The Easter weekend has meant the only poll this week has been the usual weekly reading from Essential Research, which records a tie on two-party preferred for the fourth week in a row. Both major parties are steady on the primary vote – the Coalition on 43%, Labor on 38% – while the Greens are down a point to 9%. There is accordingly not much change on the surface of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, which records a gentle move to the Coalition that yields nothing on the seat projection. However, there’s a lot going on under the BludgerTrack bonnet, as I’m now doing it in R rather than SAS/STAT, and relying a lot less on Excel to plug the gaps. Now that I’ve wrapped my head around R, I can probe a lot more deeply into the data with a lot less effort – commencing with the observation that the Coalition’s two-party vote would be around 0.5% higher if I was using a trend of respondent-allocated preference to determine the result, rather than 2013 election preferences. I’ve also done my regular quarterly BludgerTrack breakdowns, featuring state-level primary votes based on results from Morgan, Ipsos, Essential and ReachTEL, together with the breakdowns published this week by Newspoll.
Further polling:
• The Essential poll found 44% would approve of a double dissolution election if the Senate blocked the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill, with disapproval at only 23%. Respondents also showed good sense when asked the main reason why Prime Minister might wish to do such a thing: 25% opted for clearing independents from the Senate, 30% for getting an election in before he loses further support, and only 14% for actually getting the ABCC restored. Other questions recorded an unsurprising weight of support for income tax cuts (62% more important, 61% better for the economy) over company tax cuts (16% and 19% respectively). Results for a series of questions on which party was best to manage various aspects of economic policy were also much as expected, though slightly more favourable to the Coalition than when the questions were last posed a few weeks before the 2014 budget. A semi-regular inquiry into the attributes of the Labor and Liberal parties allows an opportunity for comparison with a poll conducted in November, shortly before the recent improvement in Labor’s fortunes. Labor’s movements are perhaps a little surprising, with extreme up and moderate down, and “looks after the interests of working people” down as well. The Liberals are down vision, leadership and clarity, and up on division.
• The Herald-Sun has a report on ReachTEL poll commissioned by the progressive Australia Institute think tank in the regional Victorian seat of Indi, which Sophie Mirabella hopes to recover for the Liberals after her defeat by independent Cathy McGowan in 2013. The news is not good for Mirabella, with McGowan recording a lead on the primary vote of 37.3% to 26.9%, while the Nationals are a distant third on 10.6%. The report says a 56-44 two-candidate preferred result from the poll allocated all Nationals preferences to Mirabella, a decision that was perhaps made in ignorance of the level of support McGowan received from Nationals voters in 2013. The primary votes as reported would more likely pan out to around 60-40.
Preselection latest:
• Andrew Burrell of The Australian reports the Liberal preselection for the new Western Australian seat of Burt is a tight tussle between Matt O’Sullivan, who runs mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s GenerationOne indigenous employment scheme, and Liz Storer, a Gosnells councillor. Storer is supported by the state branch’s increasingly assertive Christian Right, and in particular by its leading powerbroker in Perth’s southern suburbs, state upper house MP Nick Goiran.
• The Weekly Times reports that Damian Drum, state upper house member for Northern Victoria region and one-time coach of the Fremantle Dockers AFL club, will nominate for Nationals preselection in the seat of Murray, following the weekend’s retirement announcement from Liberal incumbent Sharman Stone. The front-runner for Liberal preselection looks to be Donald McGauchie, former policy adviser to the then Victorian premier, Ted Baillieu.
JD
No worries.
I thought Pyne’s attempt to explain the Fed’s abandonment of public schools to be pissweak.
It is not going to go away between now and the election.
I would rather there be an OPV of 6 groups rather than the savings provision of 1, but the exhausted votes no longer contribute to the counting. It is neither helpful nor detriment to your preferred party.
Re Sheridan.
People know that public school funding is tight and they would have driven past a private school and seen the facilities.
Dio @ 3199
[…it is what is legal.]
100% spot on.
“disproportionately goes to private schools”
I can’t see how that is the case given the government pays significantly less per student to private schools than public schools.
[He clarified on his blog WTTE that he would rather parties with genuine interests come forward and fill the gap, than have a few show parties of similar interests register just for the purpose of gaming the GVT system.
Or they could be genuine micro parties, but each being the ego of a few strong heads, rather than unifying under one banner of similar interests.
It would be akin to each Labor ego breaking off to form their own version of the DLP than trying to win for their faction under Labor.
]
Oh this I understand. If you are interested in rooting out small parties, and interested in forcing them to unite then say so. And Green had a really great reason to do so, he found paper table cloth ballot papers almost physically impossible to read and complete an insult to democracy. That I can understand and support. But if that is what you are really trying to change, and that is what you are really trying to achieve why would you go to OPV which is not a direct way of dealing with any of the problems, and although it tilts the board not a guarantee of any kind of success at what you are really trying to achieve. It was very clear it was an OPV solution looking for a problem to solve, not a genuine attempt to solve actual problems.
[But still you, as the ‘case’ for change, it was so shallow, so dishonest, so laughable case isn’t really the right word, even on your new refined expression needs them to be stupid enough and lazy enough to vote 1 and hope. What kind of person who used to vote 1 and hope is going to now work through more than 20 minor party preferences to get to a minor party result.]
No, you’re the one calling them stupid and lazy here. I think these people have, in their heads, figured that the time it takes to fill out >100 boxes isn’t worth the expression of more than one preference. I trust that they’ve arrived at that conclusion correctly. Now that they can express a second preference of their own without having to number more than 100 boxes, I’m sure we’ll see many of them doing so.
WWP
[…rooting out small parties…]
Let’s keep it clean.
DIOGENES- State Govts pay about 87% of the cost of public schools.
[Swannie was the Treasurer who saved us from the GFC.
The Greens could not spell ‘GFC’ and they certainly could do nothing about it.]
He did good work on the GFC. Shame about all those surpluses he promised but couldn’t deliver though. I guess talk is cheap, hey?
On current polling will Pyne survive X?
[president of the solipsist society
Posted Monday, April 4, 2016 at 10:10 pm | Permalink
Swannie was the Treasurer who saved us from the GFC.
The Greens could not spell ‘GFC’ and they certainly could do nothing about it.
He did good work on the GFC. Shame about all those surpluses he promised but couldn’t deliver though. I guess talk is cheap, hey?]
This is getting tiresome. We can easily agree that Labor is not perfect. No government ever is.
What you do not seem to get is that it does not matter what the Greens think.
Because they have never been in a position to apply their thinking.
Talk is cheap.
[WWP
…rooting out small parties…
Let’s keep it clean.
]
If it is just a charity shag and a gentle murder it is ok BW.
[He did good work on the GFC. Shame about all those surpluses he promised but couldn’t deliver though. I guess talk is cheap, hey?]
So should he have actually delivered them, or did he do the right thing breaking his promise?
WWP
*laughs with glee*
[What you do not seem to get is that it does not matter what the Greens think.
Because they have never been in a position to apply their thinking.]
The balance of power from 2010-13 begs to differ.
[So should he have actually delivered them, or did he do the right thing breaking his promise?]
I don’t know. I don’t care. Boerwar criticises the Greens for not being able to deliver on their promises. I’m turning the argument backwards on Labor.
K17
Yes, the combined state and federal funding for all schools predominantly is paid by the state, but public schools still get more government funding per kid than independent or Catholic schools at the moment.
One of the problems Gonski aimed to address is the projection that by 2020, the government will actually pay more per kid to independent/Catholic schools than public schools, which is clearly a perverse outcome which cannot be justified.
You could thousands of words on Swannie and the surpluses.
He based his views on Treasury predictions.
He should have woken up to Treasury but, that said, the Liberals were caught out by the same problem: Treasury simply did not pick up the systemic changes to trends in revenue collection.
Newspol up 51/49 Labor
Bit late to the conversation but I think the ALP can claim to be the party that has best fought for the environment.
Now before I get shouted down by hysterical greens I am not saying the greens have not been strong on environmental issues.
Although I think it is fair to say that the last few years has seen the environment relegated to a second tier issue by the greens behind their social justice agenda of refugee rights, LGBT rights etc.
The fact is that they are a minor party and have naturally been unable to implement any changes at all that have helped the environment.
I note that it was a Labor govt. here in the west who stopped the logging of old growth forrests.
Not to mention the many other significant achievements that have been made by the ALP.
The balance between environmental protections and employment is not one that can be achieved by the greens.
Their strident disregard for the jobs of blue collar workers from the safety of their often tenured and highly paid positions in the inner cities will always put offside the workers who are employed in those industries and who quite rightly feel under threat.
That is not a criticism of the greens as such, I doubt they ultimately care whether thousands of jobs are shed if it means achieving what they want environmentally.
Does anyone doubt that the Greens would happily see the coal industry shut overnight if it was possible?
The jobs and well being of the workers would be an afterthought, sacrificed at the alter of the Greens radical agenda,
In contrast the ALP are always forced to balance the competing interest between jobs and environmental outcomes which is why they have been able to achieve such great things for the environment.
You will never be able to carry the environmental argument if you fail to persuade workers and communities that the sacrifice they are being asked to make is also for their and their families benefit.
Not an economic and social cost that those workers and communities feel they are being lumbered with to satisfy others who have no skin in the game.
The greens may of appropriated the name and have a history of environmental protest but the ALP is the true environmental party in this country with an outstanding list of achievement and success.
[president of the solipsist society
Posted Monday, April 4, 2016 at 10:16 pm | Permalink
So should he have actually delivered them, or did he do the right thing breaking his promise?
I don’t know. I don’t care. Boerwar criticises the Greens for not being able to deliver on their promises. I’m turning the argument backwards on Labor.]
You miss the point. Labor actually gets a go at doing stuff. It then fails from time to time, for sure. But it also does good stuff.
The Greens fail all the time. Big Time.
Diogenes – most federal education spending goes to private schools, despite nearly 70% of all students being in public schools – hence, disproportionate.
J
Is that 51 Liberal 49 Labor?
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Newspoll Turnbull: Approve 38 (-1) Disapprove 48 (+4) #auspol
Dio
I had a quick look at some funding projections and it seems as if the actual amount of public money going to state and private schools is pretty similar. However it was just a rough look at a graph so not certain.
51 Lab 49 Lib
jenauthor @3220,
Thanks for that.
Now we know why Pyne was narky.
Cheers.
#Newspoll Preferred PM: Turnbull 48 (-4) Shorten 27 (+6) #auspol
Oh man I needed that poll fix
#Newspoll federal TPP: ALP 51 (+2) L/NP 49 (-2) Primaries L/NP 41(-2) ALP 36(+2) GRN 11(-1) OTH 12(+1)
j
Thank you!
So Morgan lurches one way and Newspoll inches in the opposite direction…
This is good to read before bed 🙂
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Newspoll Allowing States to levy income taxes: Support 19 Oppose 58 #auspol
WeWantPaul@3206
I mean there must have been at least 5 different outdoors / fishing / shooting / camping party with similar goals. They could actually achieve something if they unite under one, get some electoral funding and maybe even a seat.
The OPV option was only there because in no situation could we have a practical amount of parties to number completely both ATL or BTL without having the same kind of informal numbers we had pre-1984. The other option was to limit the number of parties by making registration harder, but then some would argue that it would lesson democracy.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll-malcolm-turnbull-coalition-lose-lead-to-labor/news-story/481794644ea4fc1cb898cb7189fd84b0
[Newspoll: Malcolm Turnbull, Coalition lose lead to Labor
The Australian April 4, 2016 10:15PM
Phillip Hudson Bureau Chief Canberra
The Coalition has surrendered its lead to Labor for the first time since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, with the latest Newspoll revealing the Bill Shorten-led opposition has pulled ahead, 51 per cent to 49 per cent, in two-party terms.
Amid mixed messages about the government’s tax policy and tensions between the Prime Minister and Treasurer Scott Morrison, support for the Coalition has tumbled to a six-month low as Mr Turnbull’s own standing continues to slide just 88 days out from a possible double-dissolution election.
The Newspoll, taken from Thursday to Sunday exclusively for The Australian, reveals the government’s primary vote has fallen to 41 per cent. It is down two points in the past fortnight and has dropped five points since the start of the year.
It comes as new polling reveals that voters strongly oppose giving states the power to levy their own income taxes. The Prime Minister’s “big idea” to give the states income tax powers was comprehensively rejected by the states at Friday’s Council of Australian Governments meeting.
……………
The poll of 1743 people shows Labor’s primary vote has climbed two points to a six-month high of 36 per cent while the Greens are down one point to 11 per cent. Support for other parties and independents rose one point to 12 per cent. Based on preference flows from the 2013 election, Labor leads in two-party-preferred terms by 51 per cent to the Coalition’s 49 per cent — a reversal of the poll a fortnight ago.
It is the first time the opposition has been ahead since Tony Abbott was deposed as prime minister 204 days ago and a dramatic shift from just 10 weeks ago when the Coalition started the political year leading Labor by 53 per cent to 47 per cent.]
[51 Lab 49 Lib]
Oh goody.
Sheridan is talking about the holy family.
Quick, stand back…
Jesus as the first IVF child…
jenauthor@3234
The poll I was waiting for. Shame it came far too late.
This result will hopefully get the tories at each others throats again.
Turnbull not kicking many goals atm.
You’ve got to sense we’re still a long way from the bottom for the libs – and Turnbull still has to negotiate the DD farrago.
What a beautiful Newspoll.
jenauthor@3231
IT’S HAPPENING
Boerwar@3222
To be fair, they managed a bit in their alliance with Labor during Gillard’s term.
RAARAA – That poll certainly came too late for Malcolm – though he probably wouldn’t have read it anyway.
Sheridan talks as if religion is part of a secular government.
Yep. Explains why CPyne was snarky.
Meanwhile JKennett was on Lateline spruiking for Turnbull and Co.
Is it bad that I did a Lleyton Hewitt “Come on” when seeing that Newspoll?
I am not sure who the SA MP is but she is good, IMO.
BW, 3249
Kelly Vincent, leader of the Dignity 4 Disability party.