BludgerTrack is now updated with all of the federal polling published over the past few days, results of which are displayed at the bottom of this post. As has been the case since at least the start of the campaign period, the tracker is resolute in recording an effective dead heat on two-party preferred, with the seat projection continuing to point towards a slender absolute majority for the Coalition. The latest addition to the aggregate is the weekly reading of Essential Research’s fortnightly rolling aggregate, which echoes BludgerTrack in coming in at 50-50 on two-party preferred. This follows a two-point movement the previous week that turned a 51-49 Coalition deficit into a 51-49 Coalition lead. On the primary vote, the Coalition is steady at 41%, Labor is up one to 36%, the Greens are up one to 9%, and the Nick Xenophon Team is steady on 4%.
Further questions offer some encouragement for Bill Shorten with respect to perceptions of the two leaders during the campaign, although I wonder how good respondents are at isolating that period specifically. The results find 20% saying they have become more favourable towards Shorten versus 21% for less favourable, but these are much better than Malcolm Turnbull’s respective figures of 7% and 33%. Another dose of Essential’s “party trust to handle issues” records a big drop in the Coalition’s lead on managing the economy since a month ago, down from 20% to 12%, with most other measures remaining fairly stable. An occasional question on climate change records a four point drop since March in those attributing it to human activity to 59%, and a one point increase in those favouring the alternative option of it being “a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate” to 28%. Most of the survey period was before large parts of Sydney’s northern beaches crumbled into the sea. Further questions confirm the impression that the electorate has been less than fully switched on during the first half of the campaign marathon, with only 14% claiming to have shown a lot of interest in the campaign, compared with 39% for some interest, 27% for very little interest and 18% for no interest.
Federal election bits and pieces:
• Labor’s candidate in Malcolm Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth, Evan Hughes, has provided Fairfax with results of a ReachTEL poll he commissioned showing a 10% swing against Turnbull, reducing his margin from 18% to 8%. The poll was conducted last Tuesday from a sample of 626.
• Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reports Labor optimism about the regional Queensland seats of Capricornia and Herbert is not matched for the state’s capital. The northern suburbs seat of Petrie, held by the LNP on a margin of 0.5%, is identified as a seat where Labor is falling short. A similar prognosis was offered in my own paywalled article in Crikey on Thursday.
• More of my words of wisdom on the campaign can be found on a podcast for The Conversation, and in a review of northern Tasmania’s flood-stricken marginal seats in a paywalled Crikey article yesterday.
• Mark the Ballot tracks Sportsbet’s win probabilities for all 150 electorates to the start of the campaign. Sportsbet has substantially revised its odds over the course of the campaign in favour of the Liberals in Banks, Hindmarsh and Lyons, the Liberal National Party in Leichhardt, the Greens in Batman, Labor in Cowan, and Bob Katter in Kennedy.
• Fairfax reports the Victorian Liberal Party’s administration committee discussed, but ultimately decided against, disendorsing McEwen candidate Chris Jermyn following his struggles before the news cameras as he gatecrashed a Bill Shorten event in Sunbury last weekend.
• An alleged promise by South Australian property developer Roostam Sadri to donate $500,000 to the Liberal Democratic Party in exchange for the top position on its South Australian Senate ticket has been referred to police by the Australian Electoral Commission, as reported yesterday by Josh Taylor of Crikey. This followed last week’s publication by Fairfax of an apparent written agreement to that effect. Sadri denies having paid such an amount, or that there was ever a “formal agreement”. The section of the Electoral Act pertaining to bribery offences provides, with helpful exactitude, that “a person shall not ask for, receive or obtain, or offer or agree to ask for, or receive or obtain, any property or benefit of any kind, whether for the same or any other person, on an understanding that the order in which the names of candidates nominated for election to the Senate whose names are included in a group in accordance with section 168 appear on a ballot paper will, in any manner, be influenced or affected”. Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland’s TC Beirne School of Law notes that Section 362 of the Act states that candidates forfeit their seats if involved in bribery, and that this requires only the civil rather than the criminal standard of proof. This could equally apply to David Leyonhjelm’s bid for re-election in New South Wales as to Roostam Sadri’s run in South Australia, if the Fairfax report’s assertion that Leyonhjelm “considered entering” an agreement was substantiated.
Further afield:
• The Northern Territory News offers a reminder that a territory election looms on August 27, and the Northern Territory News offers a helpful reminder with a Mediareach poll of 400 respondents in the Alice Springs electorates of Araluen and Braitling. The pollster appears to have failed to ask a follow-up question to prompt the 23% undecided, rendering it of little value, but it’s presumably instructive that less than 40% of decided respondents said they would vote for the Country Liberal Party, compared with 68% at the 2012 election.
• The Sydney Morning Herald reports the NSW Electoral Commission is investigating allegations of vote-rigging during Labor’s American primary-style “community preselection” process for the seat of Ballina ahead of last year’s state election. It is alleged that a party official used details on enrolled voters from the party’s database to fraudulently vote on their behalf during the online ballot, although the unnamed official is quoted saying he had merely “played along” when asked to do so by persons unidentified. The proposed beneficiary was the favoured candidate of head office and the ultimate victor in the preselection, Paul Spooner, with no suggestion that Spooner himself was involved. The formerly Nationals-held seat went on to be won by the Greens.
Perhaps Andrews could bring in the Great Negotiator Hawke, or (secretly) his apprentice Shorten.
Although on the whole I think Shorten is better to keep well out of the way, especially as the PM stuck hos nose in.
sorry, that should be the seat of Herbert, not Hinkler.
“” Labor plans to abolish the private health insurance rebate for quack remedies. I’m surprised these were allowed in the first place.””
Who introduced the rebate was it Howard, these people are incapable of writing
legislation that is NOT full of LOOP HOLES!.
aaronkirk
I would be looking closely at Hinkler as well in Queensland as a potential ALP gain
—————-
Noted, thank you
Do you not get that the “fireys dispute” has changed its nature with the ruling from the FWA commissioner? It’s not just seen as about pay negotiations now, it is now clearly about changing the relationship between the volunteers and the paid firefighters/staff. Once you’ve firmly put imposed organisational change over a largely volunteer organisation there is an order of magnitude increase in emotion and people affected – political dynamite at the best of times, let alone in the middle of a federal election campaign.
Treat volunteer movements with kid gloves. Don’t throw your weight around as either a government or a union. I would have thought these were political maxims, but they seem to have escaped the Andrews government somehow.
The Vic Supreme Court has just issued an injunction (lodged by the Volunteers Association) preventing the EBA being signed before a full hearing Tuesday
kevin-one-seven @ #1402 Friday, June 10, 2016 at 1:13 pm
Richard Willingham of The Age says fellow MPs are critical of her for not solving the dispute after it ‘s dragged on for so long, so she might have a problem there. But they seem to be the only ones. There have been glowing tributes from just about everyone else, though that has its downside. Andrew Bolt says Jane Garrett for premier, an endorsement she can probably do without.
The only way the Coalitions Budget will hold up, is if they get control of the Senate.
Good Luck with that!.
Bolt would have everyone as a volunteer in his world.
As rightly pointed out above, the CFA issue is a federal issue due to the FWA being used. The FWA is there to look after workers, not volunteers.
The gun has now been loaded and aimed at the CFA board by the Andrews government and not over pay (19% rise mind you).
rummel
Who resolves the dispute then, if not the FWA?
It’s been going on for years, so obviously a negotiated agreement will just see it drag on further.
At some stage, someone has to make a decision. I would have thought a disinterested third party doing so was the best option available.
What is all the gosip with the ‘draw of the card’ in the key seats ?
In Wannon ALP has a perfect donkey vote (not that its a key seat)
zoomster –
Can you explain what the dispute is?
Zoomster
[Who resolves the dispute then, if not the FWA?]
A very good point and I dare say not thought of when drafting the FWA. Quite simply you are using a Federal instrument to bash 60,000 people who give up all the time for free into submission.
zoomster
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-08/victoria-cfa-union-eba-dispute-explained/7492684
For those who want some background on the Vic Fireys’ dispute, the FWC recommendation is here: http://cfaonline.cfa.vic.gov.au/mycfa/Show?pageId=publicDisplayDoc&docId=026463 .
I will need some time to read it, and to form any opinion of who is being reasonable and who is not, but I have already noticed this at para 4: In the more recent conciliation sessions it appears to me that the CFA have sought to ignore the long and sensitive bargaining process that has been before me since November 2015.
Makes me think that perhaps we shouldn’t leap to conclusions in favour of the CFA Board and the volunteers.
Mike Kelly has quit the Army Reserve over his use of uniform images in campaign flyers
Mirabella gets the second spot on the Indi ticket, behind a minor independent. McGowan and Labor in the middle of the field (nine runners)
Column 1 in the Victorian Senate ballot paper goes to Derryn Hinch. His chances of election will be helped by the donkey vote.
rummel
Put it as simply as you like, but that doesn’t answer the question – how can the dispute be resolved, given that years of negotiation have gone nowhere? If the FWA isn’t the body to deal with it, who is?
Well Leyonhjelm will be happy. The Liberal Democrat group is listed just before the Liberal group on the NSW Senate ballot. He might be able to again snag a few confused voters.
CM – Hysterical. All that any con-man could want.
Zoomster,
It’s up to Daniel Andrews. He just needs to change the EBA to remove the anti volunteer parts. aka. Splitting the uniforms by paid and not paid. Kicking out and segregating volunteers from areas within their own stations to be reserved for use of paid staff only………. It’s not hard.
I have read the news reports, what I meant was can someone explain what actually needed to be resolved here.
There were the pay negotiations, but that’s a distinct issue and no one particularly cares about that in this escalation.
The question I have is why the organisational changes have been pushed through – were there actual organisational failings related to the relationship between volunteers and paid staff? If not why did these organisational changes need to be addressed at all at the moment? It sounds a lot like a set of things that the union kind of wants but really should never have been a big deal and should never have been forced on the volunteers.
There can be no sense in which a dispute between a paid unionized workforce and a volunteer movement can be considered as a run-of-the mill industrial dispute.
If there weren’t pressing issues (apart from pay) that needed to be addressed this should never have come to the head that it has.
Katherine Murphy on the Guardian seems to be assuming that labor booked some of the “zombie” measures as savings in their earlier sums. That can’t be right. It’s not, is it?
CFA Board says they are not resigning and will not say or do anything until Tuesday because of the court action
But the union will not like that. They want the uniform split, the want the station split and that’s why they are not backing down.
Lion is not as stupid as he looks running with the Liberal Democrat name.
The latest revelations on the Hornsby Fiasco bring out some interesting facts:
1. The patient was “sectioned” and his file marked “not to be released under any circumstances” from Hornsby Mental Health Service (HMHS).
2. This was over-ridden by a senior psychiatrist, who allowed him 1 hour per day’s leave.
3. He absconded once and was retrieved from Melbourne(!).
4. Soon after, he had a loud shouting match with his family, during a visit, stormed past them and absconded again.
5. One or more of the police who shot him had previously brought him back to HMHS, a couple of times. They knew him personally.
6. It is reported that one of the reasons he was to be detained was his expression of homicidal threats… against police.
From this we could speculate:
1. The cops won’t be very happy with HMHS.
2. The cops who shot him may have been aware of his homicidal, anti-police sentiments.
3. This may have contributed to the shootings (and he was carrying a knife, i.e. was potentially homicidal specifically against police, perhaps these very police).
4. This is a fuck-up of monumental proportions as:
(a) The shootings were carried out in a public place, with innocent members of the public seriously hurt.
(b) There may have been a serious lapse of duty of care on behalf of HMHS.
(c) There may have been a serious lapse of duty of care on behalf of the NSW Police Service.
(d) There will be a huge scandal as this erupts, with the Police blaming Health, and vice versa. Only a full investigation has any chance of bringing out the truth, but it will need to be done at the highest levels, higher than the Police and higher than NSW Mental Health.
(e) I wouldn’t like to be the doctor who authorized his release, especially after he’d already absconded once.
(f) The HSU is screaming blue murder about the lack of trained security personnel on Mental Health campuses.
(g) I wouldn’t like to be a director of any regional NSW Mental Health service right now, as they will almost certainly all be about to have a large dose of salts put through their operations.
rummel
From my reading, most of those things weren’t ever going to happen. They were specific claims for the professional firefighters, nothing to do with CFA.
For example, barring volunteers from certain areas was only suggested for fire stations staffed solely by professional firefighters, not for joint facilities.
As for ‘splitting the uniforms’ I have no idea what you mean. My husband’s CFA outfit looks nothing like the firefighters one now, so obviously they’re already split.
BB
Great post as usual.
zoomster
To put it politely – bugger.
david peterson @ #1429 Friday, June 10, 2016 at 2:01 pm
Bill Leadbetter will win Hasluck. Tammy Solonec is very likely to win Swan. Labor may surprise too in Stirling or Pearce or both. There are lots of issues in Pearce as there are in Swan….NBN, unemployment, traffic congestion, infrastructure, education cuts, Lib incompetence and broken promises….big margins, hard to win, but possible…:)
Zoomster
Quote from Lara CFA Brigade on stations;
“When the EBA was released on the CFA website for us to read we were shocked to read that in Schedule 1 on page 266 in the EBA it requires 4 paid firefighters be placed at Lara as at July 1st 2018 whether we need them or not (sometimes we can go for 2 weeks without a fire call!) and the EBA (page 388) also outlines which doors and what part of fire a station we will and will not be allowed into because we are volunteers, a station within which the Lara volunteers paid for many enhancements via sausage sizzles and other fund raising. This is not in keeping with the promoted UFU line of “Volunteers will continue to do what they do now”. This is not in keeping with the One CFA policy!”
rummel
Andrews has made a decision, which is to accept the FWA recommendations. He has added to this by putting in some strong measures to protect volunteers, including a mechanism for if there are disputes between the paid firefighters and volunteers.
So the FWA has made a decision, the government has accepted it and beefed it up a little, but it seems the CFA wants absolutely 100% its own way on everything or else – that’s not a good faith negotiation, and it’s not a real world one, either.
In NSW I have worked as a RFS volunteer for close to 30 years. What is going on with the CFA at present will have a very large impact, if the same ‘in shed’ discussions go on as in NSW sheds (stations). This is far from over if the Vic government does not back down. Volunteers are a special body most unlike the paid service in their attitude. They would have a very big community support, far bigger than the paid service.
All the hysteria over the CFA thing, really?
Those of us outside Victoria have zero interest in it, and Shorten’s meant to suspend his entire campaign to deal with a state government matter?
Briefly – has Labor yet preselected a candidate in Stirling?
Mirrabella is toast, the NAT will squeeze up the middle and win the seat
Reachtel poll out tonight on Channel 7 news, and one in Gilmore too, I think
Typical Morrison talking without knowing what he’s saying
“They remain in a big black hole. They threw a few pebbles in it today but they’ve gone nowhere near filling it.”
Adding a few pebbles to a black hole increases, not decreases, the size of the Schwarzschild radius. Get your analogies right.
rummel
There’s a lot of misinformation flying around on this issue. I’m not pretending to be across it, just trying to pick my way through it, and I’m getting conflicting stories from people in this area I trust and who know more than I do.
However, in the end I’m left with a decision made by a third party organisation, with no skin in the game, endorsed by a Premier who so far has done little to shake my faith in him.
I asked you who you thought should make the decision, and you nominated Andrews. Well, he has made a decision. It may not be the one you like, but it’s been obvious for years now that a decision everyone liked was never going to happen.
Labor’s odds in Stirling – 2.75
Not bad, against Michael Keenan
New England
5. ALP
7. Winsor
8. Joyce
9. Green
CM @ 3:08 and K-1-7 @ 3:10
I don’t think the draw helps Leyonhjelm at all. He’s in column D and the Liberals and Nationals are close by in column F. Even if people see “Liberal Democrat” in Column D, they should also see “Liberal Party / National Party” in Column F and have a good chance to work it out. Especially as they’re instructed to look across the whole ballot to find 6 groups to preference.
What helped Leyonhjelm in 2013 was drawing Column A, while the Liberals and Nationals were in the middle of the ballot paper. Some confused voters saw Liberal Democrat in Column A, voted 1 for that group and never found the actual Liberals and Nationals way off on the right hand side.
And more importantly, anyone got a source for all the ballot orders?
Order of Senate ticket listing (of parties that could realistically win a Senate seat) in SA:
1. Labor (Group B)
2. Greens (Group D)
3. Xenophon (Group F)
4. Liberal (Group H)
5. Family First (Group N)
I know most of you aren’t in SA, so it doesn’t matter to you (if it doesn’t interest you, scroll past) but I am highlighting this one because of how potentially volatile this state’s Senate results could be.
SB @ 3:28
http://www.aec.gov.au/election/candidates.htm
I haven’t had time to check the news or anything, but this site seems pretty morose. Very few comments on Labor’s spending cuts. Were they that bad?
http://www.aec.gov.au/election/candidates.htm