BludgerTrack: 50.1-49.9 to Coalition

It’s close but no cigar for Labor in the latest reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, which projects the Turnbull government grimly hanging on to a parliamentary majority.

As the many polls published before this week’s parliamentary sitting showed no let-up in the Coalition’s deteriorating standing in the polls, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate has come as close as close can be to tipping over in Labor’s favour. However, it continues to credit them with a bare parliamentary majority (which can probably be bumped up another notch with the near certainty that Clive Palmer’s seat of Fairfax will revert to type), owing to the advantage it attributes to sitting members. The boost to Labor adds five to their projected seat total, including three gains in Queensland, two in Western Australia and one in New South Wales, balanced by the loss of one in Tasmania. Note that the Nick Xenophon Team now gets its own entry on the vote totals (although not yet on the graphs), since its primary vote is now being tracked by ReachTEL as well as Roy Morgan. ReachTEL is no longer recording the Palmer United Party, whose support is now statistically insignificant.

Newspoll and Ipsos both provided new numbers on leadership ratings this week, the effect of which has been to throw things a little out of whack, owing to the gaping difference in the numbers for Malcolm Turnbull. Where Ipsos recorded Turnbull with a diminishing but still positive net approval rating of 13%, Newspoll recorded the reverse (i.e. minus 13%), despite their similar results on voting intention. Since BludgerTrack uses bias adjustments based on each pollsters’ performance relative to all the others, this result alone has shaken up the entire model. With all that said though, all the movements on the leadership ratings were fairly modest.

The familiar BludgerTrack graphs on the sidebar are a casualty of the Crikey redesign that was launched this week, but stay tuned, because there will soon be a module to accommodate them. Here’s a make-do for the time being, below which you can find the latest round of preselection news and what have you.

bludgertrack-2016-04-21b

• The Greens are hawking a ReachTEL poll of 800 respondents in the seat of Melbourne Ports which finds 60% of Labor voters oppose the party directing preferences to the Liberals ahead of the Greens, as Labor member Michael Danby has threatened to do (albeit that he exceeded his brief in doing so). Danby’s threat came amid an increasingly complex situation with respect to preferences in Victoria, as Liberal Party state president Michael Kroger says the party is open to a “loose arrangement” with the Greens, who are “not the nutters they used to be”, which he puts down to the leadership of Victorian Senator Richard di Natale. Kroger’s hope is presumably to lure the Greens into running open tickets in Victorian marginal seats, in return for the Liberals directing preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor in the inner-city seats of Melbourne, Wills and Batman, contrary to their position in 2013.

• After 22 years as local member, and 29 in parliament altogether when her time as a Senator is taken into account, former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop was defeated in Saturday’s preselection vote in her northern beaches Sydney electorate of Mackellar. The seat will now be contested for the Liberal Party by factional moderate Jason Falinski, owner of a health care equipment business, former adviser to John Hewson and Barry O’Farrell and campaign manager to Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth in 2004. Falinski prevailed over Bishop in the final round by 51 votes to 39, following the exclusion of Walter Villatora – a party activist who has spearheaded a campaign for preselection reforms that are principally favoured by the hard Right, and a close ally of Tony Abbott’s as the president of the Liberal Party’s Warringah branch. The score in the previous round had been Falinski 40, Bishop 37 and Villatora 12, with Villatora’s supporters breaking overwhelmingly in favour of Falinksi in the final round. This reflected the hostility of conservatives towards Bishop over her support for Malcolm Turnbull in the September leadership challenge vote. The currently unpaywalled Crikey has a thorough account of Saturday’s proceedings from a source familiar with the matter.

• Another safe seat Liberal preselection on the weekend, in Philip Ruddock’s seat of Berowra, resulted in an easy victory for Julian Leeser, a former executive director of Liberal-aligned think tank the Menzies Research Centre, and current director of government policy and strategy at the Australian Catholic University. Leeser is of Jewish background, and is said to be aligned with the Centre Right. He won 97 votes in the ballot against 10 for Robert Armitage, a local barrister; four for John Bathgate, a staffer to Christoper Pyne; and three for Nick McGowan, a one-time adviser to former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett.

• Bob Baldwin, the Liberal member for the regional New South Wales seat of Paterson, has announced he will not contest the next election. Baldwin suffered a heavy blow in the redistribution as the seat exchanged conservative rural territory for more populous areas of the Hunter region, turning Baldwin’s 9.8% margin from 2013 into a notional Labor margin of 1.3%. The Michael McGowan of the Maitland Mercury reports preselection nominees are likely to include Newcastle businesswoman Karen Howard and Port Stephens councillor Ken Jordan. Howard performed well as an independent candidate in the Newcastle state by-election of October 2015, and ran for the Liberals in the seat at the state election the following March. However, her tone-deaf attack on a local high school student over his geography project in November might cause some to doubt her judgement.

• After a bumpy ride, Liberal MP Craig Kelly has been confirmed in his preselection for the southern Sydney seat of Macarthur. The conservative Tony Abbott backer had earlier appeared to be under threat from Kent Johns, a powerbroker of the increasingly dominant moderate faction, but Malcolm Turnbull persuaded him to withdraw in February. He remained under challenge from Michael Medway, who ran in Werriwa in 2004 and appears to work in financial services, but Murray Trembath of the St George & Sutherland Shire Leader reports he has now withdrawn.

• The article mentioned in the previous item also relates that Nick Varvaris, who won Barton for the Liberals in 2013 but has now been poleaxed by the redistribution, was “still in discussions with the Liberal Party” as to whether he will recontest the seat, after earlier indications he would spare himself the effort.

• Barrister Andrew Wallace has won the Liberal National Party preselection to succeed Mal Brough in the Sunshine Coast seat of Fisher. As the ABC reports it, Wallace “won the preselection ballot convincingly in the first round of voting ahead of five other candidates”.

• The West Australian reports on the headache facing the WA Liberals as they prepare to defend six Senate seats at a double dissolution election that is likely to net them fewer than that, with none of the incumbents intending to retire. It had been hoped that David Johnston, who was dumped as Defence Minister in December 2014, might lighten the load by accepting a diplomatic posting, but he has now confirmed he will run again. The report says the state branch’s protocol should see ministers Mathias Cormann and Michaelia Cash take the top two positions and Johnston take third owing to “seniority”, but that Johnston might be bumped to fourth to make way for Dean Smith, with Linda Reynolds and Chris Back in fourth and fifth.

• The West’s report likewise says that Louise Pratt, who lost her seat from the second position at the state’s 2014 Senate election re-run, is well placed to take the fourth position on the Labor ticket with help from affirmative action, and is even hopeful of bumping Glenn Sterle for a place in the top three. Earlier indications had been that the order of the top end of the ticket would run Sue Lines, Glenn Sterle and Pat Dodson, with the fourth up in the air.

• Duncan McGauchie, a former policy adviser to the then Victorian premier, Ted Baillieu, has prevailed in a field of five to win Liberals preselection to succeed Sharman Stone as the Liberal candidate in the rural Victorian seat of Murray. He faces significant opposition at the election from Damian Drum, Nationals candidate and state upper house member.

• Labor’s candidate for Christopher Pyne’s loseable Adelaide seat of Sturt is Matt Loader, a gay rights activist and (I think) manager at South Australia’s Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure. Hat tip to Chinda in comments.

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.

3,581 comments on “BludgerTrack: 50.1-49.9 to Coalition”

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  1. Turnbull’s election campaign receives help from Abbott and Bolt in the DT today:

    Abbott article: Let’s remember Labor’s ticking time bombs
    IF Labor gets in, with only Rudd and Gillard gone from the cabinets that made all those disastrous decisions, our country is doomed, says Tony Abbott.

    Bolt article: PM’s campaign needs a firm hand
    BRING back Peta Credlin. Someone must whip the Turnbull government into shape to save it from the worst own goal in Liberal history, writes Andrew Bolt.

  2. ‘…but in a move designed to turn the tables on a new committee that it has dubbed a Labor “stunt”, the government will argue the Labor leader has relevant questions to answer..’

    Ooohh, dangerous territory here. Shorten is not the first and certainly not the last MP to make late declarations of interests.

    This could be like Costello’s statement that anyone who had ever had anything at all to do with Brian Burke (? not sure that’s the correct name, dodgy former WA Premier) was not fit to serve in Parliament, which resulted in the loss of at least one Coalition Minister.

    Mirabella, for example (unfortunately my specialist subject) failed to declare at least $15k in donations from the tobacco companies one year. The reason that got attention wasn’t because of the late declaration, but because it coincided with the demise of the tobacco industry in this area.

    MPs’ declaration of interests are updated all the time, often to reflect matters which are years old.

  9. Musrum:
    What version are you running? You can find it in the settings section. Current is ver 5.09.

    *******

    I am running 5.08 and the avatars are showing just fine.

    I’ll install 5.09 now but.

  10. WTF
    The last time I looked, the Courier mail was a major newspaper in Brisbane. Brisbane is the capital of Queensland, which is also the location of the Great Barrier Reef and a massive tourism industry delivering thousands of jobs.
    The reef has just suffered the greatest bleaching event in history, with 93% of the reef affected.

    Yet, WTF, the Courier Mail does not seem to have reported this.

    A search of the Courier Mail using the search term ‘barrier reef’ returned NO RESULT SINCE April 6th.
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/search-results?q=barrier+reef
    Instead we get “Hey Dad’s Raunchy Act at New Brisbane Bar” on the front page.

  12. chinda63

    It is not just indigenous health either. Heard a similar discussion recently with regard to inequality within a society/country and it’s effects with regard to mental health,alcohol , happiness etc. It would seem relative poverty is quite a health hazard. shame the LNP types like policies designed to increase it.

  13. In a month’s time, Labor will still be calling for a Royal Commission into the banks and nobody will remember or care whether this govt gave ASIC more money.

  17. Re banking RC.
    1) I can’t see how you can stop the banks passing on ASIC costs. It’s simply an accounting exercise.
    2)As pointed out by a former ASIC officer, and Rowes cartoon, the Coalition plan to make the banks pay leaves ASIC vulnerable to the whims of the banks.

  22. All this BS with CCCP etc should be unnecessary. Avatars are switched to display:none in the crikey-custom.css. I wonder why they did that?

  24. William: there is something I’m curious about with the new site: how it handles comment deletion.

    Can you please delete the comment following after we get to page three (100+ comments)

  25. I’m sure I had CCCP for the old site but I’ve forgotten what it actually is and where to get it. If it’s a Chrome extension it’s not there now, but Tampermonkey 4.0.25 is there. I’m not seeing avatars.

  26. The Bolt article I mentioned earlier is a devastating critique of Turnbull’s ineptitude.
    If interested in reading it, google “PM’s campaign needs a firm hand”

    Having Abbott and Bolt together today writing for Murdoch’s tabloids must give Turnbull the shivers. The parallel election campaign by Abbott and friends is well underway.

  29. AM Watch: Count it as 4:1 to government as BCA head Jennifer Westacott was on, spruiking ‘Action Man’s’ latest policy on cyber terrorism, and telling us what a wonderful idea the ASIC funding was and what a waste of money a RC would be. Curiously she has been silent on what a waste of money the TURC was.
    This was after Chris Ulhmann spent 5 minutes also spruiking the cyber-terrorism thing.

    They did have a report on corporate tax avoidance, but this was introduced as being ‘election fodder for Labor’.

  31. If AM is any guide the ABC isn’t even pretending any more.

    Clear framing: Government is one of action, considered policy development, business friendly approach, and basically sober and sensible.

    Opposition? Surely you jest.

  32. I think if the Libs asked many dumb bums to donate to the Banks Corporate poor box at their door many would drop a few bucks into it unquestioningly because the Libs told them to do so.. How stupid are some. Unbelievable

  33. This is what you get when you sack all the sub-editors – Age headline:

    Mitsubishi copuld be on brink
    ​Mitsubishi.’s disclosure that it manipulated fuel economy tests risks putting the Japanese carmaker back in a familiar position.

  35. Trog @ some yet to be determined number.

    The sooner the Murdoch press dies a natural death the better for this country.
    Why anyone buys these rags is beyond me!

  38. dtd Go to musrums last post. Click on cccp link. Click on green install link. Confirm install in pop-up window. Restart Firefox. Get into PB again. DONE

  39. I don’t think it would be at all a stretch to suggest that Sophie Mirabella has some form of personality disorder. Her behavior continues to be bizarrely nasty and spiteful, in the most inexplicably public ways. Many politicians can be pretty unpleasant people, of course, but they usually have enough common sense and self-awareness to keep their nastiness behind the scenes, their less likeable traits out of the public eye and to at least pretend to have empathy for others.

  40. I know we can be accused of being hysterical about the so called ABC bias but Fran Kellu was in full flight this morning. Government policy onslaught described as muscular whereas the Senate inquiry into political donations described as quick and dirty.

    Bongiorno was having none of it though

  42. Why are people like Mark Kenny obsessed with people (especially Labor people) tripping at a public event? This is supposed to be an account of a talk by Kim Beazley at the ANU last night. The headline and the first five paragraphs are about the recently returned Ambassador to the US tripping on stage. Still, this article is about as useful to the political discourse as Kenny’s usual articles on Turnbull recently.

    Kim Beazley takes a tumble on stage after speech blasting Trump

    Mark Kenny April 20 2016 – 10:21PM
    Former Labor leader Kim Beazley has fallen over on stage after a lecture about US politics, in an incident reminiscent of his tumble on black ice in Washington six years ago.

    The trip came after Mr Beazley had predicted a win for Hillary Clinton and warned a Donald Trump presidency would have grave implications for the world and would almost certainly create problems with China.

    The recently returned former ambassador to Washington was being applauded by a full house of admiring academics and scholars at Canberra’s Australian National University’s Llewellyn Hall when he tripped over leaving the podium, tumbling to the polished floor, and bringing a collective gasp from the audience.

    But the 67-year-old was quick to his feet again, uttering an embarrassed, “I’m just getting too damned old”, by way of reassurance that it was mainly his pride that was hurt.

    The incident – in which it appeared he had not been injured – came at the conclusion of an entertaining lecture by Mr Beazley on the implications of the US presidential race for Australia.

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/kim-beazley-takes-a-tumble-on-stage-after-speech-blasting-trump-20160420-gobax5.html

  43. adrian

    Clear framing: Government is one of action, considered policy development, business friendly approach, and basically sober and sensible.

    I’m getting deja vu. It really feels like we’ve warped back in time to late 2013, early 2014 – even the polls are in much the same place.

    Turnbull is doing everything by Abbott’s playbook.

  44. MirabellaSophie: I emphatically reject reports I pushed Cathy McGowan. Reporter did not even bother 2 call me.A sad return 2 nasty tactics from my opponents.

  45. The narrower the seat gap the more difficult it will be for a re-elected Turnbull Government to pass blocked bills at a joint sitting.
    And I think I noticed people posting predictions for results at the election yesterday. Currently, mine would be 50.5/49.5 in favour of the Coalition.

  46. The upside is that maybe, as people have seen this all before, they will be a little more cynical about it, even if it’s the more popular Turnbull who’s trying it on.

  47. Trog, the Curious Rag had an item on the Reef bleaching yesterday, about p 12. All the scientific reports cited quite accurately, but then “balanced” by a complaint from tourism operators that they were, in some unexplained way, exaggerated.

  48. ‘Turnbull is doing everything by Abbott’s playbook.’

    Interesting observation. And our beloved media is playing exactly the same role.
    Here at the MSM the last thing that we are going to do is take the opposition seriously!

  49. CITIZEN – Kenny’s article is pretty bizarre, isn’t it. But then again, based upon what he writes, Kenny is one bizarre dude.

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