After a few weeks where it appeared the trend to Labor had tapered off, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate records a solid nudge to Labor this week on the back a Newspoll result crediting it with a 51-49 lead. BludgerTrack doesn’t go quite so far, but it does have the Coalition losing a full point off the primary vote since last week. This translates into a surprisingly mild net gain of one for Labor on the seat projection, with gains in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania being balanced by losses in Queensland and the Northern Territory – the latter being the result of a methodological tweak (I continue to have very limited faith in my Northern Territory projections one way or the other). Newspoll also provided a new set of data for the leadership ratings, which have maintained their existing trajectories – headlong downward in Malcolm Turnbull’s case, and steadily upwards in Bill Shorten’s.
Two further items of polling floating around in the past few days:
• The Australian has a second tranche of results from Newspoll, relating to the Liberal leadership. The poll finds 57% believe the Liberals were right to depose Tony Abbott, down five since October, with still only 31% opposed, up four. A question on preferred Liberal leader found Malcolm Turnbull leading on 35%, Julie Bishop on 22%, Tony Abbott on 14% and Scott Morrison on 8%. This suggests only modest change since an Essential Research poll in mid-March which had Malcolm Turnbull on 39% (down from 42% in December), Julie Bishop (down one) on 13% and Tony Abbott on 9% (steady), along with high “someone else” and “don’t know” components. Roy Morgan got a very different and much stronger result for Turnbull in October, presumably because respondents were asked who they would favour if they were Liberal or Nationals voters.
• A poll conducted by Research Now by the progressive Australia Institute think tank found 63.4% of 1412 respondents felt Tony Abbott should retire, compared with only 26.3% who preferred that he remain.
Much preselection news to report this week, largely thanks to the Western Australian Liberals, who have conducted a number of important preselection ballots, results of which remain to be confirmed by the party’s state council this weekend:
• The Liberal member for the Perth seat of Tangney, Dennis Jensen, suffered a resounding preselection defeat on the weekend at the hands of the party’s former state director, Ben Morton. Morton’s winning margin in the ballot of local party delegates was 57 to seven. This was the third time Jensen had lost a local preselection vote in a parliamentary career going back to 2004, earlier results having been reversed by the intervention of John Howard in 2007 and the party’s state executive in 2010. Jensen concedes he is unlikely to appeal this time, which would surely be futile given the scale of the defeat and the enthusiasm for Morton among the party hierarchy. Jensen has claimed to be a victim of “dirty tricks” from the Morton camp after news reports emerged last week concerning a novel he had written containing a graphic sex scene, which he says was designed to damage his standing in the eyes of religious conservatives. He has also launched defamation proceedings against The Australian over a report on Friday that he had moved out of the family home to live with his girlfriend at a property located outside the electorate.
• A second WA Liberal preselection on the weekend, for the new Perth seat of Burt, was won by Liz Storer, a Gosnells councillor and staffer for two state MPs prominent in the southern suburban “Christian Right” – upper house member Nick Goiran and Southern River MP Peter Abetz, who is the brother of Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz. Storer’s win came at the expense of Matt O’Sullivan, who runs mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s GenerationOne indigenous employment scheme. Another preselection vote for the Perth electorate was won by employment consultant Jeremy Quinn over a field that included Darryl Moore, the candidate from 2013; Leona Gu, a property developer and real estate agent; and Trudi Lang, who has recently had roles in France and Switzerland with the OECD and World Economic Forum.
• Liberal MP Nola Marino has seen off a preselection challenge in her seat of Forrest, which covers south-western Western Australia. Marino ultimately enjoyed a 51-16 winning margin over Ben Small, a Bunbury businessman who had “worked in commercial shipping and as a property developer”. Small had the support of Marino’s precedessor, Geoff Prosser, and there were suggestions he was serious threat. However, The West Australian also reported this week that the party’s state council would be “under pressure to rescue Mrs Marino” if Small carried the day.
• The ABC reports there are four candidates for the Liberal preselection to replace Sharman Stone in the regional Victorian seat of Murray: Duncan McGauchie, former policy adviser to the then Victorian premier, Ted Baillieu; Emma Bradbury, Campaspe Shire councillor and chief executive of the Murray Darling Association; Camillus O’Kane, an urban planner; and Andrew Bragg, policy director at the Financial Services Council and an unsuccessful candidate in the Victorian Liberals’ recent Senate preselection.
• Ninety-six preselectors will vote in the Liberals’ Mackellar preselection next weekend, drawn equally from local branches and head office. Contentiously, the former contingent includes four of Bronwyn Bishop’s own staff members. Heath Aston of Fairfax hears Bronwyn Bishop and Jason Falinski are approaching 40 votes each, with 10 to 15 backers of Walter Villatora set to decide it for Falinski on the second round.
If the “New Economy” looks anything like that wanted by the IPA and the Marice Newmans of the world, I’ll vote to kill it off.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sohssv?new_post=true
This is Laurie Oakes article really roasting Scott Morrison, good to read
Wish preview would work!
C@tmomma@1397
I’m inclined to think that the Coal will “reveal” some scuttlebutt about Shorten at the very last minute, too late for it to be proved wrong before most people vote. It may even be a complete fabrication.
rummel @ 1293
[Shit….. even I support Shorten on a Banking Royal Commission.
So do half the Nationals lol.]
The biggest number of victims of bank misconduct and outright bastardry have been core conservative voters. These are small business people who have been foreclosed on and careful savers whose savings have been frittered away in high risk investments which delivered high paying commissions to banks and their employed investment advisors.
This is a big wedge for the Coalition. And it won’t be long before they start to realise how big a wedge it is.
There was an SMH story from 6 April on this poll, story got circulated but full link that went up later that day on the the Nature Conservation Council site seemed to go unnoticed. So here it is.
http://www.nature.org.au/news/2016/04/most-people-think-the-coal-industry-is-doing-nsw-more-harm-than-good/
[6 April, 2016
Most people think the coal industry is doing NSW more harm than good
The results are a significant blow to the Baird government and the fossil fuel industries in NSW, which have mounted propaganda campaigns to build support for unpopular coal and coal seam gas projects.
ReachTEL conducted the survey on March 14 this year to test community attitudes to the coal and coal seam gas industries in NSW, and to the Baird governments management of the sector.]
Comparisons to two earlier polls
http://www.nature.org.au/media/213756/160402-polling-comparison-2013-2016.pdf
Full new ReachTEL poll, document from the polling company
http://www.nature.org.au/media/213755/160402-poll-results-2016-reachtel-polling-14-march-16-nsw.pdf
http://www.smh.com.au/national/more-than-half-of-nsw-sees-coal-and-gsc-negatively-poll-20160401-gnwdei.html
[Who do the people trust to steer the course to a secure, prosperous and exciting future?”]
On the basis of the last few years, certainly not the Liberal Party.
Re Lizzie@1404: the mention of ‘Black Swans’ earlier got me thinking along those lines. The Liberal-Murdoch dirt units are no doubt working overtime on Bill Shorten and other senior Labor people.
I’m hearing something may be afoot in the Liberals’ Burt preselection.
don @ 1403,
It’s hard to work out why the caffeine was replaced with codeine, to my limited knowledge a much ‘harder’ drug. Maybe there was a synergy with caffeine and the other drugs in APC which had more deleterious effects.
I just remembered that APCs became Aspirin, Paracetamol and Codeine after they took out the Phenacetin. So codeine must have come after caffeine.
I wouldn’t ascribe the purest of motives to the drug companies either but my guess is that they put the codeine into the formulation for it’s pain relief properties and the other two ingredients were more important for their anti-inflammatory effects. 🙂
Bluey Bulletin No 20 Day 20 of 103
Bluey has been tending to his rock pool but has enjoyed the rationales given by the Liberals for letting the Malcolm Turnbulls to continue to run amok.
Bluey notes that the Turnbull team is beset by backbenchers and the like who continue to demonstrate disunity.
Verdict: evens
Cumulative score Labor 15.5 Liberals 4.5.
WB @ 1409,
I’m hearing something may be afoot in the Liberals’ Burt preselection.
Because Matt Keogh is wiping the floor with the Fibs. 😀
[My memory of the C in APC (eg Vincents APC) is aspirin, phenacitin and codeine .]
No Don, not codeine, my mother was very allergic to codeine (as is all the females in the family) so she wouldn’t have been able to take … it was caffeine
I agree that Labor should not be publicly predicting a terrible budget or forming any strategy around such an assumption. If Labor sets the bar low, it won’t be hard for the Coalition to clear it and then boast that they’ve cleared it.
Labor should be framing the debate and/to set the bar high as possible. There’s this problem that needs solving. Here’s Labor’s proposal. Don’t necessarily mention the Coalition.
William Bowe
As in confirmation of who has been preselected?
The WA Libs’ State Council is meeting today to ratify last week’s preselection ballots, and I gather Liz Storer’s win over Matt O’Sullivan in Burt last week is at the very least being challenged. The WA Libs have been tweeting congratulations to preselected candidates, and there has conspicuously been no mention of Burt.
c@t
I posted some audio earlier of BCassidy. He made mention wtte that NSW is still very good for the Libs. Has Labor made any inroads?
Joe Hockey’s ‘frat-house’ in Canberra makes $1 million profit after passing in
It’s been described as a Liberal Party frat-house, but with Paddle Pops and Jerry Springer rather than kegs and bucket bongs.
Joe Hockey’s self-made millionaire wife Melissa Babbage bought the heritage-listed 1930s Canberra home for a song in 1997 and then charged her husband and his Liberal mates to stay there in parliamentary sitting weeks.
Many a Liberal MP called it their home away from home over the subsequent 18 years, including former opposition leader Brendan Nelson, who infamously stayed in a small, dingy, heating-free room off the detached garage.
“I sleep in the garage and Joe is always kind enough to wake me at dawn by warming his car engine at maximum revs or chipping the ice off his windscreen at high volume,” Dr Nelson joked at the time.
Mr Hockey couldn’t help but make affectionate mention of the house – where he slept beneath his Bart Simpson doona, as revealed on an episode of the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet – in his valedictory speech last year.
“To my long-term Canberra flatmates Jamie Briggs, Brendan Nelson and Bob Baldwin – they’ve seen more of me than many would care to see,” he said.
“And I can confess that our happiest moments were sitting at home late at night eating Paddle Pops, watching Jerry Springer. And admiring the latest Nickelback album, in my case alone.”
Alas, no more. Ms Babbage and Mr Hockey – who lost his job as treasurer last year and then quit Parliament to become US ambassador – sold the house for $1.515 million on Saturday.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/joe-hockeys-frathouse-in-canberra-makes-1-million-profit-after-passing-in-20160409-go2fad.html?google_editors_picks=true
Tough call as to be who will be punted as coach first, Hardwick or Buckley?
Leroy, 1406
From that statewide poll (neatly nestled in the results) I get PVs of:
Coalition – 45%
ALP – 29.5%
Greens – 13.6%
Other/Independent – 11.9%
Which leads to a 2PP for the ALP of:
29.5+(0.8*13.6)+(0.5*11.9)=46.3%
Which is a decent swing in favour of the ALP, especially compared to recent polling.
[ This is a big wedge for the Coalition. And it won’t be long before they start to realise how big a wedge it is.]
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. If the ALP popped this on \on the run, well, good on them for taking a good shot at short notice.
But with the Mal Cayman thing, and then the Panama Papers….i kind of wonder how much they have gotten wind of over the last few weeks and just sat on…waiting, knowing that something was likely happen around Budget time due to the various timing issues around a DD…..
And the MalPM played his recall on the 18th and Budget Forward card. 🙂
Libs are being herded like a bunch a fwarking sheep.
Pyne on the RC
[
’12 months ago the Labor party voted against a royal commission into banking… so what’s changed?’ he asked Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Richard
]
Nothing much, apart from another couple of banking scandals.
From the sky news show
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/04/09/bank-inquiry-would-undermine-financial-sector.html?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=570865b004d3016b3dcb4101&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter#sthash.7Zy4FT1A.dpuf
Kop
[Clinton’s team have stated that they will not debate Sanders ..]
There is a Clinton/Sanders debate scheduled for April 14 in Brooklyn.
Airlines
The ALP primary has gone done 4.58% since the 2015 NSW election – the coalition only 0.68%.
The shift is equalish to greens and independents the later of which mostly CDP.
I think the TPP would be better for coalition that 2015 election on those figures with concurs with recent Morgan and Essential state polls.
The Royal Commission into banking is a great idea, Labor should also announce a Royal Commission into tax avoidance and be asked to make recommendations on how we can tighten tax laws to eliminate creative accounting
I like Sanders and his policies, but it seems more likely by the day that he will fall a long way short on delegates. There comes a time where his best option is to cut his losses and focus on destroying Trump
shellbell, 1424
To be fair to the ALP I think that this poll is understating its support a bit – it should manage to remain comfortably above 30%. I also think that OPV might be playing into the low ALP 2PP a bit, with less Greens and left-leaning independents forced to preference the ALP.
Airlines
Maybe so but the suggestion that ALP have cut into the Libs in NSW, at the state level, is illusory
shellbell
You could play Twinkies with St Stannies at the peak of summer and it would always be cold.
jenauthor@1413
As C@t says, there were quite a few formulations over the years. But I am here to tell you that in Queensland when I was a kid, the radio ads said wtte:
‘Vincents APC contains Aspirin, Phenacitin and Codeine – Take Vincents with confidence’.
[1394
Steve777
The 2014 Budget measures will be back in the 2017 Budget, if not befor the end of the year.]
And so will the GST increase.
Bushfire Bill@1400
The tories are utterly desperate to get a fear campaign goes.
A government whose policies are toxic, whose internal relationships with each other are toxic is fumbling to get attention off itself and onto the Opposition.
They don’t quite have the media going to bat for them as usual – things are changing, slowly.
Even if the get their DD there is little evidence voters are scared by the unions. Yet many would love to see the bank’s get some comeuppance – including some tories.
And the DD may result in them losing government.
The ‘traditional’ fear campaign is their big hope atm.
lizzie@1404
It wouldn’t surprise to see the rape allegations get another outing.
TPOF
[This is a big wedge for the Coalition. And it won’t be long before they start to realise how big a wedge it is.]
It should not be. Banks don’t vote.
The Libs need to think about ‘their’ voters… That’s why i think they are screwed because they won’t. Where is our Aussie Trump card?
Oh and about those big bad Unions. The RC proved beyond doubt that they are not that bad. A few rotten apples, yes. But not as corrupt as has made to been made out.
[ dave
The ‘traditional’ fear campaign is their big hope atm.
]
It’s already started, Dave – as predictable as day following night :
Unions threaten the nation’s economic future, says Malcolm Turnbull
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has again taken aim at the construction industry, warning that unions threaten the national economy.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/unions-threaten-the-nations-economic-future-says-malcolm-turnbull-20160409-go2e33#ixzz45JEDGlRC
The “new economy” sounds like Work Choices rebadged.
Westy
While asprin ceretainly can cuse gastrintestinal ulcers, as a drug it is MUCH, triple then quadruple much, safer than paracetamol.
[ rummel
Posted Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 4:43 pm | Permalink
Oh and about those big bad Unions. The RC proved beyond doubt that they are not that bad. A few rotten apples, yes. But not as corrupt as has made to been made out.
]
Amazing how giving up smoking has “transformed” you from the dark side, Rummel 😉 ….. good on you, Mate !!!!
1439.
No transformation from dark side. They have just done nothing to support or hate.. nothing…. Shorten is the only one on the table with a plan. I don’t like it all, but, its a plan.
rummel:
The TURC was a massive own goal, plus a total waste of money. All in the pursuit of an ideological obsession for Liberals.
[ rummel
Posted Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 4:50 pm | Permalink
1439.
No transformation from dark side. They have just done nothing to support or hate.. nothing…. Shorten is the only one on the table with a plan. I don’t like it all, but, its a plan.
]
Yep …. MT by initial …. and MT with plan or policy …
[confessions
Posted Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 4:52 pm | PERMALINK
rummel:
The TURC was a massive own goal, plus a total waste of money. All in the pursuit of an ideological obsession for Liberals.]
Epic own goal yes. Cleared the air and honestly, reduced the scare campaign for Shorten and Unions. Labor should have called for one years earlier
Douglans and Milko
I am most surprised to here of asprin’s addictive qualities and I should know because i am a heavy user.
As a person who HAS given myself a lesion due to swallowing asprin without water, that article is a Tad bizarre or maybe just way, way out of date.
I think though it gave grudging recognition to the role of camphylobacter it was still very old school , “cut it out” thinking re ulcers.
There does not seem to be ANY evidence in the respectable scientific press for asprin addiction. There is some for psychological addiction to any form of imagined pain.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/qantas-plane-makes-emergency-descent-after-medical-crisis-20160409-go2esi.html
So sad!
rummel
What table?
Even that a table might exist is now a unicorn.
[Labor should have called for one years earlier]
To tell a govt something it already knew wasn’t a serious problem except in a small minority of cases?
confessions@1441
For all practical purposes it was a corruption of governance, a blatant abuse of power, that was always going to come back to haunt them, as Howard publicly warned Abbott it would.
So I’ve been thinking about what the unofficial name of Labor’s Royal Commission into Finance could be.
The best I’ve come up so far is the Financial Association Royal Commission, or FARC.
CTar1
[Even that a table might exist is now a unicorn]
One of these……..