BludgerTrack: 53.7-46.3 to Coalition

Aggregated poll ratings find Malcolm Turnbull falling short of the heights he achieved towards the end of last year, without giving Labor any real cause for optimism about the election due later this year.

The latest reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate finds at least some of the gloss coming off Malcolm Turnbull’s honeymoon poll ratings, with Labor gaining half a point on two-party preferred since last week and clawing back a point on the seat projection. This week’s Newspoll result means there are now two useable data points this year for personal ratings, the other being the monthly reading from Essential Research that was released a fortnight ago, and they collectively indicate a double-digit drop in Turnbull’s net approval rating since the end of last year, and a downturn in his standing on preferred prime minister. Nonetheless, Turnbull retains commanding leads, and the Coalition is credited with a bigger two-party vote and seat majority than was achieved at the 2013 election.

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.

2,129 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.7-46.3 to Coalition”

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  1. Gee, it’s been a chaotic couple of days for the Government. They could do with a strong dose of discipline from the centre: dare I say, a touch of Peta C?

  2. ‘ Lift your own taxes, PM tell states ‘

    Aren’t the States Constitutionally-restrained wrt which taxes they can levy?

  4. [Noted the same point myself tomorrow. ]

    Wtf? Clearly not enough coffee yet. Meant yesterday of course, but then time is an illusion (lunchtime doubly so).

  5. C@tmomma

    [
    ‘ Lift your own taxes, PM tell states ‘

    Aren’t the States Constitutionally-restrained wrt which taxes they can levy?]
    I hope not. They could call it ‘The Turnbull Tax’.

  6. Someone on PB described Turnbull in terms of a hot air balloon slowly deflating from a small leak.

    This is apt.

    Barring a major political event, I reckon this is gong to be the way of the Coalition poll numbers – a slow but consistent deflation. Half a point down on LNP primary a month until the election.

    Question is – will this be enough for Labor?

  7. Fulvio

    Those 2 were not in my thoughts but you can add them to the list.
    The Ackland aricle on Dyson names 2 on my list, plus some others, out of Dyson’s mouth.

    And whilst I typed this #99 chimed in with yet another.

    The point is that Shellbell’s premise is nonsense and easily repudiated by a brief reference to the public record.

    The revolving door between governments politicians judges and the legal fraternity is probably even more direct at state level. After I posted my comment I started recalling several state examples here in SA – from both parties.

  8. [If you read Tehan in the SMH today, it appears that Sco-Mo’s big plans is to get rid of the 43% rate kicking in at 80,000. Eventually, of course, that would be a prelude to the whole tax system being 35%. Essentially, I think Sco-Mo is a flat-tax junkie.]

    Got as far as the first paragraph of BS and went to bottom to see who was writing such crap. Saw Tehan’s name and closed the tab.

  9. ratsak

    Tehan gives me the impression that he wants to be a big noise so he puts his oar in wherever he can find a gap. Just because his mother was a Minister doesn’t mean son has the same ability?

  10. TROG – When Turnbull calls an election, there could well be an implosion as everybody suddenly brings forward their assessment of this government. In other words, voters will decide Turnbull has run out of time. We shall see.

  11. Peter Martin says a GST hike is a solution in search of a problem:

    Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/gst-hike-is-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem-20160202-gmjybm#ixzz3zF9C3Nu4
    Follow us: @canberratimes on Twitter | CanberraTimes on Facebook

    (linked by BK in Dawn Patrol).

    But I think that the goal is obvious. The Coalition’s main backers – corporations and wealthy individuals – want to pay less on that part of their tax liabilities they can’t avoid. Solution – transfer some of the burden onto the wider community through a GST rise, while applying cuts to the corporate tax rate and the marginal rates in the upper income tax brackets.

    Another dank, humid, overcast day in Sydney. At least it’s not raining (yet). I envy Perth its hot, dry warmth.

    Off to Newcastle (150km North) to visit family.

  12. Shellbell and others who think governments don’t try to appoint the “right” judges – this is from a book review by the very learned Anne Twomey in (2007) MULRev:
    [When working for the Commonwealth Parliament, I once did some preliminary vetting of potential High Court judges for the Commonwealth Attorney‑General’s office. What was interesting was that the list of candidates included the most respected judges and barristers of the day, regardless of political association. A number of them have since been appointed to the Court by governments of different persuasions. More importantly, the vetting instructions were to comb through all their writings (judicial and extra‑judicial) to identify how they might decide upon certain controversial constitutional issues that were likely to arise concerning Commonwealth power. Whether a candidate was radical or conservative was not at issue — the real question was whether the candidate favoured Commonwealth dominance or federalism.]

    But as you and others have pointed out, Judges then sometimes go on to surprise their “sponsors”. That’s what tenure does, and indeed what it was designed to do by those who drafted the Act of Settlement and copied it into the Constitution.

  15. In relation to judicial appointments (and indeed board appointments) under the Abbott / Turnbull PMship two things are apparent:

    1. Shellbell is right the very idea that a judge / legal officer or board member owes obedience to the Govt is repugnant to the way things are supposed to work.

    2. The very idea that either Abbott or Turnbull would look for someone other than someone whose views aligned with the Government and was likely to be obedient to the will of the Government is absurd.

  17. [Gee, it’s been a chaotic couple of days for the Government. They could do with a strong dose of discipline from the centre: dare I say, a touch of Peta C?]

    No leadership evident. Turnbull has coasted on his poll numbers, but what has he done? No change to SSM, no change to climate change, no change to attacks on health and education funding, no change on TURC, no change on attacking science, no change on NBN etc.

    No more Knights and Dames is pretty thin achievement for 6 months.

    Oh there’s a ‘conversation’ on tax reform. But what’s been Malcolm’s contribution? Some motherhood statement’s on fairness, and constant reciting of we don’t actually have a plan when questioned. The underlying (and obvious) assumption that the Libs are looking for a problem to use the GST solution to fix hasn’t been knocked on the head. Now the return fire is starting to hit some targets and he’s backing away from it like he has with everything else.

    At least with Howard and the GST he got out there and made his case. It was mostly rubbish and he stole millions of taxpayer’s dollars to reinforce it with ads, but no one was in any doubt what he wanted to achieve. Can anyone say the same for Turnbull? Even Abbott stood for more and Credlin’s iron fist didn’t help him.

    Turnbull is the dog that caught the car. No wonder there is ill discipline in the ranks. Most of them held their nose to elect him or still hate him. They’d love the polling, but must be concerned that he’s done nothing to earn it, nor keep it. A leadership vacuum is always going to be filled by others.

  18. [The Coalition’s main backers – corporations and wealthy individuals – want to pay less on that part of their tax liabilities they can’t avoid. Solution – transfer some of the burden onto the wider community through a GST rise, while applying cuts to the corporate tax rate and the marginal rates in the upper income tax brackets.]

    Oh the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has always been the ‘solution’. The GST is just the mechanism.

    The problem for the Libs is to find a ‘problem’ compelling enough to gull the majority to vote against their own interests for the solution.

  19. c@tmomma and poroti: yes the States are constitutionally limited as to what taxes they can impose. They can’t impose customs duties or “excise” duties, which the High Court, by narrow majority, has misinterpreted to include sales taxes. They’ve also been bluffed by the Commonwealth out of imposing income tax, so all that’s left is all sorts of piddly and economically-stultifying stamp duties and payroll tax, which MT seems to think they should increase! If they could impose sales taxes they could fund themselves and wave goodbye to their dependence on Big Canberra Brother.

  20. Justice Callinan more recently proved his reliability when, as an ad hoc judge of the International Court of Justice, he was the only one on the whole bench who was prepared to back Australia in the case for provisional measures brought by East Timor after the botched raid on Bernard Collaery’s office in Canberra, approved by Senator Brandeis.

  23. One journo’s judgement:

    [Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s has begun talking up the problems with raising the GST in a sign his appetite for an increase could be waning.

    In a radio interview on Friday, the Prime Minister spent a good deal of time listing the pitfalls and drawbacks of raising the GST to 15 per cent.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-talks-up-gst-problems-in-sign-his-appetite-for-change-is-waning-20160204-gmmc8k.html

  24. [Laura Tingle thinks Turnbull actually doesn’t want an increase in the GST to 15% and it’s just Scotty running his mouth:]

    I’ve no doubt Turnbull’s spinmeister’s are out there trying to extricate Malcolm from his mess, but it’s bullshit. Every man and his dog knows that when he said the country needed new ‘economic leadership’ and when he started his ‘conversation’ on tax reform the end point was GST.

    Trying to foist it all on ScoMo isn’t very smart. Damaging your treasurer is never smart. How are the public going to react to a budget produced by someone the PM has hinted at lack of faith in? It might help reduce a threat in the party room, but ScoMo probably has more rusted on supporters than Turnbull amongst the party (especially now they’ve seen how he treated Macca), and they can do plenty of damage. He also has the monkey pod to contend with, and if he abandons GST changes he’ll have the economic hardliners and the Libs big business backers all over him.

    He’s set himself up for a fail which ever way he jumps.

  25. [Adding flashing lights and music to gambling encourages risky decision-making — even if you’re a rat. Scientists have discovered rats behaved like problem gamblers when sound and light cues were added to a “rat casino” model. What’s more, the researchers were able to correct the behavior by blocking the action of a specific dopamine receptor, laying the groundwork for possible treatment of gambling addiction in humans. ]

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160120111517.htm

  26. Hello Guys,

    Was flabbergasted by Turnbull’s waffle this morning. In one breath he says – we don’t want to raise taxes overall – we already pay too much. Next breath wonders why States ‘recoil’ (his word) from increasing taxes.

    This is Turnbull in a nutshell. Contradiction …. smooth-talking contradiction.

  27. “Laura Tingle thinks Turnbull actually doesn’t want an increase in the GST to 15% and it’s just Scotty running his mouth”

    Tingle is either incredibly naive or simply disingenuous.

  28. jenauthor

    Turnbull is a fraud. And as Jason Clare described the other day. He does a perfect impersonation of the Wizard of Oz

  30. Vic @22

    [Morning all

    Me thinks the leaking of the changes to immigration was to detract attention away from the GST debate
    ]

    Yes, I have the same suspicion myself.

  31. It seems that the ABC last night switched from the pre-approved “GST scare campaign” label to just “anti-GST campaign”. Baby steps.

  32. Did Mathias say this?

    [Geoff Pearson
    Geoff Pearson – ‏@GCobber99

    Cormann said,People will know what we are doing with tax in our second term after the next election! he finally spoke the truth]

  35. Turnbull seems to be back peddling this morning, and it seems Morrison will be providing cover as the fall guy.

    Thought I’d repeat my comment from last night…

    “…it’s becoming clear Turnbull will not go ahead with the GST. Bernardi said he will cross the floor, the backbencher’s are rumbling, and nothing paralyses Turnbull quite like a bunch of grumpy RWNJ’s. Ahhh the agility…”

  37. Interesting that the leaked immigration draft paper was allegedly leaked before either the minister or PM had seen the paper. Who would have had access to it in government before the executive?

  38. victoria

    [Cormann said,People will know what we are doing with tax in our second term after the next election!]

    After the experience with “no cuts” Abbott, how many will be willing to trust Turnbull? Too many, I fear.

  42. davidwh@137

    Interesting that the leaked immigration draft paper was allegedly leaked before either the minister or PM had seen the paper. Who would have had access to it in government before the executive?

    The public servants who drafted it.

  43. Comrade that would be the logical answer but for what purpose?

    So much for all the rhetoric last night about racial profiling etc

  46. Paul

    [ It seems that the ABC last night switched from the pre-approved “GST scare campaign” label to just “anti-GST campaign”. Baby steps. ]

    The ABC has been caught out badly in a few areas recently, as pretty much everyone except a certain well-known PB troglodyte can see. So they are most likely putting up a pretense of “balance” and “independence”. But this will be short-lived – as the Nick Ross affair demonstrates, the DNA of the ABC has been contaminated all the way up the managerial food chain. And this is before Guthrie takes over and trickles down the Murdoch influence.

  48. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-05/turnbull-and-dutton-'have-not-seen-leaked-cabinet-document'/7142714

    So, what level are the perpetrators playing on?

    Level 1 – This was official, Turnbull released it to Cabinet, and is now denying it because of public backlash.

    Level 2 – this was released by Abbott loyalists, either to try to make it government policy, or to try to embarrass Turnbull.

    Level 3 – this was released by Turnbull, but only distributed to someone he knew would leak it. That way he could plausibly deny ever sending it (no witnesses) and discredit the very idea of a leak of cabinet documents, so people don’t believe real cabinet leaks in the future.

  49. Border force boss coy about bribe claim

    The commander of Operation Sovereign Borders has cited national security reasons for not confirming or denying whether bribes were paid to the Indonesian crew of an asylum seeker boat that was turned back.

    A Senate inquiry is examining whether Australian officials last May paid about $US5000 to each of the six crew to turn back a boat that had been bound for New Zealand.

    “Unfortunately under the constraints of (Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s) public interest immunity claim I’m not able to answer any detail in relation to that,” Major General Andrew Bottrell told the hearing in Canberra on Friday.

    http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/borders-boss-to-front-cash-claim-inquiry/news-story/d2508a4bd6de62ed0aa6d21e4ee6b702

  50. People have been trying to de-stabilize the Turnbull government from the beginning. The main difference now is that all the media is reporting on it. 2GB personalities have openly admitted they would be happy for Labor to win the next election just to get rid of Turnbull. Jones did something similar during the QLD election.

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