BludgerTrack: 53.7-46.3 to Coalition

A stable reading from Newspoll pares the Coalition back on the poll aggregate following a surge last week, although Malcolm Turnbull’s already stratospheric personal ratings have risen still higher.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week records a correction after what was probably an Ipsos-driven overshoot last week, with a milder result from Newspoll drawing the Coalition two-party lead back 0.7%, and moving the seat projection two points in favour of Labor, with gains in New South Wales and Victoria. However, Newspoll’s leadership ratings have added further distance between Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten on both net approval and preferred prime minister, although Shorten’s own net approval rating comes in slightly higher than last week’s.

Preselection news:

• The ABC reports on friction within the Bill Shorten-Stephen Conroy axis of the Victorian Right over the preselection in the Melbourne seat of Wills, which is to be vacated at the next election with the retirement of Kelvin Thomson. Conroy is backing Mehmet Tillem, his former chief-of-staff and briefly a Senator, who now works for Victorian Small Business Minister Philip Dalidakis. However, Shorten is pushing for the seat to go to a woman, perhaps motivated by concern about the rising strength of the Greens. The Greens outpolled the Liberals to finish second at the 2013 election, but would need a 15.2% swing againt Labor to win the seat. A meeting of Labor’s administrative committee tonight will determine when the vote is to be held, with the ABC reporting that the Conroy forces favour an earlier-than-expected vote before Christmas. The ABC further reports that Moreland councillor and former mayor Meaghan Hopper is a confirmed starter, along with the previously reported Joshua Funder, a funds manager and former Yarra councillor.

• Eric Abetz and Stephen Parry retained first and second position on the Tasmanian Liberal Senate ticket in a preselection vote held on Saturday. The difficult but winnable third position goes to Jonathon Duniam, deputy chief-of-staff to Premier Will Hodgman. Blair Richards of The Mercury reports that Sally Chandler, who narrowly failed to win a seat from number three in 2013, declined to accept the unwinnable fourth position, amid complaints that the Tasmanian Liberals have not had a woman in federal parliament in 20 years.

• A leading Labor preselection candidate for the seat of Robertson, Anne Charlton, has revealed to preselectors that she was addicted to heroin and “in trouble with the law” at the age of 16. Charlton is now chief-of-staff to Deb O’Neill, who held Robertson from 2010 until her defeat in 2013, and has since found a place in the Senate. Labor’s preselection field will also include Belinda Neal, the seat’s controversial member from 2007 to 2010, when she was defeated for preselection by O’Neill.

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.

793 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.7-46.3 to Coalition”

Comments Page 12 of 16
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  9. Victoria

    Misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to their accounts is one example.

    It is quite something how the three great law firms, Slater & Gordon, Maurice Blackburn and Turner Freeman, so deeply rooted in representing workers, have ended up.

    S&G is a corporation. MB heavily relies on the ABC to promote its mega class actions which may be funded by corporate funders taking a share of the action and TF advertises heavily through 2GB and its RWNJs.

  10. BB@496 @ K17@517: It’s pretty clear that Ashby was referring to herpes simplex virus 2, and is fairly familiar with it. Perhaps we should send Brough some valacyclovir?

  14. zoomster@541

    I think Victoria does have relatively good union contacts, but they are all from those aligned against Rudd..


    Covers about 90% of the Labor party, then.

    Don’t extrapolate Indi to the rest of the ALP.
    You could reverse those stats elsewhere.

  16. [The world would be a better place if Slater and Gordon went bust. :evil:]

    We’ve received two letters from “No win,no fee”lawyers in the past couple of weeks. Not for us, but for my wife’s son.

    He was involved in an accident last August when someone drove out of a driveway straight into him as he was minding his own business driving along the street.

    He went and got one of those renta-cars that you get if you’re in the right. They looked at the police report and rented the car to him on the spot.

    Fast forward a year, and the other driver is suing my wife’s son for causing the accident after the renta-car firm went after him for the rental ($6k, so not insubstantial). The other guy’s insurance company had refused to pay (YooI).

    My wife’s son tacked on a $4k claim for damage to his car.

    They all went to court and the magistrate found or my wife’s son in 5 minutes. Open and shut.

    Now the other guy has gotten this firm of dodgie solicitors to sue my wife’s son all over again, for something that’s already been determined and court orders made etc.

    I rang the original solicitors for the renta-car company and the extra $4k claim, and they tell me that this is becoming normal. You lose the case. You go to a new firm of solicitors. You don’t tell them about losing. They take action, and keep pestering the other guy until he gives them a thousand bucks just to get them off his back.

    If you accept anything from their process servers it all goes to court, or looks like it will. It’ll cost you money to have the case dismissed (as it already was, months before), so that’s when you “settle” with the $1,000. The dodgy solicitors get $400, and the other guys gets $600 that they weren’t entitled to.

    Nice little scam, that.

  17. gt / vic

    [Agreed. A little annoyed that ABC left that presser for the news re the mine expansion approval. Couldnt they go to that after the Sen X presser?]

    Joe O’Brien gets ‘trigger happy’ and wanders backwards and forwards through available live feeds. With the result you don’t get the full clip of many at all.

  19. BB

    I pay $35,000 a year in medicolegal defense insurance. I have been practicing for 25 years and never been sued. All those costs get added on to patients bills, indirectly.

    That’s about $35 a patient, as I treat about 1000 patients a year.

    Obviously in the US it is even worse.

  30. “@pamelacurr: Breaking- trouble in Nauru

    100 people told Files Lost so must start process all over again after 2 years in detention”

    @pamelacurr: Breaking 2 men climbed crane in Nauru camp with freedom banner https://t.co/cd3nVHWils

    “@pamelacurr: @pamelacurr
    Banner on Nauru crane reads
    World:Kids in Nauru Need Help”

  32. See this report on the ABC website.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-27/turnbull-optimistic-about-climate-change-talks-in-paris/6978918

    It happened all the time during the Gillard years. The ABC did not report the Labor announcement; they reported the blatantly political Coalition response. I remember, despite watching politics closely, that often the first I heard about a Labor Government announcement or position was when the criticism of it was reported.

    I don’t think this is institutional bias. But I do think that whoever determines how the news is to be presented does have an inbuilt bias to the Coalition. And it does not serve Australia well.

  33. Malcolm would be absolutely DESPERATE to get Tones to go to London. Anything to stop him recontesting the next election. I’d be surprised though if Tones took it.

  34. Chrissie Pyne feeling comfortable again. Familiar words.

    [“The Climate Change Authority recommended a baseline emissions reduction of 45 per cent by 2030, on 2005 levels,” Mr Shorten will tell the Lowy Institute.

    “Today I announce Labor will use the Climate Change Authority’s recommendation of a 45 per cent reduction as the basis for our consultations with industry, employers, unions and the community.”

    Labor will use the 45 per cent figure in consultation with industry before announcing a final policy next year.

    Industry Minister Christopher Pyne claimed such a target would cause a jump in electricity prices.

    “It is a mad policy,” Mr Pyne told Channel Nine.

    “Bill Shorten’s policy, his thought bubble, 45 per cent reduction, would require them to introduce or reintroduce a carbon tax at double the rate of the carbon tax before,” he said.

    “He wants to smash household budgets and smash the economy.”]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-27/turnbull-optimistic-about-climate-change-talks-in-paris/6978918

  37. The big problem with Slater & Gordon’s model is that, unlike a standard law firm, they have to generate a profit for shareholders. Where do you think that money is going to come from?
    It’s absolutely shameful that this sort of incorporation was ever allowed.
    From an investment perspective there are at least two major problems:
    1. potential adverse law changes impacting on litigation volumes; and
    2. there are NO ECONOMIES OF SCALE. It’s like Eddie Groves and ABC Learning. The more kids you have in your kindergarten the more teachers you need.

  39. If I was Chryssie I wouldn’t be reminding the electorate of their shameful axe the tax campaign. People are starting to understand they were dudded.

  41. Diogs,

    Yeah, but how much would it cost if you were sued and lost?
    I daresy the $35k a year is insignificant compared to that outcome.

    As for S & G, I think they received $300 mill of the $500 mill settlement with SP Powernet for the victims of the 2009 Bushfire here in Victoria.

    I heard one participant will receive $800k reparation for an assessed loss claim of $14million.

  42. “@LaborHerald: .@billshortenmp hits out against giving equal weight, coverage and credence to the “babble of the denialist militia.” #auspol”

  43. I’m very pleased to see Shorten and Labor continuing to fight the good fight on climate change. I hope this latest announcement helps sway some of those still gullible enough to believe Turnbull intends to do anything about emissions back to Labor and the Greens, but I’m not holding my breath.

    Meanwhile, as demonstrated by Pyne’s comments, Turnbull’s new “moderate” government continues to trot out the tired Abbot lines about big new taxes and to resist any meaningful action against climate change.

  44. “@LaborHerald: “To meet the global target of 2°, we must reach a point where we are not adding pollution to the atmosphere.” @billshortenmp #auspol”

  45. “@LaborHerald: “Labor will take a thorough and principled approach to managing the economic transition that climate change demands.” @billshortenmp #auspol”

  46. @LaborHerald: “The world will never wait for us. Never has. We have to step forward and seize the opportunity.” @billshortenmp #auspol

  47. ASHA LEU – I’m very encouraged. It puts a lot of daylight between labor and Turnbull on a fundamental issue (so that Turnbull can’t pretend to be a labor mole) and it shows that Bill Shorten isn’t just a faceless union official. Love it.

  48. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN@587

    The big problem with Slater & Gordon’s model is that, unlike a standard law firm, they have to generate a profit for shareholders. Where do you think that money is going to come from?
    It’s absolutely shameful that this sort of incorporation was ever allowed.

    These days I think the ASX will list ‘almost’ anyone who can pay the (significant) fees involved. They delist/ suspend them pretty quickly for non payment of the annual fees as well.

    S&G have also had their stock enthusiastically short sold for months as well – not only making it into the top 25 stocks shorted but also in the top 5 stocks shorted.

    Currently (ie 23/11 data) they have just under 16% of their shares short sold.

    1 METCASH LIMITED ORDINARY
    2 MYER HOLDINGS LTD ORDINARY
    3 MONADELPHOUS GROUP ORDINARY
    4 JB HI-FI LIMITED ORDINARY
    5 SLATER & GORDON ORDINARY

  50. dave
    [Currently (ie 23/11 data) they have just under 16% of their shares short sold.]

    Does that mean there are a lot of people willing the price down?

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