BludgerTrack: 52.4-47.6 to Labor

Ongoing government troubles prompt a third move in Labor’s favour in successive weeks on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, as preselection jockeying gets started in the seats of Mackellar and Canning.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate has, almost, moved half a point in Labor’s favour for the third week in a row, the exact two-party movement on this occasion being 0.4%. This was the result of two new polls this week, one from ReachTEL and the other the regular weekly Essential Research result. Newspoll was silent this week because, social media conspiracy theorising aside, it’s the practice of The Australian to have its polls coincide with the resumption of parliament, which means next week rather than this week. Whereas last week’s movement caused four seats to tip Labor’s way on the projection, this time there is but the one, that being in Victoria.

Nothing new this week on leadership ratings, but a fair bit to report on preselection:

• The future of the plum Liberal seat of Mackellar on Sydney’s northern beaches is a hot topic following Bronwyn Bishop’s resignation as Speaker. The West Australian reports that Bishop is “under internal pressure to quit parliament immediately”, but the 72-year-old Bishop says she’s set on another term. However, the crude fact that her pension will erode the longer she is on a back-bench salary makes this a doubtful proposition. It had long been thought that her successor might be her chief-of-staff, Damien Jones, who is a member of the party’s state executive, husband of state upper house MP Natasha Maclaren-Jones and, according to James Robertson of the Sydney Morning Herald, Bishop’s “local numbers man”. However, The Australian (paywalled) reports that Jones is “seen as ‘damaged goods’”, since it was he who booked Bishop’s infamous $5227 helicopter flight to Geelong – a view expressed by Tom Switzer, a former opinion page editor of The Australian and past preselection aspirant who is ruling himself out on this occasion. Others who have been speculatively named without ruling themselves out include Julian Leeser, a former Menzies Research Centre head currently working in government relations at the Australian Catholic University; Walter Villatora, chairman of the party’s Warringah federal electoral council and a campaigner for democratising preselection reforms favoured by the religious Right faction; John Ruddick, an ally of Villatora’s in the reform push; Greg Burton, a barrister; and Jim Longley, state member for Pittwater from 1986 to 1996 and a minister in John Fahey’s government from 1992 to 1995, who is now chief executive of the ageing, disability and home care division of the NSW Department of Family and Community Services. Longley challenged Bishop for preselection ahead of the last election.

• The West Australian reports that possible Liberal preselection candidates for the Canning by-election include “Mandurah mayor Marina Vergone, Murdoch University law lecturer Lorraine Finlay and party figure Nathan Gudgeon”. Another mentioned in the local press is Steve Marshall, a 57-year-old former earthworks businessman who says he will run as an independent if he doesn’t win, which doesn’t sound like a winning pitch to these ears. The West Australian also reports that Labor’s preselection candidates will include Matt Keogh, a commercial lawyer, president of the Law Society of WA, and member of the Right faction.

• Nationals veteran Bruce Scott has confirmed the long-held expectation that he will retire at the next election, making available his sprawling and safely conservative Queensland seat of Maranoa. Scott has been in the news of late due to his role as deputy Speaker – Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reports that he hoped to replace Bishop, but the Liberals will not have the job go to a National. According to Penelope Arthur of Queensland Country Life, potential preselection contenders in Maranoa include David Littleproud, a Toowoomba bank manager; Robert Loughnan, mayor of Maranoa; and Cameron O’Neil, a Maranoa councillor. Cameron Atfield of Fairfax reports that state Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg has ruled himself out, despite being “subject of pressure from some quarters of the Liberal National Party to run for a federal seat”. Labor’s preselected candidate is Dave Kerrigan, a rural health worker.

• The ABC reports that Steve Georganas will face opposition from “long-time Labor member” Delia Brennan in his bid for Labor preselection in the Adelaide seat of Hindmarsh, which he lost to Liberal candidate Matt Williams after nine years as member in 2013. However, The Australian reports that Georganas is “widely expected to win easily”. Mark Ward, a school teacher and candidate for the state by-election for Davenport in January, has won preselection to run against Liberal incumbent and Speakership aspirant Andrew Southcott in Boothby. Labor’s preselection process for Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt is ongoing.

• My paywalled Crikey contributions over the past fortnight or so concern Labor’s position on boat turnbacks and the contrast presented with the Labour Party in Britain, which appears poised to choose hard left ideologue Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader; the Tasmanian Greens preselection process that will shortly see former federal party leader Christine Milne succeeded by former state party leader Nick McKim; a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry that appears to have been established due to Coalition concerns about emergency services union activists campaigning for Labor while wearing work-related apparel; the state of play in Western Australian state politics as the parties grapple with the implications of a just-announced redistribution; and, in yesterday’s edition, the coming prime ministership of Nick Xenophon.

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.

1,276 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.4-47.6 to Labor”

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  1. [TrueBlueAussie]

    When will Abbott ever start to tell the truth? He is an all-time champion dissembler; an incomparable fabricator.

    Of course, this is perhaps the least of his flaws. They are minor problems when compared to his utter incompetence and stupidity…to his erratic conduct, his wilfulness and his recklessness.

    When will the LNP realise that the country, the Parliament and they themselves all deserve and require much better from a leader? Are the LNP as capable of prolonged self-deception as Abbott himself?

  2. It’s not that Abbott tells lies – whether better or worse than any other politician world-wide, but the fact he is not often called on it.

    With the Murdock press essentially in support of his government, he gets more latitude than most.

    However, his day will come.

    With next to no political capital left, his credibility and popularity long shot, he is a sitting duck. Admittedly, like his political mother Bronnie, a duck with a tough hide, but still a duck.

  3. Good Morning

    On software system updates. Always backup before upgrading no matter what the operating system.

    Most systems nowadays have an automatic backup system available. Use them as they will save lots of grief if something goes wrong with your system.

    I say this as average non computer culture invested people do not do this and their photos and other personal data are at risk if they don’t. This includes cloud services because of the limitations of terms and conditions. Just look at the stories of dealing with Facebook of the legacy of a deceased persons data.

  6. [http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/08/yanis-spills-more-in-the-monthly/]

    Yanis Varoufakis tells his story…and further illustrates the extraordinarily poor judgment shown by himself, Tsipras, the rest of Syriza and the Eurocrats. They ruined
    Greece in a matter of months.

  8. BW

    [ Does anyone STILL think that Burke was the right person to do attack on BBishop? ]

    It wouldn’t have mattered who it was … that person would be targeted for payback by the LNP. And as far as I can tell, Burke has not actually done anything worse than … say … Abbott.

  10. I thought one of the post-news callers presented a bit of an overly alarmist question to Shorten.

    He seems to be one of the crowd who thinks Australia is overpopulated already and is asking what Shorten wants to do about continuing immigration and that someday we could see population of up to 100 million.

    I wish either Faine or Shorten would have told him that our country towns are emptying out at an alarming rate.

  11. “@latikambourke: PM Abbott says party fundraisers are a way to meet people and learn about the country/economy and important part of his job.”

    Abbott getting mixed up. Raising funds is the job of his party. Its not the job of the PM

  13. Read the article about morriscum.
    He’s the only person I know that if given a chance to come back as somebody else..would choose Goebbles

  14. This whole expenses thing shows an area where Labor is superior to the Liberals.

    With Labor when a politician is going to be in town its automatic they will visit the local branch talk to members fundraise at that event etc.

    Its not the politician goes to the area to visit the branch do fundraisers etc.

    This means you don’t get the temptation to do things like BIshop did. Its why the worst the Liberals have got on Labor MP’s are mistakes made or a questionable system practice in the expenses allowed to be claimed.

  17. victoria at 100

    IMHO Morrison is the one person in The Libs who is more dangerous to Australia than Abbott, truly conservative in his faith yet uses his faith to cover up all means of sins ie: his treatment of refugees, which is diametrically opposed to his belief system. An evil smiling assassin without a heart & unrepresentative of the majority of the population.

  20. CE @ 117

    The only difference between Scum and Captain Chaos is that Scum is actually competent. Scum is Himmler to Abbott’s Rohm.

  22. Burke doing well in this presser on the rules as set down.

    He says changing the rules is a legitimate discussion. However he has kept in the rules.

    He says he completely supports a review of the rules.

    News Ltd Journo (My guess) trying to get a different answer

  25. lizzie,

    It didn’t take long for me (20-30 min), my machine has an Solid State drive for the OS, mechanical laptop disks probably take a bit longer.

    It keeps your old system if you want to revert, but as suggested, a system image backup is a good idea.

  28. There are 2 myths about Morrisson.

    One is that he is a competent and efficient manager.

    The usual comment on his performance is that he may be a horrid human being but at least he got his job done.
    But that, the latter part, is a media concoction.
    Let’s look at his performance a little more closely.

    Money has been wasted in his portfolio.
    1.Millions on the fiasco in Cambodia.
    2.Millions[?] – we don’t really know – on water secrecy and all that. for example on lifeboats and other boats for one way transfer back to Indonesia after which the lifeboats are lost.
    3. Huge sums paid to the big contractors to run the detention centres – billions of $s.
    More than putting the refugees up in expensive motels, and yet:
    -service provision way below par.
    Forget, if you can, the element of duty of care and human decency involved – or not – and look at the level of service provision by the contractors on behalf of Morrisson’s government department for which he is responsible.

    Medical services inadequate, security services inadequate, welfare services inadequate.

    This does not translate to managerial ‘competence and efficiency’.

    There has been 2 enquiries into aspects of events relating to Morrisson’s portfolio.
    Neither looked properly at his responsibility for such, the head of latter enquiry specifically stated that Morrisson’s role as Minister responsible did not fall into their terms of reference, yet both enquiries identified deep and structural faults in procedures – the ongoing virtual ignoring of abuse of inmates for example.

    The myth of competence is entirely media driven.

    The second myth. that he is a nice bloke, just the fella to invite to your back yard barby, is in the process of being created by the media.
    The Women’s Weekly thingy is just the most recent example.

  29. lizzie

    On my laptop it took quite a few hours. I’d also like to join those saying to back up your computer. You never know when something could go wrong.

  30. Raaraa

    It goes to my point made earlier today about the Qld Mining Minister and Adani. ALP management of AGW issues is reactive and equivocal.

    That’s why I have moved to the Greens.

  32. I read Savva’s article in the OZ this morning. More interestingly, I read the comments. Although about 50% were critical of her honesty & failure to show unwavering loyalty, the other 50% showed a begruding acceptance by Coalition voters that Abbott had simply failed to make the grade & simply staggeted from one bungle to another.

    I sensed a clear understanding from them that Abbott could not lead the Coalition to another election victory & had badly blown his opportunity & let his party & followers down & was beyond salvage.

  36. lizzie,

    When I say it keeps your old system, I can see a folder called windows.old and the system cleanup in disk cleanup has “previous versions”. So I am assuming you can revert.

    I did an upgrade to the old system. Stuffed if I want to re-install all my software.

  42. Jobless rate 6.3%, we can add that to the growing list of Abbott’s many unflattering metrics, so many to choose from. I would be very interested to see a calculation undertaken of jobs created against jobs lost during his time so far as PM.

  44. @guytaur/139

    ““Do I think it’s wrong for a politician to attend a fundraiser and use a Comcar to get there, not necessarily. Should they use a helicopter to get there? Well plainly that is outside community expectation.””

    Umm, didn’t Peter Slipper use Comcar but was punished for that too?

    Also Mr entitlement, Unemployment will always be higher under this goverment you lead.

  45. Dee@6

    Rudd’s exclusive for “The Australian”

    Factional rule killing ALP: Rudd
    Kevin Rudd has blasted Labor’s factional warlords and union ­bosses for refusing to cede power to rank-and-file members at last month’s national conference, warning that if the party does not democratise, then its ability to win elections will

    That is actually an article by Troy Bramston which can be found by Googling the heading – Factional warlords threaten Labor’s status as force: Rudd.

    Most of it would find considerable support among the rank and file membership I believe, but Rudd seems to have an unrealistic belief that factions can be simply abolished, if his views are reported correctly.
    [He wants Labor to abolish factions. “They are a cancer on the party and run the risk of ­destroying its future,” he said.
    —
    “I am deeply supportive of the role of unions because they are ­essential to defend the weakest in our society,” Mr Rudd said. “Their role should be protected. But that does not mean being in a position of absolute factional control of the party.]

  46. CE

    “@TheKouk: The number of people unemployed:
    800,700
    When Abbott govt elected:
    686,500

    Unemployment up 175 people a day under Abbott govt #auspol”

  47. Labor gov – always under 6%
    Coalition gov – above 6% for most of it’s first term.

    However, Labor is no where seen to be attacking unemployment figure.

  48. [Yep you can – within a month]

    I have a system image anyway. I find they are much quicker because they just kersplat your system disk back to how it was without fiddling about.

  49. Question/147

    It’s always good to have a system image, and data backed on to a different drive (that is updated, and unplugged while doing a OS upgrade).

  50. [However, Labor is no where seen to be attacking unemployment figure.]

    Speaks for itself doesn’t it. While part of me is glad the economy is punishing the LNP, I have children who are reaching the age of employment, and it is a bit of a worry.

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