BludgerTrack: 50.6-49.4 to Labor

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate continued to inch its way in favour of Labor in the lead-up to Tuesday night’s budget.

There was a pre-budget lull in the federal polling storm this week, but the BludgerTrack aggregate has nonetheless had the regularly scheduled Roy Morgan and Essential Research results to play with. Both recorded next to no change on last time, and the changes on all indicators of voting intention have been barely measurable. Despite that, the seat projection has Labor up one in New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia (the results in the latter being particularly remarkable at present), but down two on the back of a very small voting intention shift in highly sensitive Queensland. Last week I reported that I was going to start counting Fairfax as a Liberal National Party seat, so today’s announcement by Clive Palmer that he would not be recontesting the seat was very timely. The result is that the Coalition is down one seat on last week rather than two, and “others” is now recorded as four seats rather than five. Nothing new this week in the way of leadership ratings.

bludgertrack-2016-05-05

Preselection news:

• Liberal MP Ann Sudmalis has had her preselection confirmed for her south coast New South Wales seat of Gilmore, after suggestions she faced a moderate-backed challenge arising from her perceived public criticism of the Baird government over council amalgamations. The Prime Minister had made it known that he did not wish for any move against Sudmalis to proceed, out of concern at factional tensions being stoked ahead of the election. Two state Liberals, Kiama MP Gareth Ward and Bega MP Andrew Constance, are reportedly eyeing the succession to Sudmalis in 2019. You can read a lot more about this electorate in yesterday’s Seat du jour.

• The Liberal Party’s trial preselection plebiscite of party members in Parramatta has been won by Michael Beckwith, development operations manager for Lend Lease. The other candidates were Jean Pierre Abood, a Parramatta councillor; Charles Camenzuli, a structural engineer and building consultant who ran in 2010; Maroun Draybi, a local solicitor and hardline conservative; and Felicity Finlay, a school teacher. You can view the recent Seat du jour entry on Parramatta here.

• The Liberals have preselected Yvonne Keane, deputy mayor of The Hills Shire and former television presenter, for the western Sydney seat of Greenway. Keane was also a preselection aspirant in 2013, but the numbers were sewn up by the power bloc of Blacktown councillor Jess Diaz on behalf of his son, Jaymes Diaz. Following a disastrous campaign, Diaz suffered a 2.1% swing in favour of Labor incumbent Michelle Rowland in this highly marginal seat. Step this way for today’s Seat du jour entry on the seat.

• The Nationals preselection to replacing the retiring John Cobb in Calare has been won by Andrew Gee, the state member for Orange, ahead of Orange councillor Scott Munro, Wellington councillor Alison Conn and Bathurst businessman Sam Farraway.

• John Hassell, Pingelly grain farmer and CBH Board director, is the Nationals candidate for the regional Western Australian seat of O’Connor, which was won for the party by Tony Crook from Liberal veteran Wilson Tuckey in 2010, then lost to Rick Wilson of the Liberals when Crook bowed out after a single term in 2013. Hassell has pledged to serve as an “independent WA National” if elected.

• The Canberra Times reports that the Liberals have endorsed candidates for the two seats in the Australian Capital Territory: Livestock and Bulk Carriers Association director Robert Gunning in Fenner, and lawyer Jessica Adelan-Langford in Canberra.

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.

1,178 comments on “BludgerTrack: 50.6-49.4 to Labor”

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  1. The state of bludgertrack is interesting after a less than enthusiastic response to a less than generous, less than courageous budget. Which ways will the polls go next? The “small” business tax concession will please some but annoy others. The super reforms were needed and will please most, but will annoy many who normally vote Liberal.

    I would still rate the Liberals a 70/30 chance to win the election, on history alone, but it has been a less than stellar term in office. The question is, will voters trust Labor again, so soon after several years of leadership dysfunction?

  5. I see that the AFR front page lead is a paid political advertisement for the Liberal Party about no more class warfare. What an absolute rag, and stupid to boot. The AFR and the Oz are slugging it out for RWNJ readers. It will all end in tears.

  6. Socrates – Don’t worry about history. All that matters is the set of facts before us. They are new and fresh and know nothing about history.

  7. “Kids, just get your millionaire parents to buy a house for you.”
    Don’t worry, Malcolm’s done his research thoroughly on this one – 85% of the home-owners in his street are millionaires able to shell out.

  8. Is someone able to tell me how all news outlets apart from the Australian and the Straits Times are able to ignore the revelations of the Foreign Minister’s security breach?

    Is there some question as to its veracity? I would have thought that the photographic evidence was incontrovertible? Isn’t this an important story?

    What has gone wrong with the media in this country?

  9. ‘What has gone wrong with the media in this country?’

    Good question. You would think at the very least that an independent, highly principled and unbiased public broadcaster would run with this.

  10. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.

    Turnbull is actually standing by his comment to John Faine regarding parents “shelling out” to help their kids into the housing market.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-defends-saying-wealthy-parents-should-shell-out-to-buy-their-kid-a-house-20160504-goml5z.html
    Morrison wants us to get over class warfare just like they have got over debt and deficit.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-declares-an-end-to-class-warfare-as-bill-shorten-prepares-billions-in-savings-20160504-gom5jt.html
    This fits nicely into the Liberal ethos.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/government-plan-lets-you-skip-airport-queues–if-you-are-willing-to-pay-20160504-golxvu.html
    As does this outcome.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/budget-2016-more-gps-could-start-charging-patients-copayment-warn-doctors-20160504-gom9jt.html
    And so does this!
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/the-end-of-the-one-size-fits-all-university-turnbull-government-considers-big-fee-shakeup-20160504-gomb4b.html
    Will the internship scheme have appropriate and sufficient safeguards to prevent unscrupulous spivs from rorting it? They’ll certainly try to. Another one right up the Liberals’ alley.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/budget-2016-without-safeguards-internship-program-risks-being-a-jobs-destruction-scheme-20160504-golt8h.html
    Alan Austin says the budget papers show a steep decline of the Australian economy under the Coalition. A good read.
    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/budget-papers-show-steep-decline-of-australian-economy-under-coalition,8952
    An optimist’s budget full of pessimists’ actions.
    http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/2016/05/03/federal-budget-2016-rob-burgess/
    Urban Wronski – Morrison’s dangerous and deluded dud budget is a dead giveaway.
    https://urbanwronski.com/2016/05/05/morrisons-dangerous-deluded-dud-budget-a-dead-giveaway/
    This SMH editorial gives Shorten some advice for tonight’s speech.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/bill-shorten-must-offer-unity-stability-and-reform-20160504-golqh6.html

  11. Good Morning Bludgers, 🙂

    I just heard a snippet of Barnaby Joyce’s interview on 7.30 last night.

    Well, you know what ‘Carp’, when rearranged also spells?

    CRAP!

    And that interview was full of it!

    It was also putting contradictory and nonsensical positions, which is not unusual for the Ruling Class Clown of the Australian Parliament. However, this one was a doozy.

    Apparently, Joycey was crying crocodile tears for our National Debt. Again. He was getting all misty-eyed (or was that the grog again at the end of another day in parliament?) because he said that he didn’t want to be part of a government that left large government debt for our kids and our grandkiddies to pay off.

    Ergo, LABOR BAD! Because, they want to increase the Debt!!! What he doesn’t quite get around to adding is that Labor want to do things like educate our kids and our grandkiddies properly, and provide Universal Health Care for them, and like, you know, work towards leaving a habitable planet behind for them when our generation has passed.

    Not that any of that will necessarily blow out the Budget Deficit or National Debt because, as Labor has laboriously been saying it’s a matter of priorities within Malcolm Turnbull’s much beloved, ‘fiscal envelope’.

    Of course, Barnaby’s argument was by way of creating a sob story for the government and alibi for why they couldn’t give a Tax Cut to the low paid workers in society. Because, ‘too expensive’.

    But here’s the contradictory part.

    Why, if this ‘Colour and Movement’ fellow we laughingly call the Deputy Prime Minister, if he is getting all hot under the collar about the National Debt, is his government blithely unconcerned about having more than doubled it since they came to power!?!

    And, not only that, but they happily on Tuesday night in the Budget outlined a plan to massively increase the National Debt over the next 10 years by slashing the Revenue source of Company Tax, to the tune of $40-60 Billion!?!

    I think our kids and grandkids could really have appreciated that. A lot more than the Ruling Class, who just waste it on houses too large for their families, boats too big for a couple of people, jewels that they lock up in vaults anyway, and Private Schools that they send their privileged princelings and princesses to so that they may network their way into the position where they may lord it over everyone else. Just like the Turnbulls and Joyces of this world are doing now and in order to enact the sorts of policies that we saw in Tuesday’s Budget, which favour them, and their kids and granddkids. Not yours or mine. They are but military and industrial cannon fodder for them.

    And if one of them has to act the Fool to aid in pulling the wool over the plebs eyes, then that seems to be a price Barnaby Joyce is all too willing to pay. The truth be damned! And, just quietly and not to be shouted from the studios of the ABC, Debt be damned! If it’s all for the cause of the real,undeclared Class War. To entrench the might and power of the Ruling Class.

  12. Section 2 . . .

    Heath Aston on Labor’s point that all Morrison has done to generate an additional $4b from multinationals is to partially restore the gutted staffing level at the ATO.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/multinational-tax-crackdown-in-budget-shows-ato-cuts-cost-millions-more-says-labor-20160504-gomc0p.html
    Is there a $1.6b war chest hidden in the budget?
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/federal-budget/budget-2016-buried-in-the-budget-is-a-16-billion-election-war-chest-20160504-gom6ps.html
    “View from the Street” has a crack at Turnbull’s advice to parents to shell out for their kids and also he farewells Clive Palmer.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/view-from-the-street-budget-2016-so-turnbulls-out-of-ideas-huh-20160504-gom6jc.html
    Paula Matthewson says that messaging alone won’t be enough for Turnbull to win the nation’s trust.
    http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/05/04/budget-2016-messaging/
    The Coalition spends more than Labor’s “drunken sailors”?
    http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/2016/05/04/australia-budget-gdp-spending-deficit/
    Michael Gordon on the High Court challenge to bring AS from Manus Island to Australia.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/high-court-bid-to-move-asylum-seekers-from-png-to-australia-20160504-gomhb3.html
    Michelle Grattan writes that neither the government or Labor want to make the Nauru asylum seekers’ plight an election issue.
    https://theconversation.com/nothing-seems-able-to-make-nauru-asylum-seekers-an-issue-58895
    A poisonous departure from a poisonous woman.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/its-not-the-end-bronwyn-bishop-farewells-parliament-and-fires-warning-shot-at-tony-abbott-20160504-gomem6.html
    Peter Martin praises the budget.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/federal-budget-2016–the-more-you-look-at-it-the-better-it-gets-20160504-golu0t.html
    How the RBA rained on Morrison’s parade.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/federal-budget/rba-rains-on-scott-morrisions-parade-20160503-goln67.html

  13. Section 3 . . .

    The government will delay tabling of the cuts to diagnostic imaging rebates until after the Senate has risen, thereby giving no opportunity for disallowance.
    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/04/government-refuses-to-table-650m-cut-to-diagnostic-imaging-services
    Manildra stinks whenever it pokes its head up.
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/manildra-gave-inflated-jobs-figures-to-minister-before-ethanol-bill-20160504-golzu6.html
    Arfur has been referred to the Privileges Committee and id using this as a reason to make no further comments.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/senator-arthur-sinodinos-referred-to-privileges-committee-over-senate-inquiry-noshow-20160504-gomc9t.html
    An open letter to Turnbull and Dutton.
    https://newmatilda.com/2016/05/04/an-open-letter-to-malcolm-turnbull-and-peter-dutton/
    The far right is stirring in Europe.
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/04/woman-defied-neo-nazis-sweden-tess-asplund-viral-photograph
    THAT photo of Dutton went viral – with a bit of help from PhotoShop.
    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/04/peter-dutton-photo-goes-global-after-he-demands-it-be-deleted-from-internet
    Trump’s victory is more about a Republican failure than a candidate’s success.
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/donald-trumps-victory-over-ted-cruz-is-more-about-republican-failure-than-candidates-success-20160504-golql7.html
    Will the GOP machine try to elevate a third party candidate to compete against Trump?
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/plan-c-republican-establishment-chattering-about-a-third-party-run_us_57295dcbe4b016f378941d68?1462393332=&utm_hp_ref=australia&adsSiteOverride=au&section=australia
    Now THAT’S a bushfire!
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/canadian-wildfire-forces-evacuation-order-for-entire-city-20160504-gomcwj.html

  15. K17
    When I was perusing the AFR and The Australian this morning I was appalled at the uniformity of direction of their articles. The Australian has let ill Leak off the leash to attack Labor.

  17. Morning bludgers

    From previous thread.

    Rocket rocket

    If you are still about. Hope all is well. And I would agree that Cruz is probably more of a nutjob than Trump!

  19. I listened to ABC radio for about an hour this morning. No mention of JBishop and her trevails anywhere.

    The focus was on the killing of terrorists in air strikes and Shorten to give budget reply speech etc.

  20. I can walk down the road to the coffee shop Bill Leak has his morning repast at before he works up his daily cartoon and give him a kick in the shins if you like, BK! 😉

  26. shiftaling @ #8 Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 7:14 am

    Is someone able to tell me how all news outlets apart from the Australian and the Straits Times are able to ignore the revelations of the Foreign Minister’s security breach?
    Is there some question as to its veracity? I would have thought that the photographic evidence was incontrovertible? Isn’t this an important story?
    What has gone wrong with the media in this country?

    ……………………………………………………………………………………….

    As I said last night, if this was a Labor Foreign Minister, the MSM would be all over this, screaming and demanding not only resignation but full gory details plus they would be telling readers never to vote Labor again.

  27. Thanks BK
    Looks like Peter Martin is well and truly on a hunt for relevance – his own.
    I left the following comment on his SMH article…

    An evidence based budget? Please.

    They have totally ignored the major transition to renewable energy which will shape our economy for the rest of the century and provide a major stimulus to jobs and growth. Instead they have offered a company tax cut which will have only marginal long term benefit and comes at the expense of education, research and development.

    Modern economic theory tells us increasing inequality is more likely to harm markets rather than grow them, and this budget entrenches it.

  31. C@
    Yep, the ‘we wouldn’t want to leave debt to our grandkids’ line is hypocritical.
    Apparently, it’s OK to saddle them with personal debts – HECS fees and higher mortgages (oh, sorry, they’re paid by your parents, aren’t they?) – let alone the costs of dealing with climate change, but not to ask them to pay taxes to cover the costs of infrastructure and services that (as children) they are benefitting from now and will continue to benefit from.
    More generally, can we point out to Morrison et al that household budgets run on debt (mortgages) for essential items, and that most householders would prefer to go into debt to buy something they’re going to use regularly, rather than stay within their income and rent or go without?

  35. LIZZIE – Martin is a captive of the PM’s office. Someone is leaking him and he will do anything to stay on the inside. Turd-polisher extraordinaire.
    BK – The good thing is that the AFR and the Australian don’t matter anymore, and they are clearly terrified about what is going on. You can feel the anxiety.

  36. This is the first para of a story in the AFR. It’s hysterical. And the AFR calls itself a quality newspaper.

    “Employers promised they wouldn’t use what the union movement said was a “churn and burn” internship subsidy to exploit free labour …”

    Oh, pull the other one.

  37. @ William – A bit of an issue with seat counts.

    Labor looks to have gained 1 in ‘territories’ instead of Tas,

    Presumably you meant that the Coalition were up 2 in QLD, with Labor down 1 (not 2 as typed) and Others down 1.

  39. Guytaur
    Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 8:42 am
    Good Morning.

    The LNP is running GOP attack lines of taxes are evil

    Guytaur
    Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 8:45 am
    BernardKeane: Says the treasurer who’s planning to dramatically increase our tax burden https://t.co/dhqkgUNU3e

    Guytaur
    Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 8:47 am
    mjrowland68: BREAKING: Midnight Oil getting back together and touring next year. Happy Days. https://t.co/orLvucYZEl

    Guytaur
    Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 8:51 am
    BernardKeane: Every time Morrison accuses Labor of wanting to raise taxes, remember what he plans to do with them https://t.co/rf2ihYL0Kc

    Guytaur
    Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 9:04 am
    samesame: Our election’s on July 2. Make sure you’re enrolled to vote! https://t.co/gKFBChuWfl https://t.co/ebuqEb53IL

  40. I would love to see from time to time a running total of moderate Vs hard conservative members of the two main parties –
    Will Malcolm’s leadership provide a shift to moderate or will the right (under Abbott?) be successful in getting more IPA types preselected?
    Has Shorten effected the mix of moderate/progressive VS rightish members in the ALP?

  41. The question for this election is are enough people sufficiently stupid to buy the lies, contradictions and spin propagated by the govt and their media allies?

  42. political_alert: The Greens will launch policy to support households/businesses investing in battery storage for renewable energy, 12:30pm, Canberra #auspol

  43. sarahinthesen8: Morrison’s budget on Tuesday night cut funding from the Human Rights Commission. Hard to see how it’s not a vindictive move from the Govt

  45. political_alert: Deputy Opposition Leader @tanya_plibersek is in Canberra & will join Senator Claire Moore at ALP’s Women’s Budget Reply event, 10am #auspol

  46. If the ALP win the next election they could always set up an AFP investigation into Ms Bishops indescretion.

  47. joshgnosis: Parliament got budget money for the TPP, but officials don’t know what the money is for. @SenatorWong: Is it for flags? #estimates

  48. [If the ALP win the next election they could always set up an AFP investigation into Ms Bishops indescretion.]

    Which will take 20 years to finalise…

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