Day two: Essential, Lonergan, BludgerTrack and more

Individual polls continue to record a statistical dead heat on two-party preferred, but the BludgerTrack poll aggregate detects a subtle shift in favour of the Coalition since the release of the budget.

First up, the latest dispatches from the front:

• The preference deal with the Greens being pursued by the Victorian Liberals at the behest of the party’s state president, Michael Kroger, is meeting resistance from other branches of the party. Rick Wallace of The Australian today cites unidentified Liberal sources expressing displeasure at the idea, and gets Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz to reiterate that the “very strong view” of his own state division was that the Greens should be put last. The party’s federal director, Tony Nutt, issued a statement yesterday stressing that no decision had been made.

• Labor hit a spot of bother today in the Townsville electorate of Herbert, which it has never quite been able to pick off since it fell to the Liberals in the 1996 landslide. Bill Shorten’s Queensland road trip brought him to the electorate today, but a doorstop he conducted together with the Labor candidate, Cathy O’Toole, was dominated by O’Toole’s involving in a protest at Liberal member Ewen Jones’s electorate office in February pleading for “a more humane policy for refugees”.

• Apropos Dennis Jensen’s announcement he will run as an independent in Tangney, the Australian Parliamentary Library reviews “the electoral fortunes of MPs who left major parties and contested the next election as Independents”, going back to 1949. Out of 17 identified examples, 12 failed to win their seats (several of whom left office under a cloud); three won re-election but were then defeated at the next election subsequently; and another won re-election and then retired at the election subsequently. Only Bob Katter went on to lasting electoral success.

Now to polling. BludgerTrack has been updated with the latest Essential Research, along with state data from Ipsos, Essential and ReachTEL. The Coalition is now credited with a lead of 50.5-49.5, which is full point better than the pre-budget reading from last week. That translates into a net gain of three since last week on the seat projection, with two gains in New South Wales and one each in Victoria and the Northern Territory balanced by a loss in Queensland. At some point in the not distant future, I’ll start including state-level primary vote breakdowns and two-party results from respondent-allocated trends as well as previous election preferences, but for the time being the display looks like so:

bludgertrack-2016-05-11

Two new polls were released yesterday, and I have a bit left to say about one from the day before:

• Essential Research’s fortnightly rolling average has the Labor lead down from 52-48 to 51-49, with the Coalition up a point on the primary vote to 42%, Labor steady on 38% and the Greens steady on 10%. The poll also records 20% approval and 29% disapproval of the budget, with 35% opting for neither and 15% for don’t know. Twenty-one per cent felt the budget had made them more confident in the government, compared with 32% for less confident and 35% for makes no difference. However, most of the specific measures were well supported; 69% for internships for the young unemployed versus 14% opposed; 72% for the higher tax on cigarettes, versus 21% against; 62% for capping super tax concessions, versus 21% against; and 50% in favour of company tax cuts, versus 34% against. Opinion was evenly divided on the tax cut for those on more than $80,000, at 43% for and 44% against, and there was a predictable result for “cuts of $1.2 billion to aged care providers”. A bonus survey question provided exclusively to SBS recorded a view that the budget would make it harder for young people looking to buy their first home and gain a higher education, migrant families seeking education jobs, and people saving for their retirement – but there was a relatively good result for “young people trying to find a job”, presumably reflecting the internships scheme. The poll also recorded 48% opposition to bringing asylum seekers from Manus Island to Australia with 30% in support, and 39% holding the view that conditions in detention centres were poor, versus 32% for good.

• The Guardian Australia yesterday published a poll by Lonergan Research showing 50-50 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Coalition 42%, Labor 35% and Greens 12%. It also found only 12% felt they would be better off because of the budget compared with 38% for worse off, and that 29% said it made them more likely to vote for the Coalition compared with 47% for less likely. The poll was automated phone survey of 1841 respondents conducted Friday to Sunday.

• I hadn’t mentioned the budget response results from Newspoll, which are worth a closer look. Among other things, there are breakdowns by income cohort, which you don’t often see in published polling. Those on higher incomes ($100,000 and lower) were more disposed to have an overall favourable view than those on lower incomes ($50,000 or less), but not by a great order of magnitude: 39% good and 22% in the former case, 31% good and 22% bad in the latter. However, bigger disparities were recorded on personal impact, with 11% of low-income earners expecting to be better off and 45% expecting to be worse off, compared with 29% and 27% for higher income earners. There are also interesting differences by age, with the most favourable responses coming from the young and the least favourable from the middle-aged, with the older cohort landing in between. Charts below put all this into the context of the regular post-budget Newspoll questions going back to 1988 (although there’s a slight change this year and that there are no longer neutral as distinct from uncommitted response options), and show the historic relationship between the “own financial position” and “economic impact” questions, with this year’s question identified in red. On pretty much every measure, this was an average response to a budget, although the plus 5% net rating for economic impact compares slightly unfavourably with an average of plus 10.9%. Its also a weaker than usual result for a Coalition budget, which have had historically better results (part of which is to do with the Howard government holding the reins in the pre-GFC boom years).

2016-05-10-budgetresponse

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.

1,527 comments on “Day two: Essential, Lonergan, BludgerTrack and more”

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  1. boerwar @ #1196 Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    Even the Government, choc-a-bloc full of 100% climate science idiots, is spending a couple of billion on global warming responses.

    They’re actually wasting billions, something like 80% of their DA budgeted money spent for 7% of their target met. One thing the LNP does exceptionally well is piss taxpayers money away.

  2. Speaking of micro parties- when are the ultra rights Reclaim, Pauline etc to going to get out of the starting blocks? Are they the only people caught off guard by Malcolm’s “surprise” announcement of a DD on July 2?

  3. Intellectually feeble people defend the old Senate lottery system. The main problem is that a major party is spreading ignorance of how the old and new systems differ. This makes it more difficult for voters to exercise their rights.

    The Sex Party is acting on the false assumption that the changes disadvantage them. If anything, they gain from a system in which politically active micro-parties that voters know about don’t get overtaken by micro-parties that exist in name only.

  4. Paddy
    Reclaim Australia are off and running. The ALA has had at least one campaign launch.
    Most of the MSM are distracted by the main game. The Murdoch papers and Sky are keeping schtumm because the ALA is to the Liberals and the Nationals as the Greens are to Labor.
    Electoral trouble.

  5. Speaking of which, it would be nice to see the exact polling break downs for every party that sits in the 20% or so that is going to give first preferences to neither Liberal nor Labor nor Nationals.

  6. paddy o @ #1203 Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    Speaking of micro parties- when are the ultra rights Reclaim, Pauline etc to going to get out of the starting blocks? Are they the only people caught off guard by Malcolm’s “surprise” announcement of a DD on July 2?

    According to her FB page, Pauline’s got a plane and she’s flying all over QLD. She has lower house candidates too, and Senate candidates in all states (including a radio shock jock from NSW).

    The favourite of all the Abbott supporters in the Australian, the ALA, hasn’t finalised its senate candidates yet.

    One is clearly more prepared than the other.

  7. Boerwar:

    G
    Are you a Liberal troll?

    Guytaur isn’t a troll. He’s simply an eternal optimist with a herculean capacity to spin any – absolutely any – political event to to be either positive or at least neutral for Labor and the Greens.

    Bill Shorten or Richard Di Natale could be caught shagging a goat tomorrow and Guytaur would be tirelessly explaining how this will actually improve their respective party’s electoral standing.

  8. Have any of you received a letter from Malcolm Turnbull today?
    It is urging people to postal vote and there are pamphlets showing how to accommodate the boring inept Member for Banks.

  9. The Liberal candidate in Wakefield is in the process of putting up her corflutes.

    They feature a large picture of her, with her name and her electorate in very large print, and “Liberal” printed in such small print you can only see it when you are driving slowly enough (or on foot).

    It leads one to the inescapable conclusion that there’s never been a more enbarrassing time to be a member of the Liberal Party 😉

  10. General reaction to Turnbull/Panama Papers:
    * It’s unfair to claim guilt by association (unless you’re associated with a union)
    * Things that happened decades ago are irrelevant (unless you’re a Labor ex-PM)
    * Ad hominem attacks aren’t necessary (unless you choose to make yourself a legitimate target by daring to ask a question on Q&A).
    FWIW I’d honestly be shocked by anything of substance was revealed about Turnbull’s Panama situation, but the indignity expressed about it being raised at all seems a bit rich (no pun intended).

  11. For the Screwy Crank. See if you can understand this. I won’t be easy for someone of your processing power, as it involves actual thought and reasoning, but we can try. From Michael Bradley, a Commercial Lawyer, who is actually quite well off.

    “As for the actual tax cut – OK, our business will pay 2.5 per cent less in tax on its profits next year. What will the shareholders in that business do with the extra money? We’ll save it, so that we can give it to the ATO to cover the corresponding increase in our personal income tax bills.

    The ultimate owners of companies are people, and they pay income tax on their dividend earnings. If the company is paying less tax, then the franking credit on the dividends is reduced, so the amount the individual shareholders have to pay to make up the difference goes up by the same amount. The net effect is zero. The resulting economic growth is also zero.

    It’s true that two types of companies and shareholders will derive a net benefit from a company tax cut. First, companies that reinvest the extra profit rather than distribute it as a dividend will get a benefit. However, most small businesses distribute all their profits as dividends because their owners rely on that as their personal income. Secondly, there are the shareholders who don’t pay income tax in Australia, either because they live overseas or because they use Panama-style tax “minimisation” structures. As Duncan would say, rich people.

    That’s all just a long way of saying that the small business tax bonanza the Government is selling is largely illusory. In the bigger picture, 45 years of trickle-down experiments, promising that the rivers of money which have flowed to corporations and the rich will turn into “jobs and growth” for all, have delivered one clear outcome: a massive and sustained increase in income and wealth inequality.

    Wealth is now concentrated at the top to a greater extent than ever. Further, the International Monetary Fund found in a study last year that, as more money is pushed towards high income earners, economic growth actually slows down. The facts unarguably demonstrate that the theory of trickle-down economics is, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz describes it, “absolutely wrong”.

    It’s this simple – if you give money to the rich, it makes them richer. The small part of that wealth which they choose to apply to discretionary spending adds vastly less to the economy than what it loses from the ever-increasing concentration of wealth. To put it another way: how much jobs and growth is created by one rich person paying another rich person $30 million for their harbourside house?”

    Now Crankly, I don’t wish to know what you think of his reasoning, because you have shown yourself to be utterly defective in your analytical capabilities on multiple occasions already. However, your attempts to spin this, or somehow try to find a way in which it is incorrect, will be amusing for the rational participants here to observe.

  12. I heard a pretty amusing foray into the AS debate last night on RN when Ed Husic and Arthur Sinodinos were on air together. Arthur was running the line about AS disunity within the ALP when the host, whose name escapes me, said wtte “Hang on, what about the likes of Judy Moylan and Petro Georgiou who openly spoke out against your side’s policy? Did it stop the policy being enacted?” Ed couldn’t help himself but chime in and say in Arthur’s world it’s ok if it happens in the Liberal Party because they’re a “broad church” but not ok if it happens on the ALP side.
    I’m interested in the Lib rolling out Sinodinos for appearances like that. I thought they may have kept him out of the limelight. I’ve always thought him a far better strategist/ behind the scenes sort of bloke than an upfront communicator.

    Disclosure: I’m a tad biased towards Ed. I’ve met him a few times, handed out for him in the past as well. Has always struck me as a decent fella from the little I know of him. I think he should get a more prominent front bench role post-election. He’s a very good communicator.

  13. BREAKING NEWS:

    Good afternoon all. Long time no interact. More of that in a mo.

    The new Labor candidate for Fremantle, Josh Wilson is now speaking.

    Wilson says he knows Chris Brown, the dumped candidate, and he is a

    good guy./

  14. mtbw @ #1211 Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 2:32 pm

    Have any of you received a letter from Malcolm Turnbull today?
    It is urging people to postal vote and there are pamphlets showing how to accommodate the boring inept Member for Banks.

    There is an article in Crikey about it. The AEC have been urging the government to make actions like this illegal.
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2016/05/12/vote-post-vote-libs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrikeyDaily+%28Crikey+Daily%29

  15. A few pages back, I wrote:

    I agree with Beorwar on the disendorsed candidate for Fremantle. Labor had no choice but to get rid of him. A candidate having had a criminal conviction in their youth isn’t a biggie – a skilled politician could probably spin such a past to work to their advantage – but lying about it is. Sucks for Brown, but politics is a harsh gig.

    The MUA need to just accept that it happened and move on.

    Been about 3-4 pages behind for most of the day, so hadn’t read the several pages that came before that post when I wrote it. To clarify: I certainly agree that Brown had to go (both for the lie itself and the political stupidity of trying to lie about it) and that the MUA should STFU about it, but I can’t say I’m at all as pessismistic Boewar about the potential fallout. As others have noted, a disagreement between Shorten and the unions could ultimately be a plus for him.

  16. Voting has been the subject of intense mathematical research since 1950, when the economist Kenneth Arrow published his famous “impossibility theorem,” one of the two major contributions for which he was awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize.

    This theorem showed that if voters have to rank candidates—to say, in other words, who comes first, second and so forth—there will inevitably be one of two major potential failures. Either there may be no clear winner at all, the so-called “Condorcet paradox” occurs, or what has come to be called the “Arrow paradox” may occur.

    The Arrow paradox is familiar to Americans because of what happened in the 2000 election. Bush beat Gore because Nader was in the running. Had Nader not run, Gore would have won. Surely, it is absurd for the choice between two candidates to depend on whether or not some minor candidate is on the ballot!

    Majority judgment resolves the conundrum of Arrow’s theorem: neither the Condorcet nor the Arrow paradox can occur. It does so because voters are asked for more accurate information, to evaluate candidates rather than to rank them.

    MJ’s rules, based on the majority principle, meet the basic democratic goals of voting systems. With it:

    Voters are able to express themselves more fully, so the results depend on much more information than a single vote.
    The process of voting has proven to be natural, easy, and quick: we all know about grading from school (as the Pew poll implicitly realized).
    Candidates with similar political profiles can run without impinging on each other’s chances: a voter can give high (or low) evaluations to all.
    The candidate who is evaluated best by the majority wins.
    MJ is the most difficult system to manipulate: blocs of voters who exaggerate the grades they give beyond their true opinions can only have a limited influence on the results.
    By asking more of voters, by showing more respect for their opinions, participation is encouraged. Even a voter who evaluates all candidates identically (e.g., all are “Terrible”) has an effect on the outcome.
    Final grades—majority-grades—enable candidates and the public to understand where each stands in the eyes of the electorate.
    If the majority decides that no candidate is judged an “Average President” or better, the results of the election may be rescinded, and a new slate of candidates demanded.
    It is a practical method that has been tested in elections and used many times (for judging prize-winners, wines, job applicants, etc.). It has also been formally proposed as a way to reform the French presidential election system.

    https://newrepublic.com/article/133411/trump-clinton-proof-us-voting-system-doesnt-work

  17. As for the Great Barrier Reef – coral bleaching is a natural event. They have happened in the past and will happen again in the future. The Reef will recover as it always has in the past and will continue to evolve as the climate changes.

    Actually CC, the data shows thats bollocks. From you? who’d a thunk that??
    The large scale frequent bleaching is a late 20th century phenomenon.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-28/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-95-per-cent-north-section/7279338

    “We have coral cores that provide 400 years of annual growth,” explains Dr Neal Cantin from the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

    “We don’t see the signatures of bleaching in reduced growth following a bleaching event until the recent 1998/2000 events.”

  18. Asha Leu

    As others have noted, a disagreement between Shorten and the unions could ultimately be a plus for him.

    Indeed. Exactly as a disagreement between the IPA and the LNP is expected to be a plus for Mal. Except that one was stage-managed and one was not. I’ll let you figure out which is which.

  19. Considering the Greens have appointed themselves as the voice of all Asylum seekers perhaps one of our Green friends here could let me know whether they think Reza Berati would of preferred Malaysia or Manus Island?

    I have asked that question many times before and have been met with absolute silence by greens supporters every single time I have asked.

    If it is fair to apportion blame to the LNP for the deaths and mental torture suffered by asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru (which I believe it is) then the Greens sure as hell need to accept some of the blame for the deaths, rapes, abuses and self immolations that have occured since they jumped into the soiled and pee stained mattress covered bed with the likes of Abbott, Dutton etc.

    Not to mention the continued cruelty and hopelessness inflicted on the thousands of genuine and vetted refugees who would of been welcomed into this country via the so-called Malaysia solution.

    But I guess that is all justifiable because the greens can feel pure and superior as they signal their virtue to anyone who bothers to listen.

  20. PaddyO
    Pauline is being interveiwed by the Bolta on SKY – not sure if it’s today or tomorrow, didn’t care enough to listen.

  21. Can people please start spelling Fremantle correctly?

    It is Fremantle not Freemantle.

    It is a well known major city in Australia.
    It should not be too hard to spell it correctly.

  22. shellbell

    Thanks for that info.
    It was a very strong Court of Appeal which heard the appeal – Catherine Holmes CJ, Fraser J and Gottersen J – all very senior members of the Court.
    But lawyers love arguing these matters, on the one hand this, on the other hand that.

  23. Trump having a ‘big’ day —

    Romney Cries “Bombshell” After Trump Becomes First Candidate In 40 Years To Not Disclose Tax Returns

    Due to the ongoing audit” of his tax returns since 2009, Trump will be the first presidential nominee since 1976 not to make tax returns public.

    Donald Trump considers Newt Gingrich for vice-presidential role

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/donald-trump-considers-newt-gingrich-for-vice-presidential-role-20160512-gotcz9.html#ixzz48Pr5qQ4U

  24. [Voting has been the subject of intense mathematical research since 1950, when the economist Kenneth Arrow published his famous “impossibility theorem,” one of the two major contributions for which he was awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize.”]

    Wonderful to see you adding some substance to the lies, distortions and total lack of analysis, beyond the ‘we don’t like past results – opv will curve all the problems we can even express’ farce we endured.
    If you get really good at it you’ll be able to support the outcome without lies and distortion.

  25. Feeney
    Pretty strong HC panel considering the application as well. Justice Bell had a big criminal practice at the bar. Been pretty conservative on the bench in criminal matters.

  26. Shellbell – Have you heard the rumour that Bookshelves Brandis wants to become CJ when French retires. Now, that would cause a stink.

  27. It’s good to see that the SMH work experience business deputy editor (they’ve got to cut costs somehow) completely misses the point by declaring that Mal has done nothing illegal.

    I’m getting sick of this cynicism. It reeks of Class Warfare.

    You want to start a business, right?

    What do you do?

    1. You immediately arrange to pay of two Prime Ministers and the President of a foreign country in order to get the rights to operate in that country.

    2. Then, through a convoluted set of dummy corporations, you set up shop in some other country, say, the Caymans or Panama.

    3. You do this by getting a expensive foreign law firm to get all the paperwork right for you. Why use a local firm? The law firms in the Caribbean are so much better. And more discreet.

    4. You charge management fees for a year and cream off a million or two. The less actual work you perform for said management fees, the better.

    5. No that you’ve got all the ducks in a row, you buy your toaster.

    Simple really. I don’t know why so many Class Warriors out there are so outraged. It’s what chaps do when they start up a business. Any nong knows that.

  28. President Of The Solipsist Society
    #1104 Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 12:58 pm

    I hope the Greens hold the balance of power with a Labor minority government after the next election, assisted by them gaining a couple of their target seats in the lower house. Then the ALP will learn what compromise actually is.

    The G’s are latter-day Groupers. During the Cold War the schism in Labor occurred on the Right. These days, the schismatics are a self-styled “left” clique. Essentially, there is no difference between the Groupers and the Greens. They both employ/ed attacks on Labor in order to advance their own careers.

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