BludgerTrack: 52.8-47.2 to Coalition

Another week, another surge in Malcolm Turnbull’s personal poll ratings, together with solid if less spectacular movement on voting intention.

There’s been a fair bit of polling in the past week, from Newspoll, ReachTEL and Essential Research on voting intention, plus a leadership ratings phone poll from Morgan. Pretty much all of it has been good news for the Coalition, and especially for Malcolm Turnbull. The BludgerTrack poll aggregate accordingly finds the Coalition lead picking up yet further, by 0.9% on two-party preferred and four on the national seat projection, which includes two from Queensland and one each from Victoria and Western Australia. However, this is small beer compared with the movement on leadership ratings, with Turnbull recording roughly double-digit improvements in his already commanding position on both net approval and preferred prime minister – a result of very strong numbers from Newspoll, and positively spectacular ones from Roy Morgan.

Other news:

• Two state by-elections will be held on Saturday in Victoria, which you can read about here, and December 5 has been set for the federal by-election to replace Joe Hockey in North Sydney, which you can read about here. All are Liberal seats that stand to be uncontested by Labor.

• Calla Wahlquist of The Guardian reports three candidates have come forward for Labor preselection in the newly created seat of Burt in Perth’s south-eastern suburbs, which as conceived in the recent draft redistribution has a notional Liberal margin of 4.8%. The presumed front-runner is Matt Keogh, the Right-backed lawyer who ran unsuccessfully at the Canning by-election on September 18. However, he will face opposition from Gosnells councillor Pierre Yang – who will have the backing of the Left, according to a report from Joe Spagnolo of the Sunday Times – and Lisa Griffiths, a medical scientist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital who ran in the nearby seat of Darling Range at the 2008 state election.

• A Nationals preselection to choose a successor to Bruce Scott in the safe pastoral Queensland seat of Maranoa has been won by David Littleproud, manager of a Suncorp bank branch in Warwick and the son of Brian Littleproud, a Nationals member of state parliament from 1983 to 2001. Other candidates were Cameron O’Neil, a Maranoa councillor who works for the Queensland Disaster Management Committee, and had been spoken of as Littleproud’s strongest rival; Lachlan Douglas, southern Queensland regional manager for Rabobank; Alison Krieg, a grazier from Blackall; and Rick Gurnett, a grazier from Charleville.

• The ABC reports candidates for Liberal Senate preselection in Tasmania include Jonathan Duniam, chief-of-staff to Premier Will Hodgman, and Sally Chandler, an employee of the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. They will compete for positions with the number one and number two candidates from 2010, Eric Abetz and Stephen Parry.

• Adam Carr at Psephos now has complete historical state election results for Victoria on his site, going back to the very first elections for positions on the Legislative Council in 1843. As a resource for electorate-level results extending deep into the mists of history, it joins David Barry’s highly sophisticated federal election results site; the complete historical New South Wales state election results archive developed by Antony Green and maintained by the state parliament website; Tasmanian historical results back to 1909 on the state parliament website; and electorate-level results for Queensland going back to 1932 on Wikipedia. However, things are very barren in the case of Western Australia and South Australia, for which the best thing is Psephos’s electorate results going back to the mid-1990s. UPDATE: Kirsdarke in comments notes the Wikipedia oompa-loompas have also worked their way back to 1956 in Western Australia and 1950 in South Australia, without me having noticed.

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.

2,186 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.8-47.2 to Coalition”

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  1. C1

    Sorry. You are right of course. I don’t know if Amnesty International has requested a Royal Commission before.

    Insert red faced embarrassed emoji here

  2. [When I asked Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek about the “woman walks into a meeting problem” * — she rattled off a line about setting quotas and meeting them and how State and Federal Labor had done just that.

    The problem with government-imposed affirmative action is that it adds to an already growing hostility between genders and creeds, and in this country we can’t afford to have more of that. When companies adopt diversity quotas they do it with a better intention than if one was just imposed on them. Diversity quotas should be the sign of a competitive workplace. The numbers prove it.

    Google Australia has diversity quotas and it didn’t need to wait for the government to tell it to: A sign the marketplace is beginning to value diversity. Though there is much work to be done.

    What the government can do, however, is ensure a strong Fair Work Tribunal and provide workers with legal avenues that are professionally desirable and affordable to ensure fair, equitable, safe and supportive work environment.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/women-in-tech-government-alone-cant-end-structural-discrimination-20151028-gkknoz.html#ixzz3pu9Gok5Q

    *(for reference read this piece on the Washington Post*: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2015/10/13/jennifer-lawrence-has-a-point-famous-quotes-the-way-a-woman-would-have-to-say-them-during-a-meeting/?tid=sm_fb)

  4. I am no psephologist and very much respect William’s work, because he IS an excellent psephologist – as is Kevin Bonham. But I can’t help thinking that the present figures are artificially inflated by the Ipsos and Morgan polls, which for whatever reason are seriously understating the ALP pv.

    The Newspoll, which now has much greater cred since its conversion to Galaxy methodology, has registered 35% pv for the ALP twice recently, while the best Ipsos can manage is 30% – and Morgan is just ridiculously off the scale at about 28%.

    This is not a pleasant time to be a Labor supporter while Turnbull enjoys his honeymoon, but I doubt that the “real’ situation is anywhere near as bad as these two polls are making it look.

  5. Pretty sad that the situation Australia finds itself in when Amnesty write a report the very best the appropriate Minister can do is play the man, presumably because playing the issues would end up worse. Very poor behaviour from Dutton.

    Someone should ask him how does it feel to be the ‘evil’ that happens in ‘Evil flourishes when good people do nothing’.

  7. Darn – Didn’t realise that William was keeping Morgan. I’m actually pretty upbeat right now because:
    1. Labor has the better policies;
    2. People will get tired of the Wentworth Warbler very fast; and
    3. Every vote he loses won’t be going back. He only gets one chance to impress.

  8. Latest social cohesion survey…

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/28/social-cohesion-scanlon-survey-binds-australia-stronger-than-ever-even-as-tony-abbott-came-unstuck

    Authoritarian submissiveness is alive and well in Australia.
    [But we love authority. Once again, the Scanlon survey shows Australia’s profound faith in the police: 88% of us have “some” or “a lot” of trust in the officers of the law. We trust bosses far more than unions (72% to 41%), and police far more than lawyers and the courts.

    To the distress of judges who have been through these figures with Markus, the legal system comes out rather poorly: only 73% of us trust the bench, bar and magistrates. But judges can take comfort from the national verdict on political parties: only 38% of us trust them.]

  10. Darn

    [ This is not a pleasant time to be a Labor supporter while Turnbull enjoys his honeymoon, but I doubt that the “real’ situation is anywhere near as bad as these two polls are making it look. ]

    There is an upside to this – whether they were deliberate or accidental, once these outlier polls wash through the various pollster’s tracking systems (e.g. BludgerTrack), and as the various psephologists adjust their factors to take account of the pollster’s bias, it will look worse for the Malingerer, since it not only makes the peak more pronounced, it also makes the collapse after the peak more obvious.

  13. From same article…Labor’s great wedge – asylum seekers and refugees:
    [The figures show how potently damaging this is for Labor where 26% of party supporters would let boat people live here and 22% want to see their boats forced back to Indonesia. Into that split, the government drives a great wedge again and again. Labor is left permanently uneasy and discredited in the eyes of its allies among the well educated, the well off and the young.]
    But there’s hope..
    [The young – those 18 to 29 years old – are shown by Markus to have slightly different political priorities to their elders. More are concerned about the environment and far more about the poor treatment of asylum seekers.

    But what sets them apart is rather muted pride in their country and their openness to the world. They are far happier even than the rest of us about the level of migration to Australia; they more emphatically disagree that migrants should be chosen on the basis of race and religion; they are far more enthusiastic about learning from those who come here to live; and they are twice as keen to see governments help minorities preserve their customs and traditions.]

  15. mexicanbeemer@1169

    psyclaw

    Two things,

    1- I was more focusing on being each side of a tax bracket than the actual number

    2-Yes it depends on the trust structure but and when I have time over the weekend I will quote some of the page from financial textbooks they say that trusts are taxed.

    “>mexicanbeemer@1169

    psyclaw

    Two things,

    1- I was more focusing on being each side of a tax bracket than the actual number

    2-Yes it depends on the trust structure but and when I have time over the weekend I will quote some of the page from financial textbooks they say that trusts are taxed.

    mexicanbeemer@1169

    psyclaw

    Two things,

    1- I was more focusing on being each side of a tax bracket than the actual number

    2-Yes it depends on the trust structure but and when I have time over the weekend I will quote some of the page from financial textbooks they say that trusts are taxed.

    mexicanbeemer@1169 on Newspoll: 52-48 to Coalition | The Poll Bludger

    psyclaw

    Two things,

    1- I was more focusing on being each side of a tax bracket than the actual number

    2-Yes it depends on the trust structure but and when I have time over the weekend I will quote some of the page from financial textbooks they say that trusts are taxed.

    “>mexicanbeemer@1169 on Newspoll: 52-48 to Coalition | The Poll Bludger

    psyclaw

    Two things,

    1- I was more focusing on being each side of a tax bracket than the actual number

    2-Yes it depends on the trust structure but and when I have time over the weekend I will quote some of the page from financial textbooks they say that trusts are taxed.

    “>mexicanbeemer@1169

    psyclaw

    Two things,

    1- I was more focusing on being each side of a tax bracket than the actual number

    2-Yes it depends on the trust structure but and when I have time over the weekend I will quote some of the page from financial textbooks they say that trusts are taxed.

    mexicanbeemer@1169 on Newspoll: 52-48 to Coalition | The Poll Bludger

    psyclaw

    Two things,

    1- I was more focusing on being each side of a tax bracket than the actual number

    2-Yes it depends on the trust structure but and when I have time over the weekend I will quote some of the page from financial textbooks they say that trusts are taxed.

    I’m a CPA.

    Any income remaining in an Inter vivos trust (the type most people talk about when they say “trust) at year end is taxed at the top marginal rate. As a result, a trust, under normal circumstances, will distribute 100% of it’s income to the trust beneficiaries.

    Testamentary trusts (created by a will) are subject to a concessional tax regime for a limited period of time.

  17. CSG and landowners’ rights: https://theconversation.com/who-gets-to-decide-whether-we-dig-up-coal-and-gas-49896
    [The only possible scenario where a right of veto could arise would be if the state decided to divest themselves of ownership of minerals and petroleum and confer ownership of those resources back to private landowners. This is unlikely to occur given the enormous financial benefit the state receives from royalties associated with resource extraction.

    In the absence of a fundamental shift in public resource ownership neither the federal environment minister nor state governments will give landowners the right to say no to resource developers.]
    https://theconversation.com/who-gets-to-decide-whether-we-dig-up-coal-and-gas-49896

  18. What on earth are people capable of today the murder of a mother and her child and two more criminals robbing and killing another.

    Something is very very wrong with our society.

  21. BCassidy has just concluded his segment on ABC radio. In a nutshell. Turnbull intends to go full term and bring down a budget. Labor has no apetite to change leaders even if rules not in place. Basically Labor (like some of us bludgers) dont believe a change of Leadership would help them in any way. Turnbull’s popularity would not be dampened.
    Discussion on TURC. Surprised Shorten will not be recalled and it is going to be wound up shortly. Cassidy still thinks Shorten and union will be damaged by findings

  25. [The problem with government-imposed affirmative action is that it adds to an already growing hostility between genders and creeds, and in this country we can’t afford to have more of that. When companies adopt diversity quotas they do it with a better intention than if one was just imposed on them.]

    Er, what? Government imposing diversity quotas is Bad but it’s OK if a business does it?

    Google workers would have had no more say into whether or not quotas were applied than if the government had done it. If anything, resentment towards a government for doing something is more diffused than if an individual or company does it.

    [Google Australia has diversity quotas and it didn’t need to wait for the government to tell it to: A sign the marketplace is beginning to value diversity. Though there is much work to be done.]

    Good on google. That doesn’t mean much – big companies have had paid parental leave for decades. These things do not automatically wash through.

    If the author wants community wide affirmative action, that can and will only happen with some degree of government intervention.

    Women have tried waiting for diversity to be valued and rewarded. We can still wait, of course – and get equal opportunity in about another century or so – or we can put pressure on governments to speed the process up.

    To use the example used before: paid parental leave has been available to government employees for decades. (I had access to it over twenty years ago). It took government intervention to ensure that all workers can access at least some parental leave.

  26. [Basically Labor (like some of us bludgers) dont believe a change of Leadership would help them in any way.]

    Sanity prevails if Cassidy’s assessment is right.

  27. lizzie

    Cassidy also said something about the statements made by Turnbull re coal etc. He said wtte that Turnbull provided the right balance re same.

    A bob each way indeed

  28. Social cohesion survey…attitudes towards Muslims:
    http://www.theage.com.au/national/sydney-more-hostile-to-muslims-but-australia-embraces-multiculturalism-survey-20151028-gkkqck.html
    [Melbourne is by far the most tolerant major Australian city towards Muslims, with Sydney most likely to be hostile.

    Only 16 per cent of Melburnians reported a negative view of Muslims, compared with 27 per cent in Sydney. The findings in Sydney are closely matched in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. Canberra is the only city close to Melbourne with 16.1 per cent negative.

    A marked difference also emerges between the cities and country regions, especially in Victoria, where urban people are more likely to have positive attitudes to Muslims.]

  29. I dont care how much the punters love Talcum – the ALPs policy of 50% renewables is going to punch a hole in that lead the size of a fist.

    Especially is they combo it up with subsidies for solar home storage batteries. Cost of living improvements right there.

    Talcum hasnt *done* anything yet except to be Tony Abbott. He may well have the next election in the bag, but the one after is anyone’s game.

    Even Rudd/ Gillard got a 2nd term folks. Its not a massive achievement.

  33. Shorten re coal:
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/27/shorten-coalition-rightwingers-forcing-australians-to-pledge-loyalty-to-coal
    [Shorten warned that the ideological commitment to coal was impacting on the economy.

    “I’m worried, as we have these left-right arguments about are you for coal or against coal, that we’re missing the investment opportunity,” he said.

    But he would not commit to Labor abandoning non-renewables altogether.

    “I don’t think it’s up to government to pick the winner and say that coal is bad,” Shorten said. “Labor doesn’t think that.”]
    Is that “speaking out both sides of his mouth”?

  34. MTBW

    [Something is very very wrong with our society.
    ]

    Although in an ideal world these things wouldn’t happen, I’m unaware of any society (past or present) where they don’t.

  36. If anyone is interested, Peter Reith will be on the conversation hour on ABC774 together with Andrew Denton. Reith has released a book of his diary whilst he was MP. He has of course made annotations on his diary notes

  37. [10.WWP:

    I’m not surprised at Dutton’s response. He’s a pretty useless minister.
    ]

    But in this enlightened age of the Prophet Malcolm his disciple David swears things are better! Call me a heretic by all means but the new days of enlightenment seem much like the bad days of Abbott!

  40. WWP:

    Of course, as has been noted before, the Turnbull govt is essentially the Abbott govt just with decorative frou-frou at the edges.

  41. MTBW
    [
    What on earth are people capable of today]
    Today ? This sort of stuff has always gone on. “Today” however they are more likely to be caught.

  42. zoomster and MBTW

    [ Although in an ideal world these things wouldn’t happen, I’m unaware of any society (past or present) where they don’t. ]

    It actually says good things about our society that people can still be outraged by events such as these. In the USA such incidents tend not to even rate news coverage unless there are unusual circumstances (e.g. celebrity involvement) or a very high body count.

  43. Peg

    I was just thinking, before I read your post, that the coal situation is not being explained fully by either Party. I know it’s difficult in a short presser, but the full explanations are in publications/arguments that do not appear in the mainstream papers (translation: Telegraph or Herald-Sun). If they’re in the commercial TV news, I wouldn’t know.

    These vague “we can’t stop selling coal” statements really aren’t helpful.

  44. Daretotread – If Shorten isn’t arrested and perp-walked into Court with a jacket over his head (as many expect) the TURC findings will be a plus for him.

  46. So far so good for Turnbull…He is the people’s choice (via umpteen polls beforehand) and he seems to be living up to the expectations held for him. Contrasted with Abbott he seems adult and sane and, he looks presentable on TV.

    He seems to say what everyone wants to hear.

    That he is pompous, a genuine Big End of Town conservative, has yet to make any real and/or nasty decisions, has a track record of duplicity and has Abbott and the hard right of his party yet to deal with are all things which will take the gloss off.

    As a poster has mentioned, it is tougher going with him as leader of the LNP, but if Labor cannot match/better the policies offered, then they should not be in government anyway.

    I would not think 52-48 at this point, one year out from an election, is desperation time for Labor.

    Calls to replace Shorten with someone/anyone will not change the underlying reasons why things are as they are.

    And before the Get Bill Chorus come out and claim Labor supporters are in denial, I have heard, ad nauseum, your one and only song.

  47. LOL – even the UK Tories think Abbott’s a douchebag:

    [London: Tony Abbott’s controversy-sparking speech in honour of Margaret Thatcher made Conservative cabinet ministers “wince”, a well-connected Tory blogger says.

    Guido Fawkes, the online persona of blogger and journalist Paul Staines, wrote that a top Tory described the speech afterwards as “fascistic”.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/world/tories-winced-over-tony-abbotts-fascistic-refugees-speech-20151028-gklan9.html

  48. Lefty – e. Labor has to win this one. Another three years of the libs and we are really stuffed. I’m a lot more confident than you. If Tones hadn’t stuffed up, it would be very difficult. But that hangs over the libs and sets the bar higher for them.

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