After three new polls this week – from Newspoll, Morgan and Essential Research – the BludgerTrack poll aggregate comes in at 53.6-46.4 to Labor, with Labor picking up one each on the seat projection in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. However, the movement is partly down to a methodological tweak involving Morgan, for which bias adjustments are now based only on the pollster’s track record within a year of the poll in question, and not as before over the entirety of the term. The same change was made for ReachTEL a couple of weeks ago. Over the long term, the effect of these changes is neutral – but in the short term they’re favourable to Labor, as both these poll series appear to have leaned less to Labor lately than they did earlier in the term. Newspoll and Essential also reported leadership ratings this week, which have had the effect of furthering Tony Abbott’s decline, while also stymieing Bill Shorten’s gains over the previous fortnight.
Two further snippets of recent attitudinal polling:
• The Guardian relates a Lonergan Research poll had a 57-43 split in favour of taking in more refugees in response to the Syria crisis, although there was a 54-46 split in favour of “Operation Sovereign Borders”, namely boat tow-backs and related policies. The results suggest these were “forced choice” questions, in which the only alternative to jumping off the fence was to hang up on the call – which Kevin Bonham has his doubts about. The poll encompassed 1109 respondents and was conducted on Tuesday night.
• The Australia Institute has conducted online polling (note the self-selecting kind) on extra funding for ABC regional news services, which was found to have 59% nationally and 64% in rural and remote areas. Further polling on the same question specifically targeted the electorates of Eden-Monaro, New England, Wide Bay, Sturt, North Sydney and Wentworth.
Also:
• The loudest of hosannas are in order for David Barry’s election results resource, which features – in the most streamlined, intuitive and accessible fashion imaginable – aggregate and seat-level results for all House of Representatives elections since federation, including preference distributions and preference flow data; facilities to explore data as bar charts, line charts and scatterplots; and interactive results maps which, on top of anything else, mark the first time all historical federal electoral boundaries have been brought together in one place.
• A Liberal National Party preselection process is under way to choose a successor to Bruce Scott in the remote Queensland seat of Maranoa. The Chronicle reports that David Littleproud, a manager of a Suncorp bank branch in Warwick, and Cameron O’Neil, a Maranoa councillor who works for the Queensland Disaster Management Committee, are “joint favourites”, while the Warwick Daily News narrows it down to just Littleproud as favourite. Other nominees are Lachlan Douglas, southern Queensland regional manager for Rabobank; Alison Krieg, a grazier from Blackall; and Rick Gurnett, a grazier from Charleville. Maranoa mayor Robert Loughnan was named earlier, but would seem to have dropped out of contention. The preselection will be conducted by a postal ballot, with the winner to be announced on October 23.
• Liberal MP Andrew Southcott last week announced he would bow out at the next election, after 19 years as member for the Adelaide seat of Boothby. Labor came close to toppling Southcott at its high-water marks of 2007 and 2010, but the 2013 landslide boosted his margin from 0.6% to 7.1%. Southcott is 47 years old, and speculation about his motives in pulling the plug have rested on two factors: his recent failure to win the Speakership, and the threat posed to his seat by the Nick Xenophon Team, notwithstanding that it is yet to announce a candidate. It is expected that the Liberals will be keen to field a female candidate. Sources quoted by The Advertiser suggest potential contenders include Carolyn Habib, a youth worker and former Marion councillor who ran unsuccessfully in the marginal seat of Elder at the March 2014 state election; and Nicolle Flint, a columnist for The Advertiser; and Caitlin Keage, a staffer to Senator Simon Birmingham. Labor has already preselected Mark Ward, a teacher at Urrbrae Agricultural High School, Mitcham councillor and narrowly unsuccessful candidate at the Davenport state by-election in January.
• Mark Kenny of Fairfax reports numbers from the Tasmanian Labor Senate preselection that has seen incumbent Lisa Singh dumped from third position in favour of John Short, state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. Singh outpolled Short in the rank-and-file half of the vote, which respectively gave 221, 123 and 110 to the incumbents, Ann Urquhart, Helen Polley and Lisa Singh, with Short on 74 and another 14 voters scattered among various also-rans. However, Short closed the gap when the half of the vote determined by unions and conference delegates was added to the total, by 158 votes to 154.
Had lunch with the mother in law (aged 86) in leafy Gordon on Sunday. Despite attending Church all of her life, she explained that she wasn’t so sure any more that God existed. I said that, having finally taken that huge step, would she now vote Labor? She said: “No”.
[Said no one in the LNP when they went after Julia Gillard and her 20 year old home renovations with her ex-boyfriend.]
Or about Ivan Molloy’s 20 year old photo, or…
Pretty boring QT so far.
Achmed at 3350
I knew the number was higher than generally acknowledged, but didn’t know it was that high! Do you have a link to the data handy?
Diogenes
[I’m not taking X too seriously until we see his candidates. He’s got form with dismal running mates, mainly Bressington.]
Your time to step forward has come.
I wonder if Labor will ask Turnbull a question?
AussieAchmed #3345
[The China FTA is an export deal -Abbott]
I wonder if anyone has sat down with Abbott yet and carefully explain to him what the words ‘free’ and ‘trade’ mean.
TBA is milking the tax right off to try and turn it into a really good policy… While the rest of us is laughing at libspill.
All questions re ChAFTA so far….
@abissicus: Barbara Ramjan’s statement in full via @samanthamaiden http://t.co/Uhn2UI2Dsq
Abbott the puncher being called out
Tony Windsor @TonyHWindsor 7m7 minutes ago
#shenhua#auspol Greg Hunt refuses to release attachment 10 in EPBC statement of reasons for approving mine . WHY hiding critical document .
This is all about Canning… the private numbers must be bad.
AA I seriously doubt the veracity of your DV stats- don’t confuse men dying in violent situations with DV
Millennial 3357
He’s a Rhodes Scholar with a degree in economics…..that wouldn’t be necessary if he had done the studies and passed the exams himself
Of course, some of the women killing men figures will be of women killing men to protect themselves against further violence. I doubt it works the other way.
Bishop is very disingenuous
[3274
guytaur
@latikambourke: In a move that will reassure jittery backbenchers PM Abbott promises more of the same of his ‘good government’ http://t.co/N22SGiqq6b]
Surely that’s a joke? Abbott can’t possibly still believe that anyone is buying that line?
Mesma always sounds unconvincng.
zoomster
What we can agree on is that the number should be zero for both men and women.
Family terrorism is the right words
roger bottomley #3356
[I wonder if Labor will ask Turnbull a question?]
If they do, they should ask it like this…
[My question is to the Honourable Communication Minister.
Communications Minister, given the work and effort you have placed in delivering the Coalition’s NBN to the Australian people, will you be able to state with confidence that you will put the same effort into doing so as the Communications Minister for the upcoming year?]
[Over the 10-year period, the report found that 238 homicides in NSW occurred in a domestic violence context.
Out of that number, 137 deaths were women, accounting for almost half of the homicides, and 55 were children, with the vast majority of those – 96 per cent – killed by a parent.]
[…The report also found that 60 per cent of the homicides were considered “intimate partner homicides”, where almost all of the women that had been killed had been victims of domestic violence.
Of the 35 men killed in this category, 29 were killed by a current or former female partner. Almost all of the men killed in that context had been the domestic violence abuser in the relationship.
There were no cases where a woman was a domestic violence abuser had killed a male victim.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-24/domestic-violence-findings-nsw-police-training/6342152
Abbott saying black is white on unemployment :lol
[This is all about Canning… the private numbers must be bad.]
There’s no real reason to believe the private numbers would vary from the public ones.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/14/manus-island-refugee-assaulted-by-guard-and-told-to-find-his-own-medicine?CMP=ema_632
I wonder how many focus groups ‘Canberra games’ was processed through before being vomited out of Captain Chaos’s ugly lips.
Abbott looks rattled
This is all WA, all the time.
[There’s no real reason to believe the private numbers would vary from the public ones.]
….which are very bad.
Itep
Only if the private polling is more recent than the public ones.
The public ones tell a dire story for the LNP. Big swing
Abbott volume and high tone arrived in answer to last Q. Could almost be called hysterical.
Van Badham @vanbadham 2m2 minutes ago
Malcolm Turnbull is a perfect replacement for Abbott; his wreckage of the #NBN demonstrates the LNP talent for wrecking the nation. #auspol
Stephen Koukoulas @TheKouk 1m1 minute ago
WA: Number of people unemployed:
Sept 2013: 64,100
Aug 2015: 88,900
Up 24,700
#qt #canning
[Abbott looks rattled]
Yep. One slogan after another. And it’s only Monday. Perhaps they can organise a state visit to Kiribati starting tomorrow.
@vanbadham: O RLY?
#auspol
https://t.co/v36OCw43eC http://t.co/BSmTBiwE6D
3321
TrueBlueAussie
““@barriecassidy: Ipsos polling Canning with a sample 3 times that of Galaxy. Result tonight. That’ll help those trying to figure out what to do next @auspoll””
And showing what all other polls have shown… Coalition well ahead, Abbott preferred PM, Libs Primary vote 10% above Labors…]
I’ve had a look at the polling. Allowing that Canning is a hard seat to sample and that a lot of votes remain uncommitted, even on the IPSOS data Labor can win. If Labor takes the seat the margin will likely be very fine, but the Liberals cannot claim this result just yet. Not at all.
It’s easy to cherry-pick advantages in trade agreement.
@3378 – Private numbers very often do vary and are usually much better.
I must say I greatly enjoyed this article about Jeremy Corbyn…
Corbyn victory energises the alienated and alienates the establishment
A couple of gems…
[Romping home in the first round with 59% of the vote, Corbyn’s victory was emphatic – the biggest electoral mandate of any party leader in British political history. There aren’t enough Trotskyists, entryists, devious Tories and random renegades to explain such an overwhelming victory. As his campaign gained momentum, many have been in denial. But no one can now deny he was the party’s choice.]
—
[Beyond the left, Corbyn’s ability to answer questions in a clear and straightforward manner amounts to a rebuke to the political class in general. In this and many other respects, his strengths were accentuated by the weakness of his leadership opponents. With their varying degrees of milquetoast managerialism, they were not only barely distinguishable from each other but had platforms that were forgettable even when they were decipherable. Short of perhaps a speeding ticket, they didn’t appear to have a single conviction between them. There is nothing to suggest any of them were more electable than Corbyn.]
Not quite what we are being told.
I think Abbott will go DD and campaign on the QT lines. He has nothing else!
“@AustralianLabor: In a press conference broadcast on the ABC the PM is heard saying I am worried about being the best possible PM. @JasonClareMP #auspol #qt”
“@AustralianLabor: Does @TurnbullMalcolm really believe that this bloke is the best possible PM? @JasonClareMP #qt #auspol”
guytaur
If we perpetuate the myth that DV is an equal opportunity killer, then we avoid looking at the true causes of DV.
[.. the overall risk of homicide for women was substantially lower than that of men (rate ratio [RR] = 0.27), their risk of being killed by a spouse or intimate acquaintance was higher (RR = 1.23). In contrast to men, the killing of a woman by a stranger was rare (RR = 0.18). More than twice as many women were shot and killed by their husband or intimate acquaintance than were murdered by strangers using guns, knives, or any other means. Although women comprise more than half the U.S. population, they committed only 14.7% of the homicides noted during the study interval. In contrast to men, who killed nonintimate acquaintances, strangers, or victims of undetermined relationship in 80% of cases, women killed their spouse, an intimate acquaintance, or a family member in 60% of case]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1635092
All the stats suggest that there is a problem with men and violence (when did you last hear of a young female randomly killing someone in the street? Yet we have regular reports of young men king hitting and killing strangers).
If men (and to avoid the pedantic and distracting “I’m a man and I have never killed anyone…” obviously I’m using the term in general) have a problem with violence full stop, then obviously people close to them are likely to suffer from this.
If we pretend that there isn’t some sort of problem with (some) men, then any solutions we come up with will be tackling effects, not causes.
It is thus very important that we remove our gender coloured glasses and use the stats as our guide – and these clearly show that the greatest threat of violence comes from men, whether they be a partner, a parent or even a complete stranger.
As Craig Emerson said, all this mob did was take the treaties labor had negotiated and roll over on the contentious points. Truly sickening.
The difference between an ordinarily biased Speaker and the special case that was Bronnhilde:
An ordinarily biased speaker just rules it out of order. Bronnhilde would have let her pet poodle rattle on for 5 minutes on why it should be out of order, including endless snide attacks on Labor, before ruling it out of order and throwing out the questioner.
[3367
JimmyDoyle
3274
guytaur
@latikambourke: In a move that will reassure jittery backbenchers PM Abbott promises more of the same of his ‘good government’ http://t.co/N22SGiqq6b%5D
lol
just brilliant!
[Private numbers very often do vary and are usually much better.]
According to whom? And what methodology is used by those compiling private polling that would explain that the results of them are ‘usually much better’ than publicly released polling?
Took 27 minutes into QT before scrapping the Carbon Tax got a mention today (by JoHo – possibly didn’t get the memo that people are utterly sick of the government banging on about this, two years later…)
zoomster
There is such a thing as going overboard. Gay men for example can suffer the same and they are the same gender.
Better just condemn the violence outright. No denial of reality.
Its the same prejudice that can lead to men having more problems than women to admitting they have been raped.
Bemused – I’ve been wondering whether, because the UK has a first-past-the-post non-compulsory voting system, having someone like Corbyn could, if the times suit him, be a huge plus because (a la the Tea Party in the US) there are huge benefits having a radicalised base that actually votes. In the UK, you don’t need to appeal as much to the centre. You just need to get 35% or more of those who actually vote.
guytaur @3228,
[They said that about Corbyn in the UK]
Corbyn hasn’t won an election yet.
@3394 – I mean it’s only anecdotal from my own experience in campaigns. It’s not necessary methodological so much as the detail and data sets are usually a lot more detailed, which means you can extrapolate more.
CC
Yes he has. The election they said that about Corbyn was the one he just won to become leader of the Labour Party.