BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor

The second last BludgerTrack reading of the year records very slight movement to Labor, and marginal improvement for both leaders on net approval.

First, Crikey has a seasonal offering this week of 25% off for gift subscriptions. If you’re a subscriber already, you can get $33 off a renewal (and also enjoy my piece today on Rod Culleton’s resignation from One Nation).

Second, I forgot to post the latest BludgerTrack update at the close of business last night, mostly because the result wasn’t very interesting, with only the usual Essential Research to add to the dataset. Labor gains 0.2% on two-party preferred, together with projected seats in Victoria and Queensland. Essential also included its monthly leadership ratings, causing a very slight improvement in both leaders’ net approval ratings. Essential will have one result for the year tomorrow, which will presumably be a wrap for all federal polling in 2016. However, The Australian should have Newspoll’s quarterly state and demographic breakdowns, along with scattered state results.

bt2019-2016-12-14

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.

235 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor”

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  1. Osman Faruqi Verified account 
    ‏@oz_f
    The Australian Business Register (which manages ABN’s etc) has been down for two weeks now. A complete shambles.

  3. President-elect Donald Trump has thanked his “violent” and “vicious” supporters at a victory rally in Orlando, but also urged them to “be cool” after his presidential election victory.

    Following his election win in November, Mr Trump has been touring the country holding “Thank You” rallies in the states that helped bring him victory.

    At each stop Mr Trump has recapped his election night triumph and done little to quiet criticism directed at his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

    In Florida, Mr Trump remembered his general election foe by joking: “We had fun fighting Hillary, didn’t we?”

    http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-18/donald-trump-thanks-violent-vicious-supporters-in-florida/8130206

  4. Mark Dreyfus ‏@markdreyfusQCMP · 2h2 hours ago

    Turnbull said four days ago plebiscite “remains government policy”. Today killed off in MYEFO. Didn’t he know his own budget? #auspol

  5. Like effective action on climate change, effective taxation of big business, especially multinationals and effective action on housing affordability, same sex marriage is off the agenda while the Coalition remains in office.

  6. From old thread and off topic, but something I found amusing:

    Here are some funny, unusual and bizarre place names in Australia, with map references:

    http://www.list-directory.info/lists/place-names.html

    Foul Bay, SA, looks a nice place. There’s No Where Else, Tasmania, not exactly in the middle of Nowhere but about 30km from Devonport. Then there’s Cock Wash in the Adelaide Hills, which will probably get a name change if it’s ever “developed”.

  7. Steve777

    Then there’s Cock Wash in the Adelaide Hills, which will probably get a name change if it’s ever “developed”.

    The new development of ‘Clear Fork’ come on down.

  8. Andrew Burrell Verified account 
    ‏@AndrewBurrell7
    Court breaks for a few mins and a Culleton backer announces the Federal Court is run by a pedophile ring.

  11. From old thread and off topic, but something I found amusing:

    I had no idea there is an actual place called Xantippe in WA!

  12. Trump has promised to be heavy on surveillance, which has long required the cooperation of technology companies.
    Twitter was the first big tech company to say it would refuse to hand over data to help the United States government build a registry president-elect Donald Trump has described that would be used specifically to track Muslim-Americans, The Intercept reported two weeks ago.

    As of Friday, companies including Facebook, Apple, Google, IBM, Uber and Microsoft have all chimed in to likewise refuse to hand over data to help build a database that would profile Muslim-Americans, according to reports from BuzzFeed.

    http://www.recode.net/2016/12/17/13995310/apple-facebook-google-uber-refuse-help-trump-registry-muslim-americans

  13. “Eggs and Bacon Bay – State: TAS ”
    Have some Tassie friends who refer to bacon and eggs in this way, always wondered why. This may possibly be an answer.

  14. They may have said they refuse to comply with the terrifying idea of a Muslim database but what if he signs an executive decree?

  15. Senator Rod Culleton’s latest court appearance, where he is representing himself against sundry debtors trying to get him declared bankrupt, is descending into farce

    A legal hearing involving West Australian senator Rod Culleton descended into chaos on Monday morning with the embattled politician delaying proceedings by refusing to take to the court room.

    Less than 24 hours after resigning from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, Senator Culleton demanded an adjournment in Federal Court in Perth – claiming two people in attendance were breaching violence restraining orders, taken out by his wife Ioanna.
    “If you’re not going to remove them, I will stand down,” Senator Culleton said during a brief spell in front of the judge before walking out on proceedings.

    “If you’re not going to address the issue, I will remove myself, I need my wife here now. I will not be bullied”

    http://www.smh.com.au/wa-news/west-australian-senator-rod-culleton-walks-out-of-federal-court-hearing-20161219-gte4gx.html

  16. Lizzie
    “The Australian Business Register (which manages ABN’s etc) has been down for two weeks now. A complete shambles.”

    It’s OK. Nobody will be creating new businesses while this lot are in charge.

  17. There’s also Tumbledown Dick (or Tumbledown Dick Hill) in the hinterland of Sydney’s Northern Beaches, where Mona Vale Road descends from the Hornsby Plateau to the coastal plain. There used to be a sign but I haven’t seen it recently. The area is still a mix of bushland and semi rural, between the highly developed North Shore and Northern Beaches. I wondered if the locals or developers wanted the sign taken down and a name change.

  18. Like effective action on climate change, effective taxation of big business, especially multinationals and effective action on housing affordability, effective government is off the agenda while the Coalition remains in office.

    fixed

  20. Fortescue Metal Group’s first Very Large Ore Carrier (VLOC), named after Andrew Forrest’s wife, has arrived in Port Hedland after its maiden voyage from China.

    His wife’s name is VLOC?

  22. I’ve long wondered how the town of Charmhaven on the NSW central coast came to be named. Perhaps a real estate agent or developer invented the name?

  24. When I first moved up here, I thought someone with a romantic streak had named the area – we have Rosewhite, Bright, Rose River, Havilah, Mount Beauty, etc etc — but they all turned out to have quite prosaic origins.

  25. Bloody hell!
    I jumped onto google earth, went to the Mansfield road just north of the Maindample turnoff, dragged the little man to street view, and miracle! There were the paps!

  26. Boerwar

    Those Kaaskops may up end a very important scientific basket.

    First test of rival to Einstein’s gravity kills off dark matter

    A controversial approach to gravity that challenges Albert Einstein and suggests dark matter doesn’t exist has passed its first test.

    Margot Brouwer at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and her colleagues looked at the gravitational lensing of these galaxies – the way they bend the light of more distant galaxies as predicted by Einstein’s theory – to measure their dark matter content

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/2116446-first-test-of-rival-to-einsteins-gravity-kills-off-dark-matter/

  27. Poroti

    Clogs: light, fairly comfortable, excellent insulation in winter, waterproof, and when you finish using them you can use them for firewood.
    Dark matter? Who needs it?

  28. This is hilarious from the Fizza on Facebook:

    Malcolm Turnbull
    35 mins ·
    The Turnbull Government understands that like a household budget, when you are trying to pay off debt, you can’t spend more than you save.

    Each and every time we have updated the Budget books, we have made decisions that leave the Budget better off.

    Sadly Labor and Bill Shorten just don’t get it. At the last election, Labor’s proposed spending that meant they would need borrow an extra $16.5 billion dollars just to pay for their promises – that means borrowing an extra $11 million each and every day until the end of the decade.

    When the nation’s AAA credit rating is under pressure, this is the wrong call.
    We are delivering on our National Economic Plan. That means more jobs, more investment and more opportunities for Australians.

    They are faffing about at the margins by targeting welfare spending, off-setting those savings and then some with increasing spending on MPs staffers. Meanwhile there’s no nation-building, job-creating infrastructure spending or doing the heavy lifting to reduce spending by cutting multinational corporate tax breaks or reforming tax policy at all outside of the easy stuff like giving the ATO ‘more teeth’.

    And their plan? Seriously. It’s a plan recycled from their 2014 budget that nobody signed up to, nobody wants and they still can’t get the Senate to agree to.

  29. And an emissions trading scheme would seem like a sensible way of increasing revenue, except that they’ve kept all the goodies attached to the previous ETS while abolishing the source of revenue to pay for it.

    Malcolm, it’s crazy I know, but when you take in less money you have less money to spend!!

  30. Re Poroti @8:19PM: interesting. Still, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. This theory looks to be consistent with some sets of observations, but I think that claims that dark matter is dead are exaggerated, as they say.

  31. They may have said they refuse to comply with the terrifying idea of a Muslim database but what if he signs an executive decree?

    I don’t believe executive orders from the president have any binding effect on private companies or individuals. The only exception I can see to that is if Congress specifically delegates the power to make such a decree to Trump, then the order actually has the force of law.

    But in that case, it’s effectively the same as Congress directly legislating for the Muslim registry. Trump has no such power on his own (even if he probably thinks he does).

  32. The Government’s number one priority regarding budget repair should be to fix business tax, especially with regard multinationals. If they don’t want to pay Australian tax and especially if they want to avoid employing Australians, they can bugger off – not wanted here. Why does our Government kowtow to them? (rhetorical question).

  33. The Turnbull Government understands that like a household budget, when you are trying to pay off debt, you can’t spend more than you save.

    Each and every time we have updated the Budget books, we have made decisions that leave the Budget better off.

    Trouble is, each and every one of those decisions are designed to make ordinary household budgets worse off – and that is not the way to get yourself re-elected.

  34. Steve777

    I hope they are on to something. A change in understanding will open up new avenues of using that understanding. The ‘Biggie” I am waiting for but will die before happening is making order out of the “spooky” quantum mechanics.

  36. vogon poet @ #13 Monday, December 19, 2016 at 6:51 pm

    “Eggs and Bacon Bay – State: TAS ”
    Have some Tassie friends who refer to bacon and eggs in this way, always wondered why. This may possibly be an answer.

    Eggs and Bacon Bay is most likely named after the predominantly yellow (with a bit of red) wildflowers of the pea family that blossom there in great abundance. This did not stop PETA from embarrassing themselves with a clueless campaign to change the name to a vegetarian alternative.

    I have done scientific sampling at places in Tasmania called Humbug Point, Plain Place Beach, Mount Horror and near Linger And Die Creek. A colleague in Victoria tried to find a new species of snail on Mt Buggery so he could name it “buggeriensis”. Alas, without success.

  37. I am really hoping that Australia loses its AAA rating on Turnbull’s and Morrison’s watch. Guess what, Australia has only had an AAA rating from the big three agencies since 2011, when Wayne Swan was Treasurer anf J*lia G*llard was PM. Labor must be better economic managers? Surely not.
    http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2013/February/Australias_credit_rating

    Whatever. The ratings mean notging, as I’m sure the big players in that glorified casino known as ‘the market’ must know. They missed the GFC. They rated dodgy mortgage securities as secure investments, catching investors and Government instrumentalities all over the world, including Australian local governments, holding worthless crap. And when the world economy goes down the toilet in the next few years, they’ll no doubt miss it again, although no doubt it will all be explicable in retrospect.

    The rating means nothing, as

  39. poroti @ #34 Monday, December 19, 2016 at 9:07 pm

    The ‘Biggie” I am waiting for but will die before happening is making order out of the “spooky” quantum mechanics.

    “In 1932, the British physicist, Horace Lamb, told a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science: ‘I am an old man now, and when I die and go to Heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am really rather optimistic.'”

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12416903-800/

  41. There’s also a Linger and Die Hill in the Upper Hunter region of NSW near the Barrington Tops: http://www.geodata.us/australia_names_maps/aumaps.php?fid=69625&f=69&name=Linger%20and%20Die%20Hill

    Here’s the sign marking the place: https://www.flickr.com/photos/r80gs/5231814860/in/photolist-bCWwy8-sgqmP7-8Yjqhu-wouddK-99mgpL-EKetoc-6cVAt7-8gv4jk-a6AAR8-GHgTnd-AwCK2P-pJrTW2-5nJXUq-pm7C6C-6A1dYc-i6FnrE-7tRHPc-brjiYY-7z2kke-ffH74z-qq5vFi-pN9xWN-6FM69d-91oQq-bwcwYM-oycCdz-brSPjE-7zZ3Ua-qGwhUK-bBVKcc-5H5nUj-9S1To-mponkB-dNBAF3-qiPc4o-dVfGUS-pDoofL-86pCC2-gawK4-otsM6M-63tqii-fPydYs-qRRYJN-rYwtw4-ffFXna-qAcWDc-9tCm3y-8eE6rw-85ZStK-5LteU1

    Apparently, if you were hauling logs and your bullocks lingered there, it was bad news.

  42. Ms Sales on 7.30 spruiking the wonders of the libs again after a pretend grilling of Morrison..
    to Bowen “so what’s the big deal about a AAA rating”

    Words fail me…. surprised he didn’t retort with ‘ARE YOU FCING KIDDING ME???’

  47. The Sydney Morning Herald
    53 mins ·
    It doesn’t take a genius to work out that a PM wanting to devote his time to giving tax breaks to the big end of town might not be the best way to restore faith or inspire confidence in politics, writes Stephanie R. Peatling.

    You think?! *bugs eyes*

  49. In the future people will look back at today’s talk of the federal government being able to run out of its own money in the same way that we consider medieval doctors’ beliefs in the therapeutic application of leeches. It is such an ignorant view. It can take a long time for a society’s ignorant beliefs to be replaced by accurate concepts of how things work.

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