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.
[Question now is – where do all the idealistic Greens go now that their leaders are into self conflicting deals too!?]
That’s what Labor is counting on and hoping they are the answer. I suppose they figure if you’re idealistic and have only the option of two ‘Political’ parties, then you might as well go for the one that can form government.
Simon @3046, all for any possible clarification on the nature of the system for voters’ benefit.
Peter of Marino,
Yes, such a very low forehead. 😉
Greens very touchy today
Media Rules announcement
joeobrien24: Communications Minister @SenatorFifield media conf due in 20mins – watch live on @ABCNews24
For the Right, the right to be a bully is as important as the right to be a bigot.
C@tmomma@3031
I would be happy for the awful Senate system we currently have to be disposed of and replaced with anything remotely bearable by almost any means that didn’t involve killing anyone. I am really concerned about the permanent damage it could do if we had another election under it, and the bullets we very narrowly dodged at the last one (bad enough as it was). Dumb preference allocations by the ALP and Greens nearly put an atrocious homophobe with next to no public support in a balance of power position and I had to put a lot of work into stopping it, in the end by just 821 votes. I don’t want to have to fish the extreme tactical stupidity of the Australian left out of the slop like that ever again.
As for a double dissolution had one been held in 2013 it would have elected 20 crossbenchers, 12 of them non-Green. Some of those (PUP, LDP) will struggle at the next election for various reasons but others will thrive. In my simulations micros repeatedly won double-dissolution seats off primary votes of 3-4%. A double dissolution simply isn’t going to advantage the Coalition in the way people (including them) might think. It will still elect a substantial crossbench. Ricky Muir may well bolt in. The difference is that they will be people whose fates will rest on their primary votes rather than on random preference combinations, and will therefore be much more accountable to those who elected them.
I would have preferred this legislation be announced six months ago so we could spend six months hammering the Liberals for their failure to support below the line reform or justify their opposition to it. But given the choice between putting it through now and having the AEC not ready for the next election I prefer that it be put through now. I’m also happy that we don’t have a long time for silly people to try to make the Greens change their minds, though I doubt they would anyway.
Sadly, the Greens’ ‘idealism’ is often misguided and misplaced. Many of them don’t understand that t get from point A to point B there is a process involved, and that process can often be detrimental to your own ideal.
They claim a righteous morality in their decisions, when often during the process of getting to their endpoint, they actually delay that which they want to achieve (Climate Change is a classic example).
Finally, often, their public statements that aim to proclaim their ideals tend to poke their opponents in the eyes so hard that the opponents come out bigger, heavier and much more over the top than might otherwise have happened (which destroys the very outcome they are aiming at).
[When I first read this – I thought George ( see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil ) was going to accept the Pope’s resignation ….]
After watching him give some of his evidence this morning and displaying the utmost arrogance, I think that is far more likely!
imacca 3041
And they can’t see the irony? Or perhaps it’s just their hypocrisy.
[You have said that you have no recollection of what was said but you do have a recollection of what was not said.]
Sounds like a Monty Python script.
The Catholic church, like most churches, has become adept at achieving its core purpose of making lots of money, and Cardinal Pell is a leading light in that regard. Hence his current position.
The likelihood of him resigning is as remote as Abbott becoming PM again, unfortunately.
Frickeg @ 3050,
Very droll, I must say. Oh, and btw, I love the way that The Greens coat their Anti Labor opinions in Aspic. You know the script it appears quite well. Variations on the theme of,
‘Labor supported this methodology, why don’t they just support it now!?!’
‘How recalcitrant of them to not support it! Tsk! Tsk!’
Well, sorry, but Labor are apparently having second thoughts and engaging in a more sophisticated analysis than simply, ‘Is OPV ABL, is good!’
Possibly this may be as a result of, yes, being the originators of the ‘Just Vote 1′ system and, having now observed it in practice they have something to say about refining it such that a more inclusive, less exclusive system results.
And rushing the JSCEM hearings through then without deeper consideration of the new system can only seem opportunistic and one would have thought that would go against The Greens’ grain.
TPOF
The Greens did not delay the CPRS. The LNP did. If you want to do what if Labor delayed it by mucking up the GTV and electing Fielding so Rudd was forced to negotiate with the LNP.
Frickeg@3043
Well, certain idiots did. I think most ALP members are not very happy about that.
Are we actually expecting an Essential poll today? What time??
Coming from 52/48 last time will be interesting to see where it goes and if there was anything to those tweets earlier. If its 50 / 50 then serious cat among airborne rat time. 🙂
[The difference is that they will be people whose fates will rest on their primary votes rather than on random preference combinations…]
Why primary votes? We have a preferential system.
Putting an emphasis on the primary votes to exclude parties from the count is a major cause of the randomness.
Kevin Bonham @ 3057,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. 🙂
However, I hasten to add that the Homophobe horse has well and truly bolted into the Coalition pens and is residing there quite happily and nothing in the new Senate Voting Rules will change that!
bemused @3064, was referring more to Labor powerbrokers than the grassroots, really.
C@tmomma @3062, I don’t necessarily identify as a Green, but in any case my point was partially in response to the endlessly tedious “but the Greens have benefited in the past, why weren’t they so worried then!!” blather. It’s a circle of hypocrisy, is what I’m saying, and I don’t think anyone really has the moral high ground.
ABCNews24: .@SenatorFifield: Legislation will be introduced that will abolish what’s known as the 75% audience reach rule. #auspol #ausbiz
KB 3057, thanks for that post.
political_alert: Here’s the detail on the Government’s reforms to Australia’s media laws https://t.co/cduxHvVUAM #auspol https://t.co/SssJnljty8
Alice Workman @workmanalice 5m5 minutes ago
Communications Min Mitch Fifield announces he’s scrapping the 75% reach and 2/3 media ownership rules. #Auspol
Josh Taylor @joshgnosis 25s25 seconds ago
Confirmed: PwC exec Mark Allaby resigns from Australian Christian Lobby board. PwC noted conflict in values http://www.crikey.com.au/2016/03/01/pwc-exec-leaves-australian-christian-lobby-board/ … [$]
Frickeg@3068
You call them powerbrokers, I call them idiots. OK?
ABCNews24: .@SenatorFifield: Legislation will abolish the 2/3 rule which prevents ownership of more than 2/3 of the traditional platforms. #medialaw
If Fairfax buys Channel 9 does that mean A Current Affair will stop doing the welfare bludger stories?
Why would you favour Labor screwing around with supply? Supporting the right of a government to the finance it needs to function – regardless of what you think of its legislative program – is an important constitutional principle. Labor has been committed to that principle for four decades.
jenauthor
Your post is simply a rationalisation of Labor’s failure to act. Gillard only enacted the carbon tax because of Green’s pressure.
Here are the Green’s policies from the time:
– A net zero carbon economy through market-based and regulatory mechanisms
– A national system of energy efficient targets and Minimum Energy Performance Standard (MEPS) for products, buildings, and infrastructure
– 100% reliance on renewable energy sources for stationary electricity as soon as possible
– No new coal-power stations or mines, or expansion to existing power stations or mines
– Research into sustainable alternative fuels.
All of these policies have now proven to be technically possible, economically desirable and, with the possible exception of the last one, environmentally essential.
The problem is that Labor and the Coalition do not have policies capable of meeting current challenges because they are fundamentally conservative and protective of their immediate constituencies.
To imply that the Green’s are ‘politically naive’, or fail to understand process, is simply an excuse to justify the status quo.
Sure, Labor is streets ahead of the Coalition on AGW, but it’s targets are only inline with what is going to achieved anyway by market forces. Totally lacking in ambition.
The full poll is not yet on the Essential site, but Bernard’s article is up.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2016/03/01/essential-labor-bounce-leaves-parties-level/
[Essential: Labor bounce leaves parties levelBERNARD KEANE | MAR 01, 2016 12:50PM
The government’s lead over Labor has vanished, but voters back its Senate voting reforms, this week’s Essential Report shows.
A surge in Labor’s primary vote has eliminated the Coalition’s lead under Malcolm Turnbull, delivering the government’s worst result since the ousting of Tony Abbott, today’s Essential Report shows. .
Labor’s vote is up to 38%, its best performance since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, while the Coalition’s primary vote is down a point to 43%. With the Greens down a point to 10%, the two-party preferred outcome is 50%-50%, down from 52%-48% in the government’s favour last week.
The result suggests that last’s week 50-50 Newspoll, which initially looked like an outlier, in fact caught a palpable shift in the political mood beyond Canberra away from a government that has looked rattled and directionless under its new economic leadership.
…………….
Voters are also opposed to the idea of an early election — but less so than last year.
A majority of voters still believe an election should be held “as scheduled” but, amid persistent talk of an early double dissolution election, opposition has diminished since September. However, voters are strongly supportive of the government’s Senate voting reforms: 53% of voters support the government’s proposals and just 16% disapprove. Labor voters back the reforms 52%-19%, while Coalition voters back them 71%-9%. But despite the Greens enthusiastically backing the reforms and their being rushed through parliament, Greens voters are less supportive, splitting 42%-29%]
More in the (paywalled) article
[Why would you favour Labor screwing around with supply? Supporting the right of a government to the finance it needs to function – regardless of what you think of its legislative program – is an important constitutional principle. Labor has been committed to that principle for four decades.]
The principle, if it exists, does not mean that appropriation bills must be passed at a time of the Government’s choosing. Dealing with the bills on a different time frame in a way that does not result in the government running out of money would be sufficient.
C@tmomma@3067
Yes this is sadly true though the guy I helped stop was even more extreme than Bernardi.
The difference is that when someone in the Coalition is a homophobe the whole Coalition can in theory be held electorally accountable for it. Cory gets to have his fun but if they adopted all his nonsense as serious policy they would suffer horribly. (There are also a few homophobic horses in the Labor pen but at least Labor has put a sunset clause on opposition to same-sex marriage, which was a good move.)
On the other hand if someone elected on 1% of the vote and whose fate next time is more about preference deals than what vote they get wants to be a homophobe and even hold government to ransom over it, there is very little anyone can do.
[If Fairfax buys Channel 9 does that mean A Current Affair will stop doing the welfare bludger stories?]
No it means that the SMH and Age will have them on the front page, and Paul Sheehan will have a daily column.
Adrian
Thanks for destroying my sliver of optimism with a real dose of real politik.
Senator Madigan now raising the system of appointment to Senate casual vacancies as an argument against changing the Senate electoral system. Bizarre logic.
[Why would you favour Labor screwing around with supply? Supporting the right of a government to the finance it needs to function – regardless of what you think of its legislative program – is an important constitutional principle. Labor has been committed to that principle for four decades.]
No one has even implied holding up genuine supply. The government’s budget appropriations would be passed as a matter of course in the usual way.
All that would be done is that any special appropriations for money that wouldn’t be needed until after July 1 could be postponed a final vote in the Senate until May 12. That is hardly stuffing around with supply. It simply prevents Turnbull from playing his DD games.
To have a DD you need ALL your ducks in a row. If he hasn’t got an interim supply then he doesn’t have all his ducks in a row. Tough titties for him. If he really wants a DD he can call it for April. No supply problems then.
But he really wants to get his ‘budget’ announced and then dissolve parliament before even the LOTO has had a chance to make his reply speech live on the ABC. It’s an inherently cynical thing Turnbull is trying to put on and no one should feel any compunction whatsoever to enable that by passing interim supply.
Even if Labor support the reforms, because passing the legislation doesn’t require their support, they can quite cynically oppose it based on other considerations :p – such as appealing to the current crossbench, and whether they will pick up more No supporters than they will lose in Yes supporters, especially if those Yes supporters are lost to the Greens rather than the Coalition.
[Dealing with the bills on a different time frame in a way that does not result in the government running out of money would be sufficient.]
Exactly. Labor simply needs to say something along the lines of “we’ll deal with the bills after we’ve had a chance to review and respond to the Budget”.
[I will say that it is fairly delicious to watch all the Labor tears about the evils of “Just Vote 1”, a system they designed and pioneered themselves.]
Sorry, I actually haven’t seen that – a lot of it from the Liberals and Greens, of course, but not from Labor.
Certainly Rhiannon was obsessive about this point this morning, to the point where she got very silly.
Media Laws. The Reach rule was to protect regional news rooms. Nationals letting the Bush down yet again.
Less than 3 weeks ago Reachtel had 54-46 to Libs. The latest Newspoll and Essential are 50-50. February was also a bad month for Abbott in 2015, and he never recovered from it.
…if you’re referring to the problems with ‘Just vote 1’ with the proposed system, then Labor has every right to be concerned.
There’s a huge difference in just voting one when doing so results in your vote counting to the very end, as it does with the present system, and just voting one where your vote exhausts almost immediately.
I would expect Labor to support the first and not the second, which is not contradictory, because they are totally different propositions.
So, does this qualify as an “Essential Bombshell” ?? 🙂
Would i be right in assuming that this moment is a lot to do with more favourable (for the Govt) past polling dropping out of Essentials calculation?
Will be interesting if the oh so stable Essential starts hovering around the 50 / 50 mark for a few weeks. 🙂
imacca
It certainly qualifies as an Essential WOW!
Trog, I was not talking about Gillard’s CC legislation but the events of 2010.
The Greens’ position in 2010 destroyed the landscape of CC action (and, Rudd’s actions as an extension of that were stupid) but it also changed the public’s perception of the direction needed. Regardless of the merits of Rudd’s plan, any goodwill that could have come from that point was diverted into an adversarial position.
It divided the country making any further, deeper or more sensible action almost impossible.
It also provided fertile ground for Abbott to undo whatever good the subsequent Gillard action provided.
I lay this at the Greens’ feet.
And you completely miss the thrust of the rest of my statements. In their self-righteousness, Greens’ leaders make bold statements denigrating others’ policies when those other policies are meant as stepping stones on a path. Again this provides fertile ground for media, or r-w wowsers to use to distract the public from what matters and conentrate of the political fisticuffs.
The fact that the Greens don’t recognize that their righteous shite stirring is often to the detriment of their own ultimate policy desires tells me yes, they are politically naive.
jenauthor
You too doing what if. Rudd had to negotiate with the LNP. Not the Greens. Senate numbers at time simple arithmetic Rudd responded to.
Kevin Bonham@3097,
Thanks for the explanation of why this is more urgent than I thought. I just wish that the Greens would not sign off until we get OPV below the line. Turnbull is desperate for the legislation to go through, and so if the Greens hold out, it will happen.
Wow.
So this week’s Essential panel has come out with around a 51-49 lead TO Labor. That’s the first Labor poll win since Turnbull is it not?
Essential can be a contrary beast sometimes (see the move back two weeks ago on what must have been a near 53-47 result). But even if next weeks sample is about 50-50 the next Essential result is likely to show up as Labor leading.
That will really set the cat amongst the pigeons. If Morgan and others are showing similar movement it will be on for young and old in the Libs.
The NJs and drys are already flexing their muscle and denying Turnbull room to do anything on tax. They will be further emboldened to destroy Turnbull.
And most importantly it gives the media a new narrative. The stories will be about how it all went so wrong. How Malcolm is such a disappointment and how he is losing the unloseable election. It’s a negative feedback loop until he’s back in Abbott territory (or worse).
Given that Essential combine the previous poll with the current one to achieve a polling result and that it was 52-48 last time, does that mean the latest poll was 48/9 for the Coal?
A 2 percentage point shift in Essential seems very big compared to the other more volatile polls.
[ It’s an inherently cynical thing Turnbull is trying to put on and no one should feel any compunction whatsoever to enable that by passing interim supply. ]
[ Exactly. Labor simply needs to say something along the lines of “we’ll deal with the bills after we’ve had a chance to review and respond to the Budget”. ]
Yup. The Libs will go into hysterics. I would make time to watch the odious Cash in the Senate shriek on that. 🙂
And the ALP get to play with the Libs and get out there with:
“these are the actions of shonks and spivs trying to rush their “marks” into a bad deal…FFS people, look at what they do, not what they say, because they REALLY cant be trusted”. 🙂
zoomster @3088, by “just vote 1” I meant under OPV. Labor introduced OPV in NSW and Queensland, and was also the first party to take a “just vote 1” strategy under that system. It makes a lot of Labor complaints about the reforms being “tantamount to FPTP” rather ironic.