Good news and bad news for both sides this evening courtesy of the latest ReachTEL polls for the Seven Network, which have Labor opening up a 52-48 lead on two-party preferred nationally, but trailing 54-46 in the fairly crucial Liberal-held Victorian marginal of Corangamite. The national poll has the Coalition down 1.5% to 41.1%, Labor down 0.1% to 36.5%, the Greens down 0.3% to 9.6% and the Nick Xenophon Team back up to 4.3% after an anomalous drop from 4.2% to 2.7% last time. This gives Labor a two-party lead of 52-48 after three successive results of 50-50. It should be noted that this was achieved from a heavy flow of respondent-allocated preferences to Labor: using preference flows from 2013, and folding the Nick Xenophon Team into a generic “others” category, the result would be around 50.6-49.4. Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings are stable: combined very good and good is up 0.8% to 29.4%, combined poor plus very poor is up 1.7% to 36.8%. Bill Shorten’s improving trend continues, with very good plus good up 1.2% to 29.1% and poor plus very poor down 1.5% to 36.9%. Preferred prime minister continues a slow narrowing trend, now at 54.9-45.1 in favour of Turnbull compared with 55.6-44.4 last time. The automated phone poll was conducted last night from a sample of 2700.
The Corangamite poll is quite a different matter, with Liberal member Sarah Henderson credited with 54-46 lead on two-party preferred, and 48.3% of the primary vote when a forced preference question for the 7.7% undecided is included with the result. Both numbers are exactly identical to the result in 2013, when she unseated Labor’s Darren Cheeseman with a 4.2% swing. The primary votes also record Labor losing ground to the Greens, with Labor on 27.1% and the Greens on 15.0%, compared with 32.0% and 11.9% at the election. This poll was also conducted last night, from a sample of 770.
John Hewson hints that Turnbull will make an announcement about an increase in Renewable Energy.
Turnbull proudly talking about being in business.
Yeah, like he’s done well out of procuring companies, bodging the books and then flogging them. Nearly got himself into hot water over a couple of those deals. Now he’s been shonky and corrupt in appointing Telstra execs to NBNco and look what’s happening..
In terms of votes going one way or the other, as the journos will tell us in a few minutes, “There was no knock out blow”.
If it’s true it is absolutely worth saying. What counts in politics is the politicians and their tacticians picking up inchoate feelings in the electorate and giving them sharp form and substance.
People might believe they don’t like negativity, but a sharp and accurate comment that captures how voters are starting to feel – in this case the utter failure of expectations re Turnbull – is political gold.
Tonight will not matter a inch re the election result.
Tonight was a set piece so both leaders adopted set lines. It was not a debate at all, simply a chance for each to practice the lines.
A draw would be a fair result.
Cheers.
j341983 @ #1747 Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 8:39 pm
I think that may well be the story of the election as we close in on 2 July.
I think tonight doubles down on the key themes, themes the libs votes have been disappearing under, so call it a draw if you like, it was a nil all draw as entertainment and a nill all draw on the substance front, but Cayman’s Mal the Malleable came through just as badly as he has since he took Tony’s job and his policies and Shorten is still the stumbling underdog, no one expects to win, but he has his hands firmly around the ‘fairness’ vibe and it seems to be the key vibe.
Wow… the nematodes are blinder than I thought. Maybe you were watching some other debate. Not one of you explained even one point above.
How does an alternative PM discount the capacity of government to provide a ’50 billion tax cut’ on one hand BUT THEN factor them into their own capacity to spend??? Do none of you understand basic economics??
How does an alternative PM assure the public on boat policy (which you might see as a minor issue but is a big one in the minds of those in marginal seats, poll after poll tells us) when MPs can’t maintain discipline?
How does an alternative PM rail against the school kids bonus being removed, vow to re-instate it, then backflip and capitulate, for NO REAL REASON???
Many of you think you have ‘dealt with’ a valid argument just because you recognise it. Ahem, no you haven’t dealt with it. Well done you for remembering a fair point from a few weeks ago… now, how about clearing up the complete contradictions above? Don’t you think millions of voters would be asking the same questions, or do you really think Aussies are plain stupid?
Bill. Lost. This. Badly.
Just as well they don’t affect voters much at all.
Shorten got under Turnbull’s skin, Mal hates being talked down to, everyone should realise he is the smartest person in the room.
Good ploy for the long game.
As the article linked to today Shorten’s language hits the target with the wider audience better than Turnbull.
All the knobs in the CPG can ooh and aah about how clever something dumb as tax cuts = plan for Jobson Grothe as much as they like. Real people who aren’t being paid in the six figures for output worth pennies aren’t nodding their heads thinking ‘oh how right’.
Shorten use of the “Labor’s plan for economic growth is …” about a dozen times is good communications. It makes the case that economic growth involves doing lots of good things that the vast majority, not just for a lucky few. And guess what, the vast majority will probably think the former plan sounds a better bet for them than Mal’s.
The point again tonight wasn’t to impress CPG knobheads. It was to talk directly to voters. Shorten succeeded way better. Doesn’t make much difference as not a huge amount of disengaged people will ever see it, but Turnbull needed a knockout. Even a dope like Gilbert would concede he didn’t get it.
tricot @ #1744 Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 8:38 pm
Well it is the NPC (journalists) running it. So what do you expect?
Who would you have run it?
Bluepill,
No point engaging with you, you never change your mind despite any and all evidence to the contrary of your blinkered biased views.
Is Bluepill Tony Abbott?
Hmmm, the SkyNews viewers dont agree with Fool Gilbert
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjnkzSuUkAE75Rv?format=jpg&name=large
Rua,
Exactly, Turnbull needs to be seen to be losing it, Abbott style.
The format for the debate was a safety first one agreed to by strategists from each camp.
And it showed.
‘Posturing without substance.’ Nice sum up of Turnbull by John Hewson.
bluepill @ #1758 Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 8:46 pm
The basic technique is to talk your own book and ignore the other guy….works well…your irritation is an illustration of just how well it works
Blue Pill
Poll after poll shows that nobody gives a shit about boats this election, its health and education they care about. The things Abbott said he would spend dollar for dollar the same as the ALP then didn’t.
But if the Libs want to fight the 2013 election all over again, fine. This time they lose.
Reverse that. How does a PM discount the capacity of the opposition to spend $50 billion on education, health and infrastructure while insisting it has the same money available to spend on a useless tax cut?
It’s like all that Shorten needs is the confidence that what he is doing and saying is exactly what he needs to be. Once on topic he’s great, but when called on to make the speech from cold he doesn’t quite seem to own it. Turnbull eas the reverse, quite good at delivering the right tones of oratory but when you get down to detail there’s not much there
[Cud Chewer
Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 8:38 pm
Triton, I actually liked a couple of those snipes and they sum Turnbull and his party up well. Good on Bill. Lots of other people will agree.]
It looks like Shorten is going the non-PC route and calling a spade a spade. After his direct comment on Trump, one might expect him to be direct about Turnbull. After all, some Abbott supporters have a similar opinion of Turnbull.
And a lot of voters like that – including me
And painting any politicking on boats as shameful on Turnbull’s part was tactically brilliant, it undercuts the scare campaign if that line can be successfully prosecuted
Hey ! Have a look at this.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/emergency-connie-meeting?utm_term=.pmLypMnN3#.jrpoJZdbP
I loved the ” cheap shot ” angle from Turnbull. Last week he spent much of his time going on about Billion dollar Bill etc yet he gets the shits with a little fight back tonight.
Anyway, I posted before that a draw would be my view and to add to that a draw is good for Shorten.
Cheers.
Shorten has many themes at his disposal….many more than T.
One interesting bit was T’s advocacy on education. He basically used up several minutes of his own time campaigning for Labor…for the proposition that great education matters. In effect, he was was trying to say the Libs are almost as good as Labor. He was persuasive too. He spent a couple of minutes validating Labor messages. Good to see.
Cud Chewer
[ Triton, I actually liked a couple of those snipes and they sum Turnbull and his party up well. Good on Bill. Lots of other people will agree. ]
They’d work well at the right time, but I thought the one about Turnbull being led by his party came from nowhere, as though he’d rehearsed to say it some point and blurted it out at the first half-chance when he was running out of time. It’s a powerful argument and the main reason people are disillusioned about Turnbull, so it needs to be articulated better and with more length than with a short, opportunistic aside in the course of saying something else.
No its better just done as a soundbite. Maybe it’ll be picked up and used.
With the proviso that I didn’t watch the debate, only followed a number of blogs, I would say that what really matters is the usable clips that can be reported on the various commercial news broadcasts. It seems to me that Shorten provided many of the more cutting and accurate ones that will strike a chord with people already starting to seriously doubt Turnbull’s leadership and his ability to lead his party towards the centre.
That jibe by Shorten seems to me to be very powerful if repeated. Remember, it is the uncommitted middle-class who think themselves battlers who will decide the election, the people who gave Turnbull such a massive boost in the polls after he became PM because of their expectations of him. Labor is striking at the heart of their increasing disappointment – that Turnbull has sold out everything he believes in to become PM and will never be a Leader’s bootlace.
C@t momma, you haven’t been here long enough to know about how many of my views have changed… haha… from Australia going nuclear to begrudging acceptance of boat policy and having to accept that Kevin Rudd was a turd after all. So, yeah, you have missed the mark, there.
Malcolm Turnbull was, like he has been this whole election so far, boring. He didn’t win it and he didn’t lose it.
Bill Shorten has been screwed. Screwed by those on the left publicly undermining ALP policy on boats. Screwed by that dickhead Feeney several times this week. Screwed by his own backflips of support for policy that were nobody’s fault but his own.
Blinked partisanship such as a handful of you have exhibited here is mostly a product of you hanging around with completely like-minded people. In contrast, I get my news intentionally from a political perspective opposite mine and I choose, sparingly, around elections to visit rooms like this full of group-thinking ALP sycophants. I still find such human behaviour fascinating.
If you are going to choose not to engage, I completely support you, but at least be honest about the reason why. It is more because of the power of the argument and the truth in front of you that is confronting: the ALP is not doing well and it is solely from own-goals.
Anyone who thought that the debate was a win for Turnbull, or even a draw, needs to consider who they were talking to. Turnbull addressed his answers to the assembled journalists, whereas Shorten addressed the audience at home directly.
The end result was that Turnbull would have alienated a lot of people with his unctuous barrister style, wheras Shorten would have appealed to as many as Turnbull alienated.
sprocket_ @ #1764 Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 8:49 pm
Where does one vote?
Okay so I can’t believe I fell asleep on the couch before the debate began. But it would seem I didn’t miss anything. 😀
Poll on Sky so far
40%Turnbull
60%Shorten
963 votes @ pmonair #leadersdebate
Paul Murray on Sky calls it for Shorten by a big margin.
*faints*
I noticed that Bill injected the snipes to needle Turnbull as well as highlight Turnbull’s flaws. Although everyone here is aware of how poor Turnbull’s Australian NBN many people watching the debate think its alright. They simply don’t know what they are missing.
Or, maybe Shorten forgot to mention NBN until his summary
Update
39%Turnbull
61%Shorten
1,268 votes @ pmonair #leadersdebate
I think the NSW Liberal Party tearing itself apart is not good for the image of a stable party. Next Tuesday will be fun, neither faction will take the result well if they lose. Also funny how an email only sent to 20 people gets leaked (assuming Zimmerman didn’t send one to himself) 😉
Was Turnbull’s mention of the inestimable Lucy my wife of 37 years a dig at Shorten who is on his second marriage?
Especially when Turnbull was supposed to be a fearsome communicator with an ability to sell anything.
Paul Murray must be realising how irrelevant he is becoming.
Henry:
Yikes!
BB
When you are so sick of Bill’s messages that your ears bleed, that is almost enough repetitions.
Interesting to watch the edited “soundbites” being played on ABC24 now. Much more material from Shorten there – his choice to look straight down the camera lens appears to have been wise
So, is a poll due out tonite ?
I was a bit surprised at how cheeky Shorten was.
I thought Turnbull talked in generalities. I would love me to hear more from Bill on the connection between education and health and. Strong economy. I thought that was his best argument.
Nobody is buying your crap anymore Mr Murray.
Sorry to intrude in the aftermath of the debate but am after help.
I use Firefox as my browser and up until Friday everything worked fine (including the post number and preview box). Since then however, when I try to get into Poll Bludger, the tab for pollbludger appears but the page won’t open. I have tried disabling grease monkey and CCCP and uninstalling and then re-installing Firefox but still have the same problem (i.e. the page will not open). Anybody with any ideas as to how to fix?
Because you make up sh*t. There’s no point engaging with a liar.
If anything – the stances from Shorten and Turnbull were reflective of their message and how it might be received. Turnbull spoke to the CPG and Shorten spoke to the people.