BludgerTrack: 52.2-47.8 to Labor

Movement back to the Coalition on BludgerTrack this week, as Ipsos and Essential deliver the government relatively encouraging results.

The return of Ipsos this week threw a spanner in the BludgerTrack works, since its results were starkly divergent from the trend of the other two pollsters, to an extent that went well beyond the pollster’s observed peculiarities before the election. In particular, the primary vote for Labor was four points below anything recorded by Newspoll or Essential since the election; the Coalition were about two points below its recent form; and the Greens came in about six points on the high side. My general strategy for bias adjustment had been to use half measures of the difference between election result and trend measurements for the relevant pollster, but that wasn’t remotely adequate to cover the peculiarity of this Ipsos result. So, for the time being at least, I’m incorporating Ipsos in a way that is all-but-neutral to the overall calculation, but in which the trendlines will be affected by the movement in Ipsos results (or will be, when there is more than one Ipsos result to go off).

Despite the Ipsos numbers having little impact on this week’s result, there has been a fairly solid move back to the Coalition on the voting intention reading, which partly reflects the recent trend of Essential Research, which has had Labor’s lead over the past fortnight narrowing from 53-47 to 51-49. On the BludgerTrack seat projection, this translates into gains for the Coalition of two seats in Western Australia, and one apiece in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Here the Ipsos numbers did play a role, since its state breakdowns were particularly strong for the Coalition in Western Australia and South Australia. Ipsos also makes as much difference as it would always have done to the leadership ratings, the model for which begins with the Malcolm Turnbull prime ministership. Reflecting to the overall strength of the Ipsos result for the Coalition, Malcolm Turnbull records a solid recovery on net approval, to the extent of almost closing the gap on Bill Shorten, and widened his lead as preferred prime minister.

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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.

1,118 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.2-47.8 to Labor”

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  1. Guytaur

    Like most police, military and security they “fix” something when it is no longer relevant.
    These days with drones all the rage, I assume if you seriously wanted to attack parliament house you would use a drone. A fence will not fix that.

  2. Actually did catch up with the interview, and it was amazingly benign in comparison to previous efforts. Was disappointed that Shorten didn’t mention climate change in any of his priorities etc.

    Did a report just for you last night. 🙂

    Yes, surprised climate and NBN didn’t get a passing mention. It may be that Shorten thinks large infrastructure projects will always have some issues and doesn’t want to make a rod for his own back in government?

  3. Laura Tingle
    1 hr ·
    In which we don’t let the whole Bell/Brandis controversy disappear under the weight of parliamentary hijinx on backpackers and in which the wonderful David Rowe has more bell fun

    http://www.afr.com/opinion/so-did-george-brandis-run-dead-on-300-million-in-tax-payments-20161201-gt1s1d

    Indeed. ANd she raises some interesting points around timing:

    There are two contentious allegations around all this.

    The first is that Brandis’ actions reflected a deal done between Canberra and the Barnett government in which Canberra would not contest the WA legislation as a way of helping the state make up a GST shortfall. Brandis denies he was aware of any deal. But if he didn’t know about the deal, why did he delay so long?

    The second allegation is that Brandis variously instructed Gleeson to avoid the revenue argument or run dead on it in the High Court.

    Given Gleeson was almost certainly already engaged by the ATO on the revenue point, it seems that it is probably not exactly what happened. What we don’t know is whether Brandis actually instructed Gleeson not to act for the ATO; resisted Gleeson’s advice that the Commonwealth should intervene on both the tax and corporations questions; and/or was only prepared to proceed on the corporations power questions against advice.

  4. Bemused,

    You raise a interesting point re backpackers.

    I do not think the tax will stop them coming to Australia as such but will it have any effect on them working in Australia and will it hurt the farmers and growers who rely on their slave labor ?

    It will be interesting to see if backpackers go to NZ to work then, once they have a bank behind them, travel to Australia simply to holiday.

    It might not hurt the tourism sector but there still cold be a significant hit to farmers as labor dries up.

    Anyway, the proof is in the pudding. All this is moot until the effects wash through.

    It will be interesting though to see how this all plays out with the ” rich white kids from Europe “.

    Cheers.

  5. A few days back ABC News had some farmer complaining he had a lot of rotten fruit and couldn’t get enough pickers. He put this down to negative publicity from parliament so we will have to wait and see if the tax creates a deterrence. My view is everyone should have the same tax rates.

  6. I agree with Guytaur on the Greens deal.

    On 7:30 Sales asked if the ALP were being petty fighting over a few percent and Shorten had a good comeback. “If you want to talk about petty, the government just spent 100 million taxpayer dollars to avoid dealing with the ALP.”

  7. daretotread @ #51 Friday, December 2, 2016 at 10:18 am

    Guytaur
    Like most police, military and security they “fix” something when it is no longer relevant.
    These days with drones all the rage, I assume if you seriously wanted to attack parliament house you would use a drone. A fence will not fix that.

    Yes! With a bomb cunningly disguised as a pizza for Big George. 😆

  8. A phone caller to Jon Faine on radio 774 yesterday noted that fruit and vegetable markets are cash economy and he doubted the growers would complete Tax forms properly

    Personally I think that fruit pickers should pay the same tax rate irrespective of whether they are Australian or not, ie zero tax on first $18000

  9. Barnaby seems to be a bit touchy about the deal with the greens. His pressed jet now is all about trying to justify the decision and blaming labor.

    Not exactly a victory lap.

    Cheers.

  10. Did the Greens ask what was going to be cut to pay for the $100 million going into Landcare ? From what Scrott said on RN he’s going to pay for it by cutting something else.

  11. Scrott said on RN he’s going to pay for it by cutting something else.

    What else would you expect? I hope ScoMo’s wife keeps a tight grip on the housekeeping.

  12. bemused

    …because there isn’t a tax free threshold for overseas workers, as they are not Australian residents.

    At one stage, backpackers (apparently) weren’t classed as overseas workers. This interpretation of the Tax Act was challenged, and it was ruled that they were.

  13. $100 million to Landcare sounds so very worthy. I bet the money is quickly channeled into Landcare WA in time to prop up National seats just before the WA election in March – may not be enough time for that

    I doubt the full $100 million will get to Landcare, there are many ways to lose it in administering the funds

    Meanwhile the Great Barrier Reef will suffer further bleaching

    It’s as pointless as Xenophon caving in on ABCC after his protests about Barnaby plans to steal 450 gigalitres of Murray Darling water for the cotton and rice farmers of Queensland and NSW.

  14. Don’t know what happened there, but was thanking Question for the report and noting that he is both a scholar and a gentleman.

  15. Just been watching yesterday’s Question Time on You Tube. Nobody behind Banyard was smiling as he delivered his great “Swarmy” (Shawarma?) philippic against smiling Bill Shorten. How embarrassing. I hope his doctor takes him aside and tells him that another speech like that and he’ll be in a coffin (or maybe not).

  16. Is the Great Barrier Reef endangered?

    This is a no brainer, I would have thought.

    There are essentially three questions here.
    The first is endangered over what time span?
    The second is what thresholds do we set for when the Great Barrier Reef is considered to have gone.
    The third is what are the relevant trends?
    Looking a time span of the present, 700 km out of 2,600 km consists mostly of dead shallow water coral.
    Some of those corals are now covered in algae.
    Some of the dead individual corals were 150 years old.
    We can safely estimate (based on studies of fish abundance pre- and post- coral death elsewhere) that about one third of the associated fish fauna is dead as well.
    Depending on a number of variables, around 90% of the dead coral substrate might be recolonized by corals within a decade. They will not all be the same coral species. There will not all be the same abundances within species. The corals will not have the same age structure. The corals will not have the same physical structures.
    The microfauna, large invertebrate fauna and flora, and the vertebrate fauna will not be the same species composition or the same species abundances.
    We know that the incidence of coral bleaching is increasing, we know that individual incidents of coral bleaching have increased geographical spread, and we know that bleaching incidents are more intense.
    We know that the trend in SSTs is an increasing trend.
    We know that there have been perturbations in patterns of climate trends (wind speeds, storm activity, rainfall) that may have an impact on the Reef one way or another but we are unsure about the trends and their impacts.
    We know that the CO2 ocean acidification process is accelerating and we also know that some shelled species are already exhibiting shell damage. The extent and timing of the impact of acidification processes on the Reef depends partly on saturation levels and partly on the widely variable response of individual species. These are not well known. But there is absolutely no doubt at all that over time acidification processes will have a significant impact on the Reef as we know it.
    Each of these three trends is resulting in more frequent and more extensive coral kills.
    In terms of thresholds I would have thought that a basic definition in which any given coral kill event kills two-thirds of shallow water coral over a quarter of the Reef would signal that the Reef is endangered.

    If we add the trends in the three key drivers for these trends in coral death events then there can be absolutely no doubt at all about whether the Reef is endangered.

    Does all the coral in the Reef have to be in danger of dying before it is endangered?
    Or does one third dead mean that the old Great Barrier Reef is dead and we are now wondering about what the next Great Barrier Reef will look like?
    What time spans are we talking about?
    Now? Ten years? Fifty years?
    Under Frydenberg the Government will talk about investing in resilience. This essentially means paying farmers not to deluge the Reef with more acid run off, agricultural chemical run off and sediment/nutrient run-off.
    Under Frydenberg the Government will ignore any and all links between mining the Galilee and the Death of the Great Barrier Reef.
    Under Frydenberg the Government will try to invest enough money in paying off farmers to persuade UNESCO that the Reef is not endangered.
    If UNESCO has any intellectual or ethical guts at all, it will call out the Turnbull Government.

  17. There was an odd and quite telling exchange last night on the Drum between the compere and James Massola. They were noting that politicians had made conflicting claims:
    1)Morrison claimed that Swan had introduced the 32% tax rate for back-packers.
    2) Swam claimed that the Libs introduced the 32% rate in the 2015 budget.
    The two of them were discussing this in terms of the “post truth” concept and seemed genuinely at a loss to know what anyone could do in a situation like this. I have a suggestion….perhaps one of them could try actually doing some f*$%ing journalism and work out who is correct.

  18. The term “post journalism” is probably a more useful term than “post truth” as it sheets home the blame for the appalling disconnect that is now allowed to exist between right wing politicians claims and reality.

  19. Hello. A brief commment on yet another power outage in SA, or more specifically, a power outage in Victoria that led to shedding in the SA grid. Ooooh, BHP, warn that this is serious:
    http://indaily.com.au/news/local/2016/12/01/sa-disconnects-from-national-power-grid-overnight/

    So once again a problem in the state of the grid leads to aa debate about power generation. Of course, BHP have no vested interests in wanting a non renewable power generation source do they….?

    I suggested the need for another major grid link from SA to interstate way back in the discussion of the stimulus in 2008/09. Sadly it did not happen. Koutsantonis is correct to bag the Liberals for scuttling the NSW link years ago.

    Energy policy makers should not escape criticism in this. There has been so much focus on energy pricing and generation sources that the grid that delivers the power has received far too little attention. The fact that much of our energy policy is done by economists who understand pricing but not engineering analysis of infrastructure networks partly explains this.

  20. My view is that the Greens saw a good opportunity to screw a desperate gov so if they can get Turnbull & Morrison to keep to the agreement good on them. I’d advise them to count their fingers though.

  21. “”I am pleased that now I will be able to write to S&P — the rating agency — and update them on the significant progress the Government has made in having our budget measures pass through the Parliament,” he said.”

    Hi, S&P – I know you have concerns that the government doesn’t have enough money, so I’m calling to let you know that we just dropped a tax from 41% to 21% and increased spending by $100 million. So I would appreciate it if you could up our credit rating from triple A to eleventy-A

  22. MF – You’re right. Post-truth was the invention of the right wing. So the right wing are now getting very post-truth about post-truth

  23. kevjohnno @ #85 Friday, December 2, 2016 at 11:47 am

    My view is that the Greens saw a good opportunity to screw a desperate gov so if they can get Turnbull & Morrison to keep to the agreement good on them. I’d advise them to count their fingers though.

    That’s my view too. The Greens are just another political party. The main thing that bothers me about them is the level of their sanctimoniousness. Like every political party, including the one I support, they need to take their opportunities where they find them – unless they risk blowing up their supporter base.

    In this case, the opportunity of getting an outcome that it (and Labor and others) were holding out for in a way that allowed the matter to be finally settled was too good a one to pass up. While I would have been delighted to see Labor get a big political victory out of this, the real possibility is that stupid government would have held out even if it meant blowing up their own supporters. After all that is exactly what they did to Labor over boats.

    As it is, Labor will not lose votes it never had and the Coalition – especially the Nats – could see their votes dissipate into third parties, even occasionally the Greens.

  24. Agree Martha re post journalism. A lot of the time they simply act as scribes in transmitting what pollies (libs esp.) say, without scrutinising for any semblance of truth.

    And because they’re so busy tweeting and reading the reactions of their colleagues on their phones, they don’t listen to what’s being said in answer to questions to know that they’ve just been showered with bullshit … they simply pass it along as gospel.

  25. Laura Tingle’s article today says that George B has big questions to answer. That is basically the kiss of death from the doyen of the Press Corps. He’s done.

  26. Memo to Malcolm: using terms like “Post-Truth” will not win you many votes. It makes you sound like an over-entitled Eastern Suburbs knob.

  27. Anton
    In terms of credibility Brandis is long done. But with a leader barely hanging on in the party room, Brandis is only done if Turnbull can afford to do without his vote.

  28. Since politicians will not say it, I will. The people who voted for Donald Trump were not only racist and sexist. Trump voters were also morons. They imagined a billionaire would “drain the swamp”, the very swamp that has enriched him. No, he simply appoints swamp dwellers to his cabinet:
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/is-donald-trump-draining-the-swamp-or-fishing-in-it-for-key-appointments-20161201-gt1idq.html

    And no, Facebook is not a news source. Have a good day all.

  29. Since politicians will not say it, I will. The people who voted for Donald Trump were not only racist and sexist. Trump voters were also morons.

    I disagree in part. They were not necessarily racist or sexist, but they were quite willing to accept a President who would enable those who are racist, especially, and sexist. In some ways that is worse. Like the Germans who turned an uninterested eye to what Hitler and the Nazis were doing to Jewish people in Germany from 1933 onwards. They just didn’t care as long as things might get better for them.

    I do agree that Trump voters are morons, though. And he has already started waterboarding those voters who turned to him with the fluids extracted from the swamps he told them he would drain.

  30. Led by Dr Naomi Langmore from the Australian National University in Canberra, the study revealed that female superb fairy-wrens create larger eggs with more nutrients during hot weather, so that chicks are stronger when they hatch and able to overcome summer’s potentially smaller access to insects and food. The findings were published this week in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B.

    The small, iridescent blue superb fairy-wren is endemic to eastern Australia, ranging in habitat from south Queensland to South Australia’s Adelaide region, as well as throughout Tasmania. This study focussed on the population found within the ACT’s Campbell Park.

    “When it’s hot and dry, chicks don’t grow very well,” explained Naomi. “So producing a larger egg with more nutrients provides more of a buffer.”

    http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2016/12/superb-fairy-wrens-are-adjusting-their-egg-size-for-the-climate?adbsc=social_20161202_68420116&adbid=804490278593642496&adbpl=tw&adbpr=34800396

  31. ‘I guess that’s a good summary of the job description for journalists in a post-factual world – they still need to know the truth so that they don’t accidentally report it.’

    Ha! Probably the most accurate comment on the current state of political journalism in this country that I’ve seen for a while.

  32. Bemused

    These days with drones all the rage, I assume if you seriously wanted to attack parliament house you would use a drone. A fence will not fix that.

    Yes! With a bomb cunningly disguised as a pizza for Big George.

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