BludgerTrack: 50.1-49.9 to Labor

Labor pokes its nose ahead on two-party preferred in the latest reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, but a stronger showing in Queensland finds the Coalition keeping its head above water on the seat projection.

The flurry of national polling conducted after the budget for release at the onset of the official campaign has been followed this week by a lull in new results at national level, but with Galaxy and ReachTEL making sizeable entries in state-level federal polling from Queensland and Tasmania respectively. The only national results were the regularly weekly Essential Research and the first campaign poll from Roy Morgan, the latter of which was strong enough for Labor that they have moved back into the two-party lead by the barest possible margin. However, the strong showing for the Coalition in the Galaxy Queensland poll causes them to register 1.2% higher this week in that acutely sensitive state, translating into two extra seats to partly cancel out losses of one each in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Essential Research has provided new numbers for leadership ratings this week, and these seem to suggest Malcolm Turnbull’s slump is levelling off.

Some of you will no doubt be looking askance at that swing currently projected in Western Australia, and I don’t blame you. There are seven data points in the model from the past three weeks with a combined sample of 1048, which individually have the Coalition’s primary vote in the state ranging from 35% to 44%, compared with 51.2% at the 2013 election. However, I suspect that if you look back in a week or two, you will find the projection moderating somewhat. It’s also worth observing that the model is now crediting Palmer United with all of 0.1% of the national vote. The only pollsters who are still tracking the party are Ipsos and Morgan, with both ReachTEL and Essential having swapped them in their questionnaire for the Nick Xenophon Team. The last five data points for Palmer United are all 0%, and the previous ten were evenly divided between 0% and 1%.

bludgertrack-2016-05-19

News snippets:

• The Advertiser reported yesterday that a privately conducted ReachTEL poll had produced an encouraging result for Matt Williams, Liberal member for the marginal Adelaide seat of Hindmarsh. Williams was credited with 41% of the primary vote, compared with 25% for Labor candidate Steve Georganas, whom Williams unseated in 2013, 14% for Nick Xenophon Team candidate Daniel Kirk, 8% for the Greens, and 7% undecided.

• Nick Xenophon told the ABC’s Lateline his party’s strongest lower house prospect, Mayo candidate Rebekha Sharkie, was polling in the twenties. How formidable that makes her would depend entirely on how much of it was gouged from the vote for Liberal member Jamie Briggs, who recorded 53.8% of the primary vote in 2013.

• Labor has hit trouble in a sensitive spot in the inner Melbourne seat of Batman, after it emerged that David Feeney had failed to declare a negatively geared $2.3 million property in Northcote on the register of members interests. The news media is now applying the blowtorch to other aspects of the real estate portfolio of Feeney and his wife, and bringing unwelcome attention to his once close association with controversial ex-Health Services Union identity Kathy Jackson. Feeney is under pressure in Batman from Greens candidate Alex Bhathal, who outpolled Liberal candidates in her previous runs for the seat in 2010 and 2013, respectively finishing 7.9% and 10.6% behind Labor at the final count.

• A week after Labor dumped its candidate in the seat, there have been headlines about the contentious views of Sherry Sufi, the Liberal candidate for the Western Australian seat of Fremantle. Sufi’s conservative positions on matters such as same-sex marriage and the stolen generations apology had been well known, but Malcolm Turnbull contrived to make an issue out of them when he visited the electorate on Monday to spruik a local shipyard’s contract to build naval patrol boards, and neglected to invite his candidate. There have also been questions raised about the accuracy of Sufi’s employment record as presented on his candidate nomination form. Also absent during Turnbull’s shipyard visit was Premier Colin Barnett, whose leadership is increasingly coming under pressure amid deterioriating opinion polling.

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.

1,731 comments on “BludgerTrack: 50.1-49.9 to Labor”

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  5. The longer Fifield and Cormann and Morrow stay in hiding, the more obvious it is (if you don’t know already) that they were all in the loop when the police were called in

  6. [ Liberal candidate for Freemantle gone. ]
    Jeez! There’s so much going wrong for the coalition at the moment that it’s hard to identify which disaster they are trying to distract attention from!

  9. David
    #1496 Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:13 pm
    “That is, Barnaby can recognise chaos when he sees it. Chaos will always play badly for the Government. Government is supposed to be the expression of order and predictability. When these break down the inference is the Government is incompetent and ineffectual. People will not vote for a shambles. They cannot. It makes no sense .”

    To be fair ….Mirabella is no longer a politician

    Lol

    She’s not a politician in the sense that a canoe is not a submarine.

  10. Millenial

    I mean, I’m no economist, but how exactly do you account for a $10 billion dollar reduction in the deficit, when the previous year only saw a $3 billion reduction in the deficit; even when you taken in consideration that the economy is estimated to increase by only 0.5%?

    The national government deficit is a residual of the economy as a whole, whereas business profit/loss, state government deficit/surplus and household outcome are residuals only of the activities of the business, state government or household respectively.

    Believe it or not (most do not, it seems) this makes rather a lot of difference, and intuitions derived from those other scenarios, such as your intuition, do not really inform the situation.

  11. Player One
    #1508 Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:21 pm
    Hmmm. How odd. CCCP just crashed and burned – I blame the AFP!

    I blame the Turn. Nothing works under a Liberal Government

  15. Apparently iron ore currently trading about 25% below budget forecasts is “not material”. No wonder the government needed to divert attention from the PEFO!

    To be fair, the $ is a lot lower already and that evens things out a little.

  16. [On taking office, Labor would amend Section 76 of the Competition and Consumer Act to allow the court to apply higher penalties for conduct that targets or disproportionately impacts disadvantaged Australians, and to apply lower penalties when firms have provided adequate compensation.

    It would require the ACCC to prioritise investigations of conduct that targets or disproportionately impacts disadvantaged and ask the Productivity Commission to investigate the impacts of increased market concentration on income inequality.

    “To a high-income consumer, losing a few thousand dollars might be an annoyance,” Dr Leigh said. “To a low-income consumer, losing a few thousand dollars might be life-changing.”]

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/election-2016-competition-law-to-target-mergers-that-hurt-the-poor-under-labor-20160519-goz6og.html

  18. [Will there be a senior politician in Australia whose reputation remains intact – or as intact as a political reputation can be in these testing times – after this stretched version of an election campaign?

    Just two weeks down and the scent of anxiety is as high as a ferret’s cage.]
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016-opinion/australian-election-2016-the-political-pursuits-of-the-campaign–whos-next-20160520-gozrun.html

  19. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:25 pm
    Looking at the picks of Malcolm on Guardian Live, I don’t think he’s going to last six weeks.

    ******************************************************
    Revive an old Crikey Classic ( as I can’t remember who originally posted it ?????? )

    On The Good Ship Malcolm

    T’was on the good ship that is Mals
    The crew are all slimy pals
    They have no clue of what to do
    But fuck up our lives too

    The first mate name is Joyce
    Whose messages are such bad choice
    His bloated face got very red
    When Depp made him a fool instead

    The treasurers name is Scott
    Whose personality is not worth a jot
    A Christian jerk with a vicious smirk
    Like Christ, he sure was not

    A backbencher now is Tony
    Who continues as a phony
    Without his back up that was Peta
    All he can do now is talk baloney

    Immigration is handled by a fool called Dutton
    Who has the brains and looks of dead mutton
    He picks on poor refos who cant read or write
    and will steal Aussie jobs like thieves in the night

    And then there was perfidious Pyne
    An odious man most prone to whine
    This silly smuck has his head stuck
    Up where the sun don’t shine

    The foreign officer was Julie
    Treated asbestos claims quite cruelly
    With her coiffured hair and deadly stare
    She’d plagiarise unduly

    George Brandis was the legal man
    Though twas pretty hard to tell
    he set his sights on bigots rights
    Now his ego’s not so well.

    The Climate guy was Hunt
    A receding little runt
    His climate stance was left to chance
    A “stuff the planet” punt

    The loudest on board is Cash
    Her mouth a forever open gash
    Her voice a nasal screeching whining
    On those poor interns fate she is designing

    No one forgets that fool Abetz
    He really is a shocker
    He screws with joy the unemployed
    That man is off his rocker

    There was a lass, named Scott
    Whose looks were viewed a lot
    Tony was smitten and ‘a bit of sex appeal’
    was all she needed to close the deal

    McFarlane was the industry bloke
    in strange robotic tones he spoke
    Car industry rooted, renewables neutered
    hundreds of companies going broke

    Sinodinos was the Finance wonder
    ICAC saw him moved asunder
    Was he Arthur or was he Martha
    Dodgy donors, major blunder

    Bernadi was the religious nutter
    he had his thoughts down in the gutter
    gay rights would creep onward to sheep
    This utter nutter uttered

    Then there is Mathias
    He’s one of the best liars
    He helped the banks but gets no thanks
    Cos his FOFA laws were biased

    This mendacious ship looks run aground
    Their lying powers diminished
    The Murdoch press can’t fix the mess
    And Mals time at the helm looks finished

  20. EG Theodore
    #1510 Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:22 pm
    Millenial

    I mean, I’m no economist, but how exactly do you account for a $10 billion dollar reduction in the deficit, when the previous year only saw a $3 billion reduction in the deficit; even when you taken in consideration that the economy is estimated to increase by only 0.5%?

    The national government deficit is a residual of the economy as a whole, whereas business profit/loss, state government deficit/surplus and household outcome are residuals only of the activities of the business, state government or household respectively.

    The deficit is also a reflection of where we choose to accumulate dis-savings and their counter-weights, savings. Dis-savings have been allowed to accumulate in the public sector for two reasons . First, we do not want to threaten demand, output, employment, profits and private balance sheets; second, we have not been willing to tax the private surplus quite hard enough.

  21. “Lol

    She’s not a politician in the sense that a canoe is not a submarine.”

    Breifly wasn’t having a go at you. In a sense your probably right it is a bad look Barnaby Joyce dumping on Sophie Mirabella. It indicates a very divided government.

  24. David
    #1521 Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:32 pm

    I didn’t take anything you said as a rebuke, David. Not at all. I just think the idea that Sophie is not political is comical. It’s just that she’s been disarmed. She’s a liability to the Liberals now.

  25. Briefly
    She’s not a politician in the sense that a canoe is not a submarine.

    I dunno. We have some pretty canoe-y politicians who think of themselves as submarines. Dutton comes to mind.

  26. EG Theodore #1510
    [The national government deficit is a residual of the economy as a whole, whereas business profit/loss, state government deficit/surplus and household outcome are residuals only of the activities of the business, state government or household respectively.

    Believe it or not (most do not, it seems) this makes rather a lot of difference, and intuitions derived from those other scenarios, such as your intuition, do not really inform the situation.]

    Thanks for that.

    By the way, in your opinion, do you think the PEFO’s deficit projections are achievable?

  27. Cash was very prominent early in the campaign but seems to have disappeared. Is industrial relations now a taboo topic for Mal’s mob?

  28. JimmyDoyle
    #1525 Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    Dutton…to sink without a trace after the election, let’s hope…

  30. I dunno. We have some pretty canoe-y politicians who think of themselves as submarines. Dutton comes to mind.

    Should we be discussing on-water incidents? Or worse, underwater incidents? The ATO can read, you know. Just.

  35. [ Imacca – reported on twitter by the Australian’s WA Chief Reporter, Andrew Burrell: ]

    Ta for that. I can now feel better about binning the stuff i got sent at home about voting for the him.

  36. [ briefly – wouldn’t it be wonderful if Dutton lost his seat! ]

    ?? And miss the fun of him being next opposition leader with the redoubtable Julie B as loyal deputy??

  39. Briefly I’m not anyone makes much of an impression on apathetic voters these day.
    Heard a guy doing a quiz on commercial radio this morning unable to say which party Bill Shorten led. Ended up settling on the Libs so I’m assuming he doesn’t know much about MT either.

  40. Re: Di Natale and the au pairs story…looking at the politics of it…

    Has any other federal politician from the Coalition or Labor side been out and about hammering RDN on this? I haven’t seen anything…..seems to be a deafening silence except in places like PB understandably.

    Having said that the ‘au pair industry’ is unregulated and therefore open to exploitation and abuse which I would never support.

    This site explores the issue: http://www.aupairadvice.com.au/how-much-to-pay-your-au-pair.html

    Though Di Natale has not contravened the standards routinely applied to au pairs, I am disappointed he didn’t pay minimum hourly award wages.

    ——————————————————————————
    PS – Thanks to all who were inquiring about where I have been. Do you want a complete hour-by-hour breakdown of what I have been doing out in the real world or will broad strokes suffice?

    I spent most of yesterday attending a couple of community events, one of which went late into the night. Today I spent hours undertaking community volunteer work and supporting a friend who is going through the trauma of admitting her mother into a high care facility.

  41. On many levels, this is the ‘dirtiest’ personality politics federal campaign I can recall.

    All it does is reinforce the very low opinion the majority of the electorate have of politicians in general.

    Will the informal vote rise? Will the vote share of independents across the board rise? I suspect so.

  42. Peg

    I think some bludgers have a too high expectation of your dedication to this blog.
    Everyone goes in and out all day. Ignore the comments. 🙂

  44. Markjs,

    U can keep banging on. If I wasn’t 100% sure you lied I wouldn’t have said it.

    As I have been posting here for 8 years or so, I am happy for people to come to their own judgments about my veracity vs yours.

  45. Pegasus

    I haven’t heard anyone say that someone should be put in a sack and dumped at sea and I haven’t heard of a Big Red Box on the menu at a LNP dinner. Those events may not have been during the 2013 campaign but even so I think things, as nasty as they have been this year, fall short of the nastiness of Abbott’s time as leader.

  48. Thanks lizzie.

    I am not at all fussed by such comments. I understand the tactics employed by my detractors.

    Eight years and still posting.

  49. imacca
    And miss the fun of him being next opposition leader with the redoubtable Julie B as loyal deputy??

    I threw up a little when I read that. You shouldn’t joke about such things – that’s too terrifying to imagine!

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