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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  1. Pegasus
    Has any other federal politician from the Coalition or Labor side been out and about hammering RDN on this? I haven’t seen anything

    Why would they need to? Di Natale has quite effectively dealt himself out of the game.

  3. “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
    – Kierkegaard

  4. 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%?
    It’s the LNP Way!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgjGWYZSVUA
    20110 stye

  9. JD

    U might think that.

    The silence would be more to do with the high probability other politicians having the same arrangements with au pairs.

    Out in voterland, including the number of ordinary citizens who wouldn’t even know who RDN is, together with those who would believe RDN wouldn’t be alone in hiring au pairs, it probably will not have the traction you are hoping for.

    Of course, my speculation could be entirely wrong!

  10. Kevin17 – Senator Fifield was last seen huddling with the lawyers seeking advice about how best to spin this one.

  13. Pegasus – is your argument really that nobody knows who Di Natale is and therefore these revelations won’t matter? Good luck with that argument.

  17. “The silence would be more to do with the high probability other politicians having the same arrangements with au pairs.”

    I doubt it but even if it were true that doesn’t make it right.

  18. Even if Di Natale’s offence is of the gravity of Feeney’s, he’s still going to get re-elected and apart from neutralising his attacks on the member for Batman somewhat, the claims really don’t move the political needle, in as much as these things ever do, which probably isn’t that much.

    He’ll need to keep his head down when it comes to future claims about declarations and hired help, but that’s probably the only long term implication.

  19. Jimmy

    I suspect that quite a few politicians have used au-pairs from time to time, so it might not be too good a look to start chucking mud. I suspect that almost all with young children will have occasionally used nannies and quite possibly opted for the cheaper and more reliable au-pair.

    If you have a big enough house the live in au pair is a sensible option. it is particularly attractive when you have kids too old for child care but not old enough to get home themselves. The au-pair walks them home from school and prepares a family meal and/or entertains the kids for a while. The actual award pay rate is $17.68 per hour. For 25 hours per week you would be looking at $442 per week. Since $250-$270 is the going rate for food and accommodation (Qld student full board rates are $270), a payment of $180-190 plus board is pretty much award wages.

    The REAL issues are was week end work involved (pay rates are much higher) was the food and board good quality – ie better than the equivalent rental, and was the family kind to the staff member – making sure she was well cared for, safe and happy.

  20. “He’ll need to keep his head down when it comes to future claims about declarations and hired help, but that’s probably the only long term implication”

    He will also have to drop the holier that thou attitude to IR. It’s a broader belly he’s exposed than that just concerns around ‘hired help’.

  22. It’s quite clear Labor is still very concerned about Wills and Batman. They have now threatened to damage Christopher Pyne chances in Stuart by directing preferences to Xenophon if the Liberals do not pull out of their preference deal with the Greens in Victoria.
    “Labor has threatened the Liberal Party that if it directs preferences to the Greens in Melbourne, the ALP will retaliate by helping Nick Xenophon snare Coalition-held seats in South Australia.

    Amid widespread concern in South Australia about the potential for Senator Xenophon to win several Senate positions and House of Representative seats, the two major parties are considering how best to counter the threat.

    Senator Xenophon has said he will run open tickets in most lower house seats, leaving it to the major parties whether to preference him ahead of their main rival.

    While some are advocating a preference deal between the major parties to try to shut him out, Labor sources say the decision could pivot on whether the Liberal Party does a “cynical and immoral deal” with the Greens in Victoria.

    “The Liberal Party has got Buckley’s chance of any assistance with preferences as long as they are playing footsies with the Greens in Victoria,” one South Australian Labor MP told The Australian.

    “And if they do a cynical deal with the Greens in places like Batman and Wills, then they will have it returned to them in spades in seats like Sturt.

    Sturt, held by cabinet minister Christopher Pyne, is one of the key seats targeted by the new Nick Xenophon Team.

    Another is the seat of Mayo, held by former junior minister Jamie Briggs.”

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-labor-warns-on-libgreen-footsies/news-story/4d1d8b39a44fc36e1a2541af01d63237

  23. Actually I recall 4 or so years ago I knew a Thai girl working here under some Labor GOVERNMENT scheme whereby she helped a family with triplets on a live in basis. I vaguely recall that her payment was $188 per week. It did not seem a lot of money.

  25. daretotread – the point that’s been made by others is that it’s really only been Di Natale and other Greens that have been slinging mud. that’s why Di Natale is in the predicament he’s in.

    I think any minute the Labor Party itself spends talking about the Greens is a minute wasted.

  26. Pegasus
    Friday, May 20, 2016 at 3:15 pm
    “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.’

    What a coward you are Pegasus ..coming onto a public forum and calling me a liar without producing a skerrick of evidence to support your slur..

    I said I wouldn’t get into a flame war with you, and I won’t..

  27. given how well the feds NBN raids have gone for the government, I’m hoping the AFP are also investigating leaks into medicare, education and industrial relations. I just wish AFP had raided media outlets including some murdoch papers to make the fuck up complete.

    Conroy and shorten couldn’t have bought the sort of media attention on one of Mal’s largest achilles heels had they tried. I expect a full week of BOATS! BOATS! BOATS!, lots of raids on ‘terrorists’ ad security warnings, and Mal with a flurry of flags behind him. I still suspect he’ll win, but the prospect of him being mentioned in the same sentence as Hewson and unloseable elections seems more likely every day.

  29. The LNP can’t take a trick at the moment.
    Their tax cuts ( for those earning over $80g) that Mal said could be done administratively have to in fact be done by legislation.
    One fuck up after another

  35. The most damaging think for di natale for me is that he uses the term ‘au pair’. ‘Live in kid minder’ would have been smarter. but then again, maybe this will swing some of the ‘doctor’s wife’ (& I hate that term) votes – but then again, the medicare levy freeze probably already has.

    It’ll be interesting to see if this leads to lots of exposure of pollies using and underpaying ‘hired help’ – i’d reckon there will be nannies and housekeepers with stories to tell. I wonder if they get claimed as an expense? the whole upstairs, downstairs side of this will not sit well with many voters.

    the ‘undeclared’ property claim is a legless media beat up – it is not in the same class of stupidity as the Feeney mansion.

  36. We’ve just finished having Au Pairs – twelve all up. We pay better then the Di Natalis but what they were paying was reasonable.

  37. ZOILORD – You must be in heaven. All those years thinking (rightly) that the NBN fiasco would not get enough oxygen and a liberal cluster-fuck stamps puts it front and centre. I didn’t see that happening.

  38. Rod Hagen
    Friday, May 20, 2016 at 2:20 pm
    Imacca – reported on twitter by the Australian’s WA Chief Reporter, Andrew Burrell:
    AndrewBurrell7: BREAKING: Liberal candidate for Fremantle, Sherry Sufi, has resigned “in light of continued focus on events from my history”.

    That should really read…
    BREAKING: Liberal candidate for Fremantle, Sherry Sufi, has resigned “because today has gone so badly for the L-NP that chucking another stinking nappy on the heap would help to bury it”.
    😀

  39. Cormann’s waffle about the July 1st tax cuts is pure gold. He kinda said it will not matter because people cant lodge until after June 30th. Pure waffle at its best. 🙂

  40. Ugh, I must have been as frustrated as Epstein to listen to Cormann.

    For a policy that is about “jobs and growth” x1000, the forward 5 year forecast shows no increase in jobs growth whatsoever.

  42. While I am no Greens fan, the di Natale stuff is meh!

    Payment in kind probably goes on a lot more than we think … and always increases in a downturn

  44. On the medicare/AMA thing: where is the Pharmacy Guild on this. If a % of people don’t go to drs they’ll likely stop taking important medications

  46. Re internet connection – I have had 30 -40 minutes of uninterrupted connection…. fingers are crossed. “God bless all who sail in her”

  47. <blockquote“Labor has threatened the Liberal Party that if it directs preferences to the Greens in Melbourne, the ALP will retaliate by helping Nick Xenophon snare Coalition-held seats in South Australia.

    Why don’t they do it anyway. I’d love to see Pyne get his lumps, the annoying little pain in the arse.

  48. Jenauthor @1594:
    The Pharmacy Guild are to public health what Kate Carnell is to public service. I’ve rejoined the AMA in response to Brian Owler’s leadership.

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