However, the real picture which emerges from the latest results is of disaffection with both major parties. On the primary vote, the Coalition has ticked below 40% for the first time since March (before rounding, at least), while Labor is at its lowest ebb since November 2013, leaving room for the Greens to reach an historic high approaching 14%. Even more remarkable is a joint slump in the standing of both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten. Their respective net approval ratings have been precisely tracking each other downwards since May, feeding into a startling reversal in the tone of media commentary concerning Abbott’s performance over the past week. The preferred prime minister trend has Shorten recovering a lead he lost at the beginning of May, albeit just barely.

The debut Galaxy-conducted Newspoll, in which the interview-administered phone polling mode of yore makes way for automated phone plus online polling from a bigger sample (1631 on this occasion, compared with around 1150 previously), has produced a satisfyingly conventional result. Compared with BludgerTrack, the poll was about a point high for Labor, a point low for the Greens, and bang on target for the Coalition. This series will not form part of the BludgerTrack voting intention equation until the model has more than one result to work with, although it does feature in the leadership ratings, for which it and Ipsos broke a fairly lengthy drought this week.

I’ve also published the detailed quarterly BludgerTrack breakdowns, for those wishing to probe primary and two-party vote trends at state level. Crikey subscribers can enjoy my analysis of the results here.

Further on the polling front:

• There were two attitudinal results from the Ipsos poll which I neglected to touch upon earlier. Fully 75% of respondents were in favour of removing citizenship from dual citizens who took part in terrorist activities, with only 21% opposed. However, it should be noted that when Essential Research made a similar finding last month, it also asked a further question which established that most would prefer the determination be made by the courts rather than a minister. The poll also found 85% for support for constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples as the first inhabitants of Australia, up from 77% two years ago.

• The Australia Institute has waded into controversies surrounding the ABC by having ReachTEL conduct polls in the electorates of North Sydney, Wentworth and Sturt, which are respectively held by Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull and Christopher Pyne. Respondents in all three electorates came out strongly against the government’s cuts to the ABC budget, with net approval ratings of minus 27.5% in Sturt, minus 27.6% in North Sydney and minus 18.5% in Wentworth. The poll even found strong majorities in favour of the rather odd proposition that the political independence of the ABC should be enshrined in the constitution. These seemed to have formed questions two and five of a longer questionnaire; Kevin Bonham is unimpressed that the other results have been withheld.

• The Northern Territory News last week reported on a poll conducted internally for the Northern Territory’s bitterly divided Country Liberal Party government, which found it at risk of losing all but one of the 13 seats it still holds in the 25-seat parliament after the recent resignation from the party of Araluen MP Robyn Lambley. The survey of 1154 respondents reportedly had Labor leading 59-41 on two-party preferred, pointing to a swing of 15%, and found many conservative voters of a mind to abandon the CLP in favour of independents. Parliamentary Speaker Kezia Purick was found to be better placed to retain her seat of Goyder if she ran as an independent, while Gerry Wood, the independent member for Nelson, was rated as the territory’s most popular politician with a net approval rating of plus 46%. Robyn Lambley was credited with a net approval rating of plus 10%, whereas Chief Minister Adam Giles and Treasurer David Tollner respectively scored minus 37% and minus 43%. Labor leader Michael Gunner was on plus 13%, and held a 16% lead over Giles as preferred chief minister. The poll also found only 18% of respondents saying the government was doing a good job, 22% saying it deserved to be re-elected, and 54% saying the territory was heading in the wrong direction.

Preselection news:

Cameron Atfield of Fairfax reports that Labor’s candidate for the seat of Brisbane is Pat O’Neill, a 34-year-old serving army major and veteran of two tours in Iraq, who if elected will become the first openly gay member of the House of Representatives. O’Neil won preselection ahead of Clayfield solicitor Philip Anthony. Brisbane is held for the Liberal National Party by Teresa Gambaro, who won the seat from Labor’s Arch Bevis in 2010. Gambaro is set to face a preselection challenge from National Retailers Association chief executive Trevor Evans, having put noses out of joint with her frequent criticism of Tony Abbott.

• A preselection held the weekend before last confirmed Sophie Mirabella as the Liberal candidate for Indi, which she lost to independent Cathy McGowan in 2013. Rob Harris of the Herald-Sun reports that Mirabella prevailed in the preselection ballot over Wodonga businessman Kevin Ekendahl by 126 votes to 66. Mirabella will also have to contend at the election with a yet-to-be-chosen candidate from the Nationals, with the Border Mail reporting local party members Marty Corboy and Bernard Gaffney are expected to nominate. There has apparently been talk in the party of the seat being contested by Steph Ryan, who won the new seat of Euroa at the November state election, although it seems she is understandably not interested.

Promotion:

• Last week I had a paywalled article on Crikey on the terrible year that opinion polling has had internationally, having progressively dropped the ball in Israel, Britain, Poland and Denmark. Since then, there has been a new entry on the list with the referendum in Greece, at which pollsters heavily underestimated the “no” vote – although in this case, Nate Silver is more sympathetic.

• Also by me in Crikey recently for subscribers only: a look at the wild inconsistency in this week’s poll results for the Greens, and the obstacles facing Tony Abbott with respect to the timing of the next 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.

3,266 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.2-47.8 to Labor”

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  1. sceptic
    Uh… disagree.
    I know the Greens don’t want to spend a dollar on Australia defence.
    Neither do the Indonesians want Australia to spend a dollar on defence.
    A bad idea.

  2. If this was Abbott on the cover, the Government would be apoplectic:

    The sooner that old bastard’s media empire is dust, the better.

  3. [sceptic

    Posted Monday, July 13, 2015 at 4:59 pm | Permalink

    BW

    Maybe the Greek Navy uses it as punishment posting?]

    Apparently Varoufakis has a possie starboard bank middle tier fourth oar aft.

  4. @BW/3201

    Meanwhile, Abbott/Coalition Party wants defense moved to overseas, with boats being built in another country.

    Meanwhile, Labor says and does nothing.

  5. @ WWP, 3190

    Labor would be smashed in a climate change election.

    Most Australians believe climate change is real and that something has to be done about it. Labor does also (though the depth of its committment can be questioned) – the Coalition does not.

    If Labor loses ground in such a campaign, it’ll be to the Greens, not the Coalition. This is acceptable.

  6. BW

    Expenditure on Iraq for rebuilding war damage is brilliant.

    First fund a war to destroy the place & create ongoing political instability
    Second fund the war to fix stability problems previously created
    Third fund the reconstruction due to second funding
    Fourt repeat all above until resolved

  7. WWP

    [Labor would be smashed in a climate change election.]

    I bow to your probably well-founded cynicism, but basing the argument on the financial effects of recent Abbottisms might be a way of using climate change to attack.

  8. [ zoidlord

    Posted Monday, July 13, 2015 at 4:44 pm | Permalink

    ABC Current Affairs ‏@amworldtodaypm 9m9 minutes ago

    Iraq receives $350m loan with IMF for reconstruction of towns taken back from IS militants http://ab.co/1fBLb35

    So IRAQ is ok to get more money + help with wars that US/Europe help to create that creates uncertainty, but Greek gets short end of the stick?
    ]

    As before – in the words of Noem Chomsky and MANY others – it’s America protecting its *strategic assets* :

    “Its all about OIL, stupid”

  9. Tony apparently done good (well, his staff did).

    [The elders also took their problems to national television, when Martu elders Kumpaya Girgiba and Wokka Taylor appeared on ABC TV program Q&A with singer Antony Hegarty.

    On Monday, the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, Anthony Bevan, announced that special administrators had been appointed until January 15 next year to “resolve the challenges” facing the corporation.

    The announcement by Mr Bevan, whose organisation is part of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, comes almost exactly 12 months after Mr Abbott was sent the letters.

    Mr Bevan said in a statement that an examination of WDLAC by his office had uncovered “some deficiencies in its governance and financial performance since 1 July 2013”.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/plea-to-tony-abbott-for-help-pays-off-for-aboriginal-elders-20150713-gib6ib.html#ixzz3fkkuXsTr

  10. Sorry about all the posts.

    I am having issues with my iPad !

    Anyway, I would hate to be in the trenches with a few posters here. They would be the first to run away at the first sign of the enemy.

    One ordinary poll and all sorts of shit is being thrown around.

    Toughen up.

    Even if there has been a negative reaction to the last two weeks against labor (yet to be established BTW) who cares.

    Labor will bounce back if that is the case and people need to relax and stop jumping at shadows or perhaps it is just their dislike of all things Shorten showing through

    Cheers.
    .

  11. @ Doyley, 3218

    Labor will bounce back if that is the case and people need to relax and stop jumping at shadows or perhaps it is just their dislike of all things Shorten showing through

    I don’t like Shorten, but even I think this is a damp squib. The people most likely to react negatively to it are the people who would be voting Liberal anyway.

  12. sceptic
    loved this sentence:

    [Due to trireme’s frequent use when she was transported in Britain in 1993, in order to participate in events about the 2,500 years since the beginning of Democracy and the way the trireme was designed and constructed, several damages were caused to her craft.]

  13. Labor could only fight a climate change election on going back to the old gillard one or not having a price at all. They cannot go in a campaign on climate change not knowing what it will do exactly.

    If the Morgan was 56 to labor we would all be ignoring it completely, especially the clowns who think on its own it says anything useful about anything.

  14. [zoidlord

    Posted Monday, July 13, 2015 at 5:00 pm | Permalink

    @BW/3196

    Typical goal posts being moved, BW.]

    Heyyyyyyyyyy maaaaaaaaaaaaaate
    I don’t shift the goal posts. I shift the whole damn oval!

  15. @ WWP, 3221

    Labor could only fight a climate change election on going back to the old gillard one or not having a price at all. They cannot go in a campaign on climate change not knowing what it will do exactly.

    Campaign to the effect of:

    “You believe climate change is real and something should be done about it. We believe climate change is real and something should be done about it. Tony Abbott doesn’t. Remember that when you vote.”

  16. The Greek deal still has to be passed by the Greek parliament and several EU parliaments (one of which is Finland, where the second-largest party has threatened to bring down the government if the Greeks get any more money).

    I still rate it good odds of going tits-up.

  17. Boerwar

    [ Well, there are two bummers in one day: the Greeks cut a deal AND Morgan 51/49. ]

    The Greeks have cut deals before. Never lived up to any of them. We’ll be back here talking about Grexit in a few years, maybe even less.

  18. If we do get or deserve another 3 years of abbott, I can confidently sat that the NBN will be dead, buried and cremated.

  19. @ Peter of Marino, 3232

    If we do get or deserve another 3 years of abbott, I can confidently sat that the NBN will be dead, buried and cremated.

    It already is.

  20. [“You believe climate change is real and something should be done about it. We believe climate change is real and something should be done about it. Tony Abbott doesn’t. Remember that when you vote.”]

    My ‘response’ from both the greens and Abbott:

    [if they really believed something should be done and are ready to take office they’d be able to tells us what they were going to do …]

    Libs [we’ve seen before the ALP put into place a massive totally ineffective price on carbon, 10x bigger than anywhere else in the world – they will do it again]

    Greens [we’ve seen this before they say it is the greatest moral challenge of all time then in government they remove they are owned by the coal industry and look to libs, any scheme will be worse than no scheme at all – they will squib it again]

  21. Pro-forma reply from my local member…. Turnbull, I asked what happened to the Turnbull in Spycatcher.

    “I was scheduled to appear on Q&A today 13 July but had earlier in the previous week advised the ABC that my appearance was conditional on the Prime Minister’s ban being lifted before 13 July. I was hopeful that it would be lifted, but as it turned out it was not.”

    Sounds like Mal isn’t impressed with Tony.
    Mal seems to have the financial resources to reply to disgruntled local constituents.

  22. [Well, there are two bummers in one day: the Greeks cut a deal AND Morgan 51/49. ]

    The latter issue will correct itself fairly quickly 🙂

  23. WWP

    I’m sure Labor has – or is very close to having – a policy on climate change. If an election was called in a couple of months, they’d definitely have one.

    Not releasing a policy and having a policy are two different things; were a DD called, Labor would have a plan to lay on the table.

  24. So in this climate change election after the greens start talking about shutting down all fossil fuels immediately how does labor answer the question “you will almost certainly need green support in the senate which of their crazy government destroying ideas will you accept and which will you fight and how will you fight it?

  25. kakuru

    If one is Malcolm Turnbull, one doesn’t get into unseemly brawls. One waits until one’s leadership is brought to one.

  26. [Not releasing a policy and having a policy are two different things; were a DD called, Labor would have a plan to lay on the table.]

    Well I hope it is detailed and they are well prepared.

  27. zoomster@3245

    If one is Malcolm Turnbull, one doesn’t get into unseemly brawls. One waits until one’s leadership is brought to one.

    Tell that to Brendon Nelson.

    Turnbull’s balls are in abbott’s pocket.

  28. IR I get labor should make it an IR / jobs / kitchen table election – climate change is a massive weakness that will face attack from both sides. They should also have a strong tax / super / economic package that will face attack from both sides (although you never know if the greens will come from the left or the right).

  29. Arrnea Stormbringer @ 3234

    [If we do get or deserve another 3 years of abbott, I can confidently sat that the NBN will be dead, buried and cremated.

    It already is.]

    I have heard from reliable sources that the engineering and implementation of the Turnbull Armoires (FTTN) are being purposefully slowed in anticipation of a Labor government.These boxes would be a high maintenance disaster and anyone in IT would agree. We live in hope !:)

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