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”

Comments Page 18 of 24
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  2. Yep laura, the voters are going to say: “Yes, Malcolm’s a dud, but we’ll keep him because we don’t want a new face … at least for another six months.”

  3. The backflip on university fee deregulation will sting vice-chancellors and higher education lobby groups like Universities Australia and the Group of Eight, after they lent the Coalition strong political support for the unpopular measure in 2014 and 2015.

    Confusingly, the government outlines a proposal for a smaller-scale fee deregulation for so-called “flagship courses” that would be “high-quality” and “innovative.” The government says that these elite courses could “deliver the benefits of differentiation, excellence and innovation among universities while giving certainty to all Australians that they could still access fee capped places.”

    To ensure fees for such courses are set fairly, the government envisages a role for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to “monitor” course fees.

    But it gets worse for universities, with the government still cutting university funding by $1.4 billion over the forward estimates. In a funding cut that the government describes as a “sustainability measure”, university funding will be cut by $601 million in 2018-19 and $868 million in 2019-20. Budget Paper 2 states that “higher education funding arrangements for 2017 will be in line with currently legislated arrangements” but that the higher education “reforms” announced in the 2014-15 budget will apply from 2018, without fee deregulation.

    https://newmatilda.com/2016/05/03/vice-chancellors-humiliated-as-deregulation-dropped-but-funding-cuts-renewed/

  4. Interesting that both Leigh Sales and Chris Uhlamm queried the legitmacy of progressive taxation systems. Sales repeatedly asked Shorten last night (in the context of raising the $80K threshold) that giving some tax relief was OK to $80K+ earners because they pay more in tax than those under $80K. Shorten responded well, WTTE that that’s the price of a fair and decent society etc

    Uhlmann kept making a similar point earlier in the week. They both seemed quite consumed, obessesed by this issue, as if progressive taxation is some kind of outrageous, unreasonable policy. It’s also straight out of the LNP playbook. Where this leads to logically of course is some kind of Ayn Rand typle flat rate income tax system.

    I could understand RWNJs, the IPA and the LNP peddling this too much tax/anti-progressive tax mantra – but from the two leading ABC current affairs commentators I feel they are pushing the envelope into bias and partisanship.

  6. Good Morning Bludgers,
    As they say, the trend is your friend and just listening to CEO of News Corpse International, chastising Advertisers (!) for not recognising the value of his outfit’s high quality option (!), by way of explaining the company’s $Billion+ Loss for the last Financial Year, I then marry that in my mind with the crass cartoons by Bill Leak in The Australian wrt Bill Shorten and go, ‘Pfft!’ He’s just an Aging Cranky Old White Man playing to the Aging Cranky Old White Man demographic. A demographic that advertisers sense, with their finely-tuned antennae because that’s their business, that it is rapidly becoming an increasingly irrelevant cohort which can safely be ignored.

    Donald trump and Tony Abbott were/are smart enough to realise this. It’s why they surrounded themselves with young attractive women.

    So, basically, I feel pity for old Bill Leak. A once great cartoonist safely ignored now as he toils away in a cultural backwater that the tide is fast running out on.

  7. Forgot to mention last night that I liked Shorten’s term: “The Turnbull Experiment”.

    Very clever.

  8. ctar1 @ #826 Friday, May 6, 2016 at 8:03 am

    Slackboy – The Singapore military have been coming here to exercise for a long while.
    There were always some of their A4 Skyhawks at Williamtown even 30 years ago.

    ………………………………………………………………………………..

    Did they stop their ‘spying’ on us that was reported a few years back – think it was aerial photography involving the transit of their fighter aircraft from Singapore down to WA for training ?

  9. kevin-one-seven @ #852 Friday, May 6, 2016 at 8:48 am

    Yep laura, the voters are going to say: “Yes, Malcolm’s a dud, but we’ll keep him because we don’t want a new face … at least for another six months.”

    Just because Laura Tingle is tired of showing her petticoat to a new Prime Minister every year doesn’t mean the voters aren’t going to turf a bad one out!

  10. COTMOMMA – I’ve been wondering for a while if even NewsCorpse’s ability to set the news agenda has disappeared. I sense that newspapers like the SMH are far more interested in mimicking the latest trends in social media.

  16. Rossmore

    Interesting that both Leigh Sales and Chris Uhlamm queried the legitmacy of progressive taxation systems. Sales repeatedly asked Shorten last night (in the context of raising the $80K threshold) that giving some tax relief was OK to $80K+ earners because they pay more in tax than those under $80K.

    That’s some nice circular logic.

  17. ctar1 @ #863 Friday, May 6, 2016 at 9:15 am

    dave – Who knows?
    Everyone does it.

    ……………………………………….

    So do we spy on the US for example or the UK ?

    There were also ‘concerns’ when SingTel bought Optus which carried/ carries ADF communications. Encrypted as it is it still raised said ”concerns.

  18. Thank you BK. Yesterday’s View from the Street (http://www.theage.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/view-from-the-street-abbotts-still-say-the-darndest-things-20160505-gon9ov.html) crystallized an idea for me this morning. Namely that when you’re hiding something or selling lies the last thing you want is a good explainer (communicator). That’s why Abbott was successful and Turnbull is not. And if that thought makes sense, then Turnbull in his current job is a very nice asset for Labor.

  19. Wong and Cormann into a spat already, with Wong saying she won’t take advice from a government that has tripled the deficit.

  20. Good Morning

    A wow moment in Finance estimates. Corman denied the numbers showing the deficit increase while the LNP have been in government

  21. Hopefully the voters of Bass have had Andrew Nikolic up to pussy’s bow by the time the election rolls around. This week’s anti Environment groups effort should theoretically not go down well with environmentally-conscious Tasmanians, especially considering the full frontal effects of Global Warming they have been experiencing of late. I think they might appreciate environmental advocacy groups all the more under these circumstances and not less, as Mr Nikolic hopes.

    And speaking of Tasmanians, I wonder what has happened to meher baba? Did he get sucked into Malcolm Turnbulls’s Negative Gearing alternative universe? 🙂

    And speaking of ‘Black Holes’, I wonder if the Coalition are beginning to realise the pitfalls of a very long election campaign yet? That ‘Labor Black Hole’ attack will have come and gone and lost it’s potency long since as they continue to stare into the electoral abyss.

  22. political_alert: Treasury Secretary John Fraser says the $48.2 billion over 10 years costings were done “some weeks” before the Budget #auspol

  23. We gotta wait till Monday afternoon for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle RC report to be released to the public.
    I reckon the staff will be asleep from now till then to catch up on some wink.

  24. I know Michelle Guthrie has barely taken up her new job etc at the ABC, but I cannot help but feel we may have somewhat of another johnathan shier in the making.

    I suspect she will be controversial at best and not in a positive way.

    An early call but thats how I see it.

  25. “Shorten faces Leigh Sales probe” is honestly the Australian headline?

    I’m picking myself up from the floor. They are reporting ABC interviews as news? Pretty desperate considering she didn’t land a punch.

  26. The comments to Shanahan’s article are great. Here’s one I found interesting. I didn’t realise that Turnbull inherited $2 million from his father’s estate. I thought he was a poor widdle boy without a home.

    Turnbull’s bumbling, stumbling, answers to David Speer’s questions should once & for all dispel the notations of the media acolytes who genuflect at the throne of the Point Piper Prince , the great Communicator, the brilliant Barrister , with the Economic Narrative, is going to lead us all to the promised land, in fact on his performance he would be lucky to get a job as a “Barista” at any of the oh so trendy shops in his electorate.

    Talk about a dream run , in his late 20s inherited $2 million from his father’s estate, picked up by Packer organization, spent just over a year as legal council at the Bar,

    “Merchant Banker” use other people’s money & ideas to trade in shareholdings in certainties.

    The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in 2012 banned the use of the word “Bank or Banker”in relation to merchant pursuits.

    Check out … Four Corners 25/8/2008 , reporter Ms Ferguson, The Australian 17/9/2008, reporter Mr Main, any of his previous business partners.

  27. [• 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.]

    I worked with Gunning a long time ago and would not recommend him for anything. Fortunately he is up against Andrew Leigh in a strong Labor electorate.

  28. Spying?
    Way back I briefly worked on a frigate (Melbourne?) at GI drydock and the jokers on the site kept telling us we should get the Russians in to help cause they knew more about the ship than anyone.

  29. political_alert: Minister for Major Projects @PaulFletcherMP will make an announcement regarding aircraft noise & Western Sydney Airport at 10am #auspol

  30. tax relief was OK to $80K+ earners because they pay more in tax than those under $80K

    Most questioners seem to forget that those who pay more than 80K income tax have probably already reduced their tax bill by every means possible. Morrison continues to ignore the chasm between earned income and taxable income.

  31. Good morning all,

    The $48.2 billion would be the total cost including that of reducing the rate for business under $2 million. So, you would have to take about $ 5 billion away from that to cover the small business cut labor will support leaving a cost of $43 billion which labor can now claim as a saving by rejecting the cuts for larger business.

    So labor claimed $49 billion in savings last night ( from PBO estimates) and now that saving would be reduced to about $43 or $ 44 billion taking the Treasury estimates into account.

    Clear as mud I know !

    Cheers.

  32. political_alert: Treasury Secretary John Fraser says the $48.2 billion over 10 years costings were done “some weeks” before the Budget #auspol

    …………………………………………………………….

    Turnbull caught *being economical with the truth*

    Again.

  34. At 32 per cent, the Greens’ primary vote among 18 to 24-year-olds is seven points ahead of the Coalition and just one point behind Labor’s 33, highlighting the century-old social democratic party’s problem with losing voters from the left.

    Labor’s vote is 20 points down from its peak of 53 per cent in mid-2015, the height of the Abbott government’s political woes.

    While Ipsos public affairs director Jess Elgood noted an 8.3 per cent margin for error given the relatively small number of young voters surveyed, she said the April Fairfax-Ipsos poll result demonstrated the competition Labor would face from its left flank at the July 2 election.

    The figure also raises questions about the political wisdom of Labor’s proposal to reduce the voting age to 16. The younger people are, the more partial they are to the Greens. Bringing in roughly 500,000 16 and 17-year-olds could be a major boost for their left-wing rivals.

    Labor senator Sam Dastyari, the party’s 32-year-old shadow parliamentary secretary for youth, said the strength of the progressive vote deserved attention from his party.

    “This all presents a challenge and an opportunity for the Labor Party. It’s a challenge because it demonstrates that there is a youth vote that requires a certain focus but it’s an opportunity because when we actually present our case and talk about the issues, we can win their votes,” Senator Dastyari said.

    He said the Greens had actively targeted young people and promised Labor would increasingly do the same.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-labors-looming-electoral-threat-from-young-people-in-one-chart-20160421-gobrv4.html#ixzz47pQ4U21c
    Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

  36. shiftaling @ #875 Friday, May 6, 2016 at 9:37 am

    “Shorten faces Leigh Sales probe” is honestly the Australian headline?
    I’m picking myself up from the floor. They are reporting ABC interviews as news? Pretty desperate considering she didn’t land a punch.

    …………………………………………………….

    Don’t worry – the tories and their stooges are also saying she gave him an easy run – ie *chin music*.

    They want it both ways……

  37. The DT today balances its “Superman” Morrison front page on Tuesday with a tirade against Shorten today. Obviously adhering to Murdoch’s Fox News “Fair and balanced” slogan.

  38. I also loved Tingle’s assertion that the Australian people don’t want any more change. This rather conveniently after Turnbull did the grossest change of all: knifed a sitting Prime Minister in record time, making Gillard and Rudd look like snails smitten with rheumatism in contrast to the speed with which he did it.

    Tingle’s idea seems to be that now the Libs have done all the “changing” they felt like doing, any more changing would be unseemly.

    Shorten used the transition time from Abbott to Turnbull brilliantly. While they had trouble and confusion at the top, he issued his policies one by one, causing them to not only react, but to react without anything to back up their reaction except ruling things out. Recycled “Debt & Deficit”, “Carbon Tax”, “Boats” and “Greatest Threat To The Australian Economy” scare campaigns were all they had to hand.

    My “Shorten as Monty” comparison still applies. Monty won el Alamein when Rommel was off sick in Berlin, and Shorten won the policy debate while the Libs were too busy changing the office furniture and patting themselves on the back for the Brilliance Of It All.

    How silly were the journalists, like Tingle, who fell for the dumb extrapolation scam of the polls last year: “On top today = On top forever”. Several posters here did too. Nice to see they’re mostly off licking their wounds.

    Elizabeth Farrelly had the decency to retract her pronouncement that Turnbull could be PM for as long as he liked, longer than Menzies if he so desired. A few others have certainly wound back their optimism of Turnbullism out into the Indefinite Future.

    But the fact remains that most of the Gallery regards the Liberals as the “natural” party of government, and Turnbull as the most shining example of the gravitas required to be PM. As if having a big house in Point Piper is any qualification! Long Bay jail is full of spivs who own houses in Point Piper. Ben Chifley or John Curtin didn’t come anywhere near Point Piper, or Turnbull’s wealth. The Liberal Party had to take up a collection to buy Menzies a house in Melbourne after he retired. Being wealthy is no indication of fitness for office. Just consider Donald Trump, for God’s sake.

    You could also see their preference for the Libs by the way they just shrugged their shoulders at the constitutional upheavals Turnbull caused, simply to position himself for (what he thought would be) an easy run to re-election. If Gillard or Rudd had done any of this the Gallery would have been full of high dudgeon. They all told us that an election was what Turnbull needed: to get re-elected to establish his authority, in its own right. Only then could we see the true Turnbull Enlightenment come to fruition. In pursuit of this plan, anything was permissible.

    What they forgot was that poll prominence is fleeting, and that there was a good chance that Malcolm would lose seats, not gain them. This being the case, the most likely to go would be Turnbull’s allies, the Wets… not the Abbottistas, rednecks, religious nutjobs and AGW deniers (the preceding categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive either). Even losing 10 seats would expose Turnbull to a higher concentration of hatred within his own party than before. But our geniuses only saw it in terms of a win being a win. There are times when a win can be a loss.

    Speaking of losses, defeat was not even considered. This renders the last 8 months of political commentary void. Basing everything they wrote on an inevitable Turnbull election victory not only made them look like fools, but reduced the level of political commentary to sub-fish-wrapper status. The last 8 months have been a fantasyland of misplaced optimism from the CPG, and thus completely useless. Could they have been anything else?

    The salient factor here is that Turnbull is not a politician, or is at best an amateur at it. Shorten’s political wits have been honed in the crucible of backroom union deals and negotiations, the factions and the hurly burly of Trades Hall and Labor. Turnbull, in keeping himself above it all, still has soft, pink political hands, whereas Shorten is proud of his calluses.

    They say that neither of the two contenders has ever fought an election as leader. How superficial is that? Turnbull has never fought any election that wasn’t rigged for him in advance. Shorten has had to fight for everything he’s achieved, using his wits and his intelligence to get to the top. Again, the Gallery meme is wrong. I would doubt Turnbull has the stamina for a protracted fight.

    So what did he do? Called for the longest election campaign in Australian political history! Is this the tactic of a brilliant mind, or the dud decision of someone who doesn’t know the first thing about the political arts and has no stamina for the fight?

  39. Elizabeth Farrelly had the decency to retract her pronouncement that Turnbull could be PM for as long as he liked, longer than Menzies if he so desired

    I hadn’t seen that.

  40. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-05/detainees-at-broadmeadows-subjected-to-tough-new-security/7388836

    Broadmeadows is now like ‘a high-security prison’

    Pamela Curr, from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), said the change in conditions at the centre in recent weeks had been marked.

    “The Broadmeadows centre has transitioned from what was probably the most friendly of the centres to a high-security prison,” she said.

    Ms Hunter said asylum seekers now had to put forward a formal request at least a day in advance to visit friends in other areas of the facility.

  42. Elizabeth Farrelly threw herself down on the steps of St Marys and promised God that she would stick to writing about Architecture from now on. God said: “That would be a very good idea.”

  45. Some random observations:
    1. Bill Shorten still doesn’t convince me as a rhetorician. I don’t care though, because I am far more interested in the message than the messenger, and the message is most attractive. Whoever has had a hand in crafting the Labor strategy should be very very proud.

    2. My personal view is that people should ease up a bit on criticising interviewers (especially ABC) of using known criticisms as the basis for questions. There is such a thing as playing Devil’s advocate, but in any event these questions reveal the substance of the interviewee. For good and bad.

    3. Turnbull looks very old all of a sudden.

    4. Nobody who faced the West Indies fast bowlers through the 80s and 90s thought that “chin music” meant an easy run. Quite the opposite in fact.

    5. The budget has been exposed as a complete cluckfuster. It was probably the Libs last chance, which in their stupidity they appear to have grasped by rewarding a few and pissing off nearly everyone else. I think they are gone, and looking at their faces last night I’m pretty sure they do as well.

  46. The likes of Sales & Uluhman should decrease self intrest before discussing tax reduction on those earring over $80k…. being the overpaid sods that they are.

  47. Federal taxation is designed to control inflation, influence the distribution of wealth and income, and create incentives and disincentives. It doesn’t finance federal government spending.

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