With four days to go …

Newspoll state and demographic breakdowns, Senate intelligence, and a strange result from the Northern Territory.

A few bits and pieces to report:

• The Australian has published Newspoll breakdowns derived from its last three polls by the usual range of indicators: state, gender, age and metro/non-metro. The most interesting finding is that the Coalition has recovered in Western Australia, where it records a 4% swing to Labor compared with 7% in the previous breakdown of polling conducted in April and May.

• Appearing on Andrew Bolt’s program on Sky News, Peta Credlin offered an appraisal of the Senate situation that chimes very well with my own Senate analyses, suggesting the Nick Xenophon Team will win three seats in South Australia, Jacqui Lambie’s ticket will win at least one seat in Tasmania, both Glenn Lazarus and Pauline Hanson could win in Queensland (see my post below this one), Derryn Hinch will win in Victoria, David Leyonhjelm is a maybe in New South Wales, and only Western Australia looks unlikely to return any micro-parties or independents.

• The Northern Territory News reported yesterday on an “independent poll” conducted in the Darwin seat of Solomon showed Labor’s Luke Gosling leading Country Liberal Party incumbent Natasha Griggs 61-39, suggesting a swing of 12%. The poll was conducted by MediaReach last Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 513. If that doesn’t sound entirely plausible, the reports Labor’s polling shows a “51-to-49 per cent two-party-preferred contest”, presumably in their own favour.

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.

1,007 comments on “With four days to go …”

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  1. Raaraa

    I wonder if they would make more chasing tax dodgers.

    A moot question. These people and businesses are folk heroes to the Liberal Party (unless they also get social security payments) and they are not going to do anything to harm their folk heroes.

  2. pedant @ #945 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:21 pm

    Raaraa @ 11.15pm: There could also be the question of which of the two major parties got a majority of the two-party preferred vote nationwide. If, as some have speculated here, the ALP wins 51% of the TPPV but there’s a hung parliament rather than an ALP majority, they could at least try the argument that they had a stronger mandate to govern than the 49 per centers. (Such an argument might in particular cut some ice with the Xenophonites, since South Australia has that odd clause in its constitution requiring attempts to be made to draw electoral boundaries so that a party with a TPPV majority gets to govern.)

    I agree to a certain extend, but the government is formed by the number of seats a side is able to put together, rather than by the number of votes received. This is often a hot topic when the votes and seats are close together (and sometimes reversed, i.e. more votes received but less seats). It’s not just limited to Westminster governments too. A few US presidential terms had this issue.

    Popular vote numbers can be skewed if one side really sandbag their safe seats like in SA.

  4. hairy nose @ #949 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:26 pm

    Thanks for the tip re Kinokuniya Pedant – off for a little hol to Singapore in Aug and asking around for recommendations – not been there for a long long time…

    Check out Gardens by the Bay and the Singapore Zoo. The latter is world renowned, but the former is rather new built with pretty advanced technology. The two biodomes alone are worth it.

  5. tpof @ #951 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:28 pm

    Raaraa

    I wonder if they would make more chasing tax dodgers.

    A moot question. These people and businesses are folk heroes to the Liberal Party (unless they also get social security payments) and they are not going to do anything to harm their folk heroes.

    True. Always easier to go after those on welfare who have little say and powerless to defend themselves.

  6. Comrade I can’t see Windsor in particular supporting any minority government in which the Nationals are part. So I don’t believe for a second the mumbleings that he could support Turnbull.
    Regarding 2010 they did what they had a right to do and I will always support our system even when it gives us an Abbott government. That’s our system which has served us well.
    Having said that I can’t respect either Windsor or Oakshott as they owed it to the people who voted for them in 2010 to pass judgement on the decision they made at the 2013 election. They didn’t and walked away so don’t deserve to be elected in 2016.

  7. but the government is formed by the number of seats a side is able to put together, rather than by the number of votes received.

    It was argued in 2010 by Abbott and the Coalition and uncritically accepted by the media that the side that got the most TPP should be in government. That is, until the TPP just fell on the Labor side. Then they pulled out a new argument about the most seats and then they simply argued that the Gillard Labor Government was not legitimate because. And all this totally ignoring the Constitution. And not once did I see any member of the political gallery commentariat pull up Abbott and the Coalition on their gross misrepresentation of the Australian Constitution. In terms of educating the Australian public in civics the journalist class collectively and individually registered a collective fail.

  8. davidwh @ #956 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:33 pm

    Comrade I can’t see Windsor in particular supporting any minority government in which the Nationals are part. So I don’t believe for a second the mumbleings that he could support Turnbull.
    Regarding 2010 they did what they had a right to do and I will always support our system even when it gives us an Abbott government. That’s our system which has served us well.
    Having said that I can’t respect either Windsor or Oakshott as they owed it to the people who voted for them in 2010 to pass judgement on the decision they made at the 2013 election. They didn’t and walked away so don’t deserve to be elected in 2016.

    I think they would be inclined to support whichever team gets the most seats, everything else being equal. The argument would be that this would be most likely to produce stable Govt.

  9. tpof @ #957 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:35 pm

    but the government is formed by the number of seats a side is able to put together, rather than by the number of votes received.

    It was argued in 2010 by Abbott and the Coalition and uncritically accepted by the media that the side that got the most TPP should be in government. That is, until the TPP just fell on the Labor side. Then they pulled out a new argument about the most seats and then they simply argued that the Gillard Labor Government was not legitimate because. And all this totally ignoring the Constitution. And not once did I see any member of the political gallery commentariat pull up Abbott and the Coalition on their gross misrepresentation of the Australian Constitution. In terms of educating the Australian public in civics the journalist class collectively and individually registered a collective fail.

    The difference in seat was 1, and Gillard was always going to look like the easier path with Bandt and Wilkie onside.

    If the difference was a lot more in contrast, say 69 vs 74 seats, then it would be clearer who is more likely to have the first say at negotiating government.

  10. Davidwh @ 11.33

    I can’t see them supporting an Abbott-led government. Beyond that I fully expect them to support whichever government provides the best prizes for their electorates.

    Neither are natural Labor types. It’s just that the Nationals have been so weak for decades and, more significantly, the Liberals have been a policy free zone since Turnbull lost his leadership the first time.

  11. David wh

    If Windsor is there Joyce won’t be.

    I suspect Barnaby is the main issue for Joyce.

    I would think that if Turnbull has the most seats Joyce would back him, particularly if Turnbull gives some sort of undertaking not to race back the polls in a few months

    Abbott wouldn’t give that in 2010, as well as not being willing to sell his arse.

  13. Comrade I don’t believe we would have had a better government in 2010 if the Libs had been the party with the most seats and formed a minority government. It would have been a bigger shambles than Abbott 2013. For all its problems, and there were a number, the Gillard government managed to do some good things.

  14. I agree with these comments by Raaraa and Bemused respectively.

    If the difference was a lot more in contrast, say 69 vs 74 seats, then it would be clearer who is more likely to have the first say at negotiating government.

    I think they would be inclined to support whichever team gets the most seats, everything else being equal. The argument would be that this would be most likely to produce stable Govt.

    Abbott was totally untrustworthy in 2010. Turnbull would be more reliable for cross benchers. The problem is how long Turnbull would be leader.

  15. rossmcg @ #961 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:41 pm

    David wh
    If Windsor is there Joyce won’t be.
    I suspect Barnaby is the main issue for Joyce.
    I would think that if Turnbull has the most seats Joyce would back him, particularly if Turnbull gives some sort of undertaking not to race back the polls in a few months
    Abbott wouldn’t give that in 2010, as well as not being willing to sell his arse.

    Barnaby Joyce has become two people?

  18. tpof @ #953 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    And more grist for the Medicare mill. Shame this has come up so late.
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/medicare-outsourcing-a-licence-to-steal-says-billing-pioneer-margaret-faux-20160628-gptnzw.html

    Wasn’t Abbott’s innovation in medical science fund or something with that name an excuse to give money to big medical companies anyway? Rather than have universities or CSIRO do medical research, they’d rather have big profit making companies patent these medical research with taxpayer’s money.

  20. tpof @ #964 Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:43 pm

    —
    Abbott was totally untrustworthy in 2010. Turnbull would be more reliable for cross benchers. The problem is how long Turnbull would be leader.

    If a LNP minority Govt depended on the support of independents who insisted they would only deal with Turnbull, then Turnbull would be more secure.

  23. One thing about the smearing of Windsor by the ‘bottom-feeding slugs’ in ‘the Australian”: we can be assured that Windsor has been a truly upstanding citizen at least since the time he left school. No doubt his life has been thoroughly raked over by the LNP-Newscrap dirt units and this story is all they could come up with or beat up.

    Seriously though, this is a concern. Sufficiently annoy the elites (those who have power – Big Money or their political wing) and you will be investigated, exposed if they find anything (or can make something up) and smeared in one of their many media outlets.

  24. Raara

    Ah the medical research fund. I think that only came up when he realised that the Medicare copayment was a dog and they were trying it as a distraction.

    I could never quite figure how charging sick people to go to the doctor was to save money.

    Someone had the idea that it would stop people going as often. Bit like the trickle down theory on tax cuts I guess.

  28. I have enough problems dealing with colleagues who insist on going to work spreading their bugs.

    To have government insists that people earn money so that they can go to the doctor to prove that they are sick.

  29. Must say that half way through 4C I can’t see what all the whingeing was about.
    Shorten is doing very well and Sarah Ferguson is pretty even handed.
    If I was being interviewed, I would welcome the opportunity to deal head on with the tough issues being used against me. That is an opportunity to lance the boil rather than leave it fester.

  30. It was argued in 2010 by Abbott and the Coalition and uncritically accepted by the media that the side that got the most TPP should be in government. That is, until the TPP just fell on the Labor side. Then they pulled out a new argument about the most seats and then they simply argued that the Gillard Labor Government was not legitimate because.

    Either way is distortionary. The reality of the situation is that neither major party is likely to get more than approximately 40% of the primary vote, with the winner decided based on preferences from voters who don’t really want either one. But whichever side wins is guaranteed to carp on about how the Australian people have given them a mandate to implement this or that policy, despite the fact that more than half the electorate didn’t actually vote for them in the first place.

    TPP can create some bizarre outcomes, where being the biggest minority player is good enough to get the majority of the spoils. Perhaps something like proportional allocation would be more accurately representative of voter intent. Not that it would lead to more effective governments (it almost certainly wouldn’t), but it would force compromise and perhaps lead to policy that’s more reflective of what the electorate actually wants.

  32. This latest discussion about what Windsor and Oakeshott would do if they were elected to a hung parliament has been a timely reminder of what an awful excrescence on the body politic Tony Abbott was. We have been distracted by the glaring faults that Turnbull has displayed since becoming leader, but I have never seen a Federal political leader like Abbott in my lifetime and hope never to again. He poisoned his party and our nation and we are well rid of him.

  37. there is a quiet danger that some GP will go conservative a bit this week – anti change – pro the economy they have etc – a tone picked up on radio interviews …. just a thought but hopefully so wrong

  38. AR @ 11.55
    Under the Westminster system that we have there is only one test – who can command the confidence of the House of Representatives.

    All the other argy-bargy about primary votes, TPP, and who had the largest number of seats was dishonest manipulation by Abbott, acquiesced in by the commentariat, to justify why he should be PM. It was always crap and always dishonest because it ignored the fact that he was such a shifty bastard that he could only get one cross-bencher to back him (apart from the ‘independent’ National from WA) and even that was more a case of clever political positioning for his electorate.

  40. Re Zoidlord @11:58PM: of course the $3 trillion never existed except as bits on magnetic media. In any case, “The Markets” are a glorified casino, a gigantic Ponzi scheme. One day they’ll collapse in a heap.

  42. TPOF

    Exactly. 76 is the magic number. TPP and stuff is just playing with stats. Like in footy having more shots is no good if they are not goals.
    I suspect that 76 might be very close to what TCT ends up with. hopefully a few less.

  43. ” There is still a fog enshrouding this decision, as we try and work out the consequences and the implications.”

    Australian Foreign Miniser Julie Bishop admitting she knows no more about the implications of Brexit than Davo and Jacko at the pub

  44. Australian Foreign Miniser Julie Bishop admitting she knows no more about the implications of Brexit than Davo and Jacko at the pub

    To be fair, that is about how much Boris Johnson knows about it too.

  46. pedant Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 11:16 pm

    Raaraa @ 11.13pm: I would guess they are doing quite well, because I rather think there’s another Kinokuniya shop in Singapore that I’ve not visited. There were certainly plenty of people buying when I was there last month.

    There are two Kinokuniya stores in Singapore that I know of. The one in Orchard Road is the bigger of the two, by a wide margin. There’s also a Kinokuniya store in Sydney: http://www.kinokuniya.com.au/

  50. Labour’s imploding. Corbyn won’t jump so they’ll have to push him, and right now, he’s still got the backing of the biggest unions and the big grassroots campaigns. They’re destroying their party.

    Makes Rudd-Gillard look like handbags at ten paces.

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