BludgerTrack: 52.0-48.0 to Coalition

The poll aggregate moves in Labor’s favour for the fourth week in a row, this time rather sharply in the wake of Newspoll’s surprise result.

Newspoll’s surprise this week has caused a minor landslip in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, which moves 0.8% to Labor on two-party preferred, while delivering only a modest gain of three on the seat projection (one each in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia). The leadership results from the poll have also caused Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval rating to continue its downward trajectory, and given a very slight impression of Bill Shorten pulling out of his slump. Also in the mix this week were results from Roy Morgan and Essential Research, neither of which recorded much movement, although the former found Labor hanging on to a big gain the previous fortnight.

In other news, the big story at the moment is obviously the introduction this week of Senate reform legislation to the Senate, for which there is a dedicated thread here for you to comment on, together with my paywalled contribution to Crikey on Tuesday. Then there’s preselection news:

• Nominations for the hotly contested Liberal preselection in Mackellar closed on Friday, with seven challengers coming forward to take on Bronwyn Bishop. Joe Kelly of The Australian reports the field includes the widely touted Walter Villatora and Jason Falinksi (see this earlier post for further detail), along with Bill Calcraft, a former Wallabies player described by the Sydney Morning Herald as having “returned to Australia after a long career in business in Europe”. For what it may be worth in well-heeled Mackellar, Calcraft has the support of talk radio broadcaster Alan Jones, who coached him when he played for Manly in the 1980s. The other candidates are Campbell Welsh, a stockbroker; Vicky McGahey, a school teacher; and Alan Clarke, founder of Street Mission.

• Sarah Martin of The Australian reports that while Craig Kelly no longer faces opposition from Sutherland Shire mayor Kent Johns in the Liberal preselection for Hughes, two other local party members have nominated against him: Jeffrey Clarke, a barrister, and Michael Medway, noted only as the candidate for Werriwa in 2004.

• The Liberal preselection to replace Andrew Robb in Goldstein, which was covered here in detail last week, looms as a contest between Georgina Downer and Tim Wilson, after another highly rated candidate, local software entrepreneur Marcus Bastiaan, ruled himself out. Christian Kerr of The Australian reports on a move by locals to throw their weight behind Denis Dragovic, a “former hostage negotiator, academic and global development worker”. Also expected to nominate by Kerr’s Liberal sources are Jeremy Samuel, chairman of the party’s Caulfield electorate committee, and John Osborn, director of economics and industry policy for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

• The Liberal preselection to replace Bruce Billson in the outer south-eastern Melbourne seat of Dunkley has been won by Chris Crewther, a Frankston-based business consultant. Steve Lillebuen of Fairfax reports that Crewther won in the final round over Donna Bauer, who held the state seat of Carrum for the Liberals from 2010 to 2014. Crewther unsuccessfully attempted to win the rural seat of Mallee for the Liberals when Nationals member John Forrest retired in 2013, but was defeated by Nationals candidate Andrew Broad.

• The retirement of Warren Truss creates a preselection vacancy in the Nationals stronghold of Wide Bay in central Queensland. Among those to express interest are Jeff Seeney, who entered state politics in 1998 and served as Opposition Leader from March 2011 to March 2012, and as Deputy Premier through the period of Campbell Newman’s government from March 2012 to February 2015. Also said to be in the mix is Tim Langmead, a former adviser to Truss.

• Also vacant is Ian Macfarlane’s Toowoomba-based seat of Groom, where the state member for Toowoomba South, John McVeigh, has confirmed he will seek Liberal National Party preselection.

• Sally Cripps of the North Queensland Register reports four candidates have nominated for Liberal National Party preselection in Bob Katter’s seat of Kennedy: Michael Trout, who held the state seat of Barron River from 2012 to 2015; Shane Meteyard, grazier and owner of Milray Contracting; Jonathan Pavetto, economic advisor for the Alliance of Electricity Consumers; and Karina Samperi, a Cairns management consultant. The narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2013, Noeline Ikin, has withdrawn after being diagnosed with cancer.

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.

3,221 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.0-48.0 to Coalition”

Comments Page 58 of 65
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  2. I am suprised that Pell made a public statement that he is fully supported by the Pope. I would have thoughgt that such a statement is against protocol. I doubt he actually has the authority to speak on behalf of the pontiff? I wonder if we will hear more regarding this statement? I wouldn’t put it beyond Pell playing church politics.

    Tom

  5. [DeeMadigan
    DeeMadigan – ‏@deemadigan

    Hey @TurnbullMalcolm r u aware @GChristensenMP is hosting the Australian Families assoc forum on ‘safe schools’ in a govt party room?
    1:09 AM – 29 Feb 2016
    87 RETWEETS52 LIKES]

  7. The Greens and Labor should join to refer the Senate voting changes legislation to a committee which can be given sufficient time to review the changes and suggest improvements. Given that there are only six sitting days before the Budget, it can report afterwards. After all, what’s the hurry?

  8. Tom

    [ I wouldn’t put it beyond Pell playing church politics. ]

    Pell wants to be the next Pope. The only thing standing in his way are some pesky children with long memories.

  9. Looks like my assessment that Labor was using the Senate voting bill mostly as a weapon against the Greens wasn’t far off the mark. I’m sure there’s some genuine (if ill informed) opposition, but mostly I think they see this as a chance to put a real dent in the ‘Greens are above politics’ myth.

    Will be interesting to see how that plays out.

  10. [The Greens continue to unsurprisingly disappoint]

    Yep. Looking just like those politically motivated, opportunistic Old Parties they claim to be nothing like.

  11. fess

    Yep. And thanks to the efficient Greens, we have a brilliant climate policy and asylum seeker policy. Oh wait.ll.

  12. Good Morning

    AP: BREAKING: Judge in New York drug case: US can’t force Apple to provide FBI access to locked iPhone data.

  13. Bw

    Maybe they’re hinting that ‘Trevi’ are stuffing it up.

    The contract must be worth a lot of money.

    Or an assault on Mosul is imminent.

  16. turnbull looks to be making a hash out of the early election matter as he did on the GST and tax reform in general.

    He is in the media saying he prefers to go full term one day and the next is saying he could go early. And on and on from day to day.

    So greatcoats on, greatcoats off – on and on it goes and he continues to burn his political capital.

    Thats great IMO – but you’d think someone around him would tell him to STFU until he has sometime definitive to say?

  17. [Peter van Onselen
    Peter van Onselen – Verified account ‏@vanOnselenP

    A counter view to Graham Richardson’s call for an early election. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/peter-van-onselen/malcolm-turnbull-has-every-reason-to-wait-longer-for-election/news-story/d0c3afd3e6fedf390f325548458f2989#load-story-comments … @australian
    The Australian]

    Poor old PVO forgets the most important reason why the Libs are desperate to go early. Turnbull’s popularity is inversely proportional to how long he’s in a leadership position.

  18. If the dam burst, floodwaters could kill 1.47 million Iraqis living along the River Tigris, the embassy said.

    It’s sick-making to think about it, but in the internecine world of terrorism ISIS are probably always war-gaming ways they could carry out a terrorist attack bigger than Al Qaeda’s ‘9/11′. That one would certainly be it.

    Not only that but it would achieve the aim of severely embarrassing America in their Presidential election year.

    The perverse result of that, of course, is that it would probably see Donald Trump elected over Hillary Clinton, should they be the ultimate match-up. Which would also satisfy ISIS’ Clash of Civilisations ideology and long hoped-for and ultimate goal of a war with the ‘Great Satan’, ie the Christian & Secular worlds.

    It just doesn’t bear thinking about.

  19. victoria

    I see in the blame Greens game you are ignoring history and fact again.

    You are putting fiction of what if above fact.

    Fact: Greens along with Labor Oakeshott and Windsor put in place worlds best climate policy.

    No matter how you wail about the Greens this is established fact. The destruction of that was due to Abbott also established fact.

    Abbott has established his disregard for facts etc and if you think the Right of the party would have done the coup to gain control if Turnbull had come to agreement with Rudd on the CPRS you need to redo political thinking.

    In fact by all accounts Turnbull had come to agreement with Rudd and in fact the timing of the coup by Abbott on his weak moderate colleagues was precisely to prevent a CPRS.

    NONE OF THAT IS THE FAULT OF THE GREENS>

    Its not the fault of Labor its the fault of the LNP and the LNP alone.

  22. Current speaker at the committee (George Williams?) says the change to OPV below the line imperative, as it is still just as hard to indicate preferences for candidates within a voting block as it was under the old system.

    Suggests this omission leaves the legislation open to a High Court challenge.

    Also questions timing. Says that the timing would be OK if the original recommendations weren’t being cherry picked.

    Antony Green now up.

  24. dave

    [Google self-driving car appears at fault after hitting bus]

    Always knew these danged robots would strike off on their own one day 😀

  32. MayneReport: Mackerras just called the pollies “grubby” and said Greens/Xenophon/Libs had done a “filthy deal”. Unhinged. Time he retired. Well past best

  34. Retweeted by Stephen Mayne

    verdant2012: @MayneReport @leerhiannon #Liberal s run #ClosedShop #SenateReform enquiry – I made submission, not invited @DavidLeyonhjelm @AntonyGreenABC

  35. CTar1

    Having just ‘lost’ Aleppo, and being major losers to the Kurds in Syria and Northern Iraq, and having to receive Turkmen refugees therefrom, and having a renewed civil war in the south-east, and having been punished economically by the Russians for shooting down a jet, the Turks might feel tempted to do a quick and dirty to buy a real seat at the table.

    It has mildly surprised me that the US has managed to contain Turkey thus far.

    The dam wall is less than an hour from the Turkish border.

    We might be being asked to look at a knee because they are really concerned about what is happening at the hip.

    Who knows?

  36. rose_bolger: Tas Aboriginal Centre wins case in Fed Court to block reopening of more than 80 tracks to 4wds #politas

  38. Douglas and Milko@2801
    Wow! What a great post and very informative.

    I am from the other side of that Protestant/Catholic divide and am so glad it is a thing of the past. I remember the tail end of it and had a Catholic grandfather who married my Protestant grandmother in an Anglican Church. Next thing you know he had Father O’Buggery banging on their front door denouncing them as living in sin!

    It cured him of going to church till right near the end of his long life and ensured my father and his brother were raised as protestants.

    I used to accompany my Catholic wife to church and found it not much different to protestant churches. But now she will no longer go to church.

    Most of the Catholics I am now close to are more vehement in their criticism of the Catholic hierarchy than I would dare to be and I think I am a restraining influence on some of them!

  39. Is Morgan out?

    BernardKeane: I thought that Newspoll 50-50 was a rogue. I was wrong. The Coalition’s in a spot of bother.

    Or has Essential had a sudden change?

  41. [Top Vatican Cardinal says Church made enormous mistakes over sex abuse.]

    They made an even bigger mistake promoting that scumbag Pell.

  42. DanBox10: The next 2 hours will be massive for Pell. The #royalcommission has warned he’ll be found “culpable” if he knew anything about Mulkearns

  43. lizzie@2874

    dave

    Google self-driving car appears at fault after hitting bus


    Always knew these danged robots would strike off on their own one day

    Lizzie – imagine trying to convince the Goggle computer it was ‘at fault’.

    😀

  44. C@tmomma

    Trump is an isolationist. ISIL getting their war with the “great satan” is a lot less likely with a Trump win.

  45. Wow! John Oliver burned with a righteous indignation!

    I hope he takes the time to focus on Australian politics again one day. 🙂

  47. Monica

    When you refer to evolving understanding in society about child abuse you are correct in regard to how society responds to it.

    One example is that mandatory reporting by various groups now exists. In NSW for example, pre the Wood RC 1995 there was no mandatory reporting, Similarly there were times when there were no specialist police, there were no dedicated community services squads, and no investigative (of teachers) agencies set up by government and the Catholic education authorities.

    All of these have evolved and now exist.

    But you are totally wrong in saying that the ability of ordinary people with open eyes to recognise child abuse when they saw it, has evolved.

    The ability to see and know that sexual abuse of children was likely going on, existed in the 1970s and indeed for centuries. That has not evolved. Common sense, maternal and paternal protective instincts, and human values have been with us for yonks. To the extent that human values include loving thy neighbour, caring for those at risk, and protecting children are in fact “Christian values”, they have been around for 2000 years.

    What Pell is being questioned about yesterday and today is how it has happened that the abuse of kids in several parishes with which he was associated in the 1970s was common knowledge throughout the community, but that the common knowledge evaded him.

    Seeing, hearing, observing common knowledge is not an evolving skill.

    As I wrote last night, Pell was wilfully blind, was a dope, or is a liar. In today’s examination of him, this is being born out with clarity, especially the latter explanation.

    For example he has just agreed that the conduct of Risdale was common knowledge across the local society, that the the bishop actually knew of this common knowledge, that he (Pell) didn’t receive / observe the common knowledge, but that in the Consultors Committee the bishop pretended that it was not common knowledge and lied, thereby keeping Pell in the dark (about matters that were in fact common knowledge.)

    I have written that last paragraph carefully. That it is a confusing mess of logic is precisely as Pell explained it. Lies and deceit.

  48. When you think of it, belief in a homeless guy who died 2,000 years ago, claiming to be the Son Of God (the same God who built the universe), and who then rose from the dead to rise into space and sit at the right hand of his mystical father… well, it almost makes the Scientologists look rational and sensible.

    Couple in the two thousands years of wars and slaughter, torture and ripping off the poor to keep the priests and bishops in luxury – and of course the duping of hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents, plus millions of believers into accepting that child sexual abuse was just a side-element of it all and that the Church was actively doing something about it (so, no need to sue them) – and you start thinking that maybe there might just be a fundamental problem somewhere with the Catholic Church and they way it organizes things and fleeces its flock of their basic common sense.

  49. poroti,
    Having just watched the John Oliver smackdown of Donald Dumpf/Trump I think all you can safely say is that whether he would choose to go to war with ISIS/Saudi Arabia depends simply on what he wakes up and thinks is best for his image on a particular day.

    Btw, a humorous side note to the John Oliver spray is that we get to see Trump’s son and he is a dead ringer for a grown up Eddie Munster! 😀

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