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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  3. classic comments
    [ Compact Crank
    Posted Friday, April 11, 2014 at 10:26 am | PERMALINK
    davidwh @656

    Wrong. They promised to repeal it and they will kepe the promise. I expect the current draft will become law with the current broad exclusions narrowed somewhat – but the key thing will be it will no longer be an offense to offend someone.

    And, I predict a number of Liberals will cross the floor – but when you’ve got +90 seats in the HoR it doesn’t really matter.

    What happens in the ALP when you cross the floor? ]

  5. classic comments
    [ New2This
    Posted Friday, April 11, 2014 at 6:15 pm | PERMALINK
    Tony Abbott is doing a magnificent job… ]

  10. Apparently Chris Kenny was doing some kind of Newspoll preview on Viewpoint and there are some reports of an unflattering result for the government and/or the PM – all the usual Twitter Chinese whispers at this stage though.

  11. classic comments
    [ I have watched all of them in the past (when he actually delivered them) and then googled them for the youtube link.

    Because you all have such hatred for Abbott, you continue to underestimate him and your 7 million fellow Australians who voted for him.

    Project and hate the projection (it aint new, you know, its well described!) :devil: ]

  12. classic comments
    [ Everything
    Posted Friday, April 11, 2014 at 6:57 pm | PERMALINK
    I have watched all of them in the past (when he actually delivered them) and then googled them for the youtube link.

    Because you all have such hatred for Abbott, you continue to underestimate him and your 7 million fellow Australians who voted for him.

    Project and hate the projection (it aint new, you know, its well described!) :devil: ]

  14. classic comments
    [ Everything
    Posted Friday, April 11, 2014 at 7:17 pm | PERMALINK
    DN:

    It aint exaggeration! This blog is chockers full of Abbott hatred. You hate every word he utters.

    If I am wrong, find me a complimentary post about him from anyone other than those of the right.

    If you want to compare with my posts, I have been highly supportive of the NDIS, plain packaging, Tanya P, Senator Wong, I was asked about Gillard’s good qualities and I listed them.

    I challenge any of the PB masses here to say anything positive about Abbott. ]

  18. confessions@1554

    As far as ‘hard ons’ go, nothing beats the creepy as f*ck obsession bemused has had with me for years.

    Hahaha…. You drew attention to yourself and I started how often you were wRONg.

  20. re my classic comment comments
    I understand that the blogger then known as Everything has since changed their name to Happiness

  25. GhostWhoVotes ‏@GhostWhoVotes 55s56 seconds ago

    #Newspoll Federal Primary Votes: L/NP 43 (-1) ALP 35 (0) GRN 12 (+1) #auspol

  26. zoidlord@1574

    GhostWhoVotes ‏@GhostWhoVotes 1m1 minute ago

    #Newspoll Federal 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 50 (-1) ALP 50 (+1) #auspol

    Oh dear… not much of a honeymoon for Mal. 😀

    Where’s ‘Misery’ when you have something to talk about?

  29. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/newspoll-malcolm-turnbulls-appeal-grows-but-parties-locked/story-e6frg6n6-1227565337941
    [Newspoll: Malcolm Turnbull’s appeal grows, but parties locked
    THE AUSTRALIAN OCTOBER 11, 2015 10:00PM
    Phillip Hudson Bureau Chief Canberra

    Voters overwhelmingly believe the Liberal Party did the right thing by replacing Tony Abbott with Malcolm Turnbull, according to the latest Newspoll. It shows support for the new Prime Minister continues to soar but the government and Labor are deadlocked at 50-50.

    The latest Newspoll, taken exclusively for The Australian, also reveals Bill Shorten marks his two-years as Labor leader with fewer than one-in-five voters wanting him as prime minister.

    Mr Turnbull leads Mr Shorten as the preferred prime minister by 57 per cent to 19 per cent and the Prime Minister’s net satisfaction rating stands at 25 points while the Opposition Leader is at minus 25 points.

    But as parliament resumes tomorrow for the first time since Mr Turnbull announced the sweeping overhaul of the ministry, including more than doubling the number of women in cabinet to five, the surge of support for Mr Turnbull has not flowed through to a lift for the Coalition, which slipped one point in both primary and two-party-preferred terms.

    The poll of 1631 voters reveals that four weeks after the change of prime minister 62 per cent of Australians believe the Liberal Party did the right thing to replace Mr Abbott with Mr Turnbull while 27 per cent disagreed and 11 were uncommitted.

    Among Coalition voters, 56 per cent supported the change and 36 per cent opposed it. Mr Turnbull was heckled at the NSW Liberal Party state council meeting on Saturday while Mr Abbott was cheered.

    Labor and Green voters were dramatically in favour of the leadership change with 71 per cent support among ALP supporters and 82 per cent of Greens backing the switch.

    Overall support for the Coalition fell one point to 43 per cent in the three weeks since the last Newspoll but the govern­ment’s primary vote remains at an 18-month high. Labor’s primary vote was unchanged at a four-month low of 35 per cent. The Greens gained one point to 12 per cent and support for independents and other parties was unchanged at 10 per cent.

    Based on preference flows from the last election, the one-point shift from the Coalition to the Greens lifts Labor’s two-party vote and leaves the government and opposition tied at 50-50.]

  35. My reading is that people like the new leader but are aware the polices haven’t changed.
    So what does Turnbull tell his right wing?

    Also did we get a Wow from PvO?

  36. Watched the Rugby thismorning and quite enjoyed it although it kind of looked like what would happen if AFL teams had to bunch in a 3 metre radius and just bang their heads into each other

  42. Rossmore #1583
    It’s only been a month since the leadership change.

    Let’s not call the honeymoon over just on the data of 1 opinion poll.

    Even if it is Newspoll.

  44. The first poll that puts Labor back in front, even by a point, will really set the Libs rank and file and the wider extreme right loose on Malcolm. He is barely tolerated by his organisation while in front, as it is. It will be very hard for Truffles to come back at election if starting from behind as ‘leader’ of a deeply divided party.

  45. [#Newspoll Federal 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 50 (-1) ALP 50 (+1) #auspol]

    Yes, everyone’s delighted that embarrassing ape Abbott is gone, but yet to be convinced the LNP horror show can stopped by Talcum alone.

  47. [Leroy ‏@Leroy_Lynch 21m21 minutes ago
    Worth noting that Essential poll for last week only (published figures rolling 2 week average) was apparently 50-50. Same as this Newspoll.]

    Hmm.

  48. [Yes, everyone’s delighted that embarrassing ape Abbott is gone, but yet to be convinced the LNP horror show can stopped by Talcum alone.]

    That’s my view too. We’re in ‘wait and see’ mode.

  49. It’s an interesting conundrum..

    If Turnbull isn’t winning the polls, he lacks the authority to make changes to the party (and hence the government). If he isn’t able to make these changes, he can’t win the polls….

  50. Let’s not get too excited – 50:50 is one of the coalition’s best polls for the past 18 months, and it seems labor needs at least 51:49 to actually win an election they way our electoral boundaries gift so many seats to to the LNP in rural areas for a fraction of the national vote. turnbull would likely romp home an election now.

    but let’s hope Tex Perkins has got it right
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdpSkCGKgj8&list=RDEdpSkCGKgj8#t=0

    how soon will turnbull head to Yaralumba? my prediction of a november election is looking shaky, but I think they’ll go before another May budget because they know what they want to do to Australia is unpopular. or will they try a santa claus budget with a lot of short term sweeteners to mask long term losses/pain? e.g. pay rise and tax cuts in exchange for penalty rates that are popular with people not on penalty rates, but which will see wage earners worse off within a few years as pay rates fall and services are cut?

    turnbull needs to go to the polls before the wheels fall off, and this newspoll may show they are wobbling.

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