The latest Ipsos poll for the Fairfax papers is another weaker result for the Coalition, whose two-party lead of 52-48 compares with 56-44 at the previous such poll in mid-November. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down four points to 44%, Labor is up three to 32% and the Greens are up two to 15%. Malcolm Turnbull takes a solid hit on his still very strong personal ratings, with approval down seven to 62% and disapproval up eight to 24%. Bill Shorten is little changed on 30% approval (up one) and 55% disapproval (down two), and his deficit on preferred prime minister has narrowed slightly, from 69-18 to 64-19. The poll was conducted Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1403.
daretotread@192
The link you gave me was RT, which I checked and it mentioned shelling, but not bombing.
Meanwhile Mark Kenny reports on Ipsos
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/fairfaxipsos-poll-voters-cool-on-malcolm-turnbull-as-coalition-support-drops-below-2013-election-levels-20160214-gmtnd1.html
LU
this port has lost almost all its sweetness. It bites.
nighty night.
Good point shea mcduff,
I forgot to add to my list that Turnbull has no real backers… except the polls. If he starts at 48-52 he has no backers.
Kevin
You are completely right about Qld. it was the OPV that caused the result to go so out of expectations.
However I am not convinced you can ignore respondent allocated preferences, especially when the electorate is in a “mood” and where allegiance to traditional parties is volatile. The rise of parties like PUP make relying on the past impossible.
TPOF@186
I think that would be a pretty silly thing to do. Voters dislike long campaigns intensely.
If Turnbull gets Senate reform passed he can afford to put up with the current crossbench in his second term by continually threatening them with a double dissolution. They’ll be compliant as hell not wanting their careers to be cut short prematurely. There is no need for a DD and it could elect a lot of minors anyway, not to mention making Nick X king for life.
Something a lot of people may forget here is that the 2PP target for a Labor win isn’t 50:50. Labor probably need something well over 51 to win c/- the sophomore-effect legacies of their drubbing last time. Labor even under Shorten could well do surprisingly well but without actually winning.
[On the other side, government’s usually get 2 terms. (Or at least a minority government… which would last about 10 minutes with this mob).]
And the media meme has been this is a “new government”, which wasn’t elected so I don’t know how that will pan out.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/poll-roundup-return-of-february-wobbles.html
Poll Roundup: Return Of The February Wobbles
2PP 52.8 to Coalition (-0.5 so far this week)
Will update for Essential and if it arrives Newspoll.
Bemused
I guess when you copy the link it goes to source
I suggest you google these three words “Syria conflict map”. It comes up as the first item for me any way. The link below might work.
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2016/13-february
It really is a good site and I am absolutely sure that once you go to it you will become obsessed by it. It is actually quite exciting. It is NOT a RT site – far from it – it is very, very pro the rebels.
Jimmy
[Tony Shepard]
Years ago I knew him quite well.
One night in around 1992 I’m out on his front balcony in fairly salubrious Cowdrey Street, Cammeray looking down over the Marina and out to Seaforth, drinking his Bin707. The reason for the get together was that a company he was a senior executive in had just won a $6B contract to build ships.
I say to him “That’ll give the economy a kick along”.
His response a forlorn “It doesn’t matter, Medibank’s got us fucked and nothing will turn it back now”.
I just nod while I’m thinking ‘right on, brother’.
😀
[Something a lot of people may forget here is that the 2PP target for a Labor win isn’t 50:50. Labor probably need something well over 51 to win c/- the sophomore-effect legacies of their drubbing last time. Labor even under Shorten could well do surprisingly well but without actually winning.]
Well that did happen in 1998, but what about 2010? Rudd won in 2007 with a landslide, so according to sophomore-effect the ALP should have won 2010 with 50.1%.
I would suggest the leader switch makes the latter comparison more compelling.
A robust, informed, and articulate opposition would have parlayed all those government screw-ups into a healthy lead by now.
————-opposition bit weak at present indeed – shorten is doing hilary C act of yelling a bit — hasn’t he mucked up oz politics for too long (six years) without much talent …. I agree, labor should have 2/3 points up for past 3 years all time, or more
[A robust, informed, and articulate opposition would have parlayed all those government screw-ups into a healthy lead by now.]
We are just getting the first polls after a holiday extended honeymoon.
The unicorn herders are gathering …
@ Daretotread # 561 in “ReachTel: 54-56 to Coalition”:
3. kids who spend time in one of the generalist courses eg business are actually better trained and more emplyable than someone who left straight from school. Consider Jenny and Jane, identical twins with very similar personalities, skill sets and academic abilities. They both took holiday admin jobs at local businesses. By chance because of say maternity leave or staff departures, Jenny was offered a permanent job and deferred uni. After three years she had learned the payroll and the sales stuff and has even begun to be a manager, supervising some other holiday emplyees or new staff. Jane finishes uni with just a few part time waitress jobs to her CV. She has studied some marketing and basic accounting etc. A junior sales manager position becomes avaialble in Jenny’s firm. Which of them will be the more productive? Who should get the job? If the answer is Jenny, we can really say that Jane has not spent her time productivley.
Speaking as a CPA who has spent a great many hours cleaning up the sorry mess left in various company accounts by the likes of “Jenny”, I must strongly disagree that they are more productive when it comes to anything more than basic payroll data entry (and data entry generally). Even then they need strong direction from someone with the education required to take a strategic view of the outcomes from their data entry.
May I respectfully suggest you stick to providing examples of opportunities for productivity from your area of expertise?
I’m not at all sure I believe in this “sophomore effect” thing. If it was true (“were true” for the pedants), there’d be no such thing as a oncer – and I can think of quite a few oncers in our political history.
daretotread@209
So what should I look for there? It is not telling me Turkey is bombing anyone.
[I’m not at all sure I believe in this “sophomore effect” thing. If it was true (“were true” for the pedants), there’d be no such thing as a oncer – and I can think of quite a few oncers in our political history.]
It didn’t work for Campbell Newman either, and his sophomores didn’t suffer a leader switch. Politics is more volatile these days.
[ They do have to be careful (e.g. to not get sucked into a war over refugees, and to not get into a tax-cut auction), but this is a good problem for Labor to have. ]
Yup, Agreed.
They have to be careful on refugees, but i think they have some room to move on that IF they focus on a regional solution that clears out Nauru and Manus. Those are past their use by date in every context i think.
I’m pretty confident the ALP is not going the tax cut route. It will be looking at a solid budget that supports jobs (their negative gearing changes) and maintaining / improving services.
ALP have a fighting chance in 2016. 🙂
Question@211
The starting lineup of seat margins in 2010 was just unfavourable to Labor; they had more close seats than the Coalition did. (This is the case again this year as it happens.) Based on the 2PP swing that actually happened they should have lost the 2PP in 14 seats that they held. They actually had a net loss of only nine (11 lost 2 gained) on a 2PP basis, plus two lost to the crossbench that had nothing to do with 2PP, so they did five seats better than the uniform-swing prediction would have suggested. Again quite consistent with sophomore effect.
The same effect also stopped the Coalition gaining more seats in 2001 off the back of the swing back to them from 1998.
I would also argue that 1998 was simply a good marginal seat campaign by the LNP. Or given that it has an American name it may be a voluntary vote thing.
grimace
I am pretyy sure I excluded accounting from my list – I am not talking professional courses but rather that amorphous mass of generalist “business courses.” I am not talking a straight BA either because it seems as if the skill set acquired is quite valuable.
Please, please do not get me wrong – I am 300% in favour of quality university education. The emphasis is on quality.
My point is with the marginal courses, where entry levels are very, very low (barely high school passes)
Bemused
Take a look at the map
The blue bombs are Turkish and US allies heavy artillery. The green are rebels and the red Syria and allies. Grey is ISIS and yellow the Kurds.
There is a blue radar icon that is you click on it will tell you about the Turkish drone and bomber.
KB [(11 lost 2 gained)]
OK, how can gained seats become part of a Sophomore effect calculation?
Jack A Randa@216
Nobody is claiming that it means there are never oncers. What sophomore effect means is that on average the sitting member receives a small bonus and hence that there are somewhat fewer oncers than might be expected based on the overall swing. Oncers happen if the national or regional swing is larger than the MP’s margin plus the bonus. They may also happen if the new MP is unusually poor or up against an unusually strong opponent (especially an ex-MP for the same electorate or prominent state figure.)
I have looked at a lot of data on sophomore effect and it is simply a scientific fact. Now and then there is an election following a large swing where its effect is lost in the noise, but far more often it is there. People can be sceptical about it if they must but it will keep on happening on average anyway.
It is just like how the fact of global warming does not mean every year will necessarily be hotter than the last.
I was interested to hear of the purported leaks from Abbott’s office to Shorten.
Why would Abbott leak to the Labor Party directly and guarantee being exposed? Surely having received the material Labor would not only release it and excoriate the perps, but reveal its source, thus maximising the damage to the Libs. Shorten owes Abbott no favours.
No, the information is more likely being fed directly to journalists, and it is coming from multiple sources within the great Liberal schism, and all the more damaging because of it.
It builds distrust and suspicions between Lib members who would not normally be considered natural enemies, and increases the possibility of pre-emptive strikes from the major camps in the internecine warfare.
Long may it continue.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/property-tax-shift-still-afloat/news-story/a9ddbd26eb7f912d9006ad7afcb2474b
Had a read of the above. My take from it is that the Libs are knee jerk reacting true to form. ALP policy BADD!! Must say NO!
At least in the first instance lets see where it goes. 🙂
I reckon Bill and Bowen are going the quiet nasty and are herding them.
Pushing them to a place where the Libs end up promoting obvious 2nd class, not particularly defensible policy, that the electorate isn’t happy with, their donors aren’t happy with, and feeds the divisions within the Libs.
KB,
I’m not doubting your research, but I do doubt the ALP will lose with 51%.
Daretotread @ 222
Payroll in modern ERP’s are much more of an accounting function than it is a HR function. The worst disasters in payroll occur when payroll is a part of the HR department and they assign a well meaning but unqualified individual or group of people to do the job.
The impact of errors unwittingly made by such people reverberates throughout the financial accounts and is an absolute nightmare to trace and clean up.
I’m addressing payroll because you specifically mentioned a trained up school leaver getting involved in payroll.
There is MUCH MORE to ERP based payroll modules just paying people.
Question@218
It is weaker at state level because of lower awareness of state politics. But it still has an effect, including in Queensland last year, in which it clearly denied Labor a majority. Labor won the 2PP with 51.1% and only got 44 seats. Yet in 2009 they had won the 2PP with 50.9% and got 51 seats. Furthermore the average 2PP swing to Labor in LNP sophomore seats was about two points lower than in other seats. Labor missed out on taking three such seats by less than a point.
[ AUSTRALIA WILL LOSE perhaps the best Trade minister it has ever had at the coming federal election, with Andrew Robb announcing on Wednesday that he will retire from Parliament when the government faces the people; ]
http://theredandtheblue.org/
This satirical site is good as ever. 🙂
Interesting the Australian is going full Govt Gazette mode on negative gearing. ALP’s plan is now a “hurdle on the ladder to wealth”. I suspect they have to come up with a better theme to push on this one.
Grimace
Look I think you are being a bit full on. i was NOT, NOT, NOT trying to downgrade professional qualifications. Far, far from it.
I was not trying to imply payroll was a minor fuction – I was thinking of a typical small business with one or two admin officers, not a large firm.
My point is simply that if tow individuals of very similar personlity, skill set and high schol education make different choices about university, you mneed to be sure that the university qualification obtained one actualy delivered tangivle produictivity improvments MORE than 3-4 years on the job training AND for the student, the increased salary that flows from the degree is sufficient compensation for the years on a student income. Now of course the benefits need not be moneary – the education may have value in itself or they may love the student lifestyle or meet the partner of their dreams. When I was at Sydney Uni, Honi Soit cruelly referred to girls studying Arts as enrolled in Marriage 1 – which was pretty much true of the Manning House crowd.
Thanks KB, 51% it will have to be then 🙂
I might add that perhaps I may have benefited from a more intense touch typing course!!!!!!!!!!!!
Question@224
They are so because the pendulum prediction should be seen as a prediction of net seat changes, not that every seat within a band will change and no others. A pendulum prediction (ignoring sophomore effect) that 14 seats will fall doesn’t necessarily mean that every seat on a margin of 0 to 2.6 % falls. Because of variation in swings between seats (caused by all kinds of factors), what would actually be expected would be that the government saves some seats below 2.6%, maybe even wins one or two from the Opposition, but also loses some on above 2.6%. It doesn’t matter whether it is 14 losses and 0 gains or 16 losses and 2 gains, if the number of net losses is around 14 then the uniform-swing theory worked OK. (If it was 24 losses and 10 gains that would be a bit screwy though.) But if the number of net losses is only 9 then there is some explaining for people who believe in uniform swings to do.
It also happened that one of the gains was connected to personal vote effects through the retirement of the sitting Liberal member.
228
The ALP lost with 51% in 1998. Menzies also won a seats landslide in 1949 with 51%.
KB,
It’s just that for me it would be a simple equation.
1. List all the Sophomore seats.
2. Take the uniform swing and apply that to each seat.
3. Count the number that should have fallen if they followed the uniform swing and compare that to the amount that actually did.
Seats gained shouldn’t be part of it. They will be sophomore’s next time.
But I accept your explanation of QLD, with 51% they should have got a few more seats
Tom, please see 211.
[219
imacca
They have to be careful on refugees, but i think they have some room to move on that IF they focus on a regional solution that clears out Nauru and Manus. Those are past their use by date in every context i think.]
Absolutely. No matter which way you look at it, refugees are a policy weakness for Labor. The Coalition have shown they have no principles when it comes to exploiting them for political advantage. Labor tried to go without off-detention, and whatever the debate about push versus pull factors concludes, it did not work.
Labor is indisputably the better party for refugees, as it is committed to abiding by international law, regional co-operation, transparency, speedy processing, and looking after the interests of children.
People who live and die on this issue will never be satisfied with Labor’s position, and that’s totally ok in my book, because this country is completely schizo-paranoid when it comes to refugees who arrive by boat. But as a party of government, Labor CANNOT afford an election campaign dominated by “border security” because it WILL lose, and refugees will suffer for it.
Yes this my attempt at rationalising my own discomfort with Labor’s position and refugee politics in this country, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
The simple logic of the sophomore effect is compelling, as well as apparently being borne out by research.
In the prior election a sitting member A (with some presumed advantage unless s/he is a complete dud) faces an opponent, B, without the MPs advantages. Apart from the Member being better known, s/he also enjoys campaigning advantages, the resources of her/his office and the opportunity to be more visible at various functions around the electorate. The Member is likely to enjoy easier access to local media and to be invited to citizenship presentations,social events run by the municipality and voluntary organisations, whereas the candidate will generally have to muscle in with less status at such events.
If candidate B unseats Member A, then at the subsequent election, the relative advantage is reversed. B now has the benefit of incumbency, and his opponent is relatively disadvantaged.
While the advantage is likely to be leveraged more effectively by some MPs than others, it is certainly likely to deliver an “on average” advantage, and to be especially significant in non-metropolitan electorates.
On occasion it will be swamped in a landslide.
Daretotread@ 233
Point taken and my apologies.
I agree with you that some uni courses are a very poor substitute for on the job training, and that we’d be much better off by either eliminating them, or a much better integration of on the job training and formal study.
For that to happen two things need to occur:
1. The government needs to accept that in a lot of cases there ARE NO JOBS – thus someone’s (not sure if it was you) comment about warehousing school leavers for a few extra years.
2. Emlpoyers in recent decades have completely abdicated their responsibilities to train people and left the costs to the government, the employee or “someone else”. We need a 180 here.
Peter Fuller 241
That confuses me, because it just sounds like the value of incumbency, which while it obviously has advantages, can’t magically avoid the uniform swing.
[171
C@tmomma
To be serious for a moment I think that it should be stated that now is a very tricky time for Labor.
It seems as though they have again got the electorate’s attention and are starting to be taken seriously once more.]
Labor will win seats in WA. Voters know they’ve been dudded by the Libs. They will help us change the Government.
KB, and when you get around to it, why do you think the LNP will out campaign the ALP?
Question@238
By that method I have that there were ten sophomore effect seats where the Labor incumbent was recontesting and expected to lose based on swing, of which they lost 5. They also lost three such seats that were above the swing.
There were also four seats below the swing line where Labor had a partial personal vote bonus because they had beaten the sitting member at the previous election but were running a different candidate in 2010. Of these they were expected to lose four but only lost two.
So that’s 14 predicted losses in seats where Labor had a personal vote advantage arising from the 2007 win, of which they lost 10. The 11th was Brisbane (no sophomore advantage but above the line).
So four seats difference by that method.
Question@245
I’m far from sure they will. But in terms of me implying that the Coalition would probably pick up votes if they started 48:52 behind, there is a long history of the Coalition tending to do better than their leadup polling more often than not. They wouldn’t have to pick up many votes from 48:52 to win.
If the Coalition goes into the campaign with a lead I would be rather less confident of them conserving all of it.
I think the Coalition have the advantage mainly for these two reasons:
1. The electoral deck is stacked in the Coalition’s favour, mainly for the reason I’ve been discussing.
2. The Coalition listened when the electorate were screaming at it to get rid of Abbott. I don’t think Labor have listened to anything like the same degree.
Question@228
My provisional calculation had them needing 51.6 for a 50-50 chance but that was before the redistribution. I’ll do the Rolls-Royce version of the model sometime in March most likely.
[247
Kevin Bonham
2. The Coalition listened when the electorate were screaming at it to get rid of Abbott. I don’t think Labor have listened to anything like the same degree.]
Labor certainly did everything possible to oblige the electorate and take the contest to Abbott, culminating in the the Canning Campaign and the collapse of his leadership.
Labor has certainly been listening to voters in WA, as I’m sure they have been all over the country. The reciprocal is that voters are listening to Labor again too. We will make gains right across the spectrum. The current retreat in the LNP 2PP ranking is just the start of this.
Voters will be asking themselves if they are willing to vote for another three years of emptiness and deception from the LNP…or if they would prefer to vote for continuity and certainty around health, education, tax, public finance and party leadership. Given the choice, voters will have little trouble voting Labor again.
[1. The electoral deck is stacked in the Coalition’s favour, mainly for the reason I’ve been discussing.
2. The Coalition listened when the electorate were screaming at it to get rid of Abbott. I don’t think Labor have listened to anything like the same degree.]
Neither of these points explain why you think the LNP will out campaign the ALP (or as you said – win if they started 48-52 behind).
Indeed, if Turnbull is no longer offering a poll advantage, then the obvious dysfunction that the change of leader brings is not a campaign asset. I would also argue that what we have seen in Ipsos (unless it is a rogue) is irretrievable… Turnbull went on a GST fishing trip, looked like he was keen, had a lot of people investing in the argument, and then dropped it all. It lacks conviction.
So Turnbull now “listens” and decides he will just do the SSM conscience vote… so great… but what about the last 5 months?… and what about the extra dysfunction? There is a point where “listening” becomes pandering… and the electorate know they don’t have leadership. Especially in a campaign.