BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Coalition

After a weak result from Newspoll took a bite out of the Coalition’s poll aggregate reading last week, a strong one from Ipsos causes it to rally this time around, while Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings continue to soar to new heights.

New results for the poll aggregate this week from Ipsos, Essential Research and Roy Morgan, with the Ipsos result being the pollster’s first since the leadership change. It’s this result that’s resposible for a solid 0.7% shift in favour of the Coalition, since the other two pollsters both produced results consistent with their established Turnbull era form. I’ve now changed the state-level calculations from a weighted average to a trend measure, the effect of which is to boost considerably the Coalition’s score in New South Wales while reducing it somewhat in Queensland and Western Australia. The Coalition is accordingly up two this week on its seat tally in New South Wales but down one each in Queensland and Western Australia, adding up to no net gain despite the improvement on voting intention. Ipsos provided new leadership ratings this week, giving Malcolm Turnbull a big boost on his already strong personal approval. Ipsos’s numbers for Bill Shorten were similar to what he’s been getting from other pollsters but well below his past form from Ipsos, and his net approval rating accordingly takes another hit.

Additionally:

• The Herald-Sun reports that Helen Kroger, who won a Victorian Senate seat in 2007 but lost it in 2013 after being demoted from second to third on the party ticket, will seek preselection for the lower house seat of Bruce in south-eastern Melbourne. The seat is to be vacated at the election by the retirement of Alan Griffin, who has held the seat since gaining it for Labor on the back of a favourable redistribution in 1996, but retained a margin of just 1.8% in 2013. However, Kroger is said to face a “bitter preselection battle” from the party’s candidate for the seat in 2013, Emanuele Cicchiello, a former Knox councillor and teacher at Lighthouse Christian College. Labor’s new candidate for the seat is Julian Hill, an executive with the Victorian government’s Department of Economic Development and former mayor of Port Phillip, who won preselection earlier this year uncontested.

David Johnston of the Border Mail reports that two candidates will contest the Nationals preselection for the northern Victorian seat of Indi, which independent Cathy McGowan won from Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella in 2013: Wangaratta businessman Martin Corboy, and former Yackandandah publican Gregory Lawrence.

• The South Australian government has introduced a number of electoral and constitutional reform bills to parliament, the latter of which will require passage at a referendum to be held in conjunction at the next election. The electoral bill proposes an end to preferential voting for its Legislative Council, with the existing system to be replaced by the straightforward Sainte-Laguë closed list system for allocating seats in proportion to aggregate vote shares. The constitutional bills propose removing the Legislative Council’s power to block the regular annual supply bills, and introducing a double dissolution mechanism very like the one in operation federally.

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.

1,223 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Coalition”

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  1. 34 percent of Labor voters want TP to be Labor Leader. A mere 10 percent want BS.

    You can stick a fork in BS. He is well and truly done. It does not reflect well on the party to have this frightfully dull and unimaginative man as its leader. He would be rendering a great service to his party if he stepped down.

    It isn’t enough to have a sterling record as a union administrator. The capacity to inform, persuade, and inspire millions of people is indispensable in a party leader.

  2. [davidwh
    …Darn we don’t need another QLD 2012 type result. It’s not healthy.]

    I disagree.

    The best thing for Australia is a 100-40 something LNP win.

    This consolidates Turnbull (and therefore a moderate liberal governance future) and may put the nail in the coffin of the Union domination of the ALP.

    Both are great outcomes as far as I am concerned, and I think Australians generally would agree.

    If Turnbull doesn’t win and win big, big, big……he is under threat of the chop from the right.

  3. Need I remind people that Libs actually loved Abbott but his PPM numbers were always in the toilet. He still won an election though.

    This preferred PM stuff is a side issue.

    Like someone else said – it’s a honeymoon. Abbott never got one really, because everyone recognised his dickheadeness from the very beginning.

    People liked Gillard until the media machine (with a little help from our own side) got stuck into her. (I note, that the rest of the world still thinks she is a fine person with a fine mind – as do I …. including Clinton who uses Gillard in her own election ads).

    The ‘convergence’ of conditions will decide the next election … and we don’t know what those conditions are right now.

  4. And, on cue, out come the jibbers and the belly achers.

    Was it just few short weeks ago that the LNP was facing a very likely defeat.

    Now a Messiah has appeared for the conservative side – has done little or nothing other than appear sane – while the LOTO is still the same, and it is all death and destruction for Labor.

  5. Dave

    My thinking is that if Turnballs continues to enjoy a dream run with media backing the ALP would be butt stupid to remove Shorten.

    It would play out in the negative and burn a future leader.

    Hope Labor hold their nerve!

  6. An outrageous ruling from VCAT, which essentially outlaws Green housing design, shows that VCAT needs its arse kicked into the 21st century:

    [“The proposed $5 million project, called Nightingale, was designed with no car parking –… Moreland Council’s approval for it was overturned last week because it lacked parking”.]

    The housing is designed for people who dont want cars, has a bucycle garage, and is near a train station – AND it has a sister building just like it nearby, bwhich no one objected to, and has been a great success.

    VCAT: an hapless anachronism now begging for its own abolition.

  7. Happiness – So you’re saying that the only way Turnbull can stamp his authority on the party is to get a hundred seats at the next election, which will never happen. In other words, you have absolutely no faith in his ability to control his party. Wait till the Australian population works that out for themselves.
    The electorate is still waiting to see if Turnbull can whip his party into shape. When they realise the party is whipping Turnbull into shape, things will get nasty.

  8. Dee

    Agreed. It wouldnt matter if Labor changed to anyone else, Turnbull will continue to remain popular until he no longer is.

  9. Agree Tricot. It’s like they think the past 2 years didn’t happen (RWNJs do have form … they do think the GFC was a mirage, after all).

    They have seen the electorate ‘turn on a dime’ a number of times in the past 5 years so the conservatives’ self-congratulations is a bit premature methinks.

    Also, on Shorten, I have noticed his recent speeches have been far more “Prime Ministerial” than Turnbull’s (when they both speak in tandem e.g. Hockey’s farewell). Shorten sees big picture of these things and is very aware of what is appropriate. Turnbull talks as if he is in a boardroom tryng to sell ponsie schemes.

    In #qt Turnbull continually plays the man, not the ball — and his attempts to denigrate are wince-worthy.

  10. Dee

    Yep – labor need to standfast.

    This too will pass as will turnbull’s current ratings – he cannot go on doing nothing but waffle.

    Christmas silly season is in sight as are the end of normal poll cycles.

    Come New Year turnbull is going to have to perform.

  11. Many on the left are optimistic that Turnbull will run a more moderate and sensible government. The rhetoric has improved, but Turnbull must distance himself from the hard right tea party faction of his own party to sustain his current polling figures. As a Labor voter I sincerely hope the next election is fought on policy

  12. Dee @ 1206

    [My thinking is that if Turnballs continues to enjoy a dream run with media backing the ALP would be butt stupid to remove Shorten.]

    The only hope that Labor have to win the next election, given that the clear and present danger to the nation of Abbott has been neutralised, is for the significant vulnerabilities of the Government are exposed before the next election. That means that Labor cannot afford a moment of internal disruption that will be leapt on by the media and played up for all it’s worth to them and, in the process, distract attention from the Government’s mistakes and internal contradictions.

    Whether Shorten is the best available leader for Labor or not is no longer relevant. Replacing him with anyone else who is available will cost so much more to the party’s standing with the voting public than it will gain there is no question.

    Labor and Shorten need to keep focussing on the Government, in the hope that the media might have no other choice than to do the hard yards of critiquing policy, rather than rely on leadership stuff. With luck, the media may even turn to the Liberal party in their laziness for easy headlines. Especially while Abbott is still around.

  13. Shorten is polling poorly right now, but it Isn’t the end of the world. He is perceived as boring and bland by many, but is certainty not incompetent. I think the ALP caucus know that a leadership change would be political suicide

  14. [“What a ridiclous statement. Please explain. If something is passed by parliament, it becomes law. “]

    Whoosh!

    And what happens if they vote Gay Marriage down which is exactly what is going to happen now even with a free vote?

    You’ll accept the lose and move on?

    Plebiscite Now Please

  15. shellbell@1032

    Having a car is a useful courting tool. An opal card, less so.

    Got it in one.

    Week one after I turned 17 I had my drivers licence.

    Week two I had a little red sports car.

    Week three I had a girlfriend (what is she doing now? You never forget your first love!)

    The items above are definitely not unrelated.

  16. don@1219

    shellbell@1032

    Having a car is a useful courting tool. An opal card, less so.

    Got it in one.

    Week one after I turned 17 I had my drivers licence.

    Week two I had a little red sports car.

    Week three I had a girlfriend (what is she doing now? You never forget your first love!)

    The items above are definitely not unrelated.

  17. The ‘Liberal’ party is an ugly party of the hard right which now has a personable and superficially attractive leader. However, the 2016 election is not a presidential race. The ugly right is under a temporary setback but are biding their time. Turnbull is still beholden to them, as is evident from his maintenance of their absurd plebiscite and their risible Direct Inaction scheme, which he knoes id crap.

    Admitedly Turnbull is less likely to embarass us on the international stage. His Government may be passably competent. But it’s lipstick on the same old pig, the party of the 2014 budget, the party of the IPA, the party of climate denialists, the party that attacks the vulnerable, the party that eants to trash the Australian settlement, the party that cultivates fear and doubt for political advantage, the party that thinks you earn too much, the party of the 2GB talback crowd and the party of racists who worry about asylum seekers clogging our freeways.

    It wouldn’t matter if Labor was led by Donald Duck (although he led the Libs until recently) or a block of wood (like the Nationals), in a preferential system where you are forced to choose one or other side, the ‘Liberals’ are unacceptable.

  18. Re TBA @1218:

    And what happens if they vote Gay Marriage down which is exactly what is going to happen now even with a free vote?

    If the House does not pass a bill allowing same sex marriage or if the House passes it and the Senate rejects it, the law stays as it is. Disappointing for those who care deeply about the issue but that’s democracy. There is nothing preventing proponents of change having another go later, that’s also democracy.

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