Highlights of week six

A weekly summary of pork barrelling, campaign mishaps and intelligence on the state of the horse race.

Some news items from the past week of local tactical significance, plus, for your convenience, a revised version of yesterday’s electorate seats table incorporating corrections and a few things I’d missed, and the latest reading of BludgerTrack inclusive of Friday’s Ipsos and ReachTEL polls (see below).

• In a corrective to recent published marginal seat polling and the resulting impression that Labor is not getting the swings where it needs them, Laurie Oakes reports Labor polling shows them picking up 6% swings in the Hunter region seat of Paterson, giving them a lead of 57-43; the Central Coast seat of Robertson, for a lead of 53-47; and the Perth seat of Hasluck, putting them at 50-50 (compared with a 53-47 to the Liberals in the ReachTEL poll). In the Perth fringe seat of Pearce, which Christian Porter holds for the Liberals on a margin of 9.5%, the swing is said to be 9%.

• Bill Shorten yesterday promised the federal government would contribute $400 million to a north-south rail link in western Sydney accommodating the proposed site of the Badgerys Creek airport, which would be particularly advantageous in the seats of Macarthur, Werriwa and Lindsay.

• Malcolm Turnbull travelled to Townsville on Monday to promise $1 billion of Clean Energy Finance Corporation funding would be devoted to supporting the Great Barrier Reef, through concessional loans to agricultural projects and sewage treatment plant upgrades. Target seats include Leichhardt, Herbert, Dawson, Capricornia and Flynn.

• The Nationals are taking Cowper seriously enough to have had Barnaby Joyce visit the electorate on Tuesday to promise $1.25 million on an upgrade of the Port Macquarie airport.

• The Liberal candidate for the winnable Melbourne fringe seat of McEwen, Chris Jermyn, was in the news for the third time during the campaign on Thursday, when The Age reported the Christmas Hills address at which he was enrolled was an “empty block of land”. The Australian reported yesterday he was actually enrolled at a house in Wallan, but it appears he was enrolled at the Christmas Hills address when he voted at the 2013 election.

bludgertrack-2016-06-18

2016-06-19-marginal-seat-polls

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.

1,126 comments on “Highlights of week six”

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  7. Pedant@#1087:
    Nah. Oakshott Country’s is the plumber. I’m an Infectious Disease physician. I can do a decent plague or Job lot of boils, though I doubt whether tests of faith from a devout atheist like me would satisfy Edi’s cosmology.

  8. lindsay ross @ #756 Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 7:54 pm

    Next Sunday appears to be an opportune time for Bill and Chloe Shorten to feature on one of the Sunday evening commercial current affairs programs. Not only would this expose their ‘human side’ in the time honoured fashion of political campaigns, but will take some air out of the Liberal launch.

    You are assuming that the Liberal launch isn’t something Labor would want to get as much exposure as possible.
    It could well turn out that way.

  9. Douglas and Milko,
    Anyone who commits child sacrifice to a god (Molec) probably should be stoned but apart from that, not really needed these days.

  10. zoomster
    Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 10:34 pm

    Yes, Lee’s school doesn’t sound like any school I’ve ever seen or heard of, and the schools in this area are amongst the state’s most disadvantaged.

    Typical selfish neoliberal trash talk.

    For your info, i’m doin ok. trust me. its not me I worry about. neoliberal policies actually help people like me. Its the battlers I worry about. you can call me a liar or fabricator, whatever. Our so called public education system is a joke.

    BTW. higgins is home to a few massive social housing towers, the type you see in outer london. hideous. which schools do you think these kids go to? leafy lower middle class suburbs? no. They go to struggling, crumbling inner city schools who need to deal with much more than basic education, next door to the wealthiest schools in the country rubbing their neoliberal results and larger public funding in their little faces. Trust me when I say its a disgrace. Do you know what the headmaster told my wife and I when the first issue arose? In not so many words, she said what are you doing here, you’ve got money, get your kid outa here.

    You tories know nothing. labor are scum. liberals are scum. Always excuses excuses.

  11. WarrenPeace, I am in good humour and not all of my posts have been completely serious, but beneath that I certainly do have very strong religious beliefs which do include all sex outside of marriage being wrong.

  12. Ed_Mahin
    Cat, you asked the first question.

    Well no, you were the one that tried to suggest that Shorten was somehow deficient in his personal life. Comments of that nature are going to get challenged.

  13. JimmyDoyle, divorce is a failing in ones personal life. If he is going to put up his wife as part of the political debate then it becomes fair game to mention it.

  16. Given the Greens education policy is essentially “implement Gonski” ie. exactly the same as Labor’s, I’d love to know what exactly Lee thinks is so bad about Labor’s policy.

    Not that the incoherent gibbering contributed thus far give me any hope of a clear and articulate argument, mind.

  17. Pedant@1034

    The FakeTradie reminds me a bit of “Joe the Plumber” who figured, to no great benefit for the Republicans, during the 2008 US presidential election. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out who the FakeTradie really is.

    I was working in Chile during 2008, and was amused to see all the talk about “Jose el Gasfiteria”.

  20. diogenes @ #834 Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 8:45 pm

    BW
    As Whitlam said, “Only the impotent are pure.”
    Almost all of the Greens vs Labor war boils down to pragmatism vs idealism.

    It is possible to simultaneously believe in the ideals and be prepared to recognise reality and temper those ideals to what the electorate will accept. Then at least some of the ideals can be attained.
    Greens live in a binary world of all or nothing and inevitably get nothing.

  21. It is possible to simultaneously believe in the ideals and be prepared to recognise reality and temper those ideals to what the electorate will accept.

    Exactly.

  22. Edi_Mahin: Sex is immoral except between a married couple, the rest should not happen.

    1. Why is this even being discussed?

    2. Okay, so then don’t have sex with anyone other than your partner, and don’t worry about what anyone else chooses to do. You’re welcome to hold and to practice your views on morality. The rest of us don’t have to agree or play along.

  23. a b @ #882 Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 9:15 pm

    Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t reckon the sight of Gillard is anywhere near as powerful in reigniting memories of the RGR era than Rudd is. I was happy to see Gillard there today, and just as happy not to see Rudd there.

    Yeah, right.
    Then why was it that Gillard was the one so hated by the electorate (as opposed to PB)?

  24. jimmydoyle @ #985 Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 10:01 pm

    Edi_MahinSex is immoral except between a married couple

    Edi
    Think about it. Out there right now, all over the world, people are copulating to their hearts, and other parts of their bodies, content. A fraction of those will be married, some even to each other.

  26. flabbergasting intro from Leigh tonight… total panic has set into the LNP spear throwers .
    Completely given up on any sense of impartiality

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