This week’s fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research is once again at 50-50, with the Coalition steady on the primary vote at 42%, Labor up a point to 36%, and the Greens steady at 11%. Other findings:
• Essential conducted one of its occasional experiments where separate halves of the sample are offered different versions of the same question, in this case relating to a royal commission into the banking and financial services industry. The more straightforward version recorded 59% supportive and 15% opposed. The more elaborate version attributed the notion to Bill Shorten and noted the resistance of Malcolm Turnbull, and got 54% supportive and 21% opposed, with the partisan effect particularly pronounced in the case of Coalition voters.
• From five options on school funding, the most favoured involved a greater involvement for the federal government, with 49% in favour of it becoming the main funder of all schools and 27% opposed.
• Thirty-six per cent said kids these days have more opportunities than back in the day, against 30% for less opportunities and 21% for the same.
• Fifty-six per cent said retirees received too little support, versus 7% for too much and 24% for about right.
• Seventy-six per cent thought it harder for young people to buy a house than for their parents’ generation, and 55% thought it harder for them to find a job. The respective figures for easier were 7% and 17%.
TPOF, I respect your opinion. But all I have is what is before me today. Of course there is no election tomorrow.
My prediction is that the Libs will scrape back in if the election is held on July 2.
I think the polls will drift a tad more to Labor until the budget, and then as the election draws near, the Libs will run a massive scare campaign along side images of innovation and transition. I predict also they will throw dirt at Shorten, and enough will stick.
I sense the electorate isn’t yet done with the Turnbull fantasy. He will get another chance.
Great line from Kim Beazley, even if he did fall over after delivering it!
In one of his few forays into the contemporary Australian political argument over whether the country has a revenue or a spending problem, Mr Beazley warned that Australia was facing a crunch in the future because we had married a “European social system, with an American tax system”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/kim-beazley-takes-a-tumble-on-stage-after-speech-blasting-trump-20160420-gobax5.html#ixzz46NGWtCVO
Rossmore
Yes I saw Hunt in full defensive mode and congrats to Tony Jones for refusing to back down from his questions. Didn’t get any answers except the usual stonewalling though. Seems he thinks the GBR can be saved by cleaner water.
TPOF
You’re probably right about Mal seeing it through but IF the Libs get far enough behind in the polls in the short term then I expect the internal rumblings within his party to ignite.
After all the only reason he has his bum on the big seat was, and still is, his electoral appeal.
And that is going, its down to 50:50, or worse, at the moment, and with it will go the votes of erstwhile supporters within the party.
I reckon there is a fair chance Abbott will at least attempt a move if enough, say half a dozen or so, Libs get cold feet about hanging on in their seats when they polls suggest a loss is likely.
Given an ALP 2PP poll lead of close to 52% I’d rate the chances of an covert action by Abbott as very high, a bit less likely but still strong overt action if things continue to decline and a hasty party meeting within the next 2 months as about – I’m guessing – one in three.
Just reading tea leaves.
Maybe the Abbottistas will reject the Budget if it contains new tax measures. Maybe they will mutiny in the party room and threaten to oppose the Budget in the Parliament. That would certainly prevent a DD. Abbott may reason that his only chance lies in averting a DD, spilling a discredited Turnbot from office and then trying to seize power again.
Nice.
They are not yet done with the fantasy. They will be by 2 July. Listen to him speak when he doesn’t have a script and is not protected by standing orders loaded in favour of the government. And then listen to Bill Shorten when he is in full flight. When the two are up against each other, Shorten will show him up for the arrogant, clueless fool that he is.
Turnbot’s best days are well behind him. Shorten is improving all the time.
Those who think the Conservos’ polling figures will cease to fall or might even pick up should say why this is so.
Will Turnbull suddenly develop gonads, leadership skills, good judgement and courage of convictions between now and July 2?
Will their Budget skills suddenly rehabilitate themselves by May 3?
What are the economic / tax / spending cut areas that are still on the table and /or will have any appeal to voters?
Will the RWNJs shut up now, until after the election?
Which front benchers are capable of planning implementing and arguing an effective campaign?
Seems to me that the only direction the Conservos will go in the next 7 weeks is further downward.
What will be their Tampa? I can’t see even the hint of such a saviour between here and the July 2 horizon.
i know the average age on PB is above average but the font size and white spaces on the new site can seem a bit like big book world — some merit in changes but not easy to move between threads …. and space between lines to toooo much
New thread.
So Nine have ransomed their star reporter, their crew, and the mother, but have left their hired hands who did the dirty work to rot in jail.
I’m sure there’ll be a full explanation, plus a “reveal” (is that the right TV word?) of the amounts paid, and a long heart-rending segment on 60 Minutes to clear it all up.
It’s now a bigger story than it was ever going to be in the first place. We might even have spin-offs: a Reno Rumble segment on how to kidnap-proof your old fibro house? Perhaps a cooking program on Lebanese food? Will a romance blossom between Tara and her rough, but handsome Lebanese jailer (some like doing it in handcuffs, I hear)? They will be the episodes All Australia is watching.
And let’s not forget… “I’m a celebrity reporter… GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
http://www.smh.com.au/world/60-minutes-child-recovery-team-hung-out-to-dry-by-nine-lawyer-claims-20160420-gobcct.html