BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Coalition

The upward swing to the Coalition continues, with the BludgerTrack poll aggregate now recording the Coalition improving on their 2013 election performance in New South Wales.

This week’s reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate again records a fairly solid shift in favour of the Coalition, although it’s only yielded them one extra seat on the seat projection – that being in New South Wales, where the Coalition is now being credited with one more seat than it won in 2013. The aggregate is back to being determined through a trend calculation, using only the polling from the Turnbull era (note that this isn’t the case on the charts shown on the sidebar, which suggest a much higher result at present for the Coalition). However, the bias adjustments for Essential Research and Roy Morgan are still being determined in a very crude fashion. This is particularly an issue for the latter, given its idiosyncratic Turnbull era results. Both pollsters have been determined simply on the basis of the flurry of polling that emerged the week after the leadership change, the benchmark being provided by Newspoll, Galaxy and ReachTEL, which remain subject to the same bias adjustments used in the Abbott era. The adjustment to the Labor primary vote for Morgan is particularly pronounced (over +5%), which also means it’s getting a very low weighting in the trend determination. These bias adjustments will be recalculated as new results from the other pollsters become available to benchmark them against.

Also worth noting:

• Heath Aston of the Sydney Morning Herald reports it is “all but certain” that Joe Hockey will be succeeded as the Liberal candidate for North Sydney by Trent Zimmerman, factional moderate and the party’s New South Wales state president. Hockey’s support for Zimmerman is said to have sealed the deal, although it is also reported that he had earlier approached the state Treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian. Other mooted candidates are Tim James, chief executive of Medicines Australia, and John Hart, chief executive of Restaurant and Catering Australia. James is a member for the Right, and is also mentioned as a potential candidate to succeed Tony Abbott in Warringah, or Jillian Skinner in the state seat of North Shore.

• The issue of Senate electoral reform could be heading towards a compromise more conducive to minor parties than the proposal of straightforward optional preferential voting above and below the line, as was proposed last year by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Key to the argument is whether group voting tickets should be abolished, a path favoured by Nick Xenophon but fiercely opposed by the micro-party Senators, the most active being David Leyonhjelm. Xenophon has approached the government with a proposal that would require above-the-line voters to number at least three boxes, and below-the-line voters to number at least 12, resulting in a greater flow of preferences to smaller players. Antony Green also argues that the resulting increase in the number of live votes in the final stages of the count would reduce the chances of the final seat being decided in a random fashion. Leyonhjelm has sought a middle path by proposing the retention of group voting tickets and one number above-the-line voting, while relieving the burden on below-the-line voters by requiring that they number a minimum of six boxes – very much the same as applies for the Victorian upper house, except that the minimum number of boxes there is five. At the November 2014 state election, 94% of voters went above-the-line in the upper house, helping to elect two members of Shooters & Fishers and one each from the Sex Party, the DLP and Vote 1 Local Jobs.

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.

1,636 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Coalition”

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  2. victoria

    I was disappointed when Faine came up with the standard “but what about the detail?” referring to the “concrete fund”. Malcolm has the better approach, as witnessed here in (alleged) conversation with Pyne:

    [“Malcolm said: ‘Come up with some ideas to bring together a national innovation agenda.’

    “After our first meeting, he said, ‘That’s great, but I’d like you to release your inner revolutionary.’

    “I said, ‘That will cost money.’

    “He said, ‘Let me worry about the money, you get on with the ideas.’]

    Although releasing Pyne’s “inner revolutionary” made me laugh.
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/christopher-pyne-to-release-his-inner-revolutionary-20151007-gk3i20.html#ixzz3nvaqGeMe

  3. Kudos to Bill Shorten for his transport infrastructure funding proposal. The choice of projects, both road and rail, is refreshingly free of ideology, with no nutty belief that one mode of transport is inherently superior to another. Of course, Turnbull has made equally sane statements. We shall see what he actually funds.

    It is sobering to keep the $10 billion in perspective. Campbell “Can’t Count” Newman spent slightly over $10 billion on his failed series of toll road tunnels in Brisbane, without making a major dent in traffic congestion.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransApex

  7. I’m not sure the phrase “7 day economy” which Turnbull used to talk about penalty rates is a particularly smart one. Paints a bleak future if you ask me.

  8. Yes Tom I did the calculations before my 2nd cup of coffee – should never do that! (A shower with lots of steam up my nose helps too!) Election 43-68 days after dissolution, so 23rd July is out. Otherwise I still think my scenario is possible – they could put off the budget till August as they always used to, with a “supply” bill or two in April-May if necessary. But yes -the need for redistibutions could complicate things a bit.

  9. JAR,

    If we try to break the Essential down to weekly samples then it seems the sample 2 weeks ago was probably around 54-46 and the sample this week around 50-50.

    As Kevin Bonham pointed out, this could easily be MOE around a 52-48.

  12. Yes Q, I can’t quite see why Scott was getting so excited about it – except that any excuse to jeer at the RWNJs will do. Essential didn’t make sense when Abbott was PM and it still isn’t making sense

  13. Must be nice to be Kate Carnell, invited to every gabfest.

    [Former National Farmers Federation chief Wendy Craik will head the Climate Change Authority, taking over from Bernie Fraser.

    Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Kate Carnell and former Howard government minister John Sharp are also among five new faces on the authority’s board.

    Fraser resigned in September after two years of tense relations between the independent advisory body and the Abbott government, which wanted it scrapped.

    Also joining the authority are Frontier Economics head Danny Price and BidEnergy head Stuart Allison, who will act as chair until Craik takes over, expected to be “shortly”.

    Craik previously headed the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, and was the first woman to lead the NFF.

    The federation recognises climate change as “potentially the biggest issue facing Australian farmers in the future”.]

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/08/wendy-craik-to-replace-bernie-fraser-as-climate-change-authority-head

  19. “@ABCNews24: #BREAKING Federal director Brian Loughnane to stand down today, a public statement is expected soon. #LiberalParty”

  22. Thanks Tom – I’ve now made up a little file with the corrected range of deadlines and saved it on to my desktop. Anyway, the minimum doesn’t matter for the DD in May, election in July scenario.

  23. lizzie @ 52

    That report was eerily close to last night’s episode of Utopia – complete with a new infrastructure Minister after a reshuffle.

  26. So the Liberal party in ‘chaos’ – if the MSM just tried to be consistent, a palace coup and the discredited leader gone, his old hench persons gone or going, waiting for Godot as far as Turnbull is concerned, and the economy on the edge of recession, with a Treasurer with trainer wheels on.

    And, the electorate has a metaphoric sigh of relief..

    Now if Labor were in office………

  27. MB
    [Why would you find the term “7 day economy” bleak?]

    Because I like the idea of weekends, not just personally but as a community cycle.

    In my mind it puts the idea of some economic continuum ahead of life. Which is bleak.

  32. Tricot

    I can understand the collective sigh of relief re Abbott being gone. In light of what occurred in Parramatta, Could you imagine the heightened anxiety this week if Abbott were still leader ?

  36. @81

    Waiting for Godot – an incomprehensible (to me at least) French play whereby the stage is more or less consumed by two tramps for the whole performance, waiting, waiting…for Godot…like Turbull at the moment…

  39. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-08/labor-lists-10-infrastructure-projects-it-will-back-if-elected/6835660

    10 projects Labor would back
    •Rail line to Sydney’s Badgerys Creek airport, connecting the Western and Inner West and South lines
    •Melbourne’s Metro Rail
    •Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project
    •Gold Coast Light Rail stage two
    •Ipswich Motorway
    •Pacific Highway
    •Queensland’s Bruce Highway
    •Tasmania’s Midland Highway
    •Electrification of the Gawler rail line in Adelaide
    •Pledge to support public transport in Perth possibly the State Opposition’s Metronet plan

    And of course…
    [“This latest idea from the Leader of the Opposition adds to a list of ideas that count for more than $50 billion worth of spending,” Ms O’Dwyer said.

    “So we also look forward to the Leader of the Opposition outlining how it is that he will pay for these ideas.”]

  41. The Commonwealth, as the primary defendant to the refugees claim in the High Court, is updating the High Court on the changes of approach of the Nauruan govt as they emerge.

  43. “@rupertmurdoch: Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black President who can properly address the racial divide? And much else.”

    The responses are coming in fast

  44. Given young Nic’s voluntarily analysis of my in his view very flawed self I was a little apprehensive but with -5.13 and -4.97 it would appear I am not a freak outsider in a PB population

  45. lizzie – Shorten already answered that question before it was asked “by taking advantage of record low interest rates”.

    With interest rates as low as they are, it would be idiocy not to take advantage of it to invest in projects with a positive return.

  47. [42.The Commonwealth, as the primary defendant to the refugees claim in the High Court, is updating the High Court on the changes of approach of the Nauruan govt as they emerge.]

    It seems fundamentally unjust that the Commonwealth can do that shellbell why is it allowed?

  48. “@brianstelter: Basically my entire Twitter feed consists of flabbergasted RT’s of Murdoch. (No immediate comment from his top PR person, BTW)”

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