The only new poll this week was the weekly Essential Research, owing to the poll glut last week and the Anzac Day public holiday on Monday. The Essential result was an eye-opener, with the normally sedate series lurching two points in favour of Labor, who have opened up a 52-48 lead. The primary votes are Coalition 40% (down two), Labor 39% (up three) and Greens 10% (down one). Other questions found 40% approving of a double dissolution election, up one from two weeks ago, with opposition up four to 28%; 42% expecting the Coalition to win compared with 28% for Labor; 35% saying Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has made them more likely to vote Coalition, compared with 23% for less likely; and 67% saying they would view their vote as one in favour of the party they supported, compared with 21% saying it would be against the party they opposed. On next week’s budget, respondents anticipated it would be good for business and the well off, bad for everyone else, and neutral for the economy overall. The poll also found that 45% would sooner see Helen Clark as secretary-general of the United Nations compared with 21% for Kevin Rudd.
Single Essential Research results tend not to knock the BludgerTrack poll aggregate off its axis, but this result was forceful enough to drive a half-point shift on two-party preferred, which tips the balance in favour of Labor. However, the gains from last week to this have tended to be concentrated in states where they are of little use to Labor on the seat projection, which only ticks one point in their favour through a gain in New South Wales, leaving the Coalition with the barest possible absolute majority. That would be a little less bare if I started crediting Clive Palmer’s seat of Fairfax as a Liberal National Party gain, which I really should have been doing since a Galaxy poll of the seat in January credited Palmer with 2% of the vote. I’ll implement that one next week. Nothing new this week on the leadership ratings.
Other news:
• The WA Liberal Party’s state council has endorsed Matt O’Sullivan as the party’s candidate for the new seat of Burt in the southern suburbs of Perth, formalising its overturning of a local party ballot three weeks ago. O’Sullivan is closely identified with mining magnate Andrew Forrest, as the chief operating officer of his GenerationOne indigenous youth employment scheme. The earlier ballot was won by Liz Storer, a Gosnells councillor who had backing from the Christian Right. Storer defeated O’Sullivan with 13 votes out of an eligible 25, but the state council ruled three weeks ago that the number of preselectors was insufficient, and that it would take matters into its own hands.
• The Central Western Daily lists four candidates for Saturday’s Nationals preselection in the rural New South Wales seat of Calare, to be vacated at the election by John Cobb: Andrew Gee, the state member for Orange; Alison Conn, a Wellington councillor; Sam Farraway, owner of the Hertz franchise in Bathurst; and Scott Munro, a butcher and Orange councillor.
• The Blue Mountains Gazette last week reported that a ReachTEL poll conducted on April 19 for the NSW Teachers Federation had Liberal and Labor tied in the Blue Mountains seat of Macquarie, which Louise Markus holds for the Liberals on a margin of 4.5%. Markus has secured the Liberal preselection for the seat after the withdrawal of a challenge by Sarah Richards, a local party branch president.
• It escaped my notice four weeks ago that The Australian had ReachTEL results commissioned by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union from the Liberal-held Adelaide seats of Hindmarsh and Sturt. Results in the report are incomplete, but they appear to credit Christopher Pyne with a 5% margin in Sturt, down from 10.1% at the 2013 election, and also have the Liberals leading in the difficult seat of Hindmarsh. Only modest support was recorded for the Nick Xenophon Team, at 14.5% and 11% before exclusion of the undecided. A good deal has happened in the month since the poll was conducted, with Coalition support continuing to plummet nationally, and the government this week seeking to staunch the flow in South Australia specifically by committing to have the $52 billion submarine construction project built in the state. I have also obtained ReachTEL polling conducted early last month for The Australia Institute, which has the Nick Xenophon Team’s support in South Australia at 16.1% in the House of Representatives and 24.8% in the Senate – keeping in mind that polls like this have form in overstating the distinctions between House and Senate results (or at least, they did before the Senate vote went haywire in 2013). There are also Queensland results inclusive of the parties of Clive Palmer, Glen Lazarus, Nick Xenophon and Jacqui Lambie, which have their Senate support ranging from 1.6% (Lambie) to 3.4% (Xenophon).
JBish is the only one in the Coalition capable of arresting the slide.
She has been quiet for a bit but coming out of hibernation for an icebreaker.
Surely the announcement has to be that she is overruling the naming committee that released an online poll to name the icebreaker, but forbade ‘boaty mc boatface’ as an answer. That’s gotta be worth 2-3% 2PP
The Coalition no doubt believe that both boats and Labor’s climate policy – in their minds “carbon tax” – are going to turn out a gift for them.
We’ll see.
For those concerned about a Trump nomination.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
TurnbullMalcolm: Thanks for your support – sorry haven’t had a chance to reply to all yr msgs. Very disappointed the ETS has been blocked in the Senate.
Posted on 2/12/2009
Retweeted by Senator Wong now
MWhitbourn: Our @Kate_McClymont and @Ageinvestigates speaking now at Senate inquiry into federal #ICAC https://t.co/MOJ1rXXpiQ
That Image on the front page has no bearing on anything said beside it so it is unlikely readers will more than glance at it. A front page pic should ALWAYS relate to the subject matter. The artist might have had some fun but for many who look at it, they’ll think it is advertising for a new movie and simply flip the page!
jenauthor @ Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 9:33 am
Fascinating! So what is it referring to?
Regarding Maiden’s view of Manus-ended being Turnbull’s Tampa ….. that this can save him by fighting the election on AS matters.
I note that in an interview this morning, shadow minister Marles was stridently echoing the Conservos’ view of of it all …… “the Manus ASs will never be released into Australia”.
Although I think they should come here, I can see that Labor is neutralising the issue as an election difference, a la Abbott re Gonski in 2013.
If Labor wins with a sufficiently stable majority, they will have opportunity to introduce some long awaited charity into their AS policy. If they lose, the hardline and cruel Conservo way will further harden.
Pragmatism at work.
Bad luck Samantha Maiden. Watch and learn, Greens!
Scott Bales “JBish is the only one in the Coalition capable of arresting the slide”
I love a bit of humour in the morning.
Vale Jim Staples
Bemused, it is a picture of the weird ghost figure from all those satire horror movies.
jenauthor @ Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 10:00 am
What is?
Yabba88, I’m not concerned about a Trump nomination – I’m looking forward to it! My wife and I were watching him on TV t’other night and, noticing the high pitch, the exaggerated emphasis and the simple vocabulary, I mused “he’s like someone from South Park isn’t he” – and she said “Yes, Cartman” about a microsecond ahead of my thinking “Cartman”. Googling “donald trump cartman”, I found we weren’t the first to have had that thought. Hillary, on the other hand, is Lisa Simpson. Even the Goddamns couldn’t vote for Cartman ahead of Lisa Simpson – could they?
We’ll see indeed.
On Climate policy the RWNJobbie denialist brigade aren’t seeing anything they dont expect. They are very unhappy with MalPM anyway. I think it will be an overall positive for the ALP.
The Greens will harrumph and say its not good enough in much the same way as they did with the Rudd ETS, but hope fully they will also consider the lessons to be learned from how that was handled back then. Certainly i think that it solidifies the preference flow from Greens primary voters regardless of how the Greens parliamentarians speak on it.
AS is a dangerous one for the ALP. I think that there will be much shit thrown from the Left of all descriptions, and i dont expect i am going to be happy with whatever the ALP come up with on this pre election. However, with all is being said and done i am going to take the position that we have a BETTER chance of a humane and reasonable policy under an ALP Govt than the Libs. It WILL be a negative for the ALP, but they have a lot of positives running up to this election as well. Message management and overall framing will be a challenge, but i think the ALP machine is up for it.
The scary pic is referring to the front page of the daily Telegraph, a beat up of Labor’s carbon emissions plan and asylum seekers.
It doesn’t refer to either.
My feelings imacca re AS as well, it is a danger for Labor but they need to manage it and frame the debate
Scott Bales
Personally I don’t find “Deathy McDeathStare” to be any better than “Boaty McBoatFace”, but opinions my vary, of course…
Bemused: you asked about the image used on the front page of the Tele. It was a black-coated, white-masked figure from satire “Scary Movie” franchise. The headlines (not very large) about carbon tax and boats
http://dailytelegraph.digitaleditions.com.au/?code=401
On AS, my only real worry is Richard Marles. I feel that his ambition outruns his ability.
Ah, a nice positive one on science and research funding. Bishop will get to do a cutesy “No Boaty McBoatface line”. And what the odds that since J Bishop is there, ALL the questions afterwards will be about PNG??
Waleed Aly’s gratuitous comment that, if Bill Shorten was selling cars, he’d buy a boat, turned me right off the rest of whateveritwashewassaying.
Aly, although occasionally useful in his criticisms of the government, is a trumped-up twirp, a self-opinionated bighead who thinks his word is law.
I am sick and tired of reading and seeing him slag-off Shorten for a cheap laugh. Waleed Aly has done very little in life except be a talking head with a gift for a punchy line and an awe-inspiringly high opinion of himself. He hasn’t gone through the years of leadership and skilful negotiation with opposing stakeholders that Shorten had to go through to get the kinds of win-win solutions in business and industry and positions in politics that he has achieved.
This idiot, Aly, sees Shorten as being dull and uninspiring. Talk about “Come in spinner!”
He is too foolish to realize that “dull and uninspiring” was the precisely antidote required to see off Abbott, Hockey and the rest of their motley crew of spruikers, exaggerators, stuntmen and liars… as well as probably ending Malcolm Turnbull’s career. Aly has swallowed the Turnbull Magnificence like a naive schoolboy hero-worshiping a champion footy player. He’s not alone in pursuing this tired old line.
Very, very pedestrian and predictable is Aly. He’s a pimple on a pumpkin. Or perhaps, considering his bully pulpit, “a carbunkle on the backside of the media” might be more apt.
lizzie @ Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 10:23 am
I see him as the weakest link.
Agree that unfortunately Marles isn’t the greatest ALP performer. There are a number of good new backbenchers who could have done a better job but I suspect they wanted to ‘blood’ them for a term. It is not a portfolio any pollie would seek, methinks!
jenauthor @ Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 10:22 am
So people were supposed to just guess what you were referring to?
Markets go bang, as is the confidence, dollars dropped.
Rate cuts suggest that economy going bang (ABC said this).
Lizzie
State and Commonwealth budgets operate in completely different ways and comparisons between them (or their respective treasurers) are otiose, and those making them, ignorant.
Tasmanian Premier & LNP / Turnbull should be disgracefulness of using politics in the Anniversary of Port Author.
Yeah…this seems to have come along and rattled him. Still, its a very fraught issue to have to deal with. In a practical sense i think we are probably looking at something like the regional, “Malaysia” type solution over a more medium term.
The diplomacy aspect is going to be important and there may be opportunities there as i think many of our neighbours will be keen to get arrangements in place that seek to avoid ANY possibility of the kind of mass movement transit problems that are happening in Europe.
zoidlord @ Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 10:40 am
Bit early to be drinking.
‘On AS, my only real worry is Richard Marles. I feel that his ambition outruns his ability.’
Yes.
The best thing about Waleed Aly is his wife.
His criticism of Turnbull was spot on, but like just about everyone else on the MSM he feels that he cannot criticise the government without also taking a swipe at Labor
Jack
The answer to your question is Yes they could.
Now that the race is settling into Hilary versus Trump we shall see.
We now have more than 6 bloody months of Hilary versus Donald. An awful lot can happen in 6 months.
“Blame Labor”, “Stop Deaths at Sea” “Leaky boats” “Gangsters”, “Strong Australia”, extended use of “Strong”.
Slogans galore.
There is a seriously strong likelihood that if the Coalition had not stymied the Malaysian people swap (which was a regional solution) for hypocritical and fundamentally dishonest political advantage the current situation would not be happening.
Although the Greens also opposed it – and their opposition was illogical given the number of mandated refugees who were going to be settled here as a consequence – their opposition was understandable in terms of what their Party membership fervently believed. It would have been political suicide for them to agree.
But the Coalition opposed it when they fervently supported offshoring asylum seekers and, indeed, were aggressively promoting Nauru, which by then already had a proven history of developing serious mental illness for asylum seeker detainees there. All they wanted was to damage Labor no matter what the cost to human beings or, indeed, to the country.
Every time it comes up it makes me furious. And it is why I hate Abbott and Morrison so much and regard them as utterly vile humans.
Zoid -Markets go bang, as is the confidence, dollars dropped. Rate cuts suggest that economy going bang (ABC said this).
Shitty shitty Bang bang?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTTzcXSLjhI
Rick Morton @SquigglyRick 13m13 minutes ago
NSW govt about to announce privatisation of the rest of its 6000 disability services workers, they run half-billion $ programs. Story soon.
DTT, they could – but I’m pretty confident they won’t. (For those who’ve lost track here, we’re discussing whether the Goddamns could vote for Cartman ahead of Lisa Simpson.)
Malcolm Farr @farrm51 1h1 hour ago
The eviction notice which caught Dutton unprepared.
where is the 52-48 headline?
I would like to see it up there somewhere. We long suffering ALP supporters deserve to see that in big print?
Come one Bilbo,put it up please.
BB @ 10.25
The actual news report did not make sense and I had to actually watch the clip to understand what Aly was saying. I agree that the gratuitous slap at Bill Shorten was irritating and silly, but my thinking is it would have worked well for Labor and Shorten in the context.
Basically, Aly was saying that just because he (and you can take it that the typical viewership of the Project) don’t think much of Shorten, the fact is that Shorten’s position on negative gearing was absolutely right and should be considered carefully. From the perspective of Shorten’s leadership credentials, it is part of the journey from ‘unelectable’ to ‘he may be grey, but at least he sticks at his job and Labor has stuck with him as their leader without undermining’ and ‘maybe we, the Australian voters, need a break from headline PMs who promise the earth and deliver nothing but soundbites’.
I think Aly misses the boat sometimes and was infected with Mal love like the rest of his cohort, but this was a very powerful bit of editorialising and was 100% to the benefit of Shorten and Labor in the coming election.
For those unfamiliar with Victoria’s state politics, the person they’re looking at with envy is Tim Pallas, the treasurer for Victoria, who is projecting forward to a surplus of $9B over the next 4 years.
I think we shouldn’t get too precious about Waleed. His commentary was for the ALP’s position was a big plus. The backhander to Bill merely enforced the fact that his opinion did not spring from political bias but from common sense.
I think we shouldn’t get too precious about Waleed. His commentary was for the ALP’s position and a big plus. The backhander to Bill merely projected the fact that his opinion did not spring from political bias but from common sense.
Apologies for the double post… and it appears, reiterating TPOF. 🙂
I used to be very sympathetic to the Greens, but Richard Di Natale is really starting to give me the sheets, with his constant criticism of quite sensible Labor policies.
He seems unable to see the forest for the trees…
adrian @ Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 11:14 am
The Greens are not, and never have been, our friends.
Rick Morton @SquigglyRick 13m13 minutes ago
Here we are, NSW to privatise last 6000 disability workers for the NDIS. Employee conditions guaranteed for 2 years.
‘The Greens are not, and never have been, our friends.’
Well I don’t really care if they’re our friends or not, but at the very least they should have the ability to judge policy on its merits without resorting to cheap politicking, and playing into the hands of Labor’s enemies in the MSM.
Josh Taylor @joshgnosis 3m3 minutes ago
Today in Crikey: John Howard part 2.
I see the surviving Liberal Bishop’s name has popped up again as possible leadership fodder for the them. Her chances were kicked around while Abbott while still PM and there were plenty of puff pieces in the local West Australian paper and some women’s magazines at the time. Back then I think I commented that she would never likely be leader for at least four reasons – she is from WA; while she has done a reasonable job as FM she has not really been successful in a tough domestic gig; she has been D-Leader under a few too many PMs and finally, I doubt whether the hard heads in the Liberals would be game to have a woman as leader. For mine she has all the attributes of another Margaret Thatcher but not even the Liberals are that desperate yet.
On another note, I don’t think Shorten will allow a fag paper’s difference to appear between Labor policy and that of the Coalition when it comes to AS. After all, the Manus ‘solution’ came from Rudd and while the LNP out-thought Labor on the boat turn-back, I think Labor learned a hard lesson at the time.
I would suspect that 60-70% of the Oz electorate , looking at the current European experience, are happy to go along with out-of-sight-out-of-mind dumping of those on Manus and others held off shore – anywhere but on the Oz mainland.