BludgerTrack: 54.2-45.8 to Coalition

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate is back for the new year with something less than a bang.

BludgerTrack is back in action following poll results last week from Roy Morgan and this week from Essential Research. The only movement it records is from the Greens to Labor, with two-party preferred all but unchanged, and a gain for the Coalition on the seat projection in Victoria balanced out by a loss in South Australia. Given the gap in the time series, the model is highly sensitive to the latest data points, so I’d await confirmation from further polling before I read anything into what little movement has been recorded. For similar reasons, I haven’t updated the leadership ratings despite there being a new result this week from Essential Research.

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.

547 comments on “BludgerTrack: 54.2-45.8 to Coalition”

Comments Page 2 of 11
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  2. Andrew Leigh ‏@ALeighMP 7m7 minutes ago
    Hoping @senatorback can explain the benefits of using tax-advantaged super, growing at 7%, to pay off HECS debts, growing at 2.5% #auspol

  4. fess

    I am actually conflicted. If things go belly up. Is it fair for Labor to be stuck dealing with it? On the other hand, the thought of Truffles and Co managing a serious downturn, feels me with dread

  5. [Andrew Leigh ‏@ALeighMP 7m7 minutes ago
    Hoping @senatorback can explain the benefits of using tax-advantaged super, growing at 7%, to pay off HECS debts, growing at 2.5% #auspol]

    I’d put the HECS debt into the super account … and the family home … it is just silly that all these things are separate and do not form part of a holistic retirement savings plan.

  6. US Stockmarket thumped last night but came back from the brink.

    DJIA was down over 550 points at on stage but close down ‘only’ 250 points.

    The New York Stock Exchange has a massive 43.3% of the stocks which traded making 52 week lows – levels reminiscent of 2008.

    http://finviz.com/

  7. victoria:

    I have no such conflict – straight up, if things go south I’d much prefer the situation is handled by a Labor govt. We know from experience and from history that Labor govts are always better economic managers.

  8. The real Clive nickel story.

    Clive had a plan to use nickel from New Caledonia and refine it in Gladstone Qld. He was going to get Chinese backers to pay $6.5 billion to build it.

    Then BHP closed its Ravensthorpe mine meaning Yabulu had no ore. So Clive bought the refinery off BHP and BHP booked a $650 million tax write off.

    No need to build a new refinery.

    He had an exclusive deal with New Caledonia who only exported to him. He could make nickel cheaper than most.

    The nickel price finally fell to a level even Clive could not make a profit. So he went broke.

    It is the nickel price that lost people their jobs, maybe it would have been better if they lost them in 2009?

  11. vic:

    Labor are crap at the politics. Whereas the coalition are great at the politics, but crap when it comes to implementing good policy.

  12. Is there a Rudd, in terms of his ability to frame a response, in the Labor leadership if they win? Is there a gun in the Treasury to provide advice?

    In any event to win Labor needs quite a bit of time, and perhaps they don’t need an insightful leader to frame a response things may well be way past that by September and in any event I think Malcolm would be finding a way to be agile and innovative with the election date at this point.

  14. [Its in Sydney’s Chinatown area – so a hundred or more Chinese restaurants etc in the immediate area – offering pretty similar food overall but with some variations.]

    The difference between a regional town with a population around 10,000 and Sydeney

  17. victoria@60

    dave

    What is your reading of the share market?

    Vic –

    Am waiting for ‘panic selling’ or capitulation – last night in the US if stocks hadn’t bounced we might have seen it. Markets have come down significantly but fairly ‘orderly’ if thats the word.

    ASX futures were pointing to a rise of 38 points here today but the futures haven’t had too many accurate calls lately. To be fair the ASX futures only estimate the opening – not the days close.

    Will the FED ride to the rescue again ?

    Some on Wall Street – veterans like Art Cushin have said its the US 0.25% interest rate rise wot done it all – yeah right as if!

    Time to buy when the FED and other Central Bank panic and do more QE again ? Who knows – that won’t improve Iron Ore prices and overseas investors aren’t likely to buy our stocks if they believe the AUD will keep falling – they cop a double loss.

    Even if the FED intervenes again – will that be seen as even worse news ? The FED lost the plot.

    But things are so oversold some sort of relief rally – a reaction move is well over due.

    But how long will it last and how high will it bounce. Then what ?

    In a way ‘panic’ selling would be ‘good news’.

  20. See the All Ords has open up 55% atm, including Miners up over 1.8%.

    Iron Ore and Oil were down again last night – so the rally in Miners looks short term (being polite).

  22. [Mr Denmore ‏@MrDenmore · 3h3 hours ago
    The ALP’s Rudd V Gillard war was about personalities. The LNP’s Turnbull V Tea Party war is about ideology. Which will be more ruinous?]

  24. Anyway, on the road to hell in a basket……

    Some guy on BBC World Business this morning was saying oil dropping to $10 a barrel “was not inconceivable”.

    Meanwhile, bowser prices in Perth are still somewhere between $1.10 and $1.25 a litre – depending on the day – same as when a barrel of oil was double the current $30 or so.

    This seeming manipulation of the market, and the insistence by retailers that their “margins” be sustained, seems to be totally beyond any kind of let or hinder.

  28. Matthew Yglesias from Vox reasons that constitutional democracy is breaking down in the United States.

    http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed

    Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, “there is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved.” The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote: “the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate.”

    In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found, a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a period of weeks, but there’s simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.

    But within a presidential system, gridlock leads to a constitutional trainwreck with no resolution. The United States’s recent government shutdowns and executive action on immigration are small examples of the kind of dynamic that’s led to coups and putsches abroad.

    This basic predisposition to instability was kept at bay when patronage politics trumped principles. American politics was once primarily about dispensing jobs and resources – a pragmatic process that induces compromise. But now that American politics is organized around principles, the presidential system’s inherent proneness to instability is being activated.

    Today’s partisan polarization, in other words, is not the same as its Gilded Age predecessor. The old polarization was about control over jobs and money — the kind of thing where split-the-difference compromises are easiest. That polarization was eventually undermined by a new politics built around principles. For decades, politicians found themselves cross-pressured between their commitments to a national party network and to various ideological causes. Today, however, politicians are no longer cross-pressured. We have strong Gilded Age-style parties, but organized around questions of principle rather than questions of patronage.

    The conclusion:

    No other presidential system has gone as long as ours without a major breakdown of the constitutional order. But the factors underlying that stability — first non-ideological parties and then non-disciplined ones — are gone. And it’s worth considering the possibility that with them, so too has gone the American exception to the rule of presidential breakdown.

  29. Zoomster at 30

    “and it isn’t hard. I often drive by new businesses in our town, and say to my kids, “Pity, that’ll close in a few months” – because I know the size of the town and what it can support.”

    Agreed. Although my wfe & I have never owned a small business we know our area very well in terms of both locality & business type & its sadly easy to pick those bsinesses that will fail within 12 months due to either poor locations or unwanted or over-supplied product.

    It is however equally enjoyable seeing the write small businesses run well in the right locations being successful.

  31. victoria at 50

    “The markets are copping a belting, and there is lots of chatter about another 2007. I havE no faith in Truffles & Co being prepared for ajything whatsoever.”

    Agreed. The issue of the economy is probably the most likely issue to cause Turnbull grief & potentially steamroll the Libs if not handled deftly. No country appears immune & I don’t see any government outwardly preparing for its eventuality. I hope Malcolm realises that Debt doesn’t vote.

  32. I think the market will do whatever it’s going to do regardless of what gurus say. It’s like the weather – easier to explain afterwards what happened than to predict what it will do.

    I think volatility is built into the system, with ‘investors’ essentially gambling, out to speculate and to profit on short-term fluctuations rather than invest in profitable enterprise.

    I switched my super fund into a ‘conservative’ investment option a couple of years ago when the market was being wracked by fortnightly Greek crises and seemed to be ready to collapse in a heap, after having followed a zigzaging sideways course for the previous couple of years.

    I am no expert, but it appears to me that all this was predictable. Stratespheric comodity prices won’t last? A no-brainer. China’ growth to slow down? What idiot thought double-digit growth would continue forver. Ditto escalting house prices. Ditto near zero interest rates in most of the wealthy Western economies. And the Greek debt, and other debt mountains, haven’t gone away.

  33. [In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found, a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader.]

    Well some nice reasoning – but our Parliamentary system hasn’t produced a Government that could effectively govern since 2007.

    Gillard to be fair made the best of the lot of cobbling hers together, but the public marked that Government harshly, very very harshly.

    Imagine the difference today if Rudd hadn’t been hamstrung be the hangover Howard senate! Imagine if Abbott had the numbers to implement all of budget one.

    Many would say both were good outcomes, but how can you really judge a Government if they don’t govern?

    I know many like a deadlock so silly minor parties get disproportionate influence but a majority if us dont

  35. I know many like a deadlock so silly minor parties get disproportionate influence but a majority if us dont

    I think that minor parties have disproportionate influence because the major parties, by insisting that their MPs be cyphers for the party line, hand it to them. I think that it would be better if parties could agree on a set or core principles to be followed, while allowing a degree of freedom to individual MPs/Senators on most issues, a bit like the situation that used to apply in the USA.

  38. From NYT –

    [ What Is Really Happening In China

    Liu Lang, a Chinese migrant worker, left his rural hometown in Sichuan Province two decades ago to work in the factories of the southern province of Guangdong, China’s manufacturing powerhouse. Now, he is moving back.

    “I worked my way up from a basic worker to a department head. And my career basically ended today,” Mr. Liu said on the train leaving Guangdong.

    Factories in Guangdong have been hit hard by the slowing economy, and many of them have closed, including the shoe factory where Mr. Liu worked.

    In 2015, China’s economy expanded 6.9 percent, just below the government’s target of 7 percent, according to official numbers released Tuesday. While the pace would be the envy of many developed countries, it marks China’s slowest economic growth since 1990, the year after the government’s crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square.

    “My wife and I were both working at that factory,” Mr. Liu said. “We lost more than 20,000 renminbi for the last three months,” he added, referring to about $3,000 in unpaid back wages. ]

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-20/what-really-happening-china-my-career-basically-ended-today

    Number of Chinese strikes –

  39. The NSW corruption watchdog says its high-profile inquiry into a company linked to Labor and Liberal figures including Arthur Sinodinos​ has not yet been completed, amid reports the Turnbull government minister has been cleared of corruption findings.
    Senator Sinodinos, a former chairman of controversial infrastructure company Australian Water Holdings, was called as a witness during the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s public inquiry into the company in 2014.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/icac-and-arthur-sinodinos-silent-on-claims-he-has-been-cleared-20160120-gmaglo.html#ixzz3xpuZyMJK
    Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

  40. @89 – As much as I don’t think think Sinodinos himself acted corruptly (as opposed to simple greed), I can’t see how he can continue in a senior government role after the AWH scandal.

    Looking at this another way, if a senior Labor Senator had been the head of a Union which was found to have been acting corruptly during his/her tenure, do you think they would have a bright future in politics?

  42. Multiparty parliament work really well. See Scandinavia. Even the example pointed to as being one of the worst Italy has seen Italy stay in the developed world and has not seen it in any danger of becoming a third world country.

    It has certainly done better than Greece.

    The art of politics is compromise. Have multiparty parliaments forcing compromise more often can actually be a good thing and reflect the views of the voting public better than monolith two party systems.

    The Gillard Government had no problem governing. The only problem for the Gillard government was the soap opera and the hostility of the media lying about how that soap opera meant no governing was happening and it was all chaos.

  43. BK, 8

    [A ripper about Liberal Party preselections from Pat Campbell.
    ]

    I don’t know if it’s been mentioned before, but the dinosaur in this photo looks like Abetz

  44. For any that doubt my view at post 92 I advise you watch Borgen again.

    Different politics causes different problems but its certainly not an unworkable system

  45. Steve777@85

    I know many like a deadlock so silly minor parties get disproportionate influence but a majority if us dont

    I think that minor parties have disproportionate influence because the major parties, by insisting that their MPs be cyphers for the party line, hand it to them. I think that it would be better if parties could agree on a set or core principles to be followed, while allowing a degree of freedom to individual MPs/Senators on most issues, a bit like the situation that used to apply in the USA.

    No thanks. I expect the ALP to work out a position collectively and all members be bound to it.

    What should happen, and does happen, is that most legislation is not contentious and is waved through. Some is contentious and Labor can put up and negotiate amendments that are accepted.

    It is only a relatively few pieces of legislation where the major parties are at complete loggerheads and the govt needs to negotiate support from minor parties / independents.

    I don’t want any smart-arse Labor members, who think they know better than the collective wisdom of their colleagues, selling out to the Libs. Ever.

  47. [ This Government will do anything to get their hands on your super… http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/morrison-urged-to-let-students-pay-study-debt-with-super/7103120 … ]

    The tone of the Govts musings about super is worrying.

    Seems to me they are completely orienting their approach ( increasing revenue with regard to super ) to the accumulation phase rather than drawdown phase.

    Yup, there are some arguments (which they haven’t really made as yet) that are relevant, fairness in relation to “tax expenditures” being the main one. But ignoring the tax free status of super based returns after 60 (which i dont think is sustainable ) is silly.

    I’d see a more balanced approach as delivering a higher payoff, structurally medium term. Tackle the issue of high income earners / tax concessions on the accumulation side fer sure, but encourage mid-lower earners during that phase. Then, draw off reasonable revenue in a fair way from a larger pot later on.

    There is probably more immediate political pain in addressing that (and the Libs are cowards) but sometime, someone will have to do it.

  48. [He’s not Henry but Truffles was smart enough to get Martin Parkinson back.]

    Definitely a good move and a good influence on Treasury, I just dont know if Treasury has the internal grunt needed. Hopefully it has.

  49. [I think that minor parties have disproportionate influence because the major parties, by insisting that their MPs be cyphers for the party line, hand it to them. I think that it would be better if parties could agree on a set or core principles to be followed, while allowing a degree of freedom to individual MPs/Senators on most issues, a bit like the situation that used to apply in the USA.]

    I agree but our whole system has been moving the other way. And I don’t know about others but WA Labor preselection isn’t about best person for the seat it is about most loyal and obedient factional servant.

  50. The minor parties influence only comes when they work with a major party. Without a major party the minor parties by themselves even the Greens can do very little.

    Whining about the minor parties just means a failure of negotiation to get them on the side you think they should be on.

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