BludgerTrack: 53.1-46.9 to Coalition

A dip in support for the Coalition recorded by Morgan makes its presence felt in the latest weekly poll aggregate reading, although the Coalition is still projected as on track to retain its thumping majority from 2013.

A fairly pronounced narrowing in the Coalition’s lead may now be observed on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate charts, thanks mostly to an unusually soft result for the Turnbull government in this week’s Morgan result. This shows up as a 0.6% move to Labor on two-party preferred since last week, but it’s only made a slight difference on the seat projection, which credits the Coalition with a net gain of one seat since the 2013 election despite a 0.4% lower two-party vote. The aggregate also records a lift in support for the Greens, who had had some of the wind taken out of their sails when Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister. The addition of new figures from Essential Research to the leadership ratings results in essentially no change to an overall picture of Turnbull enjoying massive but nonetheless slightly reduced leads over Bill Shorten on both net approval and preferred prime minister.

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.

1,097 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.1-46.9 to Coalition”

Comments Page 2 of 22
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  1. guytaur @ 40,

    ‘ The state result in NSW where the Greens won a seat from the Nationals proves that things are starting to break down for the Nationals.’

    The Greens won that seat largely due to demographic change and because of the preference allocation against the Labor candidate who came very close to winning it as well, if I remember correctly.

    ‘ The Nationals have to change or they are a dead parrot of a party. Its just how long will it take for new parties to make inroads to their vote that is in question.’

    The only change I have noticed is that they don’t want the Chinese buying out all their farms. Though if you look at that picture in the Hun the Chinese have found willing Liberals and LNP MPs as a workaround that.

    I know there have been changes at the margins to Nationals policy but it still seems as though they are in the thrall of Big Agriculture and Big Mining (they are still pushing the Adani case & *Barnaby* is it’s chief proponent).

  2. C@tmomma

    [Not wanting to be disrespectful to country folk but I do know that voting National is something that is ingrained in their local communities]

    CSG mining is certainly doing some breaking of this ‘bond’.

  3. guytaur @ 40,

    ‘ The state result in NSW where the Greens won a seat from the Nationals proves that things are starting to break down for the Nationals.’

    The Greens won that seat largely due to demographic change and because of the preference allocation against the Labor candidate who came very close to winning it as well, if I remember correctly.

    ‘ The Nationals have to change or they are a dead parrot of a party. Its just how long will it take for new parties to make inroads to their vote that is in question.’

    The only change I have noticed is that they don’t want the Chinese buying out all their farms. Though if you look at that picture in the Hun the Chinese have found willing Liberals and LNP MPs as a workaround that.

    I know there have been changes at the margins to Nationals policy but it still seems as though they are in the thrall of Big Agriculture and Big Mining (they are still pushing the Adani case & *Barnaby* is it’s chief proponent).

    ‘ All that community support for the Nationals is predicated on the Nationals doing the best for the community. CSG and coal mining has shown country folk that this is not necessarily the case.’

    Let’s see where The Nationals and *Barnaby* goes with the Shenhua Mine on the Liverpool Plains? I guess the collapsing price may make the decision for them but if not then the government will have to make a decision. With Nationals input.

    ‘ Shunning people for voting Nationals only works where there is no secret ballot or people admit to voting other than National.’

    Finally I will just add that the shunning may be more covert than overt these days but I still believe it would go on. Those who don’t care won’t care but there are still plenty who do.

  4. morning all

    For anyone who watches ABC24 during the mornings, I ask if there was any reporting of the latest Stuart Robert and rolex watches saga?

  5. cat momma

    Its the result that counts. A formerly National seat is now Green.

    This indicates change is happening. Yes some of it is demographics but same applies to seats like that of Windsor and Oakeshott. Thats 3 seats normally National that they have lost.

    All I am saying is that the assumption the Nationals have a lock on the country vote is not so true now. Others can and will challenge precisely because the majority of the rural communities are not big agriculture or big mining.

    We would see polling reflecting this if it was done. Remember we have had years now of Alan Jones telling people to vote against the Nationals. He may have changed his tune now but people will remember those tirades.

  11. [Yes some of it is demographics but same applies to seats like that of Windsor and Oakeshott. Thats 3 seats normally National that they have lost.]

    Which they promptly got back again.

    Similarly, Victorian Labor won a swag of Nationals seats under Bracks, and at least one other was held by an independent. This led to predictions that the Nats were gone in Victoria.

    Most of these have reverted back to the Nationals, just as Oakeshott and Windsor’s did.

  13. The thing I just don’t get about the Rolex watches fiasco is how all the recipients were fooled into thinking real watches were fakes.

    Sure, I can understand how you can be fooled into thinking a fake watch is the real thing, but the other way round doesn’t make any sense. Unless Rolex are doing naff things with the real articles so their wearers can know they are wearing real ones but they are not exposing their excessive wealth (or lucky friendships).

  14. zoomster

    More signs that the Nationals lock on country seats not as strong as previously. Yes they have reverted. The point is after years of Nationals winning they lost them.

    Happens once can happen again. The predictions may have been wrong on the timing but they are on the money of the direction of the LNP.

    Even now the Nationals are not as strong in parliament as previously this with an election going in the conservative direction with the Abbott election.

  15. [The thing I just don’t get about the Rolex watches fiasco is how all the recipients were fooled into thinking real watches were fakes.]

    I think they’re just saying that because they think it absolves them of ‘real’ wrong-doing. ‘I’m an idiot’ though isn’t really much of a defence.

  19. Windhover

    Perhaps the recipients had never seen a genuine Rolex so had no way of comparing. Unless price is mentioned, as in “Wanna buy a cheap Rolex?”, it would be difficult.

  22. [Most of these have reverted back to the Nationals, just as Oakeshott and Windsor’s did.]

    It also works in reverse, as per O’Connor which the Liberals won back off the Nats after only one term.

  30. This is a perceptive take on what is really happening in the Democratic nomination contest:

    On economic policy, contemporary establishment democrats have more in common with contemporary republicans than they do with the FDR/LBJ democrats. Carter and Clinton took the party away from economic progressives. The Democratic Party, which was once the party that saw economic inequality and poverty as the core causes of economic instability, now sees inequality and poverty as largely irrelevant. Instead of eliminating inequality and poverty to fuel the capitalist system and produce strong economic growth, establishment democrats now largely agree with establishment republicans that the problem is a lack of support for business investment.

    So Bernie Sanders is not merely running to attempt to implement a set of idealistic policies that a republican-controlled congress is likely to block. He is running to take the Democratic Party back from an establishment that ignores the fundamental systemic economic problems that lead to wage stagnation and economic crisis. Those who say that the Democratic Party cannot be reclaimed by the FDR/LBJ types or that if it is reclaimed it will flounder in elections against the GOP are thinking too small. In the 1968 and 1976 republican primaries, this guy called Ronald Reagan was running to take the Republican Party back from the Richard Nixon types who went along with the democrats on welfare and regulation in a bid to return the republicans to their 1920’s Calvin Coolidge roots. At the time, Reagan’s plan was considered madcap–everyone in the 60’s and 70’s knew that hard right Coolidge style economics leads to depression and crisis. But the stagflation in the 70’s created an opportunity for Reagan to convince republicans and eventually the country as a whole to fully embrace a totally different ideology that was much closer to Coolidge’s politics than it was Eisenhower’s or Nixon’s. In the years since 2008, many Americans, in particular young people, are willing to consider the possibility that neoliberalism–the economic ideology espoused by both the post-Reagan republicans and the post-Carter Clinton-era democrats–is fundamentally flawed and must be revised or potentially replaced entirely.

    This can only happen if democrats recognize that Bernie Sanders is not just a slightly more left-wing fellow traveler of Clinton’s. This is not a contest to see who will lead the democrats, it’s a contest to see what kind of party the democrats are going to be in the coming decades, what ideology and what interests, causes, and issues the Democratic Party will prioritize. This makes it far more important than any other recent primary election. The last time a democratic primary was this important, it was 1976. Only this time, instead of Anybody But Carter or Anybody But Clinton, the left has Bernie Sanders–one representative candidate that it is really excited about. The chance may not come again for quite some time.

    Hillary Clinton is a neoliberal building on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. She doesn’t understand the pivotal role inequality plays in creating economic crisis and reducing economic growth. She has been taken in by a fundamentally right wing paradigm, and if she is elected she will continue to lead the Democratic Party down that path.

    http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2016/02/05/why-bernie-vs-hillary-matters-more-than-people-think/

  33. Andrew Elder’s latest on the Robert saga:

    [I find it hard to believe that:

    Stuart Robert visited China with a major Liberal donor without the imprimatur of Peta Credlin and other control freaks in the office of then-PM Abbott (including Abbott himself); and

    Robert met with government officials in China without the knowledge, and at least the tacit approval, of then and current Foreign Minister Julie Bishop; and

    the press gallery and the Opposition remain focused on Robert himself and “ministerial standards” without looking to those further up the line from him; and

    Prime Minister Turnbull would, with everything else he has on his plate, divert the head of his department to a minor administrative matter; and

    Robert is probably the most promising ministerial-quality MP the Queensland LNP sends to Canberra; and

    almost inevitably, the press gallery and the Opposition will accept a behind-closed-doors assessment from a bureaucrat as the last word on this matter, and go galumphing off after some other non-story.]
    http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/a-potential-breach-of-standards.html

    Yep, taking us as stupid.

  34. From Shellbell ICAC strikes back

    [The tow-truck driver is understood to have passed his phone to smash repairer George Kharadjian, who discussed the accident with Ms Cunneen, who is a friend.]
    [Ms Cunneen has since admitted to discussing “fake chest pains” with Mr Kharadjian. But both have insisted Ms Cunneen was joking and the phrase was a play on words referring to Ms Tilley’s breast implants.]

    What the..? A Crown prosecutor discussing her sons girlfriends breast implants with her smash repairer friend. Could only happen in Chatswood.

    Chatswood is a strange place – but it reminds me of an Irish friend who found the name ‘Chatswood’ funny because back home ‘chats’ meant ‘tits’.

    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/icac-strikes-back-with-phone-taps-in-battle-with-margaret-cunneen-20160210-gmqlbe.html

  38. I pay no attention to fashion or to status symbols, but I know that a Rolex Watch is pretty much up there. If someone gave me a Rolex watch I would know that it was a very valuable gift. If it were fake, I would not be able to tell.

    But it defies credibility that Government Ministers and high-powered business types, attuned as they would be to symbols and expressions of power and status, would believe that representatives of the Chinese leadership gave them fake Rolexes.

  43. stephanieando: Shorten: To lose one Minister is careless, to lose two Ministers is unfortunate… I don’t know what they are going to say when Robert goes

  45. [She doesn’t understand the pivotal role inequality plays in creating economic crisis and reducing economic growth.]

    Sorry, but there’s a reason why the Southern states are seen as Clinton’s base.

    These are the poorest states in America.

    Clinton’s husband (Bill – you might remember him) grew up in a single parent household in one of the poorest areas of America.

    He later (whilst married to Hillary) became governor of Arkansas, one of the poorest and most disadvantaged states in America.

    Hillary, of course, is the prime mover behind what has become Obamacare.

    Her personal experience may be one of priviledge, but to suggest she has no understanding of the impacts of inequality is simply ignorant.

  47. @ confessions – I disagree with pretty much that entire approach.

    The opposition, like any good cop, knows that you don’t go straight to the top.

    You investigate the small fish, find evidence on them, because they are not as good at covering their tracks. Then you nail them, and in questioning them, get evidence to allow you to nail a medium sized fish, and from there it snowballs.

    And Labor are absolutely hoping that Robert keeps his job today. If so, he’ll end up losing his job in 2 weeks time, after the Coalition have lost another % in the polls and Turnbull has lost 5% as PPM.

  48. Socrates@4

    In answer to your question = Yes in Perth.

    Letter to the editor in local rag writes that people should not be concerned about how hot it is in Perth in February as February is, and has always been, a hot month.

    Some people, as we know, think the earth is flat as you can see it is and the moon is made of green cheese.

    For some, climate change, if admitted at all by these folk, is seen as a natural event which will come and go regardless.

    The impact of what? nine billion people on earth is deemed as having little or no impact.

  49. lizzie

    That’s because of Robb’s bravery in speaking out about his mental health issues.

    For that Robb deserves some credit in helping reduce stigma as he has shown you can have a mental illness and still be a minister.

    I disagree with the decisions made but he has pursued the LNP agenda really well.

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