BludgerTrack: 51.3-48.7 to Coalition

The bottom falls out from Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings, early federal election speculation mounts, early Queensland state election speculation sprouts, and preselections abound across the land.

The Coalition’s downward odyssey in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate enters its sixth week, although the movement on voting intention is slight this time, since all three pollsters this week (Newspoll, Roy Morgan and Essential) essentially repeated the results of their previous polls. Nonetheless, the 0.2% shift has been enough to bag Labor gains on the seat projection in New South Wales and Queensland. There is even more encouragement for Labor from the leadership ratings, on which Malcolm Turnbull is tanking rapidly, albeit that his head remains above the waterline in positive net approval. Bill Shorten’s trendlines are pointing northward, although he still has a very long way to go. Kevin Bonham had the following to say about the Newspoll leadership ratings, a day before they were corroborated by Essential Research:

Turnbull is still far more popular than Bill Shorten, but he’s dropped 35 points in the four polls taken since last November. This loss of 35 points in three and a half months is exceeded only by Paul Keating in 1993 (43 points in just over three months), John Howard in 1996 (36 points in six weeks) and Howard again in 2001 (38 points in six weeks). The 1996 Howard example comes with a big asterisk too, because Howard was falling from the career-high +53 netsat he had jumped 24 points to reach in the immediate aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre. It is not at all normal then for a PM to lose this much popularity this fast, but then again it is not that normal for them to have it in the first place.

Electoral matters:

Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review sees the two possibilities as the much-touted July 2 double dissolution, or a normal election in mid-August, either of which would leave time for a same-sex marriage plebiscite to be held by the end of the year. He also relates that the government is “exploring the logistics” of bringing down the budget on May 3, rather than the scheduled date of May 10, which is one day before the deadline for calling a double dissolution expires. Among other things, this would allow the government time to attempt to get its legislation reinstating the powers of the Australian Building and Construction Commission through the Senate. Its reject would confirm its currently contestable status as a double dissolution trigger, which the Greens sought to retain by having the government agree not to reintroduce it during the current session as part of its deal to legislate for Senate electoral reform.

• Amid talk of a possible early state election, Queenslanders go to the polls next Saturday to vote on a referendum proposal that would render such a thing impossible, by introducing fixed four-year terms with elections set for the last week in October. The referendum has been timed to coincide with local government elections, which also means that the big partisan prize of the Brisbane lord mayoralty is up for grabs. According to a Galaxy poll of 540 voters conducted for the Nine Network, Liberal National Party incumbent Graham Quirk holds a 53-47 two-party lead over Labor’s Tim Harding. This compares with his winning margin of 68.3-31.7 at the 2012 election, which was held a few weeks after Anna Bligh’s government had been decimated at the polls. The Galaxy poll also found Brisbane voters favouring the referendum proposal by 48% to 35%, but Steven Wardill of the Courier-Mail, offers that “regional Queenslanders are expected to be much more sceptical towards the proposal”.

Preselection matters:

• The Liberal preselection to anoint a successor to Victorian Senator Michael Ronaldson has produced a surprise winner in James Paterson, the 28-year-old deputy executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs. Paterson will shortly fill the casual vacancy to be created by Ronaldson’s imminent retirement, and will head the party’s ticket in the event of a normal half-Senate election. It had been generally expected that the position would go to Jane Hume, a superannuation policy adviser who had the influential backing of Michael Kroger, president of the party’s state branch. Hume had earlier won preselection for the number three position on a Coalition ticket that allocates second place to the Nationals. Also in the race was Amanda Millar, who filled a casual vacancy for Northern Victoria region in the state upper house in August 2013 but failed to win re-election in November 2014; and Karina Okotel, a legal aid lawyer.

• Labor’s preselection in Fremantle will be conducted over two days on Sunday, when a ballot of local members determining 25% of the total result will be held, and Monday, when the rest is to be determined at a meeting of state executive. The two nominees are Josh Wilson, chief-of-staff to outgoing member Melissa Parke and the local deputy mayor, and Chris Brown, a Maritime Union of Australia organiser and former wharfie. Observers say that Wilson will dominate the local party ballot, but factional arrangements are likely to tip the balance in Brown’s favour at state executive. The winner will face recently preselected Greens candidate Kate Davis, solicitor for tenants’ rights organisation Tenancy WA.

• Tim Hammond has been preselected without opposition to succeed Alannah MacTiernan as Labor’s candidate in Perth. Hammond is a barrister specialising in representing asbestos disease victims, one of the party’s national vice-presidents, and a member of the Right. It appears that the Brand preselection will go the same way, with no other contenders standing in the way of Madeleine King, chief operating officer of the international policy think tank Perth USAsia Centre. Other confirmed Labor candidates in winnable seats are Matt Keogh in Burt, a commercial lawyer and president of the WA Law Society, who ran unsuccessfully at the Canning by-election in September; Anne Azza Aly in Cowan, a counter-terrorism expert at Curtin University and founder of People Against Violent Extremism (as seen here last week in Seat of the Week); Tammy Solonec in Swan, an indigenous lawyer; and Bill Leadbetter in Hasluck, executive director of an obstetric practice and occasional history academic. Aly and Solonec both have a past with the Greens, Aly having been endorsed as a candidate for the 2007 federal election before withdrawing from the race, and Solonec having held an unwinnable spot on an upper house ticket at the 2013 state election.

• The New South Wales Liberals are preparing to determine their Parramatta preselection through a trial plebiscite of local party members of more than two years’ standing. A push to make such ballots the norm was rejected at the party’s state conference in October, to the chagrin of the religious Right faction in particular, but a compromise deal backed by Mike Baird has allowed for trials to be held in a small number of federal and state electorates over the coming years. Kylie Adoranti of the Parramatta Advertiser reports 278 local members are eligible to participate, together with the members of the state executive and further representatives of the state council and the Prime Minister, collectively accounting for 28 votes. Nominees include current Parramatta councillor Jean Pierre Abood; former Parramatta councillor Andrew Bide; Charles Camenzuli, a structural engineer and building consultant who was the party’s candidate in 2010, and also sought preselection unsuccessfully in 2013; and Felicity Finlay, who also contested preselection in 2013, and appears to be a school teacher.

• Labor’s national executive has taken over the preselection process in the New South Wales seats of Barton and Hunter, initiating a process that will be resolved on Friday. The beneficiary in Barton will be the state’s outgoing Deputy Opposition Leader, Linda Burney. National executive will also determine her successor in the state seat of Canterbury, where a by-election now looms. In Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon is to be confirmed as candidate for a seat that effectively merges his existing seat of Hunter with Charlton, which has been decommissioned in the redistribution. The intervention enforces a deal in which Hunter remains secure for the Right, who have been frozen out in Barton by the endorsement of the Left-aligned Burney.

• Labor in New South Wales also has normal preselection processes in train for ten other seats, including two in the Hunter region: Shortland, where Jill Hall is retiring, and Paterson, which the redistribution has transformed from Liberal to marginal Labor. Shortland looks set to be the new home for Pat Conroy, whose existing seat of Charlton has, as noted above, been rolled together with Joel Fitzgibbon’s seat of Hunter. Conroy says he insisted on facing a rank-and-file ballot. Nominees in Paterson include Meryl Swanson, a local radio presenter, and Robert Roseworne, decribed by the ABC as a “Port Stephens community campaigner”. Both preselections are scheduled to be resolved the weekend after next.

• Nationals MP John Cobb has announced he will not contest the next election, having been member for Parkes from 2001 to 2007, and Calare henceforth. The front-runner to succeed him as Nationals candidate in Calare appears to be Andrew Gee, member for the state seat of Orange, although media reports suggest opponents may include Wellington councillor Alison Conn, Bathurst businessman Sam Farraway, Orange councillor Scott Munro, Bathurst mayor Gary Rush, Lithgow councillor Peter Pilbeam and Bathurst region farmer Paul Blanch, who was the Liberal candidate in 2004.

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.

2,734 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.3-48.7 to Coalition”

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  1. zoomster

    You too are promoting the major party propaganda that an open ticket is a deal.

    The comments by Di Natalie on Lateline were crystal clear. There is no deal. Just open tickets.

  2. Insider’s did also mention, that if the GRN preference the L-NP, they could very well end up losing votes.

    A lot of GRN voter’s I know would not be able to last long in a political discussion if I could say “…and so that is why you prefer the L-NP”.

  3. zoom
    If the deal comes with such a significant downside, how would accepting it demonstrate their political smarts?

  4. question

    Yes the Insiders did say that. However as Di Natalie had made clear its unthinkable to the Greens at the moment.

    Open tickets avoid that possibility.

  5. Zoomster

    Fair point – I think I was writing before I saw your post.

    As it happens I do not think HTVs matter much in HoR seats because everyone knows the paries and candidates. They matter in the Seante (or will if the changes happen) because no one will know if the Building Austalia Party is a right wing front for fascists or a party committed to infrastructure spending. Are the Bullet train people really just train enthusiasts or really an LNP front?

    So I really do not think it will matter if the liberals do or do not direct preferences to Greens. What DOES matter is the rhetoric. Under Abbott and Howard, the Greens were deemed untouchables. Preference flow in HoR seats was small. By declaring the Greens no longer nutters, then the Greens may hope to get a good share of LNP preferences which may deliver them some HoR seats.

  6. Question,

    The Greens seem to be getting in to the habit of “pissing off” their potential voters.

    The latest Essential showed more Greens voters were against the dodgy Senate deal than for.

  7. [Open tickets avoid that possibility.]

    I’m not sure that would help my GRN friends down at the pub. “How cute” it makes strongly held beliefs look.

  8. [The Greens seem to be getting in to the habit of “pissing off” their potential voters.]

    It is getting a bit dangerous for them… I will wait and see where it settles, and then see how much fun I can have with my GRN friends 🙂

  9. There is a much simpler explanation than all this contorted logic I’ve seen over the past week.

    The Coalition proposed to reform the Senate. The Greens who have wanted it for a long time said ok, let’s do it. There’s no need for either side to persuade the other, because it’s something both sides want and are on the record as wanting.

  10. David

    You may be right about the greens not matching their 2010 vote HOWEVER it is clear from the figures than Greens vote has two components – ideological and populist/protest.

    In 2013 the populist vote went to Palmer. We will see what 2016 brings but I expect at least SOME of the populist vote to return to the Greens.

  11. JW

    If the majors want to see open tickets as a deal that is up to them. However the reality is open tickets do not direct voters. Thus they are the closest we get to no deal.

    You can only make a deal if you are saying to vote this way.

    In a system that has back room deal making as part of its culture that might be seen as making a deal but in reality its not. In reality its leaving it up to voters to make up their own minds.

    This is the whole point of the Senate reform for the Greens. They did not want to make preference deals. Now not being forced to do that in the Senate means they do not need to in the HOR.

    Over election cycles this change will show up and may even be adopted by other parties to avoid political backlash from deals.

  12. guytaur,
    Last word.

    As for the whole cancer not attacking from within the body claims you were making. Last time I looked the skin was part of the body. The cancer cells form in the body. They then attack other cells.

    Bollocks.

    The skin is ‘part of the body’. However,last time I looked my skin was on the outside of my body. The cells of the epidermis may metastasise there to form BCCs and Melanomas, which may then infiltrate down into the body if left untreated, from where they may attack other organs or cells.

    The cancer cells do NOT form in the body exclusively. They do not come from within the body and work their way out to the skin. I can explain how UVB stimulates cell change on the skin if you like, but in deference to mari I won’t.

    Sorry, mari, I will now desist but that cockamamie statement by guytaur just had to be addressed by me.

    Btw, my husband passed away from the Big C too. So you have my sympathy. 🙂

    Over and out!

  13. guytaur

    [You too are promoting the major party propaganda that an open ticket is a deal.]

    On the contrary, I have deliberately avoided talking about open tickets, because really, they’re irrelevant.

    I’m talking about the LIBERALS preferencing the Greens in Lower House seats, not about what the Greens do.

    [The comments by Di Natalie on Lateline were crystal clear. ]

    Yes. He said he wasn’t responsible for any deals, he wasn’t discussing tickets with the Liberals, and that these issues were up to branches.

    In other words, there are discussions being held, but he’s not part of them.

    At the same time, although we have a denial from the NSW Greens, we have a Victorian Liberal powerbroker saying he’s open to deals and no statement similar to that from the NSW Greens to say that they won’t deal with him.

    So here goes my take on the Victorian Greens, backed up by some stuff that’s on the record and an awful lot gleaned from behind the shelter shed talks with those active in the Victorian Greens (so it might all be proven wrong…)

    Greg Barber, in the Victorian Upper House, is diNatale’s brother in law. He’s also a key mover and shaker in the VicGreens, and an acknowledged deal maker for them.

    (All totally factual).

    Just as Bill Shorten as OL doesn’t sit down with other parties deal makers directly, neither would di Natale. So it would be logical that, if Kroger is talking to anyone, he’s talking to someone like Barber.

    di Natale trusts Barber. (Fact). He thus does not need to know what Barber is doing, but both he and Barber will be very aware of each others’ thoughts on these issues.

    diNatale is doing a classic Pontius Pilate. In doing so, he hopes to be able to deflect criticism about any deals that are done from himself to ‘the branches’. No one knows who ‘the branches’ are (and ‘the branches’ are easily persuaded to vote in support of a deal), so they’re a nice scapegoat.

    Of course, real leaders don’t work like that – they take responsibility for their party’s decisions, and if they think their party has made a bad decision, they over ride it (candidates get disendorsed all the time, despite being selected by ‘the branches’). But from what I know of Barber and diNatale, this is their idea of clever politics.

  14. My last word on this and my apologies to the victims of skin cancer.

    catmomma

    Try living without skin and tell me the skin cancer does not attack the body. Its that simple no matter how you twist and turn skin is part of the body and a vital part the first line of defence.

  15. DN

    I don’t think the Greens are politically smart, and I’ve said so almost continuously.

    I think they think they’re politically smart.

  16. JW

    [ You seem to be suggesting that open tickets could not be part of a deal. What is the logic of that? ]

    I thought the essence of the deal was for open tickets, instead of preferencing against the LNP? Or is my memory faulty?

  17. guytaur

    [ It will work at the pub real well. The retort is we don’t control voters ]

    Odd – I thought you weren’t a Green?

  18. [It will work at the pub real well. The retort is we don’t control voters]

    Yes, that sounds very cute, and not a very forceful argument, but I will wait and see what eventuates.

  19. zoomster

    What makes you think the Greens are not doing exactly the same with Labor?

    However much you dislike the fact its been stated no deals. If the Liberals decide to preference the Greens that is up to the Liberals. Its not the Green making a deal. No more than it is for Labor.

    No matter who is Di Natalie’s brother in law in Victoria’s parliament.

  20. [Thus they are the closest we get to no deal.]

    The closest you get to no deal is… not making a deal.

    If they make a deal to *not* preference a party, then that’s… a deal! Just as much of a deal as making a deal to preference some party.

  21. Player One

    [I thought the essence of the deal was for open tickets, instead of preferencing against the LNP? Or is my memory faulty?]

    I think your memory is OK….not so sure about the logic of the Greens position 🙂

  22. [Greens always try to make a virtue of their inadequacies.]
    A truly nasty, cutting comment if ever there was one.

  23. MTBW@2301

    [vic ]
    [ guytaur

    Yesterday i said you were as thick as two short planks. After your post at 2273, i revise it to four short planks. Cant believe the stupidity of that comment
    ]

    [
    You owe guytaur an apology for that comment. Who do you think you are? ]

    I still can’t work out why guytaur needs a phalanx of protectors to shield him from criticism.

    This seems to happen whenever someone even disagrees with one of his posts, never mind calling into question anything else.

    Can’t he speak up for himself? Is he a poor little petal who is being jumped on by the nasties here? Can’t see it myself.

  24. Didn’t ALP and Liberals preferenceceach other above the Greens previously? I might be wrong but I have a vague memory of that. Also Labor preferencing right wingers to keep Greens out of the Senate.

    What’s the big accusation being levelled against the Greens? I ask again are the Greens intending to direct voters to preference Liberals?

  25. [Bridget O’Flynn
    Bridget O’Flynn – ‏@BridgetOFlynn

    Cormann says his working relationship with Di Natale is ‘more constructive’ than the one he had with Christine Milne.

    #australianagenda]

  26. victoria

    The back down I have been expecting by the looks of it. The good Senators called Turnbull’s bluff. 🙂

    Yes I could be wrong and its not the start of a backdown but thats the way it seems to me.

  27. Greens should be rounded up and driven into the sea. How dare they act like politicians, and destroy my childhood memories of fairies at the bottom of the garden.

  28. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/13/clive-palmer-refuses-to-rule-out-senate-run-as-jobs-lost-at-queensland-nickel
    [Clive Palmer has refused to rule out running for the Senate, as 550 Queensland Nickel workers face continued uncertainty about their future.

    Palmer said that he did not accept it was impossible to win his seat of Fairfax, which he holds on a 0.03% margin.

    But asked if he would think about heading up a Queensland Senate ticket for the Palmer United party, Palmer said: “We’ll look at what happens when the election is called.”

    Asked if he would head up a Palmer United party Queensland Senate ticket, Palmer said: “It would have to be if I got endorsed by my party.

    “I don’t know whether they would with all the bad publicity I’ve had.”]

  29. [
    Vic 2379
    The government isn’t talking about an early election and neither is it considering bringing forward the budget, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says.
    ]

    Cormann isn’t going to let himself get isolated on the DD the way Morrison was on the GST 🙂

  30. Guytaur

    [If the majors want to see open tickets as a deal that is up to them. However the reality is open tickets do not direct voters. Thus they are the closest we get to no deal.]

    FFS! If the Greens agree to run open tickets in return for some other consideration then that is a deal.

  31. The Coalition proposed to reform the Senate. The Greens who have wanted it for a long time said ok, let’s do it. There’s no need for either side to persuade the other, because it’s something both sides want and are on the record as wanting.

    Yes, that is accurate.

    If you’re getting everything you want, in a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve the electoral system, I don’t know why you’d hold up the deal to demand extraneous shit like ruling out a double dissolution election.

  32. don

    I scroll past mtbw. But not surprised she sticks her nose in. Guytaur is a big boy and agree he can stand up for himself. If he feels offended by my comments, he can say so directly to me.

  33. Don you have to agree that just calling someone dumb as two short planks or whatever represents debate descending into pure personal abuse. I always think that says more about the person who makes such comments than their target

  34. zoom
    Your characterisation of the deal:
    [… if they have any political smarts to speak of]

    Your characterisation of the Greens:
    [I don’t think the Greens are politically smart]

    So they wouldn’t take such a deal, then. Your workaround for the contradiction:
    [I think they think they’re politically smart.]
    Takes us into circular logic.

    That’s not really any better than a contradiction.

  35. And as someone else has also asked and received no answer –

    Is there a deal or discussions being held between the ALP and the Coalition to preference each other over Adam Bandt in Melbourne?

  36. [Yes I could be wrong and its not the start of a backdown but thats the way it seems to me.]

    Me too… it seemed like an excuse not to talk about policy to me.

  37. don and shiftaling

    I appreciate the supportive comments. However I have no pedestal to stand on as I have made slips. Eg I have been known to call TBA dumb as two thick planks or words to that effect.

  38. Jolyon Wagg@2389

    Guytaur

    If the majors want to see open tickets as a deal that is up to them. However the reality is open tickets do not direct voters. Thus they are the closest we get to no deal.

    FFS! If the Greens agree to run open tickets in return for some other consideration then that is a deal.

    Absolutely. I have no idea why Greens think they are so virginal.

    They are like Mae West:

    [ I was as pure as the driven snow…. but then I drifted…]

    😀

  39. Lateline
    [EMMA ALBERICI: Have you struck a deal with the Liberals about who you will and won’t preference at the next election?

    RICHARD DI NATALE: No, we haven’t.]
    I don’t think there’s the wriggle room and all the lines to read between some of you think there is.

  40. guytaur

    I’m not objecting to the Greens doing deals with the Liberals, and I won’t object if the ALP is doing deals with them, either.

    [However much you dislike the fact its been stated no deals. ]

    It has been stated that (i) there are no deals happening in NSW; and (ii) di Natale isn’t personally involved in any deal making.

    It’s also unlikely (given timeframes) that a deal has been done.

    None of those things mean that there is no dealmaking going on.

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